Perilous journeys and additions to the family

For the few of you reading my blog, you know that I travel a lot in to the interior. Some of you also know that Liberia receives one of the highest rainfalls in the world. Traveling during rainy season is quite painful. The tracks are rough, the small portion of paved road is washed away, and the roads look like meteors crashed everywhere. Work and life doesn't stop because of the rainy season...we keep chugging along! Monrovia receives the most rainfall compared to any capital city in the world. Liberia, being the last vestige of the West African rain forest, receives an incredible amount of rain. I have lived in tropical countries before, but I have never experienced this kind of rain. Imagine a heavy downpour for 9 days NONSTOP! Not even a short beak, it pours incessantly for days at a time. And it is not even a drizzle, it is serious downpour. In one week, the paint on buildings washes away, shanty towns collapse and submerge in water, and you feel like you are going to be washed away in to the sea. It is beautifully cathartic in a way...the incessant rain washing away everything in its way.

The latest trip was particularly painful. It took us 14 hours to travel 250 miles. Thank goodness for Toyota! We would never get anywhere if it isn't for these trusty Land Rovers. Besides getting stuck in 6 foot deep mud pits, we had to wait for the trucks to pull themselves out of the mud so we can keep going. I am posting a few pictures that show the road condition. Look at that mud pit! A car dropped in to the pit just before us and it was struggling to get out...that's the smoke you see in the picture.

Despite these road conditions, people still travel in the interior. They have to, in order to sell their goods, produce, livestock. Note the goats and chickens sitting on top of a truck in the picture below. The truck was waiting along with us for clearance because the van in front of it is stuck in the mud.

Note that the goats are sitting on top of a hospital vehicle. Isn't that funny? Here is a close up of the goats waiting patiently on top of the same hospital vehicle. Can you tell I like goats? Of course, this picture is not for the PETA-loving folks!

Goats

How does Dr. V manage through this mess? Well, stylishly of course! Look at me waiting for a truck to clear itself out of the mud... what's going on with my hair in this picture?

ME!

However, this stylishness disappears once I get in the mud and start digging our trusty Land Rover out of a mud pit in a heavy downpour at 9pm in the middle of the jungle. Yeah, that happened last month! I took off my pants, jumped in to rain gear and started digging along with my driver. What else are we going to do, sit there and wait until someone appears and pulls us out? That could take all night! We took matters in to our own hands and got out of that pit. Sorry, no pictures of that incident. No picture taking when you are covered in mud and soaking wet from the rain. I looked like I am having a mud wrap, not in a fancy spa but the Liberian jungle.

At times we wait for hours because the vehicles in front of us get stuck and there is no way to pass. Two weeks ago (before the fateful tear gas incident), I went to Voinjama. It is a town on the far north end of Liberia, about 10 miles from Guinea. In fact, most people in Voinjama buy their goods at the markets in Guinea because of proximity. It took us 14 hours to get to Voinjama with only pit stops. On the way back we got stuck behind a truck that was carrying people and goods from Guinea. As with most transport in West Africa, it was carrying more than it could/ should. Combine the load with the road conditions in Liberia and you have a disaster. The truck got stuck in the mud and all the people traveling on top of the goods got off and started pushing. See picture below.

Truck stuck in the mud

Now you may wonder why the truck is so deep in to the road. Well, the truck was so heavily loaded that it sank in to the mud and the revving only pushed it deeper in to the ground. The goods you see in the truck are after they unloaded almost half of the original load. Notice the bags of onion in front and white rice bags in the back?

Then there was another truck that was coming from the opposite side and got stuck next to this one, effectively blocking traffic on both sides.

Blocked traffic

While there is usually no upside to getting stuck behind a truck in the middle of the jungle, I managed to find one. One of the ladies traveling on top of the truck, who got off the truck because it is stuck, was going to the market to sell her "goods". Goods meaning jungle tortoises. LIVE!! I saw her sitting on the mud road hoping for the truck to clear so she can make some money by selling her tortoises. At first I didn't believe that they were live and then I noticed their little heads poking out to see what is going on. I jumped in joy and immediately bought all tortoises she had (only two). The locals eat them...they would have ended up on somebody's dinner plate. Instead, they are now at Coconut Plantation House #12, safe and sound. Michael named them Samson and Delilah without knowing which one is male/ female. We realized the next day we named them correctly when Samson was looking for love from Delilah (I will spare the details!).

My local staff tell me that both tortoises are at least 50 years old considering their size, color, and rings on the shells. They are the West African Hingeback tortoises. Here is a picture of Delilah peeking out of her shell. Samson is camera shy. They like walking around the house and hiding. Who knew tortoises are fast?!

Delilah

I have a feeling my internal organs are displaced from traveling on these horrible roads, but they all seem to be functioning well. So, that's it for now. I will give the tortoises a bath while you enjoy the pictures. 

