A sense of panic overwhelmed our family as we shuffled up and down rows of American branded grocery items in abijatis - the main Lebanese owned grocery store in down town Monrovia. I believe the fact that we had to find enough food to last a family of 8, three weeks in the Liberian jungle was more overwhelming than the American brands I hadn't seen in over a year.
"Country food" would be provided on occasion and rumor has it some women on the abc campus have learned how to make bread. There are also vegetables up there. But it is up to us to find our own meat, bring our own milk, water, rice, eggs, and most of the basic food groups along with us. We checked out of the grocery store with a massive cooler loaded with ice, 10 pounds of mince meat, about 20 pounds of chicken, 32 bottles of 1.5 liter bottles, 20 pounds of rice, 90 eggs, 2 large cans of powdered milk (my favorite) and enough dish soap, margarine, oil, flour, sugar and laundry soap to last us 3 weeks. The war left abc Liberia in a hardship post. And my mother's saying throughout the trip has been, "we're gonna starve!"
We left Monrovia at 7:00 this morning for nimba county in yekepa. We were a little worried about spending 9 hours in the car with little Bess who had thrown up 3 times last night and had a fever. We also hoped the frozen meat wouldn't go bad during the long drive.
We first passed through Firestone's rubber tree plantations. We drove at least an hour and a half through rows of tall pale trees stripped of bark so that their white sap could slowly drain down into cups. My dad explained that cups filled with thickening sap were collected every day, dried and prepared for Firestone to export to surrounding countries. The liberians harvesting the sap worked for Firestone. I had no idea 50% of the company's rubber came from Liberia.
The roads progressively worsened as we travelled "up country." However, we were very impressed with the road work the Chinese were conducting right outside of Monrovia. Beautiful, smoothly paved roads were lines with tractors imported from china and Europe. They made the trip more bearable. But as soon as we passed Ganta, a town two hours from Yekepa, our bus wheels hit red dirt. The longer we drove, the more the forest seemed to press in along the dirt roads. Pretty soon nothing but rubber trees, towering buttress trees, palm trees, and majestic cotton trees surrounded our vehicle on all sides. All plants bordering the road were coated in a thick layer of red dust.
Public awareness signs became more frequent. Friendly reminders to stop rape, prevent domestic violence, encourage the education of small children, information about how to purify water, prevent diarrhea, and respect police crowded every Main Street corner. We began to come to the eerie realization that these people needed to be held accountable, and learn that a new code of ethics was expected of them. After about 14 years of war, the country is transitioning its people back to the morale they once new. But these kinds of things don't happen overnight.
Our bodies began to stink, we tired from the whiplash, and our food and luggage was knocking around the bus by the end of the drive. But the journey into the interior is only beginning.
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