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.