The beginning "Kendeja"

42 hours travel and we are back in Liberia, The future is uncertain and a little daunting, not knowing exactly what to expect building a Resort Hotel in Post War Liberia West Africa.

So you remember the great apartment we found to move into right, well as will be the story of our lives for the next year, it is not ready, "in a few days" we are told from the owner. So into the Mamba Point Hotel we go, at this point the best hotel in Liberia.

Day two Cherie has contracted Giardia from the lovely Liberian water and or food and is spending all day attached to the toilet (one of us had this lovely companion everyday for the first eight weeks in the country).

Anthony Bourdain a well known travel and food expert visited Liberia and was so sick he said he thought he was dying, and he was only in country a week or so. Check out his blog on his visit it is very enlightening.
                      http://blog.travelchannel.com/anthony-bourdain/read/red-dust/?fbid=WSPFUJIyLTZ


Day one of the hotel build starts with Cherie and i heading to the job site to meet the current staff and make a plan on how to Build a 76 room resort hotel in 11 months, first thing i notice is we have a massive crew of 15, I may not be a rocket scientist but i don't think this will be enough to achieve our goal.

The current expat on the project (lets call him the personal trainer) seems to think that all is moving forward well ? I need more staff and quick, luckily for me there is 1000 local people sitting under and around a tree right on the property, (note to self we need to build a security fence).

My first experience in hiring locals is all telling, they are all skilled in whatever area of expertise to which i am employing on that particular day, one day a carpenter the next day or even hour the same guy is a plumber, and more often then not absolutely no skill of any kind. The one thing that that do posses more then most people i have met around the world is desire, the desire to learn to survive to succeed.

The life the people of Liberia have lived in the past 20 years is something i can not even begin to fathom which makes their lust for life even more astonishing.

First wave of new employee's 150, Cherie has the unnerving job of getting all the details for our employee records, illiteracy, no addresses, no taxation numbers, no bank accounts this is going to be fun.

Leaving the USA

So we arrive home after a whirlwind 5 days in Liberia and 4 days on a plane the gravity of our situation has not yet hit us, our new employers want us to be in Liberia to start work within two weeks.

We have so much to do to be able to leave the country it is a little overwhelming, two cars a house 4 motorbikes and a house full of stuff all of which i packed and loaded into a container to ship to a storage unit in Charleston, 5 days total to achieve this end, to add to this i have to go to Charleston to train on the companies building product, this will work i will meet the truck in SC and safely pack everything we own except the 6 suitcases we will take with us, a great plan in theory.

Cherie and i decide to go to SC together so she can meet the owners of the company she will be working for, however a few days before we are to leave her sister is involved in a car crash so Cherie heads straight for Texas to take care of her family (pretty selfish i think to get in a car crash and interrupt our plans, but what can you do) So of to Charleston on my own again.

I land at Charleston Airport to be greeted by to President of the company and immediately ferried to the office for a little training, later that day as i am being dropped of at my hotel i am told that we are going out to dinner with a bunch of the board members and we will be wearing African attire, which i am given by the new boss, ok i am game for a little fun i guess.

The new boss picks me up with one of the other senior guys from the company, i have to say the shirt that the President of the company had on was one of the most hideous pieces of clothing i have seen in many years, which i of course proceeded to tell him (one thing my wife told me was probably not the best comment for a first impression with a new company) anyway we head out to dinner and all goes very well lots of laughs, food and drink.

Day two still waiting for all our belongings to turn up from Colorado in the container so i can store everything we haven't sold or given away, Mike (the boss) says we should go out for a few pints of Guinness and then a sushi dinner, never one to turn down either i readily except, a few pints turned into many more and i made the mistake of the late night drunken phone cal to my lovely wife, never a good idea by the way, the proceeding call and the next day's conversation on how i was jeopardizing our future by getting completely drunk with the new boss on our first meeting, My response of, he offered and i easily out drank him didn't seem to win me any points.

My week in Charleston done, still no furniture truck by the way, i head back to Colorado leaving someone i have never met to unload everything we own into a warehouse we have never seen still playing heavy on my mind, three years down the road and we have still never seen this warehouse or our belongings, so who know's if my beloved R1 Yamaha and our other wordily possessions are even still there.

Cherie and i finalize our lives much to the amazement of friends and family, and almost three weeks to the day since we accepted the contract to build the hotel in "Africa" we are again on a plane and heading to the dark continent that is Africa.

Part Four (Liberia)

After a very long Journey we land in Liberia, the task of getting through first immigration then customs was something you have to experience, finally we get our bags and head outside where a car was supposed to be waiting for us (supposed to be being to million dollar question) finally after 40 minutes or so the van turns up, we push or way through the crowds stow our luggage and we are off for the 50 minute drive to the hotel.

Part Three

The next morning 9am, Cherie has gone to work I decide to stay home in the office to catch up on paperwork, the phone rings it Ben he says "can i be in Charleston on Saturday to meet the board?? holy shit this is real.

I call Cherie at work and say i have to come and see you, which i never do, she is concerned there is a problem, I tell her Ben just called wants me in SC this weekend to meet with the board, again holy shit.

Adventures of Life "Part Two"

So i have started my own construction company and i bid a job for a guy from Charleston SC, I get the work and start doing the remodel of his (Ben Gramling) house, we become quiet good friends over the next few weeks and one day while he was chatting with another contractor he tell him he is going to Africa, I quickly butt in and say i will come i love Africa, his quick response was it is for business not pleasure, I will still come i say.

The Adventure of life "if you are prepared to take it"

Well, to start our blog I have decided to step back a little and tell you how we first came to live and work in Africa.

We were living and working in Mammoth Lakes California when I (Mark) was offered a position as project manager on a construction job for a company who will remain nameless, for reasons you will see later.