Helen FieldsScience Writer

My plan for the month of November was to go to Namibia, but then the friends I was going to visit moved to Liberia. Honestly, I wasn’t that disappointed – a trip to see Namibia, with all its big game and awesome scenery, would have been great, but I’m happy to be home with no major trips for the foreseeable future.

I’m not sure I’m quite ready to visit these friends in Liberia. It’s settled down a lot since the civil war ended in 2003, but it’s still more adventurous travel than I feel ready for right now. This article is a great read – it’s a story from the Washington Post travel section by a former aid worker who traveled across the country recently by bush taxi, motorbike, and foot.

Liberia was settled by freed slaves in the 19th century. A taste of the social dynamic, from the story:

Gentlemen!” a voice suddenly boomed from the back seat. “I am Samuel Jefferson.”

I turned to see a distinguished man of about 60, with glasses and a graying Afro. He said, a little boastfully, that his ancestors had arrived from North Carolina in 1842.

With this, a hush of respect blanketed the bush-taxi. In Liberia, slave blood is blue blood; here, saying that your ancestors picked cotton is akin to letting it casually slip in the United States that your forebears had founded Princeton.