A Presidential Couple of Days

This has been interesting past days. I guess, when I posted last, some of the stuff I am writing about had already taken place, but were not included as I wrote the post earlier that I actually posted it. Anyway, here we go – my presidential couple of days started on Sunday, January 8 and ended on Monday, January 16. Sounds exiting? It is  - at least it was for me.

Playing the game – Soccer Match at SKD

On Sunday the week before last week, I got kindly invited by my flatmate to join her and her boss to watch a football match at the National Stadium, called SKD. They had a tournament going on between teams of the different counties and on this day the final was supposed to take place. The stadium was a crazy place – thousands and thousands of people, trying to get the last tickety, trying to actually show their tickets and to get access, people jumping over fences and just in the middle of all the chaos, a couple of police men, who found their way through the crows by beating everyone  who would not jump out of their way severely with a bat. Not so nice to see, and clearly a problem as I think the police men were just too few in numbers and using their bat seemed to be the only valid option in their eyes.  However, we were lucky as we were actually sitting in the VIP area – just a couple of seats behind – and yes, here is the presidential linkage – the Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her main opponent Winston Tubman and Prince Johnson who came third in the last election. Well, I did not talk to them though, but it was nice to watch them anyway. The match was good as well. I am pretty sure I have not seen so many fouls and wanna be-fouls in one single match though. In the end, Margibi won against Nimba County with 2:0 – a well-deserved victory.

A Week At Work and A Weekend At Home

The week passed pretty quickly as we had quite some stuff to do and my colleague had to stay in Europe longer than expected, so I spent many hours on project management things and trying to get a better understanding of what I am/ we are actually doing here. Work in progress though. But apart from that, I obviously had a lot of first time. First time going to the Campus, first time eating Potatoe Greens in Liberia, first time having a ride on a pen-pen (the local motorbikes – although this was actually already on Sunday), first time having a run longer than 40min, first time buying veggies on the market, etc, etc.  On Friday night we had a Farewell party for one girl who was also working for GIZ as consultant but now went back to Germany. A real loss for our office! But a good party anyway. Whoever is not familiar yet, with the most played song in Sierra Leone and Liberia (and I would bet on this one), click here and “Chop my money” will never leave you again. Saturday and Sunday turned out to be rather boring. I fell sick with a stupid cold and had to work anyway, so I some hours in the office and many at home, trying to recover while watching “How I Met Your Mother”  - exciting life, you think? Will get better soon. I promise.

Inauguration Day

Monrovia on Inauguration Day - red, blue and white all over

And as I said, my presidential couple of days ended on January 16, the day where the president officially started her second term. So if nothing goes totally wrong, this country will be ruled for the next five years by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Fair enough. As we did not manage to get tickets for the inauguration itself, we gathered in front of the TV at Cape Hotel (our office was closed due to various reasons, and power went off at home, so we escaped to the restaurant at Cape Hotel), and tried to follow the ceremony. Not much luck on this side, as the quality of pictures being broadcasted was horrible. So we grabbed our cells, switched on the radios and listened to the speeches instead of watching them. After some hours of work, I decided to get back home and have a walk through the city, hoping to see the president. Well, a “walk” in Liberia is not quite like as it might be in other places, but it was nice anyway. The city was surprisingly empty (most roads were blocked though for security reasons), but I found some people gathering at one corner. I asked around and found out that they were waiting for the President to pass by, so I decided to join them. However, after 30-45min I had to accept that I was indeed ready to meet the President again, but apparently she was not. Two frien

Instructions How to Vote - Left Overs from the last elections in October on a compound wall

ds came along and picked me up and we continued strolling the city which was just highly interesting. Some pictures below may give you first impressions, more to follow in th upcoming weeks. Don’t get confused by the assumingly grey weather on the pictures – we do have blue sky and it is hot, but it is Harmattan (desert wind) season right now, which brings a lot of dust in the city and makes everything looking misty and grey.

That’s it for now – more coming up soon, at some point certainly also a bit more analytical and interpretative instead of just descriptive. Time will come.
 Take good of yourself and your beloved ones and talk soon!

Westpoint, Monrovia - one of the largest slum areas in the city

Variety of Fresh Fish, caught just by standing on the bridge and using a thin string, a hook, some shiny things along the string and nothing else. Quite impressive to watch!

View from the Bridge in Monrovia