My first day in the field!

September 16, 2010

Hi everyone, it is Tiffany again and I wanted to update you all on my first day out in the field, which was on Tuesday. 

We were supposed to be heading out at about 8:30am; however, going by Liberia time we ended up leaving at nearly 11am.  It was exciting as it was my first ride in a World Food Programme Land Cruiser and I went with Lamine, who I work with, Monica, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Akoi, the WFP program monitor, and Charles Fissibue (I like his last name), the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN) program monitor.  It all felt very official, but they were all really nice, and its a good thing because it was a long, squishy and uncomfortable ride.

Our plan for the day was to visit 6 communities who want WFP to provide food to their communities, which Visions in Action would implement if they were selected.  The driver took us on a less well travelled road so that I could see some of the rice swamps and communities that VIA is working in now.  At first this seemed like a great idea as I really wanted to see; however the road was atrocious and I soon changed my mind about the intelligence of this plan during rainy season.  The driver would go extremely fast any parts he could and then would slam on his breaks and the whole car would jolt as we approached the endless and enormous potholes. In fact some were not potholes, because that implies there are parts of the road that are not one big hole, which is not the case.  Rather the road is basically sunken from the rain and several times when going uphill we would get stuck in pits of mud and it would take quite a while to get out.  I felt like I was (a) on the Indian Jones ride in Disney Land where it throws you all around in the car, on repeat and (b) like a was the helpless child during a game of bumpy ride, smooth ride, pothole that would never end.   At first it was thrilling and then became redundant and uncomfortable, but the scenery was beautiful.  The country is basically all a lush green rainforest with little villages dotted here and there, with palm, rubber, avocado, mango, orange, papaya, coconut, cocoa and many other trees everywhere. 

Finally we got to the UNDP office where we were meeting a few other men who drove to show us to the communities (after about 2.5 hours of driving).  We finally made it to the side road off the main road to the village, which was still about another half hour away.  Soon we came to a bridge (really just a couple of big logs with a few rickety planks lying over top.  The other jeep made it over, and when one of the guys asked whether we should go I knew I should be worried.   Still we started across but soon our jeep slipped and yes, the back half of the jeep fell through the bridge!  Everyone kept saying “this is Africa” to me every time we got stuck or something happened, like it was no big deal.  We all stumbled out of the jeep to survey the damage, but with the winch of the other jeep we got out fairly easily.  I was thinking about Davey the whole time because (a) he loves Land Cruisers and (b) pulling the car out of some crazy situation with a winch brought me right back to my childhood!  Anyways we finally got out and got to a community, which was a series of little huts with a rice swamp nearby.  We assembled under a thatch roofed hut and had a town meeting where we went through some questions with the people in order to figure out whether they would suit the program.  After we had to take a long way around to get right back to where we started so we wouldn’t have to go over the bridge and then visited two more communities.  After three communities, we called it a day and started the long journey back.  On the way back we went through torrential rains where all you could see was water splashing up all around the vehicle like we were driving through a lake.  The whole day was crazy but cool to get to see the country more and to visit the communities.  Finally it felt like I was doing something here, though the days since have been quite slow.

Nonetheless, Kevin and I are going to Monrovia this weekend to deal with passport stuff and restock supplies, which will be a nice change of pace.   We hope everyone is doing well and we miss you all!

Lots of love,