TIA: Liberia

Paving and Tasting Progress

Liberia has seriously surprised me over the past couple weeks.  The other night, while walking down the street to my favorite local sushi place, I was passed by a local on rollerblades.  Then a couple days later, I saw yet another rollerblader in an entirely different part of town.  Now, I don’t usually give much though to rollerblading — I lost interest circa 1992 after a fall in front of my neighbor Kate’s house (I still blame the slanted curve, not my terrible lack of coordination).  Still, rollerblades in Liberia, that’s something to stop and take note of.  

You can’t rollerblade without pavement, and hot damn, it seems that over the past couple months most of the “roads” in town have been smoothed and paved.  What was previously a patchwork of potholes is looking more and more like roads.  There are even a few sidewalks now, the urban planner in me is pretty freakin’ excited.  If only I could get this country’s crazy drivers to start consistently stopping at crosswalks.

Alas, rollerblades = small miracle.

In other news, while driving on one of these fancy paved roads the other day, the hubs and I came upon an unprecedented find: the nation’s first-ever drive thru restaurant, complete with a menu board, built-in speaker and mic for ordering, and a drive-thru window.  For those of you who take your McDonalds’ and Chick-fil-A for granted, a drive-thru in a country without running water or regular electricity is a big deal (according to PA’s Facebook Page, even the President has stopped by to check out the marvel).  Mark ordered some barbecue chicken, and I could not resist the novelty of ordering a beer off a drive-thru menu.  It took us 10 minutes from ordering to pay and get our food, which in this part of the world is impressive.  

I then proceeded to struggle with the question of “if it’s not illegal to drink and drive, is it still wrong?”  Turns out for me, even as a passenger, the answer is still yes.  I figure if a country has too many other issues to create drinking and driving legislation, one should still set a good example (kinda like I’m the only person in this country who uses her headlights when it’s raining (thanks North Carolina highway signs for drilling that one in)).  

Moral of this story: Liberia, still much to be done, but we’ve got rollerbladers and a drive-thru paving the path to progress.