Africa 6: Road trip

We spend our first night at The Carver Mission – a clean spacious guesthouse run by a lady called Shirley. None of the taps have running water and so I experience my first bucket shower. There is a huge barrel of water and a small bucket. Taking the initiative I douse myself – I don’t even yelp once, maybe I can do this after all. I skip out into the lounge area, proud of my achievement then Lani tells me that the barrels are used to transport pigs’ trotters…

After our first night under a mosquito net, we head off at 7:30am. We are taking a seven-hour road trip north, to the town of Zorzor in the county of Lofa to visit one of the well projects.

It’s morning, people are going about their daily duties; women washing clothes outside their huts carrying babies on their backs, men returning from the fields carrying their machetes and of course streams of people balancing huge objects on their heads. My favourite are the children. The girls wear frilly dresses and the boys wear T-shirts emblazoned with images of Buzz Lightyear and various other cartoon characters, they are all covered in dirt. They flock to the side of the road when we pass, and wave and wave and wave. They are so excited, they run alongside our jeep shouting ‘white man white man’ I look out the back window and see one little boy who has lagged behind his friends – he’s not running but is putting all his energies into making a high pitched noise over and over, jumping as high as his three year old legs will take him, and waving at us vigorously. I’ve never had a welcome like it.

The dirt track drive is spectacular – rust coloured iron rich soil next to lush green vegetation is breathtaking, though the villages still bear the brutal scars of war. Street lights are riddled with bullet holes – the rebel forces believed that rival soldiers had the power to turn themselves into these lamps and so shot at them all, thinking they were killing their enemies.

Every building is splattered with bullet holes, nothing is fully intact; huts without roofs, chunks of walls missing. During the fighting the entire infrastructure of the country was destroyed. Roads blown up, hospitals and schools bombed and even water pumps ripped out and rendered useless. Without such simple things as access to fresh water its has become incredibly difficult to get the country back on its feet now that the war is over. 85% of the population are unemployed. Much of the country live below the poverty line. People get ill and very few can afford healthcare and so inevitably die from ailments that should be easy to cure. Malaria is the biggest killer - Life expectancy for men is 39 and for women 42.

There are signs though that the country is on the mend. A strong UN presence is felt in most of the towns, soldiers drafted in to end the armed conflict and promote peace – their checkpoints emblazoned with the words ‘Long lasting peace can only come to peaceful people.’ Huts are painted with similar slogans ‘Do not lose hope – better days are ahead’.

Aid agencies are also prominent, helping to rebuild homes and restructure villages primarily through health care education. Signs, written in a shaky hand, have been erected everywhere bearing simple yet vital messages:
‘You can not catch HIV/AIDS from mosquito bites’
‘Wash hands after poo poo’
‘No PP heah’
‘Do not drink swamp water’

As we arrive at our destination I spot my favourite sign yet: ‘Welcome to Lofa County. Please use a condom.’