Collision with corruption

I took a short trip last weekend with several friends to Buchanan, another coastal city about 70km south of Monrovia. Saturday was great - we enjoyed a beautiful albeit bumpy and cramped 3.5 hour ride there, a nice walk along the beach and a nice dinner. Sunday however was less than relaxing and more than adventurous.

The problems began Sunday morning when we tried to pay for our night spent in the hostel. We had to be out by 10am, but at 10am the owner was nowhere to be found. We took our $30 (3 rooms at $10 per room), placed it on the caretaker's desk, and left to walk along the beach. When we returned to the hostel later that afternoon to meet our taxi the owner was quite concerned. Apparently he had been searching for us all morning because, as he claimed, he never received our payment. We explained in detail where we had left the money, and he maintained that it was never there. Before we knew it, the 6 of us foreigners (probably the only white people in town) were surrounded by about 30 Liberians and two "officers" of questionable authority. It was quite a scene. We explained and argued for about an hour, but it was to no avail. Things were escalating and it was evident that we were gonna be traveling after dark, so we ultimately decided to pay again.

We were quite unhappy about the situation. Not because we each had to fork over an extra $5, but because we had fed right into one of Liberia's evils: corruption. We'll never know if the hostel owner was being honest about not having received the money. If he never got it then it was because someone else went into his home and took $30 off of his desk in the 10 minutes that it was left unattended. Both situations are disheartening. Corruption plagues this poor, hurting nation, and it is one of the biggest blockades to recovery. It seems that everything operates by the ten dollar handshake, and this stagnates progress.

Getting ripped off made me sad about the state of Liberia, but there is plenty of room here to hope. There are pastors here that urge members of their church to walk as Jesus walked - with integrity and fear of God. It is my prayer that these seeds of integrity may be scattered in good soil. Soil that is fertile and far from the cares of this world that threaten to choke life.