Building A Nursery

We are not adding to our plantation of 120,000 cocoa trees this year. However, we are making a nursery of 30,000 seedlings to help small farmers. Many small farmers want to either expand their cocoa farms or make new ones but they can’t afford seedlings. We are giving them seedlings and providing training. They will repay us when they sell their cocoa years from now. We’ve had so much more demand than we can afford to supply. Hard to believe that some organizations are receiving millions of dollars to provide seedlings to farmers. None of the farmers we’ve spoken to have received any assistance nor do they know who has received this assistance. They are aware that these organizations are receiving money to provide help but they know of no farmers who have been beneficiaries.

Hotel Construction in Rural Liberia: It’s Not Easy

Carrying out construction in Liberia is no easy feat. The task is made even more difficult when the construction is being carried out outside of the capital city (Monrovia) where most construction materials and equipment are located. Some of the factors contributing to the difficulties of constructing in Liberia are access to finances, the cost of the building materials and the lack of equipment/machines. In Zorzor, Lofa County, 170 miles outside of Monrovia, our work is hampered by the bad road conditions and the impossibility of transporting construction equipment even if we could afford to rent them. We rely on a lot of man power to do the work. While this is putting more people to work, which we proudly pursue, it is costing us a lot of money and taking a long time to complete the work. We will appreciate if costumers would recognize this and pay fair prices.

Workers began casting the third floor of our hotel today, November 16, 2019. They started at 5:30am and will continue until 10pm. The work is being done entirely by hand. Rocks and sand are appropriately measured in a wheelbarrow and poured on a a concrete slab for mixing. The appropriate amount of water is added and mixed. Workers use shovels to continuously stir the concrete until it is properly mixed. They then put the concrete in buckets and another group of workers take them to the foot of the building and tie them to the ropes hanging from the top. The workers on the top of the building, where the concrete is being poured, pull the rope, remove the buckets of concrete, pass them to other workers who dump them into the wire mesh on the platform. The buckets are passed back and down to the concrete mixers and the process starts all over again. This is tedious work and the engineer and workers doing this deserve a lot of respect. At the time when technological advances are spreading in every corner of the globe and being used by many, there are other places that lack access. It takes time, commitment and sacrifices to construct in remote places in Liberia.