I had the privileged of being a part of the New Tech at Work: Planning for Liberia’s Election and Beyond workshop, so I got to go back to Liberia. Which was awesome. It was so much fun to go back. I’ve written a blog post about the New Tech at Work event here on my company’s blog. This’ll just cover the personal side of the trip.
Liberia is doing well. Seku Toure Avenue had finally been paved. There are big billboards up advertising the off shore oil explanation that’s going on. Chevron has a big office in Monrovia as they look for oil. I remember one Liberian, when I still lived in Liberia, talking about the curse resources are for a county that can’t handle them, saying, “Let’s pray they don’t find oil here.”
In other news the surfing was great. After a 7 month hiatus I caught my first wave and a friend was there on the beach to catch the action. I was only in town for a week, so theSaturday before I left we headed out to Robertsport. The swell that day was big, and only grew as the day went on. Unfortunately my shoulder didn’t hold out for the bigger waves, so I got to watch my friends tear them up. For example, see Keith Chapman destroying that massive beast at right.
Finally, my friend Yoscha has started a makeshift zoo at the Kendeja hotel. It started off with saving some baby leather back turtles, then saving some more turtles, then an alligator, and now three dygers. It’s pretty cool. Nothing like getting off a plane for 15 hours and then immediately holding an alligator.