When the clouds come rolling in...

Last week I traveled to Sanniquellie for two reasons. One was to conduct a workshop for the health workers on using data for making decisions. The other reason was to explore why contraceptive use is very low in Nimba County. I will write about those two parts later, I have to talk about the drive to Sanniquellie.

The better part of the road - with few potholes and washed away at its seams

I like driving up country, or as the Liberians call it, "the bush". The drive from Monrovia to Sanniquellie is quite the feat, because of the road. I haven't been to Sanniquellie in a month, so I wasn't aware of the condition of roads. The terrain changes rapidly in the rainy season, because it doesn't just rain here. The rain in Liberia is unlike any other. It is powerful enough to wash away everything in its path. To give you an idea, Liberia received the third largest rainfall in the world, for its land area. Monrovia is the city with the highest rainfall in the world. Since the rainy season started a month ago, I wasn't quite sure what lay ahead in front of us. Well, not much lay ahead. The dirt road that has washed away in most areas leaving huge potholes the size of craters, and rocks. Part of the road is paved. the part from Monrovia to Gbarnga is not bad, the part from Gbarnga to Ganta is the worst, and from Ganta to Sanniquellie is just track. Half of our journey is spent clinging on to our dear lives on the hand railing in our Land Cruiser. I do not recommend anyone with a bad back doing this trip.

However, not all is bad. The scenery is beautiful. That's what happens when you drive through the last remaining rain forest in West Africa. Lush tropical forest lines either sides of the road. Huge rubber trees stand majestically among the underbrush. The Liberian rain forest is also the world's only known habitat for pygmy hippos. I haven't seen one in the wild so far, because they are rare, shy, and highly endangered.

Since it is the rainy season, and these are no ordinary rains, you always are caught in a downpour. The sight of a rain storm rolling in always enthralls me. The colors - green luscious forest, red dirt road, the blue sky, and black clouds rolling in with immense speed - is quite the sight to see. Although I am no professional photographer, I tried to capture some of the intense beauty with my simple yet trusty Canon Powershot.

The clouds roll in...

What you see on the right is a small hamlet, three huts bordered by plantain and coconut trees. I asked our driver to stop in the middle of the track so I can marvel at the beauty of nature. I started taking pictures and a man came out of one of the huts to see what we were doing. After some more picture taking, we resumed our bumpy journey.

The dark sky and darker road

As we pass through more forest and start driving through the heavy downpour, we are greeted with various sounds from the forest, people running to their huts to avoid the rain, and, my most favorite of all, the smell of  earth when it receives rain. After about an hour of driving, we finally get past the rain, and start watching for the huge puddles on the road. It is a good thing we have the trust Land Cruiser, you cannot do this drive with many SUVs.

One of the things you have to be cautious of this rain is the huge puddles that form in the road. It is difficult to  avoid and gauge the depth of these puddles, which leads to many accidents. These are no ordinary puddles, they can swallow half of your car easily. We witnessed one such accident. A semi-truck that got stuck in one such puddle because it was too deep. The semi kinda nosedived in to one puddle while avoiding another puddle. Luckily there were no casualties, just a semi stuck on the road. This does not bode well for us, because you cannot take a diversion.

Accident!

Now, you may wonder why there is a big semi in the middle of the rain forest? It is because one of the largest iron ore mines in Africa is located near the Liberia-Guinea border, in a town called Yekepa. You have to pass through the rain forest to reach Yekepa. Arcelor Mittal has a huge mining operation going on in Yekepa, and this particular truck was delivering some supplies to the mine.

We got out of our SUV, walked around to see if there is any clearing on the side of the road and decided to take a chance with off-roading. There is no way we are staying stuck in the forest behind this semi, while it is getting dark. Look at my boss and our driver surveying the terrain.

My boss and driver surveying the terrain before deciding if we can off-road

My boss drove Land Cruisers in the rain forests of Cameroon 30 years ago, while volunteering as a physician in the jungles of Cameroon and Congo. He has worked extensively in Africa and he has a great knowledge of the terrain. With his and our trusty driver's skills, we were able to get out of this road block. Look at our intern waiting patiently and watching the scene.

Heather waits patiently while enjoying the scenery

That's our trusty Land Cruiser, by the way. Almost all international donors and NGOs working in Liberia have white vehicles. The rhino horn looking thing in front of the car is for our satellite phone, if we get stuck in the jungle and need the American government to come get us :) After some maneuvering, we were able to get on the road and resume our journey. We got out to see the accident from the front and it looked like this...

The accident from the front

Well, that crash could have easily been us. But we have skilled drivers, so I rarely get worried about driving through the rain forest. Just look at that lush greenery on either sides of the road. Stunning!

We go on with our journey and arrived at Sanniquellie safely. Finished work in two days and came back to Monrovia. I bought a big bag of palm nuts for Isaiah on the way back home. He is one happy bird!