Lessons in "Liberian Time"

For those of you who have seen the musical, “RENT,” I’m sure you’ll remember a catchy tune called “Seasons of Love” (I’m talking to YOU, Genia!). In that number, the cast sings about all of the different ways that one might measure a year. Well, for me it’s not minutes, sunsets, or cups of coffee. 20 cold showers until I go home!

So where was I… ah, the laundry and preparations for Bobbie to arrive. The days before Bobbie came to Monrovia were fairly busy at the office. On the 15th, while some of my clothes were still drying on the sheltered clothes line back at the APC, I worked with the LEITI staff to finish a number of documents in preparation for this month’s meeting of the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Group (MSG) and LEITI’s upcoming international Validation as an EITI Compliant Country. The next day, we tied up some loose ends for these projects, and talked about the logistics of Bobbie’s arrival. Later, I programmed her Liberian cell phone, and selected a temporary room on the leeward side of the convent for her to stay in until the other room like mine opened up. After dinner, I gave it a good twice-over with the high-powered bug spray and took the key to give to her when we picked her up from the airport the next evening.

The 17th started with more work on a grant proposal and my first real contract! Many thanks to Jason for his technical input as I drafted the terms LEITI’s agreement with a software developer to create a web-based database for all of the information that the organization is trying to disseminate to the public. After that, I took a leisurely lunch with Hnede (the LEITI Administrative Manager) at the French House. On the way back to the office, we stopped by Bailey’s Bakery to pick up the Festival Tickets. We chose to play is safe and get seats in the “VIP” section,  since there were still some left for $20. This way, we would be under cover if it started raining during the show, and the local scuttlebutt was that we’d be sitting with a more… civilized(?) crowd in that area.

We then returned to the office to get back to work. At about 4:20pm, Emmanuel came into the  conference room to ask me when Bobbie’s flight was scheduled to arrive at the airport, and I’m so glad he did! Ever since I started planning this trip, everyone I talked to referred to “the Brussels flight,” which arrives in Monrovia daily around 8pm. During my journey here, I was on that flight, which I discovered is a loop: BRU --> ABJ --> ROB --> BRU.  I am also scheduled to depart on that flight at 8:25pm on August 12th. So, I was operating under the impression that people coming to ROB from BRU would always arrive sometime after 8pm. Well, when I checked Bobbie’s reservation to give Emmanuel an exact arrival time, I almost fell out of my chair. Her email said 4:50pm! I checked a previous email she had sent with her itinerary, and the information was the same. I asked Emmanuel how long it takes to get to the airport, and he said 45 minutes. With that, we RAN out of the office to the LEITI SUV in true “To the Batmobile!” style.

As soon as we pulled out of the parking space on Broad Street, I knew we were in trouble. Not only were we more than 15 minutes late already, but it seemed like everyone in Monrovia had decided to leave work at that moment. The streets were a sea of cars and people. Once we got out of the center of the city, we ran into gridlock after we turned onto the road leading to the airport. Emmanuel knew another way, so we made an off-road U-turn (again, YAY SUV!) to try another route. Strike 2 - the traffic jam on the next road was worse than that on the first! My heart sank as visions of Bobbie standing alone at the airport as the sun went down filled my head. After some internal debate, Emmanuel opted to get out of the traffic and try to drive through Sinkor instead. He drove in a circle around the car behind us, and pushed down a side street through a plethora of cars and trucks whose drivers didn’t seem to care what side of the road they were supposed to be on. I keep telling him that he’d make a fortune as a cabbie in New York, since he has a real talent for squeezing that SUV through spaces I wouldn’t attempt in our Prius. The traffic in Sinkor was slow, but it was moving. Emmanuel’s face brightened, and he said, “We’ll get there by 6:30pm for sure.” Feeling like a total failure, I thanked him for his efforts and wondered aloud what Bobbie would have to say to me once we got there. Eh bien, at least we would get there before dark…

