Driver's License

Last Friday I was at last able to go through driver's training here. Above is a photo of a local driving school in Monrovia. My driving school was quite different from that, though. Since I have a valid U.S. driver's license, I just had to be informed of the ship's rules concerning driving here and the use of Mercy Ships vehicles and take a short drive with the transportation manager "out into Africa". "Out into Africa" is the way I have begun to describe the idea of leaving the outer gate of the port here and entering the "real" Monrovia. On Sunday morning we signed out a vehicle and headed for the beach for a little, much needed, respite.

We went to White Sands Beach to the north. The name is a bit of a stretch as the sands are more of a dark burnt orange color here. Iron is one of Liberia's major natural resources and I'm sure that the soil has plenty of iron in it. I was happy that my first drive other than the driving test was on a Sunday when things are much quieter on the streets, despite my 10 year old daughter, Bethany's very concerned and frequent back-seat driving. We passed through Duala market on the way to the beach, which is usually very slow and arduous, but is much more subdued on Sundays. I must admit that I still felt a bit like I was "running the gauntlet" at times, but far less so than would inevitably be the case any of the other six days of the week. There are normally mobs of people everywhere, plenty of pot holes to dodge, and yellow taxis bumper-to-bumper as far as the eye can see, not to mention hundreds of wheelbarrows and carts carrying anything from flip-flops or sea snails to sugarcane, lumber or plastic buckets, moving along the shoulders of the road. It seems that most of the cars on the road are being used as taxis. These thousands of taxis (yellow or otherwise) and a few heavily overloaded minivans make up the fairly effective public transportation system in Monrovia. The other vehicles on the road, in general, tend to be motorcycles, which you can also easily hire a ride on, trucks, and government,UN, or Mercy Ships suv's (like the one pictured below).

Did I mention that things are a bit different here than back home in the U.S.? My wife has a tendency to understate things sometimes, but I think she summed it up pretty well last night when she said, "This is not a picnic." I'd say that that applies to driving too. We go though tough patches fairly often as I believe most all of the folks living on the ship do, but if you want a little extra excitement, it's not very far away, and even easier now, thanks in part to my new driving privileges. Please pray that I will be able to keep them.

John