"Mint" and Vegetables
January 11-14, 2006
I just got a phone call from one of the Lebanese guys I interviewed a few days ago. He wanted to let me know that if I write an article about the conclusions of my research, he can get it published for me in one of the local newspapers here. Ah!
This morning I went to the supermarket and picked out a couple of rolls from the bakery. There were some croissant-like pastries in a corner. I asked the woman behind the counter what was inside the pastry. “Mint and vegetable,” she said. Yum, I thought. I took one back to the convent. I took a big bite of it and swallowed, and I remember thinking I couldn’t taste the mint. Hmm. In fact I couldn’t taste any vegetables. I pealed open the pastry and looked inside. About 3 seconds later it hit me. She had said “meat and vegetables.” You probably don’t want to know what happened next.
This afternoon I visited one of my Lebanese friends at his UNDP office. He shares an office with two great guys—a Zimbabwean and a Ghanaian. It seemed like an entertaining work environment. I was more than a little jealous. On the way out of the office, I met a Nigerian UNDP officer, and at the end of a brief conversation he said, “I hope someday you will come and work for this great organization.” He probably didn’t mean it, but that one line put me in a fabulous mood for the rest of the day. Afterwards, we went to the UN-run Humanitarian Information Center (HIC). HIC has an Internet café that NGOs can use, along with all different types of Liberia maps. It seemed like a really valuable resource center. I picked out a map I have wanted for a while. The map shows the distribution of the different nationalities of the UNMIL peacekeepers throughout the country.
At some point during the day I saw a water truck filling up a tank at the Egyptian embassy. A small girl, who could not have been older than 10, was trying to collect some of the water into her bucket that was dripping from the tube connecting the truck and the tank. This was one of the saddest things I have seen since I got here.
This afternoon I conducted an interview with a Liberian. It went ok, but there were definitely some communication issues.
Later, I went to dinner at the apartment of a woman, I’ll call her Patricia, who works for USAID. Inside Patricia’s apartment, I could hardly believe I was in Liberia. It was very luxurious and beautifully decorated. Our mutual friend, the Pakistani UNMIL commander I went out to dinner with the other night, had cooked us dinner—a Pakistani vegetarian meal. So good. Lots of interesting conversations. Patricia has worked for seven years in Somalia, and several years in Haiti, and Eritrea.
I was planning on going to the embassy after dinner, but I didn’t get home until late so one of my Lebanese friends picked me up and we met up with some people at Agenda, the bar on the ocean.
I’m going to backtrack a bit now. Wednesday was not very exciting, and doesn’t even merit its own blog entry. At night, however, one of my Lebanese friends took me out to a sushi restaurant. The vegetable sushi was amazing…carrot and onion salad with peanut sauce…I love food. I met the niece of Gyude Bryant too.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, I had a little drama. I’ve been doing a few odd jobs for The Carter Center while I’m here, and I had to meet someone at an Internet café. According to a Monrovia street map I printed out a few months ago, the Internet café was only a few blocks from my convent. I was in a good mood, and decided that I could walk there alone. Big mistake. I got very lost. I started going up to women on the street and asking for directions, and they kept pointing me in different directions. At one point, the street was too narrow and full of cars for me to walk on it. I moved onto the sidewalk. Ahead of me, I saw a group of about 20 teenage guys wearing white t-shirts. I forget if the shirts said USAID, but some organization was paying them to clean up the streets. This has been more and more common as the inauguration approaches. Usually the guys (and sometimes girls) are given brooms. This group, however, had been armed with machetes to help them clear the brush that had grown onto the sidewalks and between the cement cracks. I took a deep breath, made eye contact with no one, and started to walk through the crowd. The guys moved away, giving me just barely enough room to walk through. One guy started banging the end of his machete against the ground, and soon the rest of them joined in, laughing. They started shouting at me, as they continued to tap their machetes on the cement. Ugh, it was the worst 15 seconds of my week. I’m sorry, but international organizations should not be loaning out machetes. When I got through the crowd I approached a guy working in a goldsmith shop and, without me even asking, he “carried” me to the Internet café. (This is my favorite Liberian word. “Carry” means anything from “take” to “accompany” to “walk.”)
