Bugs

I’ve been here two months now and there is one thing I can DEFINITELY say I DO NOT like about Liberia – the bugs. I feel like there are bugs everywhere! They’re in my apartment, the office, the grocery store, restaurants and of course, outside. They are in all sizes. Some I’ve seen before, others I can kind of guess what family they belong to and others I have never seen before in my life! It’s not that there are hoards of them, just more than I’m used to seeing.

My first introduction to the bugs in Liberia was my first night here when there were ants in my bed. I remember sharing that story with some of my co-workers. They were not phased and told me, “This is Africa.”

A few weeks ago I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life – it was the size of my hand – literally. It was up in the corner of the office. In the opposite corner was another smaller one that was still bigger than any spider I’ve ever seen indoors.  I didn’t want to flip out or anything, and I hoped that one of my co-workers would see it and do something about it. People have a lot of stereotypes about Americans and I didn’t want to fall into the scared of bugs one if I could help it. A few hours passed and no one said anything about them. Finally I called one of my co-workers. His name is Oscar. I said, “Oscar, can you come here for a minute?” He came and I nonchalantly asked him, “Can you tell me, what is that?” He said, “oh, that’s just a small spider.” I was a little shocked by this - “a SMALL spider??? That’s a small spider?” He laughed and answered, “Yes, it’s small. They can get much bigger than that.” Then he called the driver, and asked him “What is that?” The driver said “Oh, it’s just a spider. I can get someone to kill it.” “Is it really a small one?” I asked. “Oh yes,” he replied. “They can be bigger.” And he went to get the janitor. I again, still processing that this was a SMALL spider wanted to know, “what kind is it?” Oscar said, “Oh… I don’t know. But don’t worry. These kind aren’t too harmful.” And then he went back to his office. I went back to my office too, not finding too much comfort in knowing that these small spiders are not too harmful…I have since seen them from time to time. I just hope I don’t find one sitting on top of my laptop bag or my desk one day. I’m trying to be braver about bugs but I don’t know how courageous I’ll be in that moment!

I moved into a new apartment 2 weeks ago, but then almost immediately after had to go to Dakar, Senegal for a workshop. The day before I left I started cleaning it. (This apartment has a lot of issues and there was much cleaning to be done.)  There were quite a few very small spiders and cobwebs in it. I sprayed some bug killing spray – more on this later – and swept away most of the cobwebs. In the kitchen cupboards, I saw a lot of small black things – very small black things, about the size of sesame seeds but thinner. I wondered if they were droppings of a large bug, but I wasn’t seeing any dead bugs which I figured I would if they were still living there. I thought that maybe in the past there had been bugs but they were gone now. I cleaned half of the cabinets (I didn’t have time to do them all), sprayed bug spray, put my food in a box and left for Senegal. When I returned, I found that the black things had too.

I went downstairs to get the manager.  I wanted to see if he could add some clarity and to see what they would do about it. He came, said “Oh, you have a bug. We will clean and spray tomorrow.”  The next day they did clean and spray and I assume clean again because there were no dead bugs when I came home. The day after that, there were dead bugs – mostly small ones on the kitchen counter. The next day there were some more and when I opened the cupboard, there was a VERY LARGE dead cockroach. I immediately shut the cupboard door. I took a deep breath, opened the door again and there it was. It was one of the inches long ones and I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I knew the people would be coming to clean my apartment in 2 days, so I felt like I could leave it for them. It wasn’t like I was going to be using the cupboards anytime soon any way. The only time I was opening them was to spray more spray. My strategy was to continue to spray until bugs stopped dying on the counters. Then I could use them. So I gently closed the cupboard door, backed away and that was that.

The next day I looked in and it was still there, but I could have promised that it was bigger and in a different spot. I thought I must have just been overly dramatic in my mind and didn’t think too much more about it. The next day they cleaned, but I forgot to mention the roach. The next I went to get it myself. WHY WAS IT ALL GONE except for the antenna and part of its head which were on the opposite side of the cupboard??!?!?!?

