City of Monrovia

The ship I live on, the Africa Mercy, is currently in port in Monrovia, Liberia until November 30. Monrovia is the capital city of Liberia and has a population of about 1.5 million. Monrovia is actually named after James Monroe, the fifth president of the U.S. Prior to that it was named Christopolis named after Jesus Christ. What were they thinking??? Notice the Liberian flag next to the map - it is very similar to the U.S. since Liberia was founded by freed U.S. slaves.

The country spent 14 years in three different civil wars from 1989 - 2003. A democratically elected president, Madame Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was elected in November 2005 and since then Liberia has experienced a fragile peace due to 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops. The troops are very visible, especially to Mercy Ships as we have to enter their checkpoint to get to the ship and their barracks are right next door to us. In fact, we (meaning Mercy Shippers minus me:) play the UN teams in frisbee and volleyball. The troops that live next to us are from Bangladesh.

President Johnson-Sirleaf was educated in the U.S. at the University of Colorado and Harvard. She was imprisoned for a time during the war and spent time in the Monrovia prison. We have a ministry that goes to the prison every week to minister to inmates and two weeks ago, the President happened to be there at the same time. I wasn't there but many of our Mercy Shippers got the chance to meet her and saw the cell where she was imprisoned.

The judicial system here is slowly being rebuilt. However, in the meantime, many of the prisoners have been in the prison for months or years and have never been charged or had a trial. Many of them are in prison for debts - if a family member would come and pay their debt, they would be freed. Every week our team returns home with a list of phone numbers of relatives to call to see if they can come and free their relatives. My roommate Dorothy has made some of those calls and finds that the relatives didn't know they were in prison. Unfortunately, most of them do not have money to pay to get them out of prison.

The city of Monrovia used to be a tourist place prior to the war. When you ask Liberians about their country prior to the war, you will hear that it was a beautiful city. They have many beaches since it is located on the Atlantic Ocean and they even had a five-star hotel called the Ducor Palace. Monrovia had paved streets, electricity, sewers/plumbing, hospitals, banks, a university - it was a thriving metropolis that was the place to see in West Africa.

Today, there isn't a single stoplight in Monrovia, there is very little electricity, the roads are horrible, there is no sewage system or trash pickup, the hospitals have almost nothing to offer, unemployment is 85%; it is a burned out, bullet-ridden city trying to make its way back.

My roommate Megan visited the Ducor Palace which sits burned-out on the top of a hill overlooking all of Monrovia and took some wonderful photos of Monrovia which I am posting here.