Abigail

This little child is my friend's mother, and his sister's daughter. Since I am his "brother", this little girl is also my niece. In fact, her mother let me chose her name, so I proposed Abigail, which is my recently-deceased grandmother's name.

View from the apartment

I hope its not boring that I keep posting so many pictures of clouds, but I have always looked to see the differences in the sky from one part of the world to the other. West Africa is definitely a lot different from what I am used to seeing, with huge clouds forming in both the rainy season and dry periods.

I really like the view from this apartment, which has a couple of large balconies with a panoramic vista over the Mesurado River and looking toward Central Monrovia and the Freeport. I am telling you, this is really a beautiful city.

Football Grounds at Spriggs Payne/Fish Market

This week, I read in the paper about the Airport Authority's effort to remove the squatters from the area and reclaim the land as their property. The next time I drove by, I saw this banner, stating roughly the same.

Its a difficult, complex situation. On the one hand, the Airport is right. Its their property, and it is really important to re-establish property rights as part of a proper, rule-of-law environment.

On the other hand, this dusty little spot is one of the few public recreation spots in the whole city, and it is very prominently situated along the main road into town (it is even mentioned in a New York Times article about Hilary Clinton's visit). I just wish that the place could remain as it is (and by that I mean have a significant investment to make it a true public park), rather than reverting to the domain of the airport authority, where it will likely not be as publicly used as it is in its current state.

Chinese Model Homes

These are the model homes that Hainan Century of China is building on behalf of the National Housing Authority. They're OK, a bit small (and close together) and there's nothing particularly interesting about them. Its also not the best that they decided to fill in this marshland to build one of the models. The Chinese came in earlier this year with statements to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, and build tens of thousands of homes in months. Well, this what they have done so far...

Around Downtown on a Sunday

Today after church, my friend and I took a walk around downtown, which was nice since the normally choked and noisy streets were mostly deserted. I like taking pictures without a lot of clutter around (and by clutter I mean cars and people). I got some good shots for the Architectural Tour, which I made add in:

The Corner of Randall and Ashmun Street, normally snarled

Randall Street looking south. Normally two lanes of traffic trying to be six
Randall Street looking south from Ashmun (Episcopal Church Plaza at right)
Ashmun Street looking west towards Snapper Hill