Hi readers!

As it is weekend here in Liberia I thought I'd give a new update on how life is going in Monrovia. The past couple of weeks have been quite busy! Getting to know a new city with a hot humid climate, different customs and many new people is really exciting.

On the veranda with Alessandra (who is now back in Italy) and Lizzy

The first week was spent on planning the research and getting to know the projects and people we are going to work with, focussing on SPARK. Their project had a big day with the official opening of the Business Startup Center in Monrovia, attended by the minister for Trade, the University Director, and the Board of Supervisors of BiD Network. It was great to see the opening of the center, with very nice facilities and enthousiastic staff. On Thursday we had a meeting with Maria, from the SPARK project, which tries to help young and ambitious entrepreneurs start up their own businesses by giving them trainings, courses and facilities to improve their ideas and skills. SPARK, in cooperation with BiD network, also offers competitions in which these entrepreneurs can enter. Here, on basis of their business plan, they can receive a grant to start their business or be brought into contact with bigger investors.

View from the veranda, the sea lies just behind it!

This week was spent preparing for the research in three provinces, Monserrado (where the capital is), Margibi and Bong. In these villages we will conduct surveys and behavioral games to get a picture of the village circumstances and how the DCR (Dutch Consortium for Rehabilitation) can work towards their goals of achieving Millenium Development Goal of Poverty Reduction and Education.
We needed to synchronise the villages on the list given to us by ZOA Refugeecare, the organization that is facilitating us here in Liberia, with the data we have received from LISGIS (Liberian Institute for Statistics and Geo-information Services). This is needed in order to be able to actually find the villages on the Liberian map. This is still not finished as the names for many villages are not the same in the LISGIS files.

The front gate plus guards and barbed wire...

Another important aspect of our work is to select and train enumerators (interviewers) to help us conduct our surveys and behavioral games in the villages. We took a big step towards this last Friday when Lizzy and I held a job application day at the University of Liberia in two sessions, one at 10 AM and one at 2 PM, and in total around 90 people showed up! Good for our research project, but also shows the state of employment for higher educated people. We introduced ourselves and our research and asked all participants to fill in their experience and to do a mathematics and logics test, to see if they had the capacities and learning skills we need. Hopefully by tomorrow we will have finished selecting around 60 people to train!

Our neighbourhood after a thunderstorm

As for social life: not much happening. Well, most of the time is spent at the appartment to work. Generally we go to the Royal Hotel (airconditioning!) or Sajj House to work when the power and internet are out. We move around our quarter Sinkor mostly by walking, also in the evening, as we everyone we meet here on the street is really friendly. Last night we walked over to Sajj wondering why the streets were so empty, only to find the reason at the restaurant: Champions League. The whole place was packed with Africans and expats. Luckily we were in time to see the second half, and drink a cold draft beer with George from ZOA and some other Kenian expats. Great evening, made only better by all the cheering Africans shouting with joy after the last decisive penalty was scored by Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast football star and regional hero. Everyone we met on the way back was in a good mood.

Well thats all for now, will keep you posted! And will try to write more often!

P.S. The food is really good, they have these really nice sweet potatoes and spicy sauce with chicken and rice! But Lizzy tells me that I haven't had real Liberian food before trying casava leaf and a sort of couscous they have here. Looking forward to trying!  

 

Hello everyone!

Here my first blogpost from Monrovia, Liberia! It took some trouble to get here: my first flight from Brussels took me over the Sahara and the rainforests of Ivory Coast to Abidjan. As we came close to Liberia heavy storms and lightning prevented the plane from landing however, and we were forced to fly to Freetown, Sierra Leone. There we heard that an Air France plane had attempted to land but had sustained damages to the aircraft, but also to the runway! The captain thus decided to fly back to Brussels. We were offered a night in a nearby Holiday Inn, and we took off on sunday for the second time.

The first thing you feel is the incredible heat and humidity in the air, which instantly made me sweat. Waiting in line for customs was a fascinating procedure as everyone had to wait in a long line in a small room, and many Liberian officials and random other people walked among us. Some passengers were picked out right away by their drivers without having to get a visa stamp at all. This took quite a while to get through and luckily I was picked up by my collegue Lizzy and Thomas, a driver from an organisation we are working with: SPARK. After a long drive through the countryside we arrived in the sprawled-out city of Monrovia. Interesting things to note: many 4-wheel drives, heavily guarded NGO offices and compounds, church-funded schools and half finished buildings.

We arrived at our appartement on the corner of 12th Street and Payne Avenue by passing through a big blue gate with the logo of the UN on it. The amount of space in the appartment is massive, but it is very empty and impersonal. At night it is strongly advised not to walk out on the street, so we take the easy option- Lizzy and I cross our street to the Ethiopian restaurant located there: my first delicious dinner in Liberia!

Today was basically a day of acclimatisation, talking about what is on the planning for the coming days, doing groceries at the local Indian supermarket, and walking to the SPARK IT-centre where they train young entrepreneurs in computer skills. There we formally received an invitation to the official opening of the Entrepreneurship contest tomorrow. After getting a ride back to the house by Thomas, we head to Sajj, an Indian restaurant where a whole host of expats get their work done when they do not have electricity or internet. We had the same problem. In the end we stayed there until late as a massive thunderstorm broke loose over Monrovia. Apparently this happens about three times a week, and mostly at the end of the day.

Tomorrow another day, and I will keep you updated!
Bram