WHAT EATS DEAD ROACHES?!?! WHAT EATS DEAD ROACHES AND FREQUENTS MY KITCHEN CUPBOARDS??? I still have not seen any large living things in there, only very small ant – looking bugs… What is going on??? I bought some roach killer huts today. I also sprayed again. Sigh…

I would like to conclude this post with a word on the bug spray here. It’s a brand I’ve never seen before and it is made in Belgium. You spray it and then have to leave the room immediately for at least 10 minutes. When you come back the bugs you knew about, and the bugs you didn’t, will be laying dead on the floors and counters. In the coming days, bugs that happen by will also die. It kills bugs of all sizes – even the small-animal-size cockroaches. It’s really powerful. It’s so powerful that if you don’t leave the room you will immediately start coughing and will get a headache. I’m not sure what’s in it or if it’s safe for humans to be exposed to it. I told one of my co-workers about my feelings of thankfulness, wonder, awe and concern all surrounding this spray and asked him about it. He told me, “It’s because your bugs in America are weak. But you are in African now and the bugs here are strong.” Great. Here I am in Africa with the strong bugs… Hopefully I’ll get stronger too from living here. J

One of the most random airport experiences EVER

I have had some interesting airport experiences in my life, but this one is DEFINITELY at the top of the list.

On Sunday night I was waiting in the airport in Dakar for my flight to Ghana. I had gotten to the airport early because I had heard some horror stories about the waiting time.  When I got there, there weren’t any signs for Air Nigeria and a man saw me looking confused. Between his broken English and my broken French I understood they would start check in at 11:00 p.m.   Around 10:30 the man found me and told me “you check in now over there” and pointed towards about 6 counters. I wasn’t sure which one he meant but I figured I would just go over to that general direction and figure it out.

I got in a line, tapped the man in front of me and asked “Air Nigeria?” He said “Oui” so I waited behind him. A few hours later, I was waiting at the gate and he came and stood next to me while I was on the phone. He asked me if I was going to Niger. I said no, Monrovia and he was really excited and was like “Moi aussi!!” (me too!) I was like “ohh!...”  and may have given him a look like “Ok person I don’t know. I’m not sure why you’re so excited about this” and then pointed to my phone and kept talking and he walked away.

Later on he came back and told me that he didn’t speak French and only a little English because he was from Cape Verde and spoke Portuguese. I told him, “Oh! All I remember of Portuguese is ‘tudo bein’ and ‘obrigado’.” There wasn’t really too much more to say then so we parted ways.

In Dakar, they only do boarding announcements in French, so it was a little tricky knowing when to get in line for the plane. I had one year of French in high school, so I can get the basics, but I was a little confused when they started boarding from our gate at the time we were supposed to be boarding, but I hadn’t heard an announcement for Accra. I asked some people and they said they were going to Casablanca so I sat down to wait. A little later I saw the guy getting in line so I told him, that’s not our flight. He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, so I said “It’s not. It’s going to Casablanca.” So then he sat next to me and we waited together. I thought it was strange that he was talking to me and just sat next to me like we were friends, but it was one in the morning and I was tired and he seemed decent.  In a mixture of French and English we introduced ourselves and then made small talk. When the flight was boarding, I was like, “ok, let’s go” and we got in line and boarded the flight.

Our flight left around 2 a.m. and it was now around 7:00 a.m.  I was really tired and still half sleep. When I was getting off, I saw Jose (pronounced Jzo-say) still sitting! I motioned to him and was like “This is us! We’re in Accra!” When we were both off the plane, he came and stood next to me and we waited with the other people in transit. The immigration officer was asking each person what flight they had come from. When they got to Jose he had the stare that comes from trying to process but not understanding what the person speaking just said to you. I recognized it all too well since I’d just come from a French speaking country and had the same more expression more than once. I stepped in and answered the questions and we stayed together from that point on. At the next checkpoint, our names and information had to be written into a book. I answered all the questions for myself and Jose. There was a mix-up when we went to get our bags, so I talked to the airport people about it for both us. We had to be walked through the airport to wait for our next flight, and after the airport worker left us, we sat together.

Earlier while we were standing in line I asked Jose in Spanish, “Can you understand me if I speak in Spanish?” He threw up his hands and said “Si!!” So the rest of our conversations were a mix of English, Portuguese and Spanish. Our flight wasn’t until 11:15, so we had some time to wait until we could check in. He had to go to the bathroom, and he asked me to watch his bags while he was gone. I did and then he watched my suitcase (don’t worry it was locked) while I went to the bathroom. He went outside to smoke a cigarette and I watched his bags again. I was thirsty and so was he, so I went to buy us some water. As we drank our water, we talked about what we did for a living and how it was his first time out of Cape Verde.

After we checked in for our flight, we had to go through customs again. We went through together because Ghana is an English speaking country and he had a tough time with the Ghanian accent (can’t say that I blame him, I don’t always understand it either). I’m not gonna lie – the thought crossed my mind more than once “This is crazy! I hope this man is not a terrorist because I am really helping him and am on all kinds of security cameras with him! But then I remembered how thankful I was when I was in Dakar and people translated for me and helped me around. Plus, I didn’t have a bad feeling about him and I’m usually right in my feelings about people.

