Liberia

Muslim lady with her 5 kids and lady balancing huge fish on her head in a pan. I saw the lady and her kids every day when I ran. The little girl was always decked out in her burka, really cute.

I had a hurried trip to the wonderful garden spot that is Monrovia, Liberia in March.

Liberia derives it's modern name from the fact that it was the location that the U.S. decided to liberate and repatriate it's slaves starting in the early 1800's, prior even to the civil war and total abolishment. Their country motto is something like "For love of liberty, liberty brought us here". Which interestingly is used by a local Lebanese businessman whose brother steals Kentucky fried chickens secret batter from his restaurant in the middle east and ships it to Monrovia. The Monrovia local then uses the batter to encase his unworthy local chicken in for distribution under another name. His slogan for his restaurant: "For love of chicken, chicken brought us here". Lovely marketing of purloined secret ingredients.... anyways, the trip was fun.

I just love Africa and will usually jump at any opportunity to sample another corner of the wild continent. You can't go to Africa without seeing something crazy... this round I saw dead people in the streets, a knife fight where one person was riding a scooter (it was almost a jousting tourney, except it was a little one-sided), and a bush meat poacher selling dead endangered Pangolins. The list goes on. Monrovia was rough by my standards, but I still enjoyed.

Check out the sign... there were about a million iterations of John the Baptists name on different churches throughout Monrovia. They always added something new to his name, John the Baptist the Battleaxe was the coolest...

The local cathedral

Sunday market winding down

Wall around the cemetary, the wall and razor wire are to keep out grave-robbers and people that emptied out some of the graves to take up residence inside.

These kinds of signs were everywhere, something is not right with local society...

Local boys playing in the surf in front of my hotel at sunset.

Dhow coming in from fishing.

I was amazed by three things. First, the country has no electrical infrastructure. There was a power plant up until the civil war which just ended a few years back, but everything was looted and no headway has been made reestablishing power. Anything with power operates solely by generator. Second, the grocery stores are full of Sams Club and Kirkland Signature products and almost anything else you could imagine from the States. The prices are low and the variety was better than our commissary in Bulgaria. The third was the availability of good Lebanese food. It was everywhere. I flew back just in time to meet the family at the airport, in Bulgaria, coming in from Seattle for a road trip through Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece.