Sunday, March 20, 2011

Just another Day in Liberia

Im sitting her on duty and figured I would throw out another post for you all. I know everyday you wake up and the first thing you do is check this blog for my updates. So I hope I do not disappoint. Everything is still plugging along here. Force HQ is throwing around ideas of restructuring the team sites by dissolving the team in Kakata - which is near Monrovia, and standing it up a new team near the border of Ivory Coast. The UN and UNHCR has been really active in the border towns building shelters and providing food and water to the tens of thousands of refugees. There still no known refugees in Bong County, which is where our team site is located. I went into town (Monrovia) this past week to take care of some admin items and was able to swing by the store to purchase provisions that I hope will last me until the end of my mission. I picked up the bare necessities; tuna and oatmeal. This week was not too fun at the house... We didnt have electricity for 4 of the 7 days and we didnt have water for 3 of the 7 days. I was able to deal with the lack of water by taking a baby wipe shower but dealing with no power was difficult. It really has been extremely hot these past few days and sleeping at night has been difficult in the heat and humidity. The power was fixed on Friday night and the water was brought to the house on Thursday. So everything is back to being awesome. I guess that is about it for now. Here are some pics:
To continue the trend of African critters, while driving into work this week I noticed one of the security guys was holding a snake. I stopped to talk to him and take some pictures. He said he killed it with a stick when he saw it in the bushes chasing after a frog. I asked him what it was, and he said it was a BLACK COBRA! What! Holy crap! I got a little closer and was able to see the distinctive hood of the cobra. Oh, also notice this dude is wearing a down jacket! What?! It is like 80 degrees (~7am in the morning) out and he is cold. 
Here you can see it's hood... I asked him what he was going to do with it and he said he was taking it home to eat it for dinner. Yum!

This was me talking to some nice people in the town of Whreyou. We had difficulty talking to them because they didnt understand or speak English well. We have been working with the Force HW about getting a translator and I think we will receive one in April. It will help, but in my opinion, will be a crutch for my team mates and make them even more lazy.

This was a car we drove up on while returning to Gbarnga from Monrovia.
This is the National Elections Commission in Totota (Lower Bong County). We visited the two NEC's in our County yesterday to find out how preparations were going for the Presidential and general elections in October.... Their response was, "Elections, what elections?" haha. Well, they really didnt say that, but really I think that is what the reality is. They are so far behind schedule and need so much to make this elections go smoothly. It will be interesting to see how it all goes in Oct.
Here is Maj Abdullah (Jordan) with the Upper Bong County NEC Magistrate.

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