Some other Liberian phrases. “Chop chop.” As in “Gimme chop chop.” This is how beggars ask for food. “Gimme small small” means they want some money. One of the Lebanese guys I interviewed recently was born in Liberia and lived here for almost his entire life. Only recently, when he met his American girlfriend, did he start to learn American/British English. Before, he only spoke Liberian English. I asked him what made American English different from Liberian English. They sound completely different, but I hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what is different. As bad as his answer may sound, it’s actually pretty accurate. He said, “Liberian English is lazy English.” For example, instead of saying “What did you say?” a Liberian would say “Waiyuhsay?” But there is something more to Liberian English. I think the grammar is different.
Yesterday (Thursday) I interviewed the owner of the pizzeria I frequent. He was so cool, and he talked to me for about 3 hours. And he sent me home with a falafel sandwich. I took a taxi back to the convent (so much for “I’m never taking a taxi again”).
At night I interviewed one of my Lebanese friends at the Mamba Point. Another Lebanese guy and an American woman working for USAID met up with us afterwards for drinks.
Have I mentioned yet that most people here have curfews? UN employees have a midnight curfew. I think the curfew for European Union employees is 1 am. Most embassy employees have a 1 am curfew as well. In fact, after midnight, the UN employs people to go around to popular bars and look for any UN staff violating curfew. So people tend to obey the rules. I’ve only met two people who frequently break curfew. This is yet another reason why I love Liberia. I’m always asleep by 1.
One more thing. I found the source of my cockroach problem: my cough medicine! It’s cherry flavored, and has a very strong smell. I hate medicine so much, and now I have yet another reason to despise it. Anyways, I keep the cough syrup in a ziplock bag, and a cockroach somehow made it into the bag. I re-zipped the bag, and I intend on suffocating the cockroach to death.
I’m of to the Mamba Point to use the Internet now. I hope some interesting people have already arrived for the inauguration. I’m getting dressed up just in case there is a particularly appealing business card exchange moment. Later I’m going to the beach with a few of my Lebanese friends for the afternoon, and afterwards the embassy is hosting a happy hour that I’ll go to for a bit, if only to say goodbye to some people.
My flight leaves tomorrow night. This time my flight to Brussels may be stopping in Dakar, Senegal, instead of Freetown. That would be exciting. I get into Atlanta Monday afternoon.
This will probably be my last post in Liberia, thanks so much for reading and posting comments! I will continue to update the blog with pictures when I get back to Atlanta.
I just got a phone call from one of the Lebanese guys I interviewed a few days ago. He wanted to let me know that if I write an article about the conclusions of my research, he can get it published for me in one of the local newspapers here. Ah!
This morning I went to the supermarket and picked out a couple of rolls from the bakery. There were some croissant-like pastries in a corner. I asked the woman behind the counter what was inside the pastry. “Mint and vegetable,” she said. Yum, I thought. I took one back to the convent. I took a big bite of it and swallowed, and I remember thinking I couldn’t taste the mint. Hmm. In fact I couldn’t taste any vegetables. I pealed open the pastry and looked inside. About 3 seconds later it hit me. She had said “meat and vegetables.” You probably don’t want to know what happened next.
This afternoon I visited one of my Lebanese friends at his UNDP office. He shares an office with two great guys—a Zimbabwean and a Ghanaian. It seemed like an entertaining work environment. I was more than a little jealous. On the way out of the office, I met a Nigerian UNDP officer, and at the end of a brief conversation he said, “I hope someday you will come and work for this great organization.” He probably didn’t mean it, but that one line put me in a fabulous mood for the rest of the day. Afterwards, we went to the UN-run Humanitarian Information Center (HIC). HIC has an Internet café that NGOs can use, along with all different types of Liberia maps. It seemed like a really valuable resource center. I picked out a map I have wanted for a while. The map shows the distribution of the different nationalities of the UNMIL peacekeepers throughout the country.
At some point during the day I saw a water truck filling up a tank at the Egyptian embassy. A small girl, who could not have been older than 10, was trying to collect some of the water into her bucket that was dripping from the tube connecting the truck and the tank. This was one of the saddest things I have seen since I got here.
This afternoon I conducted an interview with a Liberian. It went ok, but there were definitely some communication issues.
Later, I went to dinner at the apartment of a woman, I’ll call her Patricia, who works for USAID. Inside Patricia’s apartment, I could hardly believe I was in Liberia. It was very luxurious and beautifully decorated. Our mutual friend, the Pakistani UNMIL commander I went out to dinner with the other night, had cooked us dinner—a Pakistani vegetarian meal. So good. Lots of interesting conversations. Patricia has worked for seven years in Somalia, and several years in Haiti, and Eritrea.
