christmas eve staunch

Some of the posse post epic rice and bean soup feed. mmmmmmmm beans. The chicken went in too.

the dilemmas of chicken ownership

Jollof

November 29th is a national holiday in Liberia due to the late President Tubman's birthday. For most people around Monrovia that's an excuse for heavy eating and some even more heavy drinking. Anyway we coal potted some Jollof rice at my place and drank a ton of water.....and here's some photos.

Two chickens and a whole 500ml of oil later (oil is sold in old mineral water bottles which is why i can be so precise).........mmmmmmmmmm arteries. Incidentally i had to intervene on the oil to get it down to that much. Every soup (rice topping) in Liberia seems to require at least this much oil in it....even if it was just for 4 people.

Out goes chicken, and in goes 5 onions, a pumpkin and some garlic and tomato paste.

And then 6 tin cans of rice and some insanely cheap (by Liberian standards - i'm glad the package is in portugese) brazilian made chicken frankfurters.

How not to focus a camera if you're photographing food.

Morris telling a story that had something to do with reporting on the radio that there was a white guy taking photos while they were eating.

hmmmmmmm

Some kind of bug....


The common Liberian press-up lizard. It does press ups.


And some sunset-e kind of ones from today. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Sliding

I posted this a long time ago on another blog, but just thought I'd post it again after seeing the film and seeming to just run into people associated with it everywhere I go. Anyway - cool trailer.

I was talking to someone the other day and they were telling me a story about a teacher who's wife and child were murdered in front of him by a rebel during the war here in Liberia. After the war was over the teacher was teaching in a war rehabilitation school, and one day he noticed that the boy who killed his wife and child was sitting at a desk in his class.

The lesson went on.

These kinds of stories are everywhere here.

Our western ideologies of justice are shattered by a country that although having faced some of the most dehumanising and horrific years of brutality and war in recent history, institutes a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the threefold goals of reconciliation and forgiveness for both ex combatants and their victims, assistance and aid to those affected by the war and then also a platform from which the truth about the conflict is spoken by those involved instead of a criminal court, in order to attempt to restore Liberia to some sense of where she was before any of this began.

Awesome.

TRC of Liberia Website

Clarke

This is my friend Clarke.


Clarke works as a security guard at the place where I was staying in Congotown, but in his spare time he teaches classes to the kids in his community who can't afford to go to school. Anyway, last Saturday he invited me to his place again and told me to bring my camera this time to take some photos, so here's some of those.

This one is taken inside the kinda communal cooking area/corridor in the middle of where a lot of the homes in the community 'compound' area are built. This is also where Clarke teaches classes everyday to up to 70 (!) kids.


Kids......yussssssss.







And this last one is of me spoiling mouth with Clarke and my other friend Marley - just to prove I'm there too :-)

The local UN Nissan and Mazda dealership

beach and rain over downtown monrovia

A little cup of everything that's wrong with the world

Room with a view

So here's a couple of pictures from my new place. The 'New Democrat' newspaper here has a pictorial feature every day that always finishes with 'this too is Liberia'. That kinda sums up my feelings around this apartment, it's kinda a little surreal...

Anyway - view from the ground.....


And the view from up my stairs. This one was taken on a Sunday morning and the beach was deserted, but most days and especially Friday and Saturday there's a lot of people down there. A weird mix of extremely white European UN guys in speedos, wheelbarrow salesmen and Liberian young people just hanging out and doing the things that young people do on the beach.
Incidentally you'd think with a sky looking like that I'd take a jacket with me to church huh? Yup me too.

Well

A couple of weeks back the well that we'd been drawing water from by bucket got a pump fitted into it. This is what the crew from Water of Life Liberia pulled out of the well once they'd drained out much of the old water.mmmmmmmmm. I'm still trying to figure out if it tastes better or not now that it's chlorinated.....

Residency

I've been completely uninspired about blogging in the last week (nope not a good start). I keep on having random little thoughts about stuff when I'm out and about, but lack the mental retention to bring it into the office with me once we have internet and electricity (whenever that may be). Anyway, thought that I might as well break that trend when I got my passport back today from immigration with a photo for everyone who ever wanted residency in Liberia for a year - yusssss.

Sunday afternoons

Here are some of the neighborhood kids posing it up post epic soccer battle :-)

And this last one is just for you Ryan - thankyou so much!!!!!!!

Irony

It's funny when you hear prosperity doctrine being referred to as when a church says God wants you to have food and a job and enough money to send your kids to school.......

Congo Town

Welcome to Congo Town - my home for the next month or so.......

This is SKD Boulevard - The main road in towards the place where I'm living at the moment. Please notice the RED DIRT. Thankyou :-)


Here's a few b/w around Congo Town photos. Taking photos around Liberia is super hard hey - Just basically impossible for me to feel ok about pulling out a camera in a country like this, so these might be the only photos for a while....... apologies in advance.





Ummmm and yup, that's it - first post in the can. Comment if you dare. Not that there's really a lot to comment on, but yup.

NB - the two that are obviously posed are of guys that I know where I'm living and they both asked for it - just so you don't think that I'm just running round and asking to take peoples photos :-)

Respect.