A rough weekend

The time in Monrovia is a lot different from time in Sanniquellie, but
the weekend was really nice. On Saturday, we visited an IDP camp -
Internally Displaced Persons camp - that's up on the central hill in
the city. IDP's are like domestic refugees - they don't get refugee
status because they haven't left their home country but they have fled
their home place and have nothing in wherever they are.

So, anyway, the government of Liberia has set up an IDP camp in the
middle of Monrovia. How, you ask? Well, there was an abandoned 9-story
luxury hotel that was never quite finished before the third war.
Because it was in a central, strategic location during the war, it was
the subject of intense fighting for control. Now, however, it's all
beat up to hell.
So the government has decided to put some 4500 IDPs in the hotel.

It's quite a sight. Of course there's no power, no water, no toilets
in this hotel. In some ways, I think it's a worse locale for IDP
housing than a sprawling camp in a desert or something. The squalor is
quite tremendous, just what you'd expect from 4500 people living in a
building that has no utilities whatsoever. But at the same time,
people have obviously adapted to the conditions. Because of the
density of the population in the building, enterprising refugees have
set up small shops in the (dark) hallways and sell bits of food or
water. At the light end of one hallway, a woman has established a
hair-styling business. Well, it's a stool and a mat on the floor, but
it's a business.
On the first floor, another NGO has turned a couple parts of the lobby
into school rooms. They don't have benches, books, or school supplies,
but they have a chalk board and some people who teach. When I went to
the hotel, there were a kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade class all in
session. And of course they were about as excited to see two white men
as all Liberian children are - and that's REALLY happy. Bouncing,
laughing, talking, smiling.
"The Hotel" is a bit of a tourist destination for expats visiting or
passing through Monrovia. That in and of itself makes for quite the
strange sensation - everyone says you need to see this place, but to
actually go and walk through and maybe get a tour or talk with people
makes you feel tremendously rude and out of place. It was the worst
sensation to meet a group of expats from Mercy Ships coming out as we
were going in and another group of expats from MDM coming in as we
were going out. It felt a bit like somehow the nature of this place
had become an attraction - a distinctly perverse attraction. After
all, who would _want_ to go visit a building where for four years
thousands of people who were forced out of their homes by war, death,
rape, and poverty have been living, without any access to basic
services or amenities?
All the same, it does bring another type of gravity to the situation
here. Things are improving, but obviously it takes time.

After visiting the hotel Jens and I went to the Waterside market.
Waterside is where Monrovians go to buy things. It's a tremendously
dense section of Monrovia with hundreds and hundreds of stalls, sort
of loosely arranged by type of goods for sale. For instance, Jens and
I didn't spend much time in the 'curtains' section, but lots of time
in the football (soccer) paraphenalia section. Of course, there's
quite a bit of intermingling.
But to the point - it is a distinctly good way to get a feel for the
city. It's full of people hawking all sorts of wares. It's crowded,
smelly, there's piles of trash and refuse littering the street, and
you definitely have to watch where you walk. But it's full of the
people and atmospherically filled with their spirit. For the first
time since I arrived I finally got a bit of a feel for Liberia, I
think. The way they walk or talk together, argue, buy stuff - just
really a feel for everyday life for people who live here. I've spent
so much time in the various compounds in Sanniquellie and Monrovia
that I hadn't yet gotten at all a sense for that before. But I really
do feel like maybe I have a better sense of 'normal' for someone who
lives here. I think that's important.

Then, at the reverse side of things, I went out to dinner and brunch.
I arrived early in Monrovia because another expat (Jens, from Germany)
needed to take a weekend break in the capital - to get away for a
weekend. Since he was going down anyway, to conserve resources and
such, we decided to just have me go along as well. So we came in on
Friday evening. In any case, as part of his 'relaxing weekend' he very
reasonably wanted to do relaxing things. We had a very nice dinner
with Yuri and Sebastian nearby the compound on Saturday evening, with
real western style food in an african restaurant. That was OK. Then
Saturday night we attended a going-away party for the Head of Mission
for MSF-Belgium (just down the street from us here) where all sections
were invited and national staff attended.

Sunday we got up and went to brunch at the Royal Hotel. That was a bit
too much. I could have been sitting in the dining room at a Holiday
Inn. Air conditioned, with a full spread of totally western food, and
attending were only expats. No africa-africans to be seen. The food
was good, but really it was an unsettling feeling.

After that we went to the beach, where, well, if you read the previous
post, you have a good idea what happened. But it was nice to sit and
relax and read a book and listen to the surf and watch the waves and
such. And, honestly, until I got back to base I thought I was OK -
even Jens said he was surprised "When we left the beach you were still
white as a ghost! Now you're really, reallly red!"

I get along great with Jens - he's a really cool guy; very relaxed and
down-to-earth. He's an anesthesiologist. Unfortunatley, he's leaving
in April. Ah, well. It'll be fun while it lasts. He and I definitely
have a good time together.

Then in the evening we started the workshop on the new software,
which, well, I'm still not too keen on, but I have to do it.
Today was more software, and every day from here until the 15th. It'll
be fine in the end, I have no doubts.
Now I'm to bed. Sleep well.
taj