photographies

I realized that I haven't posted many (any?) pictures of my summer in Liberia, because my computer crashed in the middle of the summer and I didn't have the cd with the software for the camera, so nothing got downloaded until fall, when my friends at technical support replaced the motherboard and my other friends at the computer support center got rid of all the viruses.

Now I'm ready to post pictures and I feel this huge pressure: what am I going to post?

I guess, unable to please everyone who might happen here looking for photos of Liberia, I have to start somewhere and I think I'm going to start with Buchanan, just because that set of photos includes one of my favorites that keeps passing through the screensaver.

On the way to Buchanan, I was so delighted to get out of Monrovia and into something nature-like that I took profuse photos of the bamboo covering the road (in very bad condition after 17 years of not being fixed), but they all turned out fuzzy. So, you don't get one. Oh, maybe rainforest:


When we got to Buchanan, after pleasantries and finding a hotel at Otis Spot, we took a walk and saw such lovely things as the view from our old porch:

That blackened thing used to be the garage/storeroom/carport, by the way.

For some reason, I love Bossman's Workshop. He fixes wheelbarrows. Or bikes? I can't remember. I think wheelbarrows, because there is one in the workshop.


Little people (and their moms) either love us:


Or fear us:


Even if she has Stone Cold on her shirt.

We walked to one of the Fanti Towns (Small Fanti Town? Little Fanti Town? The smaller one):



Sunday morning before church, I walked back up behind Otis Spot, past Christian High, to the river and back. I shook hands gravely with a houseful of blind people who all wanted to touch me. I got scared by a dog (ever since Zulu bit me in Rwanda in 2005 I've been a little "scary" of dogs, as Liberians would say). And this little boy, since he couldn't run after me, called me over and made me take pictures of him:


After church we drove through LAMCO and took lots of pictures next to a tugboat that looked like something had taken a bite out of the back end of it (ignore the peacekeeper in too-small swim shorts. He's from Banbatt or Pakbatt or something):


Formerly known as a restaurant:


Finally, my screensaver inspiration photo. This is the old LAMCO railroad from Buchanan to Yekepa. I remember riding on the train when I was very small, when the seats were all slippery red vinyl. When my dad and brother and I were in Buchanan in 2000, we saw men pushing a little cart up the tracks. We were told they push it up to Yekepa (Nimba County) and back as the only way to transport goods for sale. I don't know anything about the new Mittal Steel deal, but maybe someday trains will once gain run between Buchanan and Nimba. I would like to take that train again.