Waterfalls

The falls

Climbing the waterfalls

June 27, 2010

This has been a great weekend. Yesterday, I went souvenir shopping and found some really cool things. I got to talk to a lot of the shop owners and artists and they had some really amazing stories. One was a former child soldier and he told me some of the atrocities he witnessed and even participated in. For example, one of the signs that a child is mentally ready to be a soldier is when he is able to rape and kill his own mother. That is the ultimate test because it is said that a boy can do nothing worse in life and if he will do this for his commander then they have total control over his mind. Although the country has demilitarized and there are supposedly no weapons left it must be very difficult to take the violence out of a person like that.

Today we went to see the waterfalls in Gbargna (pronounced Banga). It is about a 3 hour drive from Monrovia mostly because of the horrible road conditions. The drive there is beautiful. We passed rice farms, palm oil/wine plantations, villages and even firestone plantation. Firestone owns an enormous amount of land full of rubber trees and you can see them lining the road for miles. Passing by the villages was probably the best part because the children run up to the car to wave and we can also see some of their daily activities like pounding cassava, washing the clothes and getting water from the hand pump. The waterfalls are very active right now because it is the rainy season. We were able to hike up the mountain to the top of the falls although there was not a trail. Our driver knew his way around and took us where I’m very few tourists have been. Once we were at the top we followed the falls down stream going across the rocks a few times to get a better view. Some of the kids fell down (don’t worry they’re fine) but my gymnastics skills came in handy. It turns out I am very good at climbing over things and was able to balance my way across a pipe and get some pictures that no one else could.

When we got back down we ate the lunch we packed under a small palava hut which is a round hut very common in West Africa. There was a cotton tree nearby which I have never seen and there was fresh cotton on the ground that had been blown off. There was also a plant that shrinks back when you touch it. That was very cool. Overall I had an amazing time and can’t wait to go exploring again next weekend.