you might find yourself in another part of the world

it was very un-me of me to come to a place like this without first asking some questions. as i was trying to explain to someone the other day, scott harrison did a great job of depicting the conditions here. when i arrived, the villages and the people and the generally miserable conditions were all exactly as i had seen in his pictures. but somehow, when i was comfortably in nyc and nonchalantly agreeing to take this trip, i guess i imagined it would be more like a daytrip to Tijuana...

sure, i'd be out in those villages during the day, but then i'd hop back in my air-conditioned, properly maintained automobile and race away to a Best Western or Motel 6 or whatever. didn't think that the rules of the jungle applied to everyone. i was wrong.

she's got dumps like a truck

what does that mean, exactly? well, i know what the expression means,
but i think it begs to be misconstrued. nevermind. that's neither here nor there. i just had that song stuck in my head because i went to the city dump today. that's a pleasant experience first thing in the morning.

since Liberia has no public waste system, garbage doesn't get collected. people either burn their trash or they can drive to the city dump and leave it there. we opted for the latter. when we arrived this morning, i stayed in the car and let the flies come swarm all over me, rather than going to them. wanted to make them work for it. Olly (the NGO volunteer i'm staying with) dropped the trash and gave a few Liberian dollars to the kids standing in the dump, picking through it.

sorry if that ruined your breakfast.

my legs are so itchy i want to scream. see, i've let my guard down a bit, now that i'm staying at Olly's house. started wearing shorts and not spraying Off! all up
and down my body. I forgot that although i'm finally at a nice house, it's
still a nice house in africa.

that threadbare look was so last season

yesterday, i was running errands with a friend. as we were driving near the beach, we passed some people walking (as we often do) and they were wearing ragged clothes (as they often do), and my friend exclaimed, "that reminds me! i've got to buy rags".

i thought that was hysterical. maybe you had to be there (although
when "there" is Liberia, i would recommend that you never "have to be
there"). for the rest of the morning, every time i saw a
person wearing a tattered outfit, i laughed.

we hate our customers

this morning, Olly suggested that i break my Royal routine. for
variety, he offered to drive me to the other side of the city, across
from the US Embassy, to The Mamba Point Hotel. this, according to
hotels.com or one of those sites, is the second best hotel in the
city, right behind The Royal Hotel. despite the fact that a hotel guest was
attacked and killed here at some point (according to a user comment i read on that hotel site). actually, i'm going to go find that comment and link it here, so you don't have to get the facts second hand...

anyway, i'll continue while another browser window loads that link.

oh, actually i found a bit more info than what i had previously read
in that comment on tripadvisor.com.

http://www.theperspective.org/2004/may/mambapointhotelmurder.html
"But current information gathered at the Mamba Point Hotel where the
victim met his untimely demise on Monday night, 24 May, revealed that
the U.S. military top brass was attacked and stabbed with an
unidentified object by an unknown person. The identity of the killer
is yet to be established. Both international and local police have
started a massive search for the culprit. The incident occurred in the
victim's Mamba Point Hotel room.

The Mamba Point Hotel is located in the Diplomatic enclave of Mamba
Point within the vicinity of the United States embassy in the Liberian
capital, Monrovia. The Mamba Point Hotel is the leading hotel among
dozens of hotels in the country and has been host to hundreds of
travelers visiting the country."


so, Olly graciously drives me all the way over here, and drops me off. says he'll return to pick me up around 4pm. i walk into the lounge and discover signs and flyers distributed on all the tables, with a bunch of new rules about internet use.
apparently, they are cracking down on the people who prefer to lounge around here (in their LOUNGE) and use their internet all day. like i was planning to do.

beginning today, there is now a one hour time limit. and shoes MUST be kept on. and keep your feet off the furniture. don't bring your own food or drinks into our establishment. they nearly go as far as to suggest we might have been raised in a barn. (i bet a lot of Liberians wish they were raised in a barn, so maybe that wouldn't have sounded so rhetorical to them.)

fortunately, i have run into some ex-pat friends i made i earlier in my trip and we are now arranging a shuttle to transport us from this stingy little restaurant back to our safe haven at The Royal. if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. or, don't go to Liberia. not sure which lesson i should take away from this morning's adventure.

this is the modern world

finally, i can get a decent night of sleep in Liberia. i moved into the Peet's house today.

a fan on all night!
electricity!
no mosquito nets!
running water in a clean, private bathroom!


if i had been here the whole time, i probably wouldn't have disliked Africa.

speaking of nets...

i just dreamt that a white Venus (or Serena- i can never tell them apart) Williams was teaching me how to play tennis. seems like i have a real gift for the sport.

nothing but net

i just caught a glimpse of a mosquito. inside with me, here in my bed, under the mosquito net! i'm freaking out...


the Off! spray is burning my eyes. i'm holding the can, waiting for the mosquito to reappear.

now my flashlight is dying.

a mosquito has breached the perimeter. he is inside the trusted, safe zone. and i can't find him.

i'm dripping with sweat. and every bead on my skin feels like it could be his little legs.

i think they have a lifespan of nine days. i wonder if i can stay awake and alert for nine days.


