Touching Ground

We arrived in Liberia yesterday. Upon exiting customs we were swarmed by a dozen or so nice young gentlemen happy to see visiting Americans. We are currently staying with Andrew, a young man from San Francisco working with the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs; his Fellowship being sponsored by a foundation. He will be in his position through the elections in November 2011.

Until next week, when we move to our more permanent housing, we are living on the third floor of a building 5 yards away from the Chinese Embassy. We have a clear view over the wall. I am surprised at the size of the Embassy, which is indicative of the presence of China in Liberia and all of Africa. I am under the impression they are here in part because of the rich natural resources. Liberia is rich in Rubber, Timber, iron ore, diamonds, coffee, cocoa, rice, cassava and bio-mass fuel. Much of which is underdeveloped – meaning great opportunity for growth. However future growth might be somewhat deceiving. Liberian GDP peaked in 1979, falling 91% to is lowest point in 1996. Although GDP is likely to be underreported for various reasons, Liberia has a lot of excess capacity, and strong expectations to meet.  You might expect that growth would be much quicker; rebounding to previous levels of GDP. However that has not been the case based official numbers.

The owner of the house is the former Director of CID (Liberia’s version of the CIA) and currently working with the Ministry of Justice.  He has quite a gorgeous house and we are quite comfortable.

We are visiting the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs today. We are not yet sure where we will be placed. Though it sounds like we are likely to start work at the Ministry of Commerce, the beginning of next week. This gives us time to blog, acclimate to the weather and the culture and settle in.

Over the next couple of days I hope to write two posts – the political and economic history of Liberia. This is to inform our readers, but more important it gives me the opportunity to develop my understanding of the political and economic conditions we will be working in.  Thanks to our diligent research and to the individuals we visited in Washington, DC, and the people we are now working and living with in Liberia, I have great sources.

I guess I was not surprised, but it is HOT! I grew up in St. Louis and thought that I was used to the worst that humidity had to offer. I was mistaken. I have not stopped sweating since arriving, except for a brief time last night. There was the most amazing rainstorm last night, the temperature cooled and the rain on the roof provided some great sounds for sleeping.  Internet Access is not as prevalent as we expected, though we still hope to post a couple of times a week.