Field trips on bad roads to help good people were moments to remember.  (Read about a couple of experiences here). Hours and hours inching along on rocky terrain bumping up and down made me want to walk instead.  

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I had the best drivers in Liberia.  I went out to the field a lot, alone, and they took good care of me.   They would patiently answer my endless questions about life there.  I relied on them to give me the real scoop, and they did.

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I learned about bush meat first hand, after inquiring about the black-furred slab of spare ribs for sale at one roadside stop.  “It’s not monkey”, I was repeatedly reassured. On another trip I endured the pungent smell of some similar beast, baking in the direct sun in the SUV for several hours.   Once we drove past a prize offered for sale along the road: a ground hog for sale, suspended upside down by his little hind legs on a Y-shaped stick.

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The drivers would ask me what the US was like; they wanted to go there some day.  We would listen to music and I’d work on my computer.  I saw rainbows.  I saw tragic accidents.  I saw both happiness and despair in people’s faces.  And I learned a new euphemism.  On long trips there comes a time when a driver needs to relieve himself.  “I must check the tires” he’d say, and the tires were always OK.  Thankfully.