Thursday, October 21, 2010

Yesterday we went to a clinic about 60kms outside of Zwedru for our monthly monitoring visit. You may remember a few posts back when we first tried to do September monitoring and it was a... well, not a success. When we finally arrived (after pulling a bus through mud, going around several stuck trucks via a by-pass in the bush, and waiting for the Chinese road workers to poor some dirt onto the road that will turn into a huge mud hole in the next rains), I was SO happy to see how much their records had improved since our last visit. Signatures were obtained, MUAC measurements were recorded, and food was being distributed properly. Wha-freakin-hoo! They listened. And took initiative. And that makes me happy.

What doesn't make me happy is mud. LOTS OF MUD. I am off to Monrovia next week and don't want to see anymore mud. I'm hearing horror stories of it taking vehicles between 16 hours and 3 days to make the trek. Its 550kms away. Thats about 310 miles. It doesn't have to be like this.

Anyway, you would think that after so many months I would get sick of taking pictures of trucks stuck in mud. But you would be wrong. I even won the best transportation photo in the Peace Corps Liberia newsletter contest. Nevermind no one else entered.
Here are some pics from yesterday's trip:
The UN roadworkers were trying to help in their spaceship-like machine, while all of the Liberians were standing around pissed off that they were making it worse, or as they say "Dey spoilin it-O!" I'm on the Liberian's side.
Sometimes, when the road is blocked, the only option you have is to take the bush route.
Here, we couldn't go on the left of the white truck....
So we went to the right of the green truck.
And now, one of my favorites. Yes, that is a leg sticking out from under the truck. But he wasn't run over. He's trying to shovel out the mud from underneath the tires. That job must suck.

The best way to end a day like this is watching the UN Civilians play the Indian batallion in football as a way to start the UN Day Celebrations that will be going on all week.

2 comments: