Yaron Deskalo Liberia Journal Day 5

Gbarnga/Monrovia

Well, that was a sleepless night.
No running water. Malaria country. No AC. I don’t want to sound like a Westerner, but you need your sleep when you work in the African sun in an unfamiliar territory.
Everytime I heard my overhead fan flicker, I opened my eyes and flashed my cell phone. I was going to do my best to avoid those white-winged mosquitoes that have left so many West Africans dead within hours.
I finally fell to asleep at 3:30. I was eager to wake up at 6. Because we had a five hour drive back, the crew was only put to work for a couple of hours. By 1:30, we were in Monrovia.
I never thought I’d say this, but I was so happy to be back in Liberia’s capital city.
I crashed on my bed a couple hours later, only to be awoken by tribal drums. Funny, we are in the city. I followed the noise to a conference room off the hotel (not exactly somewhere you’d expect to see face paint, hand drums, and dancing). It was a perfect end to the day. Our fixers have been trying to track down an African band for me as an element for this piece – one more way to bring my audience to this unique country on the other side of the Atlantic. I think we found them.
Stay tuned to see if I can make it happen and make them come alive on camera later this week.