As we drove into the country (at a speed that reminded me a little of the Daytona 500) I got more and more anxious as I thought about how I would have felt, had Emmanuel and George not been there to greet me immediately as I stepped out of the airport. Seemingly reading my mind, Emmanuel said, “The plane will not be there. The Brussels flight never gets in so early.” I replied that I hoped he was right, and returned to my stewing over how I could possibly make all of this up to my new colleague. When the airport came into view, Emmanuel said, “See? The plane is not there.” I quickly came back with: “Yes, but that could be because it already left!” We pulled into the parking area with the broken pavement, surrounded by a small crowd of people waiting on the street. “See?”, Emmanuel said, “the plane is not here yet.” Not convinced, I jumped out of the truck and scanned the crowd for a tall, angry brunette with a few bags. Not seeing what I was looking for, I went to a guard to ask about the flight. He said it was due in at 7:15pm! WE MADE IT! Thanks to a navigational equipment malfunction, the crisis was averted.

As we went over to where the other people were waiting, I saw Jana walking toward us through the crowd. She was there to meet someone flying in from Ghana, who was supposed to have arrived hours before. She had her camera, and took a few goofy shots of me with my “BOBBIE HIRSCH’ sign as we waited for our guests to disembark. Jana also said, “Hey I saw you on the road! You flew by us in that white SUV!” We all had a good laugh about Emmanuel’s lead foot, which I appreciate a little more each day… When Bobbie came out of the airport, she saw us immediately, and soon we were on the road back to the city. I tried to tell her as much as I could about what to expect from the next few days as we rode toward Monrovia, and pointed out various places of interest on the side of the road. When we got back to the convent, I shared some of my chicken fried rice with Bobbie and talked with her a little more about the schedule for the weekend.

Much to my surprise, Bobbie was eager to start seeing and doing things immediately. When I told her that I was planning on getting up somewhat early the next day to do a little shopping, she said she would like to to go along. So, we left the convent around 10:30am the next day to walk through the U.S. Embassy and visit the artisans near Gate 1. On the way back, we hit the Mamba Point Hotel for lunch, and then headed back to the convent to meet Hnede to go to the music festival.

Hnede and her driver, Abraham, came to pick us up a little after 3:30pm, and we were off to the Samuel K. Doe Sports Complex (SKD).  We stopped along the way to pick up Konah, who was looking sharp in his maize linen suit. When we pulled up, there were some last-minute ticket purchasers lined up at the gate. Our “VIP” wristbands allowed us to be driven right up to the main door of the stadium just as the gates opened at 4pm. As I was thinking about how cool this was, I began to notice that there just didn’t seem to be many people around at all. When we walked up to our seats, the reality set in that the show was nowhere near being ready to start. We looked around at the essentially empty stadium, and laughed with the other people in the stands, guessing that there were probably no more than 50 people in the entire place. Down on the field, the stage was still being set. Not feeling the need to hold on to our seats, we took a stroll around the stadium grounds.

We came upon the “Wonder World Sports Bar & Grill” and stopped in for a drink. The place looked nice, but it had only been open for a few days. All they were serving was Heineken (which is EVERYWHERE here - I actually saw a guy pushing a wheelbarrow full of bottles for sale on the street the other day) and various juices and sodas. As we were the only customers there, we took our choice of the tables and had a soft drink as we talked to the owner, who was busy bagging donuts. When we were finished, we continued our walking tour of the SKD and then meandered back to our seats at about 6pm.

