Return from Sapo. etc.

Have returned from my site visit to Sapo National Park and nearby community forestry and livelihood projects. An amazing journey, well worth the 2-days each way, of travel, digging the truck out of mud holes, waking up to a broken driveshaft and all-day delay in Seclepea (where I sat by the river and visited with Nigerian soldiers deployed to a remoted UNMIL checkpoint) and the saddle sores on my back and tailbone from bouncing on the vinyl seat of an unsuspended Toyota Hilux over many hours of hard driving.

At Sapo I shared a room in the Park Warden's resident with a Canadian photo-journalist named Chris Herwig who's living in Monrovia at Sapo. He has a wonderful photo essay on the wheelbarrow workers of Monrovia available online here: http://www.herwigphoto.com/ebarrow/index.htm.

Will post more more information, stories and pictures soon. Apparently no fuel tanker has come into Monrovia for quite a while and the whole city is now under a serious fuel shortage, which has reduced the number of taxis on the road by about 75%. Commute times for UN and NGO staff are way down as traffic volume has plummetted, but the sidewalks are crowded and I got quite soaked by a splattered puddle walking from home to the hotel with enough fuel reserve to keep their generator (and thus their internet connection) up and running.