a little peek of life in Liberia

A little peak in life in Liberia from my own experience.

Alot of things we take for granted are special here. You have take care of your own electricity to begin with. Which means every appartment in this building has electicity wiring going from the appartment to the electricity pole. The electricity wires are put in pvc pipes with run outside from the appartment, hooked up on the walls an then lead to the electricity pole. It is all very fragile and the pvc pipes deteriorate fast because of the humid climate. When your electricitywire is broken you have to report that to the electricity company and the hook it up for you again. That sometimes takes a while. There is a powerfailure almost every day. People who have generators turn those on when this happens. Adrienne en Winston's apartment building has a little building next to the appartmentbuilding for generators. You have to get your own generator and can then put it there. The generator runs on diesel and makes alot of noise when running. So you can imagine the noise when all generators are turned on. But alot of people do not have generators, like their neighbours in the surrounding houses. They just have to wait till the power comes back on....
The appartmentbuilding has running water. There is no hot water, just cold. Although it is not really cold because the water comes from containers that are warmed up by the sun. The appartmentbuilding has 4 huge containers on top of a high raised platform. Sometimes there is no water. The only thing to do is have water in jerry cans. The appartment has a huge container in the bathroom with 'spare' water. Other than that, you just wait till it's fixed.
There is no washingmachine or dryer. All laundry is done by hand and hung up to dry. You see wash hanging everywhere around the houses when you look around. They hang it up on washinglines or over the roofsides of the house.
The houses or shacks in the villages mostly do not have running water or electricity. They get water from waterwells.

Internet is also not common to have acces to where ever you are or at home. Adrienne and Winston have a flashdrive  they charge with MB's. They do that with scratch cards. You buy scratch cards and with the number on the scratchcard you put the amount on the flashdrive. Free Wifi is not provided here in restaurants or public places. And there is no McDonald's with free Wifi in Monrovia either!
The high humidity causes alot of trouble too. For example, Mold on walls, rust on appliances and other metal things. And of course feeling sticky all the time.
Alot of children do not go to school. School costs money which alot of people do not have. The children are put to work at home. The children that do go to school wear uniforms so it is easy to see which children do go to school.

Some roads are good but many have alot of putholes so you really have to be careful not to damage your car sometimes. Alot of cars you see driving around are in bad shape, have no lights or are overloaded with cargo or people hanging out of windows. This car passed us and the trunk was open. There was this guy sitting in te trunk his legs hanging out.