FRIDAY
The road to Yangaya began with a cup of chai and a couple of stellar poses with my newly made friends at PakBatt3 thanks to a broken piston and a blown spark plug. We talked about mountains, adventure and politics. Irfan, the man in the picture on the right, was part of the special security forces in the Pakistani army. This unit does the job in Pakistan that nobody wants to do, i.e. parachuting onto a glacier or dropping into the danger zone in the Tribal Areas (land within Pakistan that is not under Pakistani control).
A few hours later the boys from Monrovia brought up a new bike and I was ready to go. The road was terribly long, since I took a wrong turn and went to the wrong village. The villagers looked at me and told me that the SP crew was in another village. I drove on along the bush road with some sketchy bridges and enjoyed every moment of it, especially when a yellow snake flew across the road. I nearly ran it over and cringed as the tail end slithered into the dense bush. I asked someone later if these were dangerous snakes. They told me they were quite lethal and particularly dangerous because they travel in threes. I asked why. They chuckled as they told me that they travel in threes when "sexing" (mating) and if you get between the female and the one that is next in line he thinks you are cutting in line. Enough said...I will ride even faster in the jungle.
This pic on the right is a cassava snake. Apparently, it is very poisonous. It is not lethal if you can find a bush doctor who can treat it. The whole idea of bush doctors fascinates me. I have a coworker who broke his ankle and he was walking on it like nothing had happened only two weeks after being treated by the bush doctor. The x-rays showed it be a severe break.
The project I visited was a road and bridge rehabilitation. The community works on fixing their roads (both the ministry of public works and the ministry of rural development have very limited funds as you could well imagine). Our NGO provides tools and USAID provides food for work, while the community provides the labour (and sometimes kills a snake as in the above picture.) We are just starting this project and I am excited to see how it will turn out. A lot of people showed up to work on their roads. There is nothing as rewarding than when a community is behind the project and pushing themselves to better their quality of life. The government cannot provide all of the necessary services; it is up to the people to make a go of it.
A few hours later the boys from Monrovia brought up a new bike and I was ready to go. The road was terribly long, since I took a wrong turn and went to the wrong village. The villagers looked at me and told me that the SP crew was in another village. I drove on along the bush road with some sketchy bridges and enjoyed every moment of it, especially when a yellow snake flew across the road. I nearly ran it over and cringed as the tail end slithered into the dense bush. I asked someone later if these were dangerous snakes. They told me they were quite lethal and particularly dangerous because they travel in threes. I asked why. They chuckled as they told me that they travel in threes when "sexing" (mating) and if you get between the female and the one that is next in line he thinks you are cutting in line. Enough said...I will ride even faster in the jungle.
This pic on the right is a cassava snake. Apparently, it is very poisonous. It is not lethal if you can find a bush doctor who can treat it. The whole idea of bush doctors fascinates me. I have a coworker who broke his ankle and he was walking on it like nothing had happened only two weeks after being treated by the bush doctor. The x-rays showed it be a severe break.The project I visited was a road and bridge rehabilitation. The community works on fixing their roads (both the ministry of public works and the ministry of rural development have very limited funds as you could well imagine). Our NGO provides tools and USAID provides food for work, while the community provides the labour (and sometimes kills a snake as in the above picture.) We are just starting this project and I am excited to see how it will turn out. A lot of people showed up to work on their roads. There is nothing as rewarding than when a community is behind the project and pushing themselves to better their quality of life. The government cannot provide all of the necessary services; it is up to the people to make a go of it.
Comments