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.