The Campoamor's Adventure: Home Sweet Home

I arrived in Gbarnga (pronounced like a bongo drum, but with an “A” at the end) on Monday. I was a little surprised we even left the Monrovian airport because the weather was very bad and raining pretty hard. The Ukrainian pilots took a few swigs of vodka and off we went. The flight out to Gbarnga was quite long. We made 2 stops at other locations prior to my stop in Gbarnga. We flew over dense forests and jungles, which was quite beautiful. Occasionally you could see a small village with their thatch roof huts. By road, Gbarnga is only 2.5 hours away, but the helicopter ride to Gbarnga took 4 hours. Every time we landed at a site, the pilots would shut the aircraft down completely, step outside to urinate, and smoke a few cigarettes right next to the helo. Incredible!

So, I arrived at the Gbarnga airport and unloaded all my things. (The helo remained here due to the weather, so all the passengers were stranded). The Operations Officer, Maj Michael, from my team came to pick me up at the airport. He took me to our team site office and introduced me to the team and showed me around the area. After the brief introduction, the Ops-O took me to my accommodations. The house is a small place with 3 bedrooms and one bath. It has no running water, no A/C, and only has electricity from 7pm-6am. (There is a generator out back that they turn on for us.) The house is owned by a Liberian family that lives in the backyard in a hut. Their chickens walk around the yard all day long and they like to wake me up in the morning. The family takes care of the propoert and the house by providing the “security” for the house, cleaning the house, cleaning our laundry (by hand in a bucket) and wash our vehicle every night. Two of the boys’ names are Peter and Johnson, and they seem to be good kids. The UN has a strict policy for housing... The house has to have a fence completely surround the area (2.5 m in height min) with razor wire sitting on top. Our fence is made of Bamboo. The house also has to have 24-hour security. The UN reimburses us for the fuel costs for the generator as well as the costs for the security. Now, the security really isn’t “security”, they are just there to open and close the gate to the fence when we depart and arrive at the accommodations. The neighborhood we live in is quite remote and poor. We get the strangest looks from the adults as we drive by, but the kids absolutely love us. They always yell, “it’s the white man” or “U-N, U-N”. They smile so wide and wave so frantically, it truly is warming. I quickly had to learn how to take a Liberian shower. The bathroom has a tub, but again, has no running water. To bathe, you take a small bucket and dunk it in the trashcan full of water that is located in the bathroom. You just keep recharging the bucket as needed to rinse off. I also had to learn how to flush a Liberian toilet. The house has a toilet, but again, no running water. So you take the same bucket, fill it up with the water from the trashcan, and dump it into the commode. If you have enough water with enough pressure, you force it to “flush” and the contents happily go to who knows where. The evenings are interesting as well. With 100% humidity 24-hours a day, and no A/C, it makes for a nice sweaty slumber. It really is just the bare necessities here, and we only try to come here to sleep. The office has A/C and decent Internet. So that is where we spend most of the time. Since our job has no weekends, we are at the office a lot during day or either on patrol. The Team (ten people total) occupies three houses. In my house, I live with a Romanian Capt, who is a Doctor, and who is currently on leave back in Romania. There is also a LtCol from Ethiopia. The Romanian (Tudor) is a great guy and speaks excellent English. The LtCol from Ethiopia…. Well, not so much. The team leader is from Ghana (name: Americah), the deputy team leader is from Benin, the Ops-O is from Zambia and the other team members are from Brazil, Russia, Gambia and Nigeria. So far, I have really bonded well with the Brazilian (Clayton), the Russian (Evgehny), Tudor, and the Gambian (Landing). They seem to be on the same wavelength as I am. The food has been decent. We have mostly visited the Bangladeshi Logistics camp. It is located approximately 5 min from the team site, so it is quite convenient. We also visited the Pakistani Battalion once for dinner. The Bangladeshi food is very very spicy, but I’m beginning to enjoy it more and more as my stomach gets used to it. Everyday to and from work we stop to buy bananas. There are banana trees everywhere in this country. I normally buy 5-10 bananas for 10 LD (Liberian Dollars). 1 US Dollar = 74 LD. You do the math, but you can see it is very cheap…. Around 70 bananas for $1 US. They also sell fresh pineapple, coconuts, and limes which are quite tasty.

For the first full day of work here at the Team site, I was stuck with duty under instruction. It was a crash course of how to complete the required reports and what tasks I need to complete. Then, the next day (yesterday) I had duty all to myself. I get to go on my first patrol today. We are going to visit 2 villages in Bong county.

I have visited the UN gym every night as well. The gym is very… humble. It only has a few things, but is good enough. It has A/C and it is something to do.

Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived in Gbarnga, I had to sit down with the team leader to discuss baby leave. This was a bit difficult for me to do since I am the new guy and already asking to leave, but I expressed my desires to go home for this monumental event. Of course, luck has it that the month I am requesting to take my leave, the rest of the team wants to go on their leave as well. The months of Sep and Nov are wide open, but for some reason, Oct is filled. There are policies in place to have at least 70% of the MILOB’s present at any given time. The dates Shannon and I were shooting for were the 17^th of Oct. This was one week before Baby C’s due date (Oct 23). I was going to fly back to the states and we were going to have Shannon induced the next day. The team leader and I came to the agreement that I can leave Liberia on 24 Oct (Sunday) to arrive in the states on 25 Oct. This happens to be 2 days past the due date, which means our little princess needs to stay put until daddy comes home. My leave paperwork was approved by the team leader and sent up the chain of command yesterday. I should hear back soon so that I can purchase my plane tickets. Luckily, Delta operates a non-stop flight from Monrovia to Atlanta every Sunday…. Which means I will leave Liberia on Sunday evening and arrive in Lynchburg, VA on Monday morning (~1130am). I will either be greeted at the airport by Shannon’s folks to take me straight to the hospital, or greeted at the airport by Shannon and my brand new baby girl. I am getting so excited!! Shannon and I continue to ask for your prayers that my leave will not have any hang-ups as it makes it way through the chain of command so that I can get home with a chance to see Baby C make her grand entrance into this world.

I think that is about it for the day. I will try to blog again soon to share my first patrol experience with you all.....