Angie and I are living well in Liberia. In terms of housing quality, we lucked out. According to Liberian standards, our house is quite nice. And from feedback we’ve received from other Peace Corps volunteers, we may have the nicest house out of any volunteer in the country.
So how could a house with concrete floors be given such high praise? Let me first describe the construction of typical Liberian homes. There are two common types of houses here. First is the sturdy concrete-block style. Concrete is mixed with sand and manually packed into moulds to create cinder blocks at the housing site. The blocks are then laid in a two foot deep trench dug in the earth. Then dirt is filled in around the walls. On top of the dirt is poured the concrete for the floors. Doors and and windows are framed with wood that is mortared to the concrete walls. The roofing supports are wooden planks or poles and the roofing material is sheets of corrugated zinc. The ceilings in this type of house are drop ceilings with wooden sheets “tiling” the ceiling. Walls are plastered. Floors are mostly bare concrete. Fixtures are minimal – most homes don’t have appliances, sinks, or cabinets. You basically have several empty rooms and the stuff in the room determines what you call the room. Kitchens are bare rooms with a charcoal stove inside. Bedrooms are bare rooms with a mattress in them. If you ever wanted to change a room’s function, just move the furniture.
The second type of house is the mud-brick style. The hard, red, African soil is beaten into forms to create dense blocks. The blocks are left in the sun to bake/dry and become reasonably hard. If they stay dry, they work well. Building sites for this type of house include a covered awning under which the blocks are stored as the African rains will spoil the bricks. The bricks are stacked on a dirt foundation and mud is applied at the seams. Once the walls are built, plaster is applied to cover every inch of the mud brick, which protects the hardened mud from moisture. Roofing materials are wood and tin, but the ceilings are often made of woven bamboo mats. They are not airtight, but function to keep out larger critters.
The home we stayed in during our visit to rural Liberia.
Woven bamboo covers the ceilings in the mud-brick style home.
In both styles of houses, windows are equipped with heavy burglar bars. Windows are sometimes screened but rarely, if ever, have glass. Glass is too expensive and fragile in this environment and the temperate weather in Liberian doesn’t require much insulation. That also means dust and dirt gets in very easily. Doors are sturdy and are fitted with several locks – sliding bolts, key locks, panic bars, and sometimes padlocks. I have personally seen some doors with as many as seven locks. Burglary is a real concern here, and no Liberian home is complete without some serious iron.
All around Liberia, you will see what appear to be the ruins of houses. Gray, mossy, and weathered brick walls stand out from the green grasses, trees, and vines growing around them. In a post-war country, one may assume these buildings were destroyed in the war. That is certainly true in some cases. But more commonly, the “ruins” are actually remains of construction projects that ran out of money and have been abandoned or forgotten. Because bank loans aren’t readily available, houses in Liberia are built as funds become available. When you have enough for the concrete and sand to build bricks, you buy it. When you have enough to erect the walls, you do that. When you have the money for the roof, you cover the house. And so on and so on. The trouble starts when the money runs out. The house construction just stops and frequently does not resume. Instead of housing a large Liberian family, the unfinished abode becomes home to plants, trees, and creeping things.
One of the many half-built homes just on our walk to church.
But back to the topic of our own home. Our house is of the aforementioned concrete-block style. It is not large by any standard – approximately 400 square feet. There are two bedrooms, a sitting room, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a front and back porch. There are several things that make our house nicer than most – one could even say unique in a Liberian setting. We have tile throughout the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. The kitchen and bathroom both have sinks. There’s no running water, but at least we can do dishes and brush our teeth inside the house. The bathroom also has a tiled shower stall where one can comfortably bathe in a roach-free environment. The kitchen has a couple cabinets and a counters. The countertops may be a slab of plywood, but who’s complaining? We have some real rarities and they are a nice bonus for us.
Our 400 square-foot Liberian home..
At some point in the house’s short history (it was built in 2009), the walls in the house were all painted a dirty pink color. We are considering changing this. Nails are driven directly into the concrete to hang things on the walls. The floors that aren’t tiled are rough concrete. To make a room with bare concrete floors more appealing, Liberians spread out rolls of thin vinyl flooring. You can choose from many different styles, including faux-stone, faux-wood, and faux-tile. It really makes a difference in the livability of the house, and makes the ever-dusty floors more easy to clean.
Our house doesn’t have running water. We fetch our water from the neighbors’ well, which is about 20 yards away from the house. The house is wired for electricity, but we don’t have a generator to power the house. Instead, we glide around the house at night wearing our cool camping headlamps. With no electricity, it stands to reason that we don’t have any appliances. We do our cooking primarly on a kerosene stove and occasionally on the Liberian coal pot