A little bit of Monrovia

Last week I went to Monrovia for the new volunteer swear-in ceremony on Friday and a Peace Corps meeting on Monday. The 14 volunteers who swore-in are the first group of full term volunteers to serve in Liberia since before the war. The ceremony was great. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf attended and gave a great speech about the importance of having Peace Corps back in Liberia. I couldnt get too many great pics, as the lighting was horrible and I wasn't in the front row. If I can get my hands on any others I will post them at a later date. That's Ellen in the middle...









The trip to Monrovia included a lot of opportunities to eat food that I haven't been able to eat since arriving in country. My stomach must have shrunk though... I couldnt even finish my plate the first night (3 pieces of BBQ chicken and french fries). Speaking of food, something crazy happened while I was gone. I had this huge grocery list of items I wanted to buy at the grocery store (cake, pasta sauce, chips, mashed potatoes etc), but once I got to the store all I wanted to eat was local rice and potato greens with hot peppers. I was missing Zwedru food! I bought the stuff anyways hoping that once I got back to Zwedru and ate rice for a week or so, I would again be craving processed anything. For lunch today I got my rice and potato greens. It was sooooo good. They even put a big fried fish on top.




I started to get a better feel for the city over the few days I was there. Its really an interesting place.. I only wish I knew what it looked like before the war. I saw the bridge that was destroyed during the war, got a feel for how the taxi system works, and found a bunch of good restuarants. We tried to go to a night club (known for being an Ex-Pat hang out), but it turns out no one likes to go out on Sunday evenings!



The beach near the city is not so nice so a few of us decided to head to Kimmi's site in Buchanan (right near a nice beach) for the weekend before our Monday meeting!