Tuesday July 23

We drove in convoy to the Presidential Guest House in Grand Cape Mount county, and after refreshing and relieving, we went from there to Robertsport to attend a Muslim service of Thanksgiving. It was held in the Town Hall, and wasn't overly religious. I think the President saw it as an opportunity to reach out to the Muslim community, which comprises about 30% of the population by some estimates. There have been politicians suggesting that Liberia should declare itself a Christian nation, which naturally has made the Muslim community worried. The President gave a wonderful extemporaneous response to their remarks reaffirming the unity of the nation, and that was quite well received.

We then went back to the Guest House for lunch; I sat at the table with Debbie Harding, Dr. Emmet Dennis, President of the University of Liberia, Mr. David Straz, and the President. Mr Straz is a retired banker who is now a philanthropist; in Tampa there is the David Straz Center for the Performing Arts. He is also quite involved in Liberia, and donated $1.2 million to build a campus for the University of Liberia in Sinje, which we went to visit later in the day. He is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Tampa General Hospital, and I had a conversation with him about that. He is supporting a team from there who is working with Adamah to arrange a visit later this year; he talked about something in the range of 15-20 people on the team, and they will bring their supplies. He mentioned that "I will fly them here in my plane, naturally !" I actually first met Mr. Straz yesterday at the Muslim service when Debbie introduced us; I was clueless, so I asked him what he does. He told me that he was retired and now a philanthropist. I had the feeling that it was expected that I should have known that before engaging in conversation with him. Oh well.

We had a table conversation with Dr. Dennis about higher education in Liberia, and the difficulties therein because of lack of educational structure and teachers in the earlier years. There is also the issue of poverty and affordability; tuition at the University of Liberia rose from $2.50 to $3.00 per credit and that caused a storm of protest. Unfortunately, a large percentage of those applying for graduate school after college fail the GRE equivalent, primarily he thinks because of a lack of basic preparation in math and english before college.

After lunch we waited for the Vice President to arrive, and then we left with him to go to the campus at Sinje; the President was planning to return to Monrovia so she could go to her office and do some work. The school at Sinje looked great; one of the big programs is in agriculture, and they took us to see some of the planting fields, etc. After that we came back to Monrovia to have dinner with Steve Cashen at Mamba Point. He is from Washington, but has spent a lot of time in Africa; he runs an investment bank here as well as being quite involved in Liberian redevelopment. We enjoyed an excellent conversation about kids, colleges, and other things over a great Indian dinner.