Bureaucracy, U.N & The Hot taxi ride – Liberia 14th Jan 2010

Date: Thursday 14th January, 2010 | Country: Liberia | 4 Comments »

When we had left Freetown we were told that if we set off early enough we would have enough time to get through the border that very same day.  At lunch we had reached a town called Bo which was halfway to the border and so we thought it would be a good place to grab something to eat.  We basically found a place to eat after checking the menu which seemed reasonable enough, after eating and asking for the bill, the owner had decided to charge us a price that wasn’t on the menu, she explained that the salad we had (a handful of lettuce) and the ketchup and mayonnaise was not on the menu.  It sounded funny but she was deadly serious, to cut the story short I told them that you cannot charge what you feel when you have a menu, the menu needed to be updated if she wanted to charge us triple the price for some salad and we would have gone somewhere else.  She wasn’t happy and neither were we, we paid her what we felt was reasonable and left, a good lesson to remember to ask the full price in advance rather than rely on what’s written on someone’s menu!   From Bo we reached a town called Kenema and were told that during the rainy season that this road is normally shut, on driving through Kenema to the border at Zimmi it felt like we were taking an off road course as the road turned into something carved out of the mud and on several occasions we had to drive through reserves of water that had collected in the dips of the road.  All of the army & police control stops were friendly but they all took time as you explained where you were coming from and heading to, so by the time we reached Zimmi it was getting dark, the border was about to close and it made sense to sleep in a nearby guesthouse and start the next morning.

The Liberian border

The next day a few km down the road we reached the Sierra Leone border and were greeted with pandemonium as many people travelling by bush taxi or bus were all trying to get the local officials attention to get their much needed stamp in their documentation.  Luckily for us one official took a shining to us and led us into an office where within 5 min we got our exit stamp to leave the country, some locals were not too happy with this but we didn’t force our way into that situation, more offered out of goodwill to the foreigners which was well appreciated.  On crossing the bridge between both countries we were greeted with one hell of an American twang by all the Liberians we were to encounter.

History

Liberia’s history is a colourful affair, in the early 1800’s it was decided that American abolitionists would use Liberia as a place to resettle freed slaves.  These freed slaves then began a mission to bring civilisation and Christianity to this part of Africa.  These settlers declared Liberia and independent republic in 1847 but excluded indigenous people from this, for the next 130 odd years the country was ruled by by presidents of American freed slavery.  Up until 1980 the government was controlled by a dozen or so Americo-Liberian families and corruption was rampant.  In 1980 the then president William Tolbert was overthrown in a coup led by 28 year old Samuel Doe a Sergeant of the army.  Samuel Doe then showed as an act of vengeance by ordering 13 ex ministers to be publicly executed on a beach in Monrovia (capital).  During his reign, Liberia’s economy plummeted, and intertribal fighting then broke out.  In the late 80’s a rebel group led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast.  What then ensued was a mass war where unarmed civilians and villages were destroyed, Taylors forces controlled much of Liberia’s countryside and the rebel leader Prince Johnson controlled the majority of Monrovia.  US warships and Ecomog a West African peacekeeping force were dispatched to keep the factions apart.  Charles Taylor become president in 1996 and in the late nineties rebel led warfare broke out near the border with Guinea.  Fighting continued in the country up until 2003 when Charles Taylor then went into exile and a transitional government was then established.  In 2005, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected and became Africa’s first ever female president.  She has since conducted many programmes such as the disarmament of weapons and a refugee resettlement and at present the country is rebuilding in every way possible.

