Gobatown

April 21, 2012: Early Childhood Development Center in Gobatown

On this fine Liberian day, we visited an Early Childhood Development Center just outside of the city of Monrovia, in Gobatown. We drove up into the countryside up a copper-colored, bumpy dirt road. The warm, dusty redness cut a stark path upon lush, forested hills.  We passed families doing laundry in roadside ponds. We passed rice paddies and bitterball crops. Bitterballs are a small variety of eggplant, I’m told. We also passed one of Firestone’s rubber plantations; apparently the best hospital is on Firestone’s property. The Liberian countryside, or at least what we saw of it, is beautiful.
The ECD in Gobatown had a much more rural feel than other sites we’ve visited. The building overlooks a green little valley, and there were goats and chickens running around amongst the children. This particular center had about fifty children on the day we visited, all five years old or younger. They. Were. So. Cute. It was somewhat hectic trying to collect their anthropometric measurements, since while we measured some kids, the other 45 were playing and screaming and doing what kids five and under do.
The kids loved my camera. When I started snapping photos they would swarm around me, saying “Whah womah tehk ma pitchah!!” (White woman, take my picture!) And when the flash went off they just screamed with delight.  At one point I had fifteen little kids gathered around me, gripping my fingers and pinching my skin, fascinated by my whiteness. I found it pretty hilarious actually...they were so uninhibited about their fascination that it was endearing and funny.  
After all of the measurements were done, the kids were served their lunch outside.  The cook, Vivian, had added herring to the usual stew and rice, and the kids ate it like they would have eaten any other meal. Again, herring seems to integrate into Liberian food extremely easily.

In the evening, back at the hotel, Nina and I went for a walk on the beach at sunset (yeah, we’re not exactly roughing it here). We noticed that fishermen were pulling their boats on shore for the day, and I couldn’t resist gawking at their boats and nets, and trying to get a look at their catch. The boats are long dugout canoes, and look very large and heavy. They are painted colorfully, and some have religiously-inspired names. The process of getting one boat out of the surf and up the steep beach looked very labor-intensive, and required at least six men to heave it up the slope. The nets are bright blue and fine mesh, and the cork-lines are made of scrounged up floating materials, like chunks of old flip-flops. The fishermen showed us their catch from the day, which included mackerel, needle-nosed fish, and a mahi-mahi. There were a couple of strange-looking fish I didn’t recognize, like a brown flat fish with both eyes on top like a halibut.
They were definitely disappointed that we didn’t buy anything from them, and I wish I could have taken some fish home for dinner but we don’t have our own kitchen. Next time!!!