Lofa County

Nothing really new to report from Liberia. After 2 weeks of no power at the house, I am starting to adjust to this new way of living. The repairman is saying it is close to being fixed, but that is what they said last week. Im not holding my breath. They had to replace a 25m wire that connects the generator to the house. Soon I will be able to sit at the house with light and sleep with a fan. We also had a few evenings without power here at the office. The double whammy!

It has still been nice and busy out here. We have been going on some long distance patrols this week, so I have been able to see more of Liberia then I have ever dreamed.

Today, I get to go on a Aerial patrol. The UN (flown by the Ukrainians) operates 2 Mi-24 helicopter gunships. They use these for the Air patrols throughout the country. Right now the weather is looking a bit marginal due to the fog and low ceilings. If it is anything like the past, the pilots will be quick to cancel this flight due to the poor weather.

Here are a few pictures from the past few patrols:

This is the bridge that crosses the Saint Paul River. This river is what seperates Bong County from Lofa County. Due to all the rain, the river was very high and swift.

We visited this school in Lofa County. The school had 127 students and 6 teachers. (Only 2 of the teachers were paid, ~$95 USD/month, the rest were volunteers.) This school only accommodates grades pre-school through 2nd Grade. Due to the lack of funding and materials, they had to cut out grades 3-6. The picture is of the Principal and myself sitting in on the Kindergarten class.

The Principal showed me the school's cafeteria. It is in dire need of a facelift. The World Food Program provides food for the kids while at school since most of the families cannot afford to buy food for the kids to take to school.

This was the road out to Lofa County. This wasn't too difficult to pass, just a bit muddy.

I bought these Bananas for 100 LD. Here in Liberia they call these little banana "French Bananas." I guess The French prefer the smaller sized bananas over the standard sized banana. Pete/Whitney; can you confirm or is this just a myth? The French bananas are very sweet and quite tasty. I think I ate over 25 of them yesterday. :)

We talked to the town chief (man in the grey shirt) of Boila Town while he was preparing/cooking lunch. If you look closely, you can see the squirrel cooking on the fire. He didn't invite us for lunch, which was okay by me.

This was a bridge that was recently repaired. The heavy rains had washed it out. Since this road is a main thoroughfare, they fixed it within a few weeks.