Lessons to learn about living in Liberia!

Some lessons to learn about living in Liberia.

1.    Plans are moveable:

Foolishly I believed that the plans that were made on my first day would actually happen.  Oh no, wrong.  I didn’t get to the meeting at the Ministry of Health because we couldn’t get in touch with them to find out the time.  (I didn’t know this was the reason until several days later) I didn’t get to see the other people I was told I would meet, not sure why! I ended up going to the schools only once rather than the 3 days planned and that was to just repeat the same information that we had discussed the first time I went to see them.  So all in all not very productive, my patience is growing!

2.    Information is a precious commodity:

I am getting used to never really knowing what is going on.  This is a whole new level of confusion to my normal making it up as you go along.  To preserve your sanity the only way forward is to go with the flow and to never expect to fully understand whats going on. And if you want to know, ask…you won’t automatically be told. (that does, however, only work if you know what questions to ask!)

3.    Who said they spoke English here:

English is spoken here but it is Liberian English, it mostly does not resemble what we speak.  I can usually catch 1 word in 10.

4.    How many currencies does one country need?

Apparently 2 with the same name!  So when I am asked for 5 dollars or 20 dollars…..which one is it Liberian or American because they use both here…..and there is a big difference in value!