Vexed

I heard the word 'vexed' being used to describe a young girl who wasn't being allowed to do something. Sometimes in English-speaking parts of the world, where the curriculum is based on vocabulary that may no longer be used widely in the UK, some old gems find their way into conversations. My Indian and Nepalese colleagues in Cambodia loved using words such as wherefore and thereto.

This was my final full day around the field site, observing project activities, talking with team members and understanding challenges. It's been excellent but there's a mountain of follow up like few trips I can remember. I sent a grovelling email to my boss asking to shunt back something I was supposed to work on next week.

Alice and I attended one of the farmer field schools set up for the community of Ziggida. Another cool name, and somewhere I came to in 2016. The town (a large village really but all settlements like this are termed 'towns' here) perches on a dusty hilltop and has the best views of all 13 towns in the project area. The only flattish farmland is a thirty minute saunter away through forest paths and dried up gulleys. At the farmer field schools, the project is working with community members to trial new techniques to compare productivity and encourage adoption of higher-yielding methods. The group here has dwindled since the start, but has an impressive amount of energy in the remaining members.

After grilling the project extension worker, Beyan (a different one to yesterday but still pronounced as the French would trill bien), for background info, he said 'here we learn by doing'. Cue a very sweaty few hours clearing undergrowth and digging holes to plant eddo and peanuts with the magnificent Wonegizi Mountain as a backdrop. 'Bossman work hard', I heard Beyan say to one of the participants from Ziggida, which was gratifying. The group is progressing very well towards good harvests of various things and at this time, before the main rains, the pressure is on to plant. Our extra hands were appreciated, even if we're generally more feeble than people with years of peanut sowing experience.

The late afternoon was spent smoothing out legions of project activity and operational questions. Project coordination has suffered because we've found it hard to recruit a Project Manager to fill the position vacated last year. Therefore issues have lingered and need resolving. No, I don't think the car should travel 230km to Monrovia simply to change the oil, as it's just an excuse for the driver to eat fried chicken. Yes, we can provide rain gear for the farmer field school participants as the lessons take place in rain or shine, but the act of giving out things too readily was rightly called 'dependency syndrome' by my colleague. No I don't think the per diem levels we use are a fair reflection of actual costs, yet in Liberia, per diems are second in importance only to the Lord, and woe betide any project that doesn't allocate the majority of its funds to that budget line. Yes, we will employ ex-hunters when we start doing forest patrols with the wildlife authorities but on the strict agreement that they halt their former activities.

The evening is incredibly humid and my mosquito net has chosen the final night as the time to permit entry to all manner of wacky bugs, including a cockroach and a jumping spider crawling over the sheet. In 2016 when I stayed here during the height of the rains I remember this guesthouse being infested with spiders. The rainy season will start in full throttle soon, so the creepy crawlies are descending in preparation. Cockroaches really are my mortal enemy.

I haven't looked in a mirror for ten days. I dread to think.