Life on the Road

The past week has been very hectic, as my driver subtly pointed out today. Fortunately tomorrow (Friday) is a pretty slow day and then if it is not raining, I will take the UN flight back on Saturday. If it is raining, I will have to drive, as the UN does not fly in the rain (yes, it is that scary). Of course, if you are reading this, then I have made it to Monrovia and am back online, so I survived the flight (or the drive). I wanted to share a few vignettes from my trip.

I arrived in Gbarnga (pronounced Banga) just before sunset on Monday and headed to my very rustic guest house. Most expats refuse to stay in Gbarnga because it is only three hours from Monrovia and there are no decent facilities in the town. I couldn’t stand being in the room any longer than necessary so I sat out on the front porch and ate my dinner. As I ate my crackers, peanut butter and canned corn, I noticed a huge flock of birds circling overhead. Over about 45 minutes, the birds gradually circled down towards where I was sitting like a planes on a holding pattern waiting for a runway, but somehow flying in unison. The guard of the guesthouse who was sitting on the front steps saw me watching them and told me they would land in the five palm trees directly in front of the porch. He was right. Eventually the flock got close enough to the landing destination that a few birds looked like they fell out of the sky into the palms. Very quickly the entire flock of starlings bedded down for the night. I estimate that there were a least 100,000 birds keeping me company at the guesthouse. (I have a great recording of the ruckus which I will post if anyone can tell me how to post a soundfile.)

Being a vegetarian traveling in rural Africa sucks – there is no other way to put it. Restaurants generally only serve meat dishes. Fortunately, I was prepared and had stopped off at Al Jawadi’s Lebanese supermarket before leaving town. The store has just about anything you could need, but at a price. I have been surviving on crackers, peanut butter, canned corn, carrots or beans, fruit cups, Pringles, and of course power bars. The culinary highlight of the week was being provided lunch by one of our local partners. When the NGO director asked if I would like to have some rice (as in rice and sauce), my heart dropped because it is very rude to refuse a meal, but also difficult to explain being vegetarian. I told him of my strange dietary habits and he replied that they had prepared a special vegetarian meal for me. He had called the office in Monrovia ahead of time to find out what I would like to eat. What incredible hospitality and generosity, and the meal of grumpy (peanut) sauce and cabbage with rice was delicious. It’s making my mouth water thinking about it as it was my last real meal and it was two days ago.

There is no running water anywhere in the country except for a small pocket of Monrovia. Many places that cater to expats have water delivered to tanks on the roofs of the buildings which means water actually comes out of the tap even though there is no municipal source. Outside of Monrovia, the only option for bathing is by bucket. It actually reminds me of sauna bathing in Russia, but in much less appealing surrounds. Also, generators are often only on for a very brief period of time at guest houses between 7-10pm, so bucket bathing is done in semi darkness in internal rooms. Ahh to stand in a lighted room under a flowing showerhead and wash the week’s worth of residual soap scum off my skin! One good thing about this kind of travel is that it really makes me appreciate the little things I wouldn’t even notice at home.