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!