Some first impressions and observations

Fuel shortages

I am picked up by our driver every day and on our way to the office we go past a modern Total petrol station. The only thing that sets it aside from one you might see on any street in Europe is the long line of cars, mostly the battered yellow taxis, that are sometimes backed up for almost a kilometre down the street. There seem to be supply chain issues when it comes to fuel i.e. there often isn’t any to buy and people simply wait in line for hours on end until it arrives. This must really suck if you’re a taxi driver and dependent on gasoline to make a living. How much money must they be losing simply due to the fact that they have to take a day off just to fill up?

As we drove past on the way home the queue didn’t seem to have gone down much. I noticed one taxi with a strikingly obvious observation painted on the side: Life in Africa is hard. Amen to that.

Livin’ La Vida Liberia

However much I want to try and fit in here and live like an ordinary Liberian it’s never going to work. I’m obviously a foreigner on account of my skin colour and this means I’ll get special treatment. This can be both good and bad of course. The thing is, although there are a lot of gringos in Monrovia, you don’t see many of them just wandering about. The SUVs they drive around in are almost an extension of their bodies. They board said vehicles inside the compounds they live in and do not exit until safely inside the compounds where they work. Admittedly I do this too but since I don’t have my own car or a duty driver at my beck and call 24-7 I am forced to brave the outside world on my own two feet from time to time.

It’s hard not to be suspicious when people you don’t know approach you on the street. On my way to find some lunch today a guy came up and introduced himself and proceeded to walk alongside me. Being the polite Englishman that I am I told him my name and started chatting. I was almost certain he’d eventually ask me for money but instead he invited me to go to church with him.

A similar thing happened when I’d just finished eating my dinner and was standing outside the Bangladeshi restaurant beside where I live. People emerged from the shadows and came up to greet me. That’s it. No strings attached.

Of course some people ask for money, and who can blame them considering there’s an 85% unemployment rate? A kid followed me back from the supermarket and offered to help me carry my things (an offer I rather stupidly declined). Although I have a principle about not giving out money to people on the street he was a friendly little fellow and it was just too hard to send him away empty handed.

However I think the majority of people are just generally very friendly and curious about what I’m doing here. It’s hard to accept that coming from Europe where we’re told at an early age never to talk to strangers but I find myself becoming more gregarious by the day.

Scary white man?

Being the token white guy and sticking out everywhere I go makes me think about how Africans must feel if they ever find themselves in small towns in Europe. I’ve just finished reading a book by a Polish journalist who lived and worked in different parts of Africa over a 40 year period. He recalled that in some African countries mothers told their children that if they didn’t behave themselves a white man would come and get them! I got my first piece of evidence that this may indeed be the case in Liberia when a toddler took one look at me, burst into tears and started screaming. Then again I have been known to have that effect on people sometimes.