Bureaucracy

Over the next few hours I then was led from one department to the next to meet and greet another official that wrote down the same information as the previous department and everyone that wanted to come into Liberia was going through the same torture as I, it was painful to watch.  All the officials were being given 20-50 Liberian dollars (£0.20p TO £0.50p) by every local that came their way  but the money kept on flowing and these men and women make a good wage simply on bribes every day!  Interestingly I was never asked by any official for any money except at the very last department that I went to, the Car Insurance Department for ECOWAS.  Over the next 30 min, I was the only person to enter the office, whereas all other departments, locals were coming and going so this part of the process seemed very odd to me.  In Mauritania I had obtained the ‘Brown card’ insurance which allows us to drive Maggie in most of West Africa due to the agreement between several countries.  I obtained a 3 month insurance and this is still valid till March.  The chap however insisted pulling out a document which when he read out made me laugh, he basically said that in Liberia there is an additional agreement that on top of the insurance, I must pay him another amount in case I have an accident for the Liberian ambulance/hospital to get involved.  I blankly refused to pay him and told him that it sounded like corruption to me, Reka had just walked in and so did another couple of officials.  The chap kept churning the same information which both Reka and I thought was pure waffle and after speaking to his boss on a very loud speakerphone I told them both that we were not paying a penny.

The other officials just watched on and I could see they were almost embarrassed for their colleague as he kept on saying that he hopes for our sake that we never have an accident in Liberia as no one will help us, to which at this point I got really angry and told him where to go and that we were leaving.

One of a few monkeys that we have seen in Liberia used as pets/mascots for taxis

After spending hours at the border we were told that we could leave and it was a relief….for about 5 minutes, the next hour on the road we then encountered several small checkpoints with many people working as I suppose human photocopiers, as all they did was record the same information as the previous checkpoint 5 minutes before them, its was excruciatingly painful to go through the same conversations time and time again.  One official told us that at the end of the day all vehicle/passenger details are called into one central office, so basically there are hundreds of people doing the job of what a couple of people could do, efficiency isn’t a word commonly used in Liberia!

Monrovia

After the hustle and bustle of Freetown it was nice to enter a capital that was not congested with traffic, Monrovia isn’t a massive city and has a few major roads that run through the heart of it.  We checked out the centre and there seemed to be a handful of very expensive hotels followed by next to nothing, we did find outside of the city a few guesthouses on the coast (30 min drive) that we were able to camp in for a few quid each so we had somewhere to stay.  On our first day we met up with Abibu who is the husband of Howa (the family we stayed with in Freetown).  Abibu works for the UN here as a senior Programme Manager and he kindly offered to meet us in a nice hotel called the Royal which isn’t to far from the main UN headquarters.  Abibu gave us a fascinating insight into the UN and told us that in Liberia it currently has the third largest number of UN personnel stationed in the country behind Somalia and Afghanistan. He also tried to see if there was any cheap accommodation in the city for us and after a few calls without success he told us that if we were fine with it, we could stay at his place.  This was a kind gesture by Abibu and we appreciate you letting us stay at your place.

Right: Abibu

Robertsport

We knew that Abibu had some visitors that next day so we left Monrovia for the weekend and heard that Robertsport and Buchanan were two places to the east and west of Monrovia that were well worth checking out.  Our first spot on the map was Robertsport which meant we had to basically head back to the border with Sierra Leone and turn off a100km before reaching the border.  The road that led to Robertsport was a long dusty dirt road and after a few hours you enter a peninsular which is where a small town exists.  The town itself has many old buildings that have seen better days but it is peaceful and has a long coastline of some lovely sandy beaches.  We found one place that had a number of luxury tents already setup overlooking the beach with a bar nearby, the tents were nice but expensive and the bar was playing loud music so not a place to camp close by to.  After a beer, we decided to try and find a road that led to the beach where we could camp and literally the next road (loosely termed) we drove down led to a nice quiet spot which was a 5 min walk back to the bar.  We waited for anyone to arrive to let us know how much it would cost to camp but after waiting sometime we just setup camp.

Beach Camping

The previous day we went to a Lebanese restaurant that gave us quite easily the biggest loaded pizza I have ever tasted in my life (Jay if you are reading this, your food is great but boy you need an empty stomach when walking into your joint!), it was so loaded that after a couple of slices you were seriously, well and truly, time to get the hammock out….stuffed!!.  In the true sprit of our hobo existence, we took a doggy bag with us and ate the remains the next day on the beach.  The sea breeze was kicking in and we both retired to our tents only to be awoken in the darkness by a couple of fella’s that were checking out Maggie.  It so happened that these guys owned this part of the beach and were out of town when we arrived, so from the top of the vehicle in my tent I bargained with these guys to let us stay here for $2.50 each (seems to be the beach rate so far) and they then told me that someone would be guarding us at night (yeah right!).

After a good nights sleep we then went in search of some coffee, something that surprisingly isn’t always easy to buy in the last 6-8 weeks.  After hunting out this elusive drink we had to settle for asking a guy if he could boil us some water so we could use the nescafe and powdered milk we had for this coffee.  Roland told me that he is a principal of the high school in Robertsport but also is in the early stages of building a few houses, one of his workers was literally making the cement in front of us and laying out the bricks which would be ready the next day to use.  Reka was curious and had a go herself, the brick maker was overjoyed when Reka made the one brick (he probably thought he had found the perfect wife at this moment).

Top: Reka brick making, Bottom left: fisherman pulling in their nets, Bottom Right: Roland

Red Hot Taxi

We then headed back to Monrovia and tried our best to avoid entering the city but people’s advice sometimes can be misleading and we finally settled on getting through the capital to head for Buchanan.  We read in the lonely planet about a dwindling company called Firestone that used to be huge in Liberia for the manufacturing of rubber latex and we actually hit a town called Firestone which seemed to me was actually thriving from the production of latex.

Thousands upon thousands of latex producing trees

While driving through Firestone we saw ahead of us a crowd gathering around what looked like some smoke, as we got closer we saw through the people that a taxi had caught fire on the roadside.  We stopped about 20 meters away and got down to see what was going on, as we got to the vehicle the driver was rolling around the floor and he was suffering from shock and in tears, he was not injured but the main problem was the vehicle itself.  The engine was on fire and no one around had an extinguisher to hand, Reka and I grabbed the 2 extinguishers that were in Maggie and by the time we set them off, within a few seconds these canisters had run out, lesson learnt that these are not meant to put out anything except a teeny tiny fire.  What I found incredible was that the people that were onlookers (around 50) were actually stupid enough to be within 5 metres of the burning car, like a scene out of casualty, both Reka and I started shouting at the people to get the hell out of there before they all died from an explosion.  Very quickly people got to a safe distance, what was sad was that many vehicles and especially UN vehicles simply drove very quickly through the scene, the fire brigade in Firestone were at the scene a few minutes later and before the damage got much worse, the firemen had done their job.

We found out later that the driver who was still in tears had borrowed the vehicle from a friend and my only assumption was that he felt that he would have to pay for the damage, I tried to console him telling him that he still alive and his family will be happy to see him again but it wasn’t helping.  We left the scene and realised how dangerous it could have been if things had worsened.

Literally a few minutes later we had reached a security checkpoint that led to the way for Buchanan and before we went through the routine of who we are and what documents did they want to inspect, one of the checkpoint guards stared running past us with a wooden plank in his hand, it turned out that there was a poisonous snake in the grasses and this guy wanted to kill it before it had a chance of making the potential 30 metres where they were sitting.  A few seconds later he showed me the snake up close.  It’s a difficult thing to see animals like this killed but for locals that walk past these creatures day in and day out they see it very differently when their own lives are at risk for the sake of conservation.  It was quite a tiring day by the time we had reached Buchanan!

Buchanan itself seemed very tired as a city and there wasn’t much going for itself but we met a guy that was at the same restaurant as us in Monrovia and we joined him for a few beers that evening.  Calvin works for the UN and there weren’t too many counties that he hadn’t worked in to date and so it was interesting listening to his stories.

Calvin

Liberia today

What was evident on our stay is that Liberia now is going through a serious change for the better, the economy we heard from several people is improving, electricity like Sierra Leone is not widely available and when it is, it normally is expensive.  Food was also not as widely available as some other neighbouring countries, there seems to be a big divide between those that have money and those that do not, street vendors are not that common at night selling street food and we ended up spending a lot of time in the bar/restaurant of the royal hotel in the heart of Monrovia.  As with all the countries I have seen so far the people themselves welcome the fact that we are travelling through their country  and apart from the bureaucratic check points the rest of the country from what we saw was very nice to travel through.  There aren’t that many major roads that you can use to see the rest of the north and eastern parts of Liberia but we saw many projects where the dirt roads were being tarmac’d (Chinese led) and in the next few years will be much easier for people to travel the whole of the country.  Unfortunately we wanted to go to a national park in the east but our visa although we received a 2 month travel from the embassy was only granted for 7 days from the Liberian border.  When we tried to extend this, one official asked for $30 each even though we only wanted another 3 or 4 days, and considering we paid $75 to get into the country we didn’t extend due to budgetary reasons.