UPDATE: got him!
3/24/07 @ 12:26 AM

use your head

another unfortunate example of a culture lacking proper education- children here are taught to carry oversized items on their heads.



i was just walking back to the office, after another lunch at The Royal. a schoolgirl was walking next to me, carrying her backpack on her head! the shoulder straps were literally dangling next to her ears.

i guess those bags should come with instructions.

Hugs, Not Thugs

it's odd to be in a society that needs PR campaigns to teach the basics. and i really mean the basics. a garbage truck just drove by... painted on the side is the phrase "Sanitation is Dignity". other messages on billboards around town include "Teach, Don't Beat", "Bury Your Poo", and "Stop Mob Violence".

i choose to believe that celebrities are cleaner than the ordinaries

two nights ago, i had trouble sleeping on this pillow. in addition to it being sort of shapeless, it is (uncharacteristically) lumpy in some areas. it looks and feels at least 25 years old.

so once it occured to me that worms could possibly be living inside the pillow, i had a difficult time using it (as i didn't want worms crawling in my ears). last night, i had a dream about this pillow... we somehow acquired details about the history of this pillow and it turns out that Jennifer Aniston was the original owner! that makes me feel much better, since the pillow didn't just come from anyone. and, as far as i know, Aniston doesn't have worms in her ears.

i should sleep better now.

I drone on about Africa. Day number whatever. 14, i think.

i'm lazy. yes, even on foreign soil, with so much to see and do (well, not really, but more about that in a second), i sit in a hotel restaurant and stare at the computer monitor. i choose this over going outside into the real Liberia. crazy? i don't think so. and neither does www.lonelyplanet.com.
"Travel Tips
Monrovia has no sights and even the market is not an exotic place since mainly Chinese goods are sold there. Other than walk in the streets and mingle with the people not much is offered."
(African internet connection still refuses to let me hyperlink. i give up. if you care, http://www.lonelyplanet.com/letters/afr/libe_pc.htm)



now, time for a motley collection of my other African discoveries/whatevers.
(Someone might realize that this is just text copied and pasted from an endless email pounding. as previously mentioned, i'm lazy.)

after a tough first two weeks, i am now completely fine with the coffee. despite the fact that dirty water is the biggest threat to life in Liberia (and coffee contains its fair share of water). because clean water is in such short supply, i have accepted that any water that comes to me in boiled form is going to be sub par. much like the street meat that i haven't eaten but i hear is fine. It is probably old and dirty and maybe even rotten, but they burn it so badly during preparation that at least the little germs and vermin are killed. regardless, i won't be trying that food any time soon, as the little cart that they push it in says "Cow Meat" on the side, rather than "Beef". for some reason, in my mind, there is a huge distinction between the two. (maybe i'm nervous because they make such a point to say Cow Meat, and yet in all of my bush travels, i have yet to see a cow. how far do they push these carts?)

i keep talking about this- soon, i intend to tackle the taxi system. that's going to be a bit more difficult than my previous Road Rules Challenges, as the taxis pick up 6 or 7 people per route. it is sort of like riding in an Airport Shuttle the size of a VW Rabbit. it's further complicated because, in order to hail a taxi, you have to stand by the side of the road and throw up gang signs that indicate which area you are traveling to, and then a taxi that is heading that same way will stop for you. this sort of collective travel forces you to take one car to the closest central junction, and then transfer to another car that is traveling from that junction toward your ultimate destination. like transfers on a city bus. the major upside is the price, approximately $25 Liberian (or 48 cents US) for the entire cross-city trip.

the next problem will be getting these taxis to take me to the places i need to go. i've got to run an errand for a friend this week, but without proper street names and numbers, all directions sound like this:
"once the road gets really bumpy and a snake springs out and latches on to your neck and someone tries to sell you a nativity scene they hand carved and you can't find a cow meat cart anywhere and the taxi driver wants 40 dollars US, you've gone too far.  turn around. drive back 300 yards while continuously beeping your horn and weaving around potholes and livery motorcycles.  and whatever you do, try not to kill the kids playing football in the street.  we're here to help."


see, i knew this place was going to be like that movie Sunset Boulevard.
i jokingly suggested, prior to this trip, that my only function here would be to rewrite the autobiography of an Aid Worker in exchange for free room and board (what is "board"? i would think that "board" would be lodging, but i assume the word "room" covers that. so is "board" food? or showers? well, they have little of either here, so i guess any of my work would be done in exchange for a free room and mosquito netting).

Sunset Boulevard is one of my favorite movies, but i don't like it enough to recreate it. although as i think about it, maybe i've already started. i didn't attend a funeral for a monkey, but i did allow one to crawl on my shoulders. and i haven't gotten a flat tire yet, but these roads are treacherous. if, instead of getting malaria, the Aid Worker shoots me and leaves me floating face down in a swimming pool (not sure where they'd get water for that), then we will definitely have a problem. for anyone who hasn't bothered to watch a classic movie that came out almost 60 years ago, i should have mentioned, this previous paragraph might contain spoilers.

to make a cohesive sentence out of these jumbled thoughts, everything that's wrong with Liberia could be fixed with a warm shower, high speed internet, and the ability to make time fly.

sweaters

did i mention that this country has terrible body odor? in my opinion, it makes Liberia uninhabitable.

any culture that doesn't use deodorant will smell pretty bad. now, couple that with a country that has no showers, and rarely bathes. even that might be fine, if it weren't also one of the hottest places on Earth!

everyone smells disgusting, but the truly horrible part is that i'm almost getting used to it.