Once we were on the other side of security, he was like “I’m hungry.” And I was like, “ME TOO!” He said, “Let’s get something to eat.” So he bought me breakfast to thank me for helping him. We had chicken and jolof rice with coffee for him and Coke for me. (Coke is delicious in Ghana!) Then we waited for our flight together all the while speaking in a mixture of Spanish, English and Portuguese! We exchanged information before we got on the flight, and the next day he sent me an e-mail thanking me for all my help! How random is that!

Thankful

I know I have a lot of entries to catch up on, but I have to write this one now.  Yesterday afternoon I came back to Monrovia after a week in Senegal. I LOVED DAKAR!!! I think I would have liked it before living in Liberia, but I was very impressed with it this trip. I was there for a Food Aid Commodities Management Workshop and flew there with a co-worker. We got to the airport in Monrovia at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and arrived in Dakar on Monday morning at 2:30 a.m. …Yes, I was a little bitter it that I could have been in the States in the time it took me to arrive in a city two countries away. But, that bitterness melted away when we were picked up by the hotel shuttle and started driving to our hotel on multi-lane paved roads with street lights!!! I hadn’t seen those in months! It was about a 20 minute drive to the hotel, a four star hotel, Radisson Blu. I walked in the lobby and I was like, “oh nice.” I walked into my room, screamed a scream of happiness and dove on the bed – a king sized bed with 3 down pillows and a duvet!

The week only got better from there. Dakar is large, isn’t humid or crowded like Monrovia, has a lot of restaurants, cafes, bars, stores for shopping, grocery stores like I’m used to in the US, even a mall! You see people jogging and walking for exercise. It has gyms with aerobics, yoga and spin classes! There are toilets everywhere – stores, restaurants, random tourist places. The internet is faster. The food was delicious and I ate all kinds of things! It was so nice to have a variety of food!! Senegal is a French speaking nation and heavily French influenced, so there were all kinds of delightful French pastries, good breads and cheeses, yogurts and fruits. It’s on the coast so the fish was really tasty. I also had real ice cream, a milkshake, good coffee and gelato! A few days after the workshop was done for the day, I sat outside by the hotel pool/bar and just watched the ocean, enjoying the smell and feel of the ocean breeze.

So, you might imagine there was quite a bit of culture shock when I came back to Liberia. It was the first time since I’ve been here when I was like, “I want to go home now.” I had been in the airport in Dakar since 9:00 the night before and got into Liberia at 2:30 p.m., so I was pretty tired. The immigration officer didn’t want to let me in and then he wanted to keep my passport, but I finally talked him into letting both me and my passport in the country (without bribing him!). I was thankful to see the driver waiting outside to take me home. It takes an hour to drive from the airport to Monrovia. On the drive on the two lane road, we went through some forest, passed a lot of shacks, and there were no street lights or nice buildings. When I got to my apartment, the broken fridge which the apartment manager promised would be taken care of was still there and so were a bunch of other problems. It was at that moment when I questioned why exactly I was living in Monrovia. I wished I could go over a friend’s apartment to talk about it and feel better, but over half the friends that I’ve made here have left because they’re assignments were up. (Liberia is the kind of place that people don’t usually stay in for a long time.)  I was so discouraged I even cried a little bit.

I was drying my tears when boyfriend called me – on my cell phone which is not cheap! – just to see how I was doing and if I was safely back in Monrovia. He could tell from my voice something was wrong and he asked, “Are you doing ok?” I was like, “No! Why did I come here?!?” He then proceeded to remind me of all the things I’d told him the past few weeks about how happy and thankful I was to be here, to have a job doing what I want to do and studied in school and how I feel like I am exactly where God wants me to be. We talked a little more and I felt comforted, took a shower and went to sleep.

The next morning I was a little sad because I didn’t sleep as well in my bed as I did in the bed at the Radisson Blu. I tried to make myself some breakfast, but my stove wasn’t working L so I ate a granola bar instead and got ready for work. At work, I was greeted by a spider the size of my hand on the wall and several things that were supposed to be taken care of last week weren’t. All those things added up in my mind and I ached for the goodness of the Radisson Blu and the comforts of Dakar. I almost wanted to cry again. Instead, I posted my feelings on facebook and tried to get some work done.