Liberia’s improving roads

Top Left: Liberian Club Beer…its good! Top Right: The Royal Hotel Bar

Left: Monrovia’s national sports stadium Right: City Money/SIM Card trader

Bottom left: Social club, playing scrabble and draughts

National Museum

In the heart of Monrovia we visited the National Museum which sadly was looted during the riots a few years back and many historical artefacts were stolen. The museum offers money to people to bring back their stolen items and sometimes see’s artefacts being sold on street corners!  Nevertheless the guardians of the museum were friendly and the items of tribal war outfits were fascinating.  The museum also had an area outside which showed how traditional Liberian cloths were made via old school weaving.  Reka had a go at using the machine as per the photos below.

Top right: Traditional leather armour, Bottom: Reka getting some weaving action

Awareness Campaigns

As was the case in Sierra Leone, Liberia also has hundreds of Programmes and projects that are underway in the country funded by numerous NGO’s that are there to improve the well being of the country and it’s people, it is evident that these campaigns have a positive effect on the population who are very glad that the country has received the aid to date.  The following is a montage of some of these campaigns:

Above: Liberia’s campaigns which can be seen throughout the country

Water

I thought I’d mention the way people buy and drink water in Liberia, but also most of the countries we have visited already, plastic bottles are very far and few between and tend to be sold in 1.5 litre bottles which for most people is too expensive.  Instead, people sell small sachets of water for 10-20p and are normally carried on top of vendors heads (normally cool due to the ice they are submerged in) which can be bought in shops or on roadsides while waiting in traffic.

Weird and wonderful adverts

Like Sierra Leone, I have seen some very artistic adverts and some bizarrely named products/shops which wouldn’t work too well (in England anyway), so here are some that were captured along the way:

Bledine Hell!

If you ever need to take a ‘birth’, this is the place to take it!

Giant Lemons are sadly banned in Liberia and have taken refuge in Ivory Coast

Marvel’s latest creation hasn’t really caught on yet, a super nice superhero that runs a petrol station.

No Comment!

43% Double Punch…out for the count, goodnight sweetheart!

The road to Ivory Coast

For the last 200km to the border with Ivory coast we experienced some roads that only Maggie would be happy to drive along, but we took our time and eventually the roads became Tarmac on the Ivory Coast side!

Top: Dodgy roads, Bottom Left: The Liberian border patrol guys that were very nice to us

National Geographic

To end this chapter on Liberia we encountered at the border of Liberia and Ivory coast a group of great guys that for some reason thought that I was a TV presenter for a nature programme on the National Geographic channel.  No matter what I said they wanted to believe I was this presenter and so Reka and I were invited to join them for some beers and sign a few autographs in the process!  One guy burst my bubble when he said that his wife thought I was a woman because I had long hair…cheers!

Mini Celebrities

Reka – HUN: Sierra Leonebol ket uton lehet megkozeliteni Liberia hatarat: egyik rosszabb, mint a masik; na nekunk sikerult kifognunk a rosszabb, de rovidebbet. Igaz mostanara mar hozza kellett volna szoknunk az orakon at trato dockolodeshez, de egy tobboras godorcsata meg mindig nagyon megvisel (legalabbis engem). Persze az egy naposra tervezett utbol nem lett semmi, mert a hatar bezar este 6-kos, es mi fel oraval azutan ertunk volna oda, ugyhogy megaludtunk egy fogadoban.

Masnap reggel ujult erovel vagtunk neki a burokrata-csatanak. Kb. 5 kulonbozo irodaba es fel oranyi alkudozasba tellett, hogy a Mauritaniaban megvasarolt (es persze elore kifizetett) egesz Nyugat-Afrikara szolo boztositasunkat ne kelljen kulon penzert ervenyesiteni, mert kulonben akarhogy is ervenyes, a mentok vagy rendorseg nem segit, ha balesetunk lenne… (szerencsere nem lett!)

Monroviaba kora delutan erkeztunk es egybol fel is hivtuk Abibut (Hawa ferje, akiknel Sierra Leoneben aludtunk), este talalkoztunk is vele es felajanlotta, hogy nala aludhatunk. Tobb napi vodor-zuhany utan igen jolesett civilizalt kornyezetben tisztalkodni.

Masnap elmentunk Robertsportba, kb. 100 km-re a fovarostol. Nekem nagyon tetszett a kisvaros (nem is ertem, miert nem csinaltam egyetlen fenykepet sem..!), egy felsziget nyulvanyon van az ocean es egy to kozott es hegyes-dombos. Na itt is a tengerparton aludtunk es az elozo naprol maradt gigantikus pizzank maradekat ettunk. Aki ismer tudja, hogy eddig meg nem sok pizza fogott ki rajtam eletemben, de ezt meg ketszerre is kihivas volt bekebelezni (libanoni etterembol, Monroviabol – ugy meg volt pakolva, hogy szerintem maga a feltet volt vagy fel kilo!)

Hetvege leven nem tudtunk vizumot intezni, ugyogy vasarnapra Buchana volt a program, de utkozben meg egy kis forro kalandban is volt reszunk… Firestone nevu varosban, az ut szelen tobbszaz kaucsuk fa arnyekaban egy ego taxi latvanya fogadott bennunket (ironikus nem, hogy Firestoneban gyulladt ki…). Mindketten kipattantunk a kocsibol es rohantunk a poroltokkal, de sajnos ezek az amugy kotelezo eszkozok semmit sem ernek, hacsak nem egy ego cigit akarsz veluk eloltani). A legdurvabb, hogy a bameszkodok egy tapottat sem mozdultak, csak amikor Noel es en is rajuk kiabaltunk, hogy ha nem akarnak felrobbanni a kocsval egyutt, akkor jobb, ha hatrebb allnak. Mialatt vartuk a tuzoltokat tobb UN auto is athaladt a helyszinen, anelkul, hogy megkerdeztek volna, hogy sehithetnek-e. Mivel Abibu a UN-nel dolgozik, eleg sok informaciot megtudtunk a szervezet mukodeserol; o9bbek kozott azt is, hogy Liberiaban van a vilag harmadik legnagyobb kontingense, ja es ami szamomra dobbenetes volt, hogy ha kulfoldon (olyan orszagban, ahova csaladot vinni nem biztonsagos) allomasozo, de akar irodai szolgalatot ellato UN alkalmazott vagy, minden 2 honap utan egy hetre szo szerint elkuldenek melegebb eghajlatra; vagyis fizetik az utadat, szallast, ellatast, hogy kipihenhesd magad (barhol a vilagon)! Ugyhogy ha van valakinek kapcsolata, legy szi’ szoljatok es kuldom az oneletrajzomat

Monroviaban meg egy par napot eltoltottunk, mert probaltunk egy specialis vizumot szerezni, ami 5 orszagba ervenyes, tobbek kozott Elefantcsontpartra is (kovetkezo allomas), de azon tul, hogy meg csak nem is sokat hallottak a Visa Touristique Entete-rol, allitolag csak Beninben lehet beszerezni, ami vicces, mert az a legkeletibb orszag, ahova ervenyes, tehat ha ugy, mint mi nyugatrol probalkozik az ember, teljesen haszontalan.

Liberiarol cimszavakban: irgalmatlan amerikai akcentus, aram csak kimaradasokkal = hugymeleg sor (hacsak nem a draga szalloda barjaban iszod), etel = rizs+szosz (hacsak nem a draga szalloda ettermeben eszel), valtozatos varoskep (az eddigi orszagokban ugy talaltam, hogy a fovaroson kivul majdnem minden varos/falu egy semara epult, de itt pl Firestone ugy nezett ki, mintha az 50-es evek Amerikajabol  maradt volna meg), ja es rendorsegi ellenorzo pont ellenorzopont utan!

Folyt. kov. Elefantcsontpart

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