Liberia feels so familiar. It smells like flowers and moisture and things molding. The air is steamy and sometimes breezy when the clouds arrive. There is sprinkling rain, which we ignore, and pouring, pounding rain, which old time PCVs claim to have showered in when they were young.
Liberians do their more vigorous work in the morning when it is cooler. They continue to work in the heat of the day, but the pace is slow. People of all ages sell small quantities of this and that. They set little piles of fruit, nuts, peppers and other goods in front of their houses, or they carry pans and buckets on their heads and walk slowly up and down the road. People stop them and buy a little bit, but business is not brisk.
Construction work is happening everywhere, but it is all very low-key, and done totally by hand. We see people standing by piles of sand, mixing cement with shovels and using molds to make cement blocks, which they line up in rows to dry. We saw a man throwing shovelfuls of sand up onto the roof of a building-in-progress; the people on top must have been making blocks or a floor.
Traffic in Monrovia is a river flowing beside a river going in the opposite direction; cars trucks and motorcycles flow in and out, moving through and past each other in a system all the drivers seem to understand. There are almost no stoplights. A left-turning vehicle slows and begins turning; oncoming traffic pauses briefly or flows around. Motorcycles weave in and out, using lanes only visible to them. There are many taxis, all full of people and vans stuffed with occupants who must find it hard to breathe because there is little head room.Trucks and vans carry tall sacks of goods strapped on, and inside there are more goods or people. Everyone honks; it’s hard to know what the signal means, unless it is a universal, “I am here.”
May 10, 2013