After months of back and forth planning, I have finally arrived in Monrovia, Liberia and I am getting settled in to the rhythm of life here. I am mid-way through my masters degree program at Teachers College and will be spending two months in Liberia working with a girls primary education project. The project is based in Monrovia but works with schools in three rural counties. Hopefully I will have the chance to get out to the schools and work with the team in the field. For now, I am doing the office thing.
As for first impressions of Liberia...it is all pretty mellow. Other then luggage taking forever at the airport everything else has been relatively easy. Maybe its my Peace Corps training kicking in and the immense amounts of patience that I learned from that experience (I blogged about it at http://beccainafrica.blogspot.com) but things here seem noticeably less intense and disorienting than in The Gambia. Which is nice. Granted I have only been here for a day so we shall see how that changes in the coming weeks. Other then the relative mellowness, I anticipate that the biggest difference between this sojourn into Africa as compared to my last is the large expat community that I will no doubt interact with and become a part of for a short time. During Peace Corps I had little to no interaction with the ex-pat community outside of PCVs but here the community is some 15,000 strong and seems to dominate the restaurant and social scene. Directly following the war, UN vehicles were the only cars on the roads - that has since changed and a more normal balance has taken shape but expats are still, seemingly, omnipresent.
As for first impressions of Liberia...it is all pretty mellow. Other then luggage taking forever at the airport everything else has been relatively easy. Maybe its my Peace Corps training kicking in and the immense amounts of patience that I learned from that experience (I blogged about it at http://beccainafrica.blogspot.com) but things here seem noticeably less intense and disorienting than in The Gambia. Which is nice. Granted I have only been here for a day so we shall see how that changes in the coming weeks. Other then the relative mellowness, I anticipate that the biggest difference between this sojourn into Africa as compared to my last is the large expat community that I will no doubt interact with and become a part of for a short time. During Peace Corps I had little to no interaction with the ex-pat community outside of PCVs but here the community is some 15,000 strong and seems to dominate the restaurant and social scene. Directly following the war, UN vehicles were the only cars on the roads - that has since changed and a more normal balance has taken shape but expats are still, seemingly, omnipresent.
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