I was planning on going to the embassy after dinner, but I didn’t get home until late so one of my Lebanese friends picked me up and we met up with some people at Agenda, the bar on the ocean.
I’m going to backtrack a bit now. Wednesday was not very exciting, and doesn’t even merit its own blog entry. At night, however, one of my Lebanese friends took me out to a sushi restaurant. The vegetable sushi was amazing…carrot and onion salad with peanut sauce…I love food. I met the niece of Gyude Bryant too.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, I had a little drama. I’ve been doing a few odd jobs for The Carter Center while I’m here, and I had to meet someone at an Internet café. According to a Monrovia street map I printed out a few months ago, the Internet café was only a few blocks from my convent. I was in a good mood, and decided that I could walk there alone. Big mistake. I got very lost. I started going up to women on the street and asking for directions, and they kept pointing me in different directions. At one point, the street was too narrow and full of cars for me to walk on it. I moved onto the sidewalk. Ahead of me, I saw a group of about 20 teenage guys wearing white t-shirts. I forget if the shirts said USAID, but some organization was paying them to clean up the streets. This has been more and more common as the inauguration approaches. Usually the guys (and sometimes girls) are given brooms. This group, however, had been armed with machetes to help them clear the brush that had grown onto the sidewalks and between the cement cracks. I took a deep breath, made eye contact with no one, and started to walk through the crowd. The guys moved away, giving me just barely enough room to walk through. One guy started banging the end of his machete against the ground, and soon the rest of them joined in, laughing. They started shouting at me, as they continued to tap their machetes on the cement. Ugh, it was the worst 15 seconds of my week. I’m sorry, but international organizations should not be loaning out machetes. When I got through the crowd I approached a guy working in a goldsmith shop and, without me even asking, he “carried” me to the Internet café. (This is my favorite Liberian word. “Carry” means anything from “take” to “accompany” to “walk.”)
Some other Liberian phrases. “Chop chop.” As in “Gimme chop chop.” This is how beggars ask for food. “Gimme small small” means they want some money. One of the Lebanese guys I interviewed recently was born in Liberia and lived here for almost his entire life. Only recently, when he met his American girlfriend, did he start to learn American/British English. Before, he only spoke Liberian English. I asked him what made American English different from Liberian English. They sound completely different, but I hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what is different. As bad as his answer may sound, it’s actually pretty accurate. He said, “Liberian English is lazy English.” For example, instead of saying “What did you say?” a Liberian would say “Waiyuhsay?” But there is something more to Liberian English. I think the grammar is different.
Yesterday (Thursday) I interviewed the owner of the pizzeria I frequent. He was so cool, and he talked to me for about 3 hours. And he sent me home with a falafel sandwich. I took a taxi back to the convent (so much for “I’m never taking a taxi again”).
At night I interviewed one of my Lebanese friends at the Mamba Point. Another Lebanese guy and an American woman working for USAID met up with us afterwards for drinks.
Have I mentioned yet that most people here have curfews? UN employees have a midnight curfew. I think the curfew for European Union employees is 1 am. Most embassy employees have a 1 am curfew as well. In fact, after midnight, the UN employs people to go around to popular bars and look for any UN staff violating curfew. So people tend to obey the rules. I’ve only met two people who frequently break curfew. This is yet another reason why I love Liberia. I’m always asleep by 1.
One more thing. I found the source of my cockroach problem: my cough medicine! It’s cherry flavored, and has a very strong smell. I hate medicine so much, and now I have yet another reason to despise it. Anyways, I keep the cough syrup in a ziplock bag, and a cockroach somehow made it into the bag. I re-zipped the bag, and I intend on suffocating the cockroach to death.
I’m of to the Mamba Point to use the Internet now. I hope some interesting people have already arrived for the inauguration. I’m getting dressed up just in case there is a particularly appealing business card exchange moment. Later I’m going to the beach with a few of my Lebanese friends for the afternoon, and afterwards the embassy is hosting a happy hour that I’ll go to for a bit, if only to say goodbye to some people.
My flight leaves tomorrow night. This time my flight to Brussels may be stopping in Dakar, Senegal, instead of Freetown. That would be exciting. I get into Atlanta Monday afternoon.
This will probably be my last post in Liberia, thanks so much for reading and posting comments! I will continue to update the blog with pictures when I get back to Atlanta.
posted by Shelby at 3:52 AM
1 Comments:
shelby, only you would hear "mint and vegetable" and think "yum". hope all's well, your adventures / pictures look amazing. i'm writing a thesis and pretty jealous.
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