This brings me to the reason I need to post today - because friends reached out to me to find out what was wrong and to encourage me. I don’t know if they’d want me to  put their names in here, so I won’t, but I really appreciate everyone who sent me an encouraging message, reminded me that this is part of working abroad, told me to hang in there, etc. Some people even shared their own “this is a story of when I felt the same way when I lived in __.”

I feel so thankful for the love, support and encouragement of my boyfriend and friends! I really feel better about everything and am once again glad to be here… though I do miss the delicious food of Senegal… and the fast internet.  Ha – but seriously, it was really special to me that people cared enough to reach out to me, even though I’m not even on the same continent.

Grand Gedeh

I won’t give you a play by play of everything that happened in Grand Gedeh, but I will tell you one funny story.  The head of the OICI Grand Gedeh office and I were supposed to meet up with one of the field agents so she could take us to see some of the communities she’s working in. We arrived at the first place around 1:30 or 2:00. We walked around the town, a pretty sizeable one with over 100 people. It had homes made from thatch and mud. We saw children playing together, women working on adding mud to a home to reinforce it and men sitting together. I met the chief and some other men of the town and then we talked to a few women who were sitting together who said the field agent had been there earlier and was registering mothers and children, but then left. We thanked them and got in the car to leave when the staff member I was with saw someone he knew and wanted to say hello.

I hopped out of the car with him and we headed towards one of the huts. As we walked closer we heard the beating of drums and people yelling and singing. When we got to the porch, there were several men and an older woman outside. I shook all of their hands, met one of them and then we went inside.  When I walked into the doorway I saw four men banging drums and singing loudly and other men and women were sitting and standing around the edges of the room. It looked like at least half of them were high.  (Later we discussed it, and my coworkers felt they were drunk.) Inside I was thinking, “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE???”  It all seemed a little strange to me, but I put on my friendly face and went inside the room. They got a chair for me to sit in next to the man I’d met outside. It turned out that he was running for a position in the district government and we had happened upon a political rally in their town.

I talked with the man for a little bit. We found out that we both used to live in New York City, him in Harlem, me in Washington Heights  - like 15 or 20 minutes away from each other. Small world! My co-worker talked to the group a little bit about the work OICI is here to do and introduced me and I said a few words and then the music started again. Some women started dancing and grabbed my co-worker to join them. He did and then they came for me! I tried to politely resist at first, but then I thought that might be rude and remembered how I wanted them to join in our food security program, so I joined them too. They were all excited that I joined them and we danced for a bit and then we left. As we walked out, some women hugged me and some men shook my hand and the older women I saw in the beginning held my hand as she walked me to the car.

That was my first community visit!

Visit to the Field

Last week I made my first visit out to the field!  OICI’s main office, the one where I work, is in Monrovia and a few weeks ago we opened our two field offices out in the counties we’re working in, in Grand Gedeh and River Gee.  They’re both in the southeast of Liberia; Grand Gedeh is about 360 miles away from Monrovia, and River Gee is the next county over from there. If the roads were good it would only take about 6 hours to get to there, but they’re not, so it takes 10 to get to Grand Gedeh and another 4 to get to River Gee. And let me tell you, it was quite an adventure and a really great week!

Before I left I heard all kinds of things about the field: The road would be really bumpy and the drive 10+ hours long and without bathrooms. There would be bugs – but not to worry because the guesthouse where we’d stay in Grand Gedeh has mosquito nets...  I should bring water and food because there wouldn’t be too much out there.  I should change money before I go because while they like to use US dollars in Monrovia, they like Libertys – Liberian dollars in the rest of the country.  Some people were nervous for me, one because I’m American and most Americans find it a difficult trip and two, because after my first night here I requested a new hotel because there were bugs in my bed so they thought if I didn’t like that, how was I gonna handle the field?  I’m not gonna lie - I was a little nervous for myself. Hahaha. I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was going to be a hardcore experience and I hoped, but wasn’t sure, I had it in me to do well. But, the morning we left, I was feeling good about it.

We left March 1 around 7:15 a.m. We supposed to leave at 6:00, 6:30 at the latest, but C.P. time, or “African time” as it’s called here –lol – was in effect. We wanted to leave early in the morning because there aren’t street lights here and the road is only paved for the first half of the trip. (The farther you get from Monrovia, the less developed things are. The government and the UN are working on it, but obviously these things take time and resources are limited.) I was the last of my co-workers to be picked up, so once they got me, we were on our way!

