Pictures: Liberia and Ghana

University of Liberia Radio. Monrovia, Liberia

Downtown Monrovia, Liberia

Bomi County, Liberia

Bella Roma. Ossu, Ghana

Cape Hotel. Monrovia, Liberia

Bomi County, Liberia

Sinkor neighborhood. Monrovia, Liberia

Monrovia, Liberia

Cape Coast, Ghana

Cape Coast, Ghana



Long time, no see. I'm finally stateside and back online, so Cream City and Sugar can return to regular programming. Here are a few pictures updates to round out the Africa posts as I get settled back into life in Milwaukee. The 5 inches of snow today really helped.

Can't wait to get back into the swing of things and see what I missed here at home.

See you tomorrow.

Ghananian market baskets

source

We arrived back in Ghana last night after a very loooong evening due to some flight problems and consequently everyone eating some questionable airport food that is not boding well. But alas, we made it and finally went to the market I have been anxiously waiting. Getting a Bolga basket in Ghana has been at the top of my Travel Checklist for a while now.

Bolga baskets get their name from the area in Ghana in which they are made, Bolgatanga, in the upper east region. The baskets are hand-woven, commonly using a checkerboard pattern or triangular pattern with dyed colorful straw. If you bought a medium large basket in Bolgatanga, it would cost about $2USD. I paid $13, mostly because I was too tired to dicker anymore. Anyways, these baskets are incredibly durable because of their thick weaving and leather handle. They also bend or collapse to be more compact when traveling or packing in a suitcase. I bought two, one for the living room as a catch-all and the other by the back door for mittens and scarves.

Here are some other pictures......




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Chalkboard News

source: herwigphoto
A few years ago, I saw an article about a guy in post-war Liberia that was writing out the daily news on a large chalkboard in his impoverished community. We're a couple of news junkies at our house, so I loved it. Nine times out of ten, CNN or MSNBC is on the tv at the same time NPR is on in the background. In post-war Liberia, there were no news agencies left, no radio stations. Much of the immediate local news was distributed by the UN. The chalkboard, called The Daily Talk, became a way of dispersing news for his community. Being informed of local news was seen as a human right. I fell in love with the story back then and it's amazing to have seen it first hand this week. I took some photos, but I have misplaced my camera cord so I can't upload them. So, in the meantime, here are some others.

herwigphoto

President Sirleaf

Before the trip, our recommended reading was this memoir, "This Child Will Be Great" written by the current Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She chronicles her life through many struggles, protests, imprisonments, war, and strife to finally becoming Africa's first female president. The story is just inspiring. The book also is a good primer for Liberian politics and what's going on over here. Off to the embassy for another day.

Photos will be coming--I can't find my USB cord. Oh well.

Not quite the Polar Bear Plunge

I think everyone in Ghana was at Labadi beach yesterday. There had to have been a thousand people, all bobbing in the waves as one solid mass. This picture doesn't capture it all. I just watched, but didn't join them. I preferred the quieter more pristine end of the beach to swim, but was soon called out by the lifeguard and told to go join the swarm he was guarding. So back the lounge chair I went and in went my earbuds--tanning at the beach on New Years Eve, rather than braving the arctic ice. Props to all those that did, though.

Omanhene chocolate in Accra

Our group landed in Accra this afternoon pretty groggy, but we were up and moving for a New Years Eve dinner by the pool at our hotel. I looked down and was incredibly surprised to see Omanhene chocolates sitting at the table. If you go to Alterra a lot, you'll recognize it. It's a Milwaukee-based company that makes amazing socially-responsible chocolate and cocoa in Ghana. It's a relatively small company, so I surprised to see it was big in Ghana as it was in Milwaukee. Those moments when you travel half way across the world only to be greeted by something from so close to home are pretty awesome. I really Omanhene because it's one of the few dark chocolates I can find that tastes good (I tried to contact Omanhene before the trip to see if they offered tours, but they don't). I'm also pretty impressed with their business model. By large, Africa is a foreign aid-driven continent, which has its advantage as well as many disadvantages (more here). Fair-trade can be good, but also very limiting. Omanhene isn't certified "fair-trade" but can be considered "socially-responsible" (which in my mind is better) because it supports the UN Global Compact. You can read more about that here.

MKE to ROB

I'm in Chicago today en route to O'Hare for a long USAID trip to Monrovia, Liberia (with a stop over in Accra, Ghana). I'll be doing a leadership training and some meetings, hopefully some touring around. For the flight, I have plenty of West Wing DVDs to keep me company along with my laptop and trusty lock. Gotta love those long flights. So, I'll be posting from the road so be prepared when you tune in and see embassy buildings and rainforests instead of Lake Michigan, beer and brats.

Just a note about Liberia: It's just beginning its recovery from a decades long civil war. There aren't many pretty pictures out of Liberia, so while I'm in between meetings, I hope to get some good photos of more positive subjects. I know there's a lot more to the country than war and violence. So stay tuned!