Wednesday 6 February 2008
Back in Liberia again
Yesterday we arrived back in the Freeport of Monrovia, after a smooth and uneventful 6 day sail from Tenerife. Three of our good friends were on the tug Bushrod Island (now repaired and working again) to help us to our berth, and it felt like the whole port stopped their work for a few moments to welcome us back. It was great to see many old friends again, and it really felt like we were coming home. Unfortunately, the President and the Vice President declined an invitation to attend the arrival ceremony. Shortly after we docked, my friend Moses and I walked through the port to our warehouse, and many people in the port greeted us and welcomed us back with great gusto, shouting "hey, Mercy Ships!" as usual. Today we started the enormous task of bringing 15 of our vehicles out of storage - many have flat batteries or flat tyres after 2 months of being in store. Currently out of the 29 vehicles I'm responsible for, 11 are non-runners with significant engine problems, and we have over 40 other less significant faults to rectify. The ship's crew is desperate to get into town for supplies and to meet old friends, but it will be a while before this can happen with the vehicle fleet in this condition. Across the dock from us lies the Blue Atlantic, which was recently caught by the French Navy off the Liberian coast with 2.4 tonnes of cocaine on board with a street value of $500 million - although the cocaine has been removed and destroyed, the ship remains heavily guarded by Nigerian and Nepalese armed soldiers and Liberian police, and this afternoon three Interpol officers visited (very exciting - I've not seen Interpol in Liberia before). And so the work continues. Olly
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1 comment:
Do you noticed that the entire Tubman Boulevard is being renovated? Road contruction is going on in the entire country. Since your return having you noticed that garbage bins are all around the city?
More than 450 health post has been renovated by the Liberian Government.
I have never read any of your blogs in which you mentioned of all the new schools that are being reconstructed through out the country. There are lot of infrastructure development going on but on a very slow pace giving governent's limited resources.
Power is gradually being restored to the country and in due course, the entire country will have electricity.
The people of Liberia are very much aware of the huge sanitation problem the Government is faced with due to the influx of people in Monrovia. The sanitation department is gradually solving this problem. It is sad when people are critical of the Government effort without taking into consideration Goverment's budgetary constraint. it is a good thing to criticise but also wise to make suggestion about how best the situation can be alleviated.
The Government has being in power for a short period of time and is making gradual process despite the limited financial resources.
People tend to forget that economy of this country was ruined during the last 20 years. The country unlike Europe Did not receive a Marshall plan to Jump start its economy.The country is gradually recovering from narrow domestic revenue base. We are grateful to help provided by our International partners despite majority of the asistance going to the NGO's and the technical advisors that followed these funds.
Liberia is on the march to development and the contry will rise again.
I wish you would have visited the country before the war
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