Monday, August 8, 2016
Today we were out in
the lobby by 8 AM, but the driver did not show up till after 8:30. The driver took us to the offices of Water
Aid, which was fairly close except for the traffic that made it seem further
away. They spent the entire morning
presenting their philosophies, values, how they work, meeting their staff,
showing us their offices, all with a power point presentation. We went to lunch nearby where the driver,
Amos, and our main host, Pius, had African food such as foo foo and spicy hot
foods to go with it. He had to ask the
waitress to bring us a menu for continental food. Jim had a steak sandwich and I had a fish
burger that tasted a lot like hamburger.
Both were good and ‘almost’ American. We had to wait a long time for our
food—Amos and Pius were finished by the time it showed up, but we eat fast.
The boardroom at the
offices of Water Aid. They have a parcel
of workers from drivers to just about everything else you can think of, more
than are shown in this picture; they also had a small fleet of land cruisers
and sedans.
After one more power point presentation
at the office, they drove us an hour or so out of town just to look at a job
that they did not implement, but supported.
That is apparently the way that they do their work. They had rehabbed a drilled borehole well and
gave them a new generator to pump water to a tank way above the building that
is being refurbished by the government. It is a large clinic. The well and the tanks on high towers were already
there. It was a total mess inside but
some rooms already had tiled floors.
There were also other partners.
One of their goals (Water Aid) is to assist the local governments to do
what they are supposed to do, but the WASH sector does not receive enough funds
to do very much on their own. They are
trying to get all government agencies to come to these meetings to coordinate
all their work. This is the same meeting
that NGO’s also attend, and they have them in each District. In Kenema District they received two
motorbikes and refreshments for their meeting with NGO’s—all from Water
Aid. They don’t want to take over their
work, they just want to help them do what the different government ministries
are supposed to do.
This is the building
being refurbished by the government of Liberia, with a few donors to help them,
including Water Aid that refurbished their borehole and water supply
system. Water Aid tries to help local
governments do what they are supposed to do; local governments don’t have
enough money to operate at this point. This will be a nice clinic when they are
finished.
This structure was
already there; Water Aid fixed it so that it would work, including a new
generator; there is no city power available here.
During our drive we noticed how
much better the roads were (bless the Chinese).
I wonder what resources they received from Liberia for doing this. We noticed a marked improvement on the main
roads that used to have hills of trash, especially near the main, open
marketplace. That was all gone. We did see trash, but it was in certain areas
and they only had a layer of garbage instead of the ‘mountains’ that we used to
see. Pius said that they have garbage
collection companies now and that they are independent and it is working. It will be interesting to see if the inner
communities still have their hills of trash that we saw before. We also noticed some of our earlier hand pumps
that were out by the road. We drove by
too fast to know if they were still working or not, but they all appeared to
be. They have hours of operation and we
were passing by at the wrong time of day to know for sure.
It has been interesting as we
travel around in West Africa that workers at the airport and in other places
are always sticking one of those temperature wands towards our ears to see if
we have a fever. Even when we got to the
Water Aid office they asked us first to wash our hands. Now this was interesting, because anyone that
knows anything about hygiene would not just wash their hands with running water—you
are supposed to use soap. They had no soap.
So here we were washing our hands with plain, cool water! I wasn’t sure how that could work. Afterwards they also stuck the wand near our ears before we entered their offices. Everyone is still worried about Ebola,
obviously. It was just another devastating thing to happen to their
countries—first the 14 year war, a nice break of several years, and then
Ebola.
Our hotel: yes, it has
deteriorated a bit since we were last here several years ago, but it is doable
anyway. One of the biggest problems is
electrical in nature: all their plugs are loose, so our lights flicker on and
off if we accidentally touch a cord. We
thought it was our power strip that didn’t work, but it was the socket for the
main cord that was the problem. I nearly
pulled out the entire socket in the bathroom after putting my blow dryer in it
and then trying to get it out again—I thought I’d ruined the whole thing, but I
shoved it back in the wall and it is still working. The handle on the sink faucet is very loose
also, so we hold onto it when we pull up on the handle so that we don’t jerk it
out of what’s holding it together. We
asked for a new lightbulb in the bathroom but we think it is the socket and not
the bulb, but they haven’t fixed it. We
asked for the hand towel that we used have, but they didn’t bring it
either. But the bed is fine and the air
conditioner works great and there is a TV and it is roomy and comfortable.
This is a beautiful
pool. The hotel is on the right across
the drive. Sometimes we don’t have time
to use it; today it is not only the weather that deters us (it is not that cool
but a bit rainy) but we have colds and thought it would not help us get better…perhaps
next time we’ll be here in the dry season and we’ll be dying to get in here for
a swim at the end of a hot and humid day.
We noted that they also now have
a very nice gym and a beautiful pool across the drive in front of the hotel
entrance. They are still re-building the
structure next to it, but it appears that the bathroom works in case you want
to change clothes. It sounds wonderful
except that when we might want to swim it is in the middle of the day when the
sun might be out. By the time we get
back we are too tired and too late and it is usually raining. The water was neither cold nor warm to the
touch. I also wish I had the food at the
last hotel, but what we’ve had is okay. We are happy enough.
I had a terrible night’s sleep
last night so hope to get to bed early and have a nice sleep. Tomorrow we meet them at 7 AM for a long
drive (2-3 hours) out to one of the areas that they want to work in. And we aren’t supposed to get back till late
dinnertime.
Love, from the Palm Spring Resort
Hotel
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