Better Now Than Never - Update from West Africa

Wow, I cannot necessarily claim, that I stood up to my promise to continuously update the blog. Sorry for that, but anyway, a new year has started with new opportunities to make it better than before.

Happy New Year to all of you – may it be a satisfying one, leaving you with a smile on your face! I hope you all had a great festive season with a lot on happy moments with friends and family. I had  - so thank you very much to everyone I was able and allowed to stay with, visit and visited by. It was so good to see you all.
Back to business now. When I posted last, I left you with some nice pictures and stories from Maputo where I attend a network meeting. Life remained busy afterwards, but to make a long story short: I got back to Freetown,

"Family Picture" (Isata, Jojo, a new little trouble maker on my lap, Momoh) in Freetown -
it was great to be back and to be remembered, even after three years

Good Bye to Sierra Leone

stayed there for another two weeks, working and preparing myself, and eventually made it over to Monrovia on November 19, moving into my  new room on November 20. We actually got the permission to travel over land (I was extremely relieved as I had 50kgs to bring along, and I really did not want to carry that stuff back to Lungi Airport, Freetown, then to Ghana and finally to Monrovia) and it was great. A colleague travelled with me, and we spent some 12 hours amusing hours in our (at least in the beginning) shiny white GIZ car, eating cookies, chatting with our drivers and enjoying the green landscape. A great part of the trip was done on red tarmac roads, so it got quite bumpy and there was no chance to even read. My personal highlight was the crossing of a river, which, as we had heard before, could be managed by using a ferry. In my naïve mind, the term ferry was associated with something like a ship with an engine, connecting the two shores by going back and forth. I was wrong. The ferry turned out to be a floating something with would fit 2 cars, 3 motorbikes and a couple of people. It was made of wood and was manually driven – meaning, it had no engine. Instead, there was quite advanced system made of iron wires and different kind of ropes, which were used to pull the ferry over. As we did not really paid for the cruise, I felt that I might should offer my support and help pulling the ropes. The guys accepted, but I am not completely sure that I was an actual help.

Osman has to show his driving skills when entering the "ferry"

Pulling the "ferry"

Heading over

Work eventually started on November 21, and it went on without a break until Dec 11, when I went back to Germany to finish some training and spent Christmas at home. These three weeks in Monrovia were just extremely busy, including very long days in the office, working on weekends and facing new challenges every other second. But eventually it was done and most likely I could not have asked for a more intense introduction into the project. Although I would have preferred to be able have some time to actually get familiar with everything, at least now I do know the project and our partners already quite well. My colleague is very nice and so is our intern, so I am sure, over time we will become quite a good team. As I did expect (at least to some extent), I got quite some responsibility, which is nice, as it creates room for change and gives you the chance to actively promote and follow-up your own ideas. So, summarizing on the job situation, I know that I will face many challenges and that it won’t be always easy, but I also know that I find it super interesting and that it was the right choice to come. 

Getting the social life started is certainly also a challenge and will take some more time. I cannot really tell how many expats (short for expatriates = Auswanderer, a term which is usually used for all the ‘white’ people who came here for work) live in Monrovia, but it seems to be a vibrant community. The first weeks are usually a lot of small-talk, trying to adjust yourself – so this is pretty much what I gonna do for the next couple of weeks: Trying to make people to like me. And obviously trying to like them... However, I have already met some quite nice people, so I am quite hopeful. Plus, I was once again extremely lucky with my flat mates - both of them are just great and I felt home from the first day on. Thanks for making the embedding so easy, ladies!
My room is really nice (see the picture) and it got even nicer when I returned from Germany, as I brought a lot of photos, a great calendar which I got as a farewell present from some wonderful friends (Jakob, Risotto recipe is up now and I even found risotto rice, so will give it a try soon), some family memories on pictures arranged by my Mom (thank you so much!), IKEA lamps, my sewing machine, the best coffee/espresso maker ever (Sophie, come on over here!!), excellent Ethiopian coffee (thanks to Cat!) and much more which will definitely help me to feel like home. And the rest of the apartment is also absolutely fine.

My very own Liberian paradise

View from our balcony - realities could not differ more

We got electricity about 13 hours a day (produced by a generator, which is off during the day, when we are at work anyway) and 24/7 during the weekend, piped and even hot running water, we have iron doors, security guards, barb wire on the compound walls, big cars in the parking lot –as you can see, we are quite well set and yes, we do live an expat life. I am also thinking about buying a car. At work, I am good because we got a driver and he would drive me wherever I would ask him for, but in my spare time, it is sometime difficult to get around as I am not supposed to walk in the dark and sunset is already around 6.30pm. The car won’t be one of these huge land rovers though. I rather go for an ordinary car, which I can use within Monrovia and also outside as long as the roads don’t go too bad. I think, as I never appeared to be an off-road racer, I should be fine with that. Plus, a smaller car does not eat up so much fuel and pollute the environment less. I only have to find a car now; this is the next thing on my Challenges-in-Liberia-list.

Waterside Market, Centre of Monrovia

Yep, that’s it. I will write more very soon, but I think, when you actually managed to read all of this stuff, you definitely deserve a break. Congratulations for making it up to here though and thank you for your interest!
Take good care of yourself and all your beloved ones!