AFRICA Update. Day 12 of 29.

I'm slowly figuring out this Survival of the Fittest thing. no, i don't mean Fittest in the weight loss way. on the contrary, i've settled into a very nice eating routine here, consisting of American-ish food, consumed three times a day at The Royal Hotel.
i alternately eat pizza and hamburgers for lunch and dinner. for breakfast, i have coffee, hash browns, and a water with Airborne (that little immune system helper pill made famous by the stupid low-budget commercials starring C-celebrities from The Donna Reed Show or whatever, as they are pretending to be sneezing all over each other while sitting on an airplane).

i'm killing ants before they kill me. i'm numb to the slight sting of Deet, as i spray it on my entire body thrice daily. i keep the mosquito net tucked in all night. i can draw water from a well and take a bucket shower with moderate efficiency.
i still rub on the sunblock every day, but i do it discreetly, so i don't look like a Minnesotan on vacation at Disneyland.

i ignore the people who ask me for money, or try to sell me something they carved.
i don't buy cow meat from vendors pushing dirty little carts down the street.
i hand sanitize religiously.

i've found an internet connection that works.
i created little tasks to keep busy. currently, i'm reclaiming myspace by deleting acquaintances. sort of like breaking up, i guess. it's a little sad but i've got to get over it. i never talk to these people. i've become a friend packrat, and it's time to do my spring cleaning. and there's no better place to do it than here in Africa, remotely, where i know i won't run into them on the street.

enough said. back to the myspace pruning.

the heat is on

although terribly monotonous, i sort of like that this weather is always the same. here, no one wakes up and turns on the equivalent of NY1 to check the temperature glowing in the bottom corner of the screen. they just wake up, put on a t-shirt, and know that it will be another f--king hot, dusty day in Africa.

where are my athletes at?

Any TV marathon i've ever seen (i mean a Running Marathon, not back-to-back episodes of Eight is Enough) has been won by a very tall, skinny African.
i guess i expected to see more people running in these streets.

Toto Lied

I wish I could think of more people to blame, but I guess I can only blame myself.
What was I thinking? Me, the guy who tries to take two warm showers per day. The one who bitched about Upstate NY being too wildernessy. I don't stay in homeless shelters for fun. I don't fly in things that aren't jumbo jets. I don't spend my nights camping beneath the stars. And I definitely do not like being bitten by tiny bugs (even when they aren't malaria-stricken). Sure, I don't like to talk on the phone or stand in line at the post office, but that doesn't mean I want to spend a month of my life in a country that has neither.

Madonna thought it was a good place to get a baby.
Angelina thought it was a good place to have a baby.
And Toto wrote that song.

They made Africa sound so glamorous, and totally hummable.
Because of their blatant deceit, I am now forced to expose the truth about This Land in three verses (sorry, no chorus):

No Electricity.
No Internet.
No Water.

Maybe you're saying to yourself, "that's not a very good song. I can't hum it. I can't sing it." Well, it might not be good as a song, but it's even worse as a birthday/vacation.

Oh, and the other truth that I was unable to work into that jam... It's so hard to stay in touch with anyone in a place like this.
And even as I typed that last sentence, I found a new reason to dislike Liberia. Forgive me, as I'm about to nerd this all up. Back where I said "it's so hard to stay in touch with anyone in a place like this", I had intended to hyperlink the word "anyone" (as I didn't really mean Anyone, I meant Someone), but I was unable to hyperlink due to this funky internet connection. Sorry to clutter this all up with what should have been the behind-the-scenes details. Anyway, if you still care, you can physically type http://www.evilqueenmagda.com into your browser and delight in the results.

you gotta have dreams

i just had a dream about Andy Richter. we were standing around bullshitting, at a craft service table. he was complaining about trying to live on only a couple million dollars a year, now that his career has slowed down a little. i, of couse, consoled him. i promised that he would soon find another "star vehicle" and his career would return to its former glory.

anyway, i quite dislike Africa, where there is no television outside of my dreams. i awoke to slap bugs off my skin.

Driving in Liberia

imagine a nation full of traffic merging and weaving like they're leaving the stadium parking lot after a Dodger game...

Antisocializing

Some woman, as she was leaving the bar, walked over and asked "did she give you my number?"
I replied with a lie, "she tried to, but she couldn't remember it. She thought there was an 8. And she was sure there was a 1."
Girl interrupted with, "do you have a pen?".
Me, "no. but I have a straw and a napkin. are you MacGuyver?"
Me, "wait, do you have a parakeet and a bit of twine?"
Her, "no"
Me, "also, I'm in a serious, committed, long-term relationship. But do you want to go to my website, badlovesongs.com?"
Her, "no".