Courtesy TLCAfrica.com
Four photos of Liberia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, two of which I took this weekend, two of which are from TLCAfrica's invaluable and shocking photo series of Monrovia. While I am not certain of the date of the first photo, it is surely sometime between 1990 and 2003, when Monrovia was sieged and most buildings were so devastated. But note that the 2nd photo below is time stamped to July 28, 1998, which (if correct) means this was the general condition of the Ministry during Charles Taylor's administration.
Courtesy TLCAfrica.com
The two photos below were taken a few days ago. One I tried to get from a similar vantage point, coming down Capitol Hill and onto Tubman Boulevard in Sinkor, opposite the University of Liberia. The building is mostly obscured by the stately trees and other landscaping between the street and the resurrected drive, but these are not the only cosmetic makeovers, as evident in the smart new paint scheme visible in the rooftop photo below, taken perhaps less than 9 years after the first image--one administration apart. Partly it should be noted that Foreign Affairs is the current home of the Ministry of State -- President Sirleaf's offices--- so there have been plenty of resources and reasons to fix up the place, but the juxtaposition is striking nonetheless, and speaks to how far the city has come since the recently-convicted Charles Taylor was administering Liberia's government as head of state.
Both photos ©2012 Moved2Monrovia.
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