Over the next hour, we began to see more and more familiar faces. By about 7pm, I had introduced Bobbie, Konah, and Hnede to almost everyone I’ve met here in Monrovia, and we made the acquaintances of several new people as well. Jana was there to photograph the show, and Juleen had just come from dinner with one of the artists. That person, Mighty^2 VP, had informed Juleen that he believed he was the opening act, and was not scheduled to start playing until 8pm! Konah, Hnede and I were surprised to hear this, since the only information that we had been given was: “Gates open at 4pm.” I couldn’t help laughing at myself - in America, there are often crowds of tailgaters and fans waiting to rush into a concert venue as soon as the gates open. As we all frequently say to each other when our perspective is completely off, “Welcome to Liberia!” Well, we decided to stick it out, and ordered a round of Carlsberg beer. We shared stories and mugged for the cameras, taking advantage of the opportunity to take photographs with our new friends. Elisha, an Aussie in town for 2 weeks to work on her research, played charades with a girl named Emily, and we all got to know Mariano and Antonio (Jana’s brother) a little better.

A little after 8pm, the first act finally started to play. They covered a few Bob Marley songs, as well as some other tunes that seemed familiar to the sparse audience. After the first song, Antonio wasn’t happy with how far he was sitting from the stage. So, he left the sheltered VIP section to dance on the field right in front of the bandstand, and we all followed! Hnede, Konah, Bobbie, and I stayed until about 8:45pm, when we decided that we should grab some food before curfew, since there wouldn’t be any available for Bobbie and I at the convent. So, Konah, Bobbie, and I left to go to the Royal Hotel. Once we got in Konah’s car outside the SKD, we took off our VIP bracelets and gave them to 3 people outside the stadium. The car was surrounded by people - I think there were more people outside the stadium than there were within it! We saw a group of people all start running in the same direction, which made Konah wonder aloud if some sort of crowd-control tactics were being employed by the police.  The consensus between us was that the people should simply be let into the stadium, since the event was obviously a losing venture at that point. At the Bash Restaurant, Bobbie really enjoyed her fish, so I’m sure we’ll go back there again sometime (but we’ll be sure to avoid the table with the leaky ceiling!).  After dinner, Jackson got us back to the convent well before curfew.

Bobbie and I spent the next day at the Cape Hotel, taking advantage of the free WiFi and catching up with people in the U.S. Toward the end of the afternoon, Bobbie said,  “Do you know we’ve been sitting here for 5 hours?” I just nodded and replied, “Yup - this is what I do on the weekends!”

The next day was Bobbie’s first in the LEITI office. It started off with a mighty fizzle as we found Bailey’s Bakery to be closed on our way in to the office. Bobbie spent the day reading and getting acclimated to the LEITI Validation Process while I (finally) finished one of the grant proposals I had been working on. After work, we went to Abi Jaoudi, to pick up some bottled water and give Bobbie a chance to see what our most convenient supermarket has to offer. Then, we headed back to the convent and had leftovers (the convent staple) for dinner.

On July 21st, Bobbie and I attended the Ministry of Finance Bureau of Concessions Workshop for Concessionaries on Status, Issues, & Challenges in the Concessions Sector (how's that for an event title?) at P.A’s Ribhouse. We were only supposed to stay for about an hour, but then Ms. Parker (the outspoken, powerhouse VP of the National Oil Company, and one of the LEITI Stakeholders) insisted that we stay to hear her portion of the program. We did so, and had brunch with the attendees before we left. Incidentally, his outing earned me my fourth picture in the paper since we’ve been here - traveling with Negbalee, I’ve found, will do that for you. (Yes, Mom and Dad, I have a copy of every one.)  After the workday was over, Bobbie and I rode with Negbalee to the University of Liberia, for a short tour of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law before his class. He teaches Legal Writing and Property, among other things, and has quite a reputation - I hear that he failed half of the students in one of his classes last semester! After we took a few pictures, Emmanuel dropped us at the Mamba Point Hotel for dinner. As we sat out on the terrace eating peanuts sipping our drinks, who should walk up the driveway but Juleen and Takako! They joined us, and we sat and talked with them until Emmanuel came to take us back to the APC.

Given the number of pictures associated with this entry, I’d better stop here. Tune in next time for shots of the Inter-University Intellectual Summit at African Methodist Episcopal University (AMEU) and a bird’s-eye view of Monrovia!