In our truck, a 5 seat pick-up truck, was me, Frank the Senior Accountant, George the Commodities Manager and Muhammad our driver. The drive is really incredible in so many ways! The first part is still pretty urban, the roads are paved, there are houses and stores made of cement and brick, etc.  As we continued on, there was less and less development. Eventually, it was all bumpy red dirt roads. Every now and then we would pass a town or village. After a while, it was just thick forest. All you could see for miles was the big blue sky and the greenery of trees and bushes.  We would drive and drive without seeing anyone and then all of the sudden, a random person would walk out of the bush! It was amazing to me because I wouldn’t have expected anyone to be there or to be able to navigate the terrain.

As I mentioned earlier, people warned me that there are no bathrooms on the way from Monrovia to Grand Gedeh. At various times on the drive, my male co-workers stopped to, what we now refer to as “inspect the tires.” I was not comfortable peeing on the side of the road, so I just drank very little that day. I was very relieved however, when we stopped halfway to refuel and get lunch and the filling station had a small store with a toilet in it!! It didn’t have running water, so you had to use a bucket to “flush it”, but I WAS SO GLAD about it! I also got some tasty lemon cookies that only cost $35 liberty – about 50 cents.  Ha – gas station in Ganta. It was a bright spot in the day.

We went through Nimba County where we saw Ivorian refugees and UN trucks full of supplies for them. There are at least 40,000 refugees from Cote d’Ivoire in Liberia right now because of the current president disputing the elections and refusing to leave office. People are afraid civil war will break out there. I’ve been following the situation on the news since I was in the States, but it was crazy to be so close to it, to see with my own eyes women and children and families in large numbers who fled from their homes and their countries.

I almost don’t have words for the second half of the drive.  Almost the only way to adequately share with you what it was like, would be to show pictures.  It looks like something you’d see on a National Geographic special.  There were just miles and miles of densely packed trees and bushes with dirt roads. But then, there would be a random village, or 2 or 3 people walking on the side of the red dirt road. My American mind was amazed to see that people are living like this. I’ve never seen anything like it before. On the UN human development index for 2010, Liberia was #162 out of 169 countries, and there were so many moments in this trip, when I thought, “Yes, I have moved to one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.”

We arrived in Grand Gedeh around 5:30. We stopped by the office and greeted the staff and then checked in to our guesthouse. WOW. It was also a new experience for me. The first room they put me in didn’t have a mosquito net, so I switched to another room. When we checked in the electricity hadn’t been turned on yet, it was on from 7 p.m. – 2 a.m. (although I noticed they often shut it off earlier…), but in the glow of twilight I was like, yes, it’s fine. We went to dinner and when we came back, I went to my room. There was a queen sized bed with a fitted sheet and a spread, a mosquito net hanging over the bed, an air conditioning above the bed and a plastic lawn table with one chair in the room. The bathroom had a sink, a toilet with a broken seat and a large garbage can full of water and a cup and bucket. There was no running water. There were some bugs – both dead and alive because they had sprayed for bugs earlier. Here, whenever you check into a hotel, they spray your room for bugs. If they don’t, you can request that they do.

As I sat in my room I thought to myself, what am I doing here??? How do I get myself into these situations??? If there’s all these bugs now, what will happen when the power goes off at 2??? Thankfully I got a call from my mom then, and we talked and I felt calmer. After we hung up, I prayed for a bit and was feeling good about things and remembered that I had needed to pee for quite some time but  had forgotten in my nervousness about the whole situation.  I opened the door to the bathroom and a huge cockroach was walking across the floor…  I was like, “COME ON!!! I just got myself ok with the situation!” and then I went to get the boy who worked at the hotel to spray my room again.

When I went to get him, he told me “I already sprayed your room.” I was like, “Well can you spray it again? I have killed 4 bugs already, including one mosquito.” I didn’t mention the roach – I don’t know why.  I have found that bugs that I consider big are not really considered big here. Lol – those are stories for another day. He sprayed my room and then we both had to leave because the spray instantly makes you cough and gag the moment you breathe it in…  That kind of concerns me a little bit, but it is REALLY GREAT at killing bugs. Bugs you didn’t even know were there, come out and die. I watched soccer (“football” here) for an hour while I waited for the spray to work its magic. I checked in on my room from time to time and bugs were still dying and the air was still thick with the smell of chemical killer so I waited until it dissipated.

When I went back in, I put on my pajamas, wrapped myself in my towel that I brought from home (I had doubts about the cleanliness of the spread) and went to sleep. I slept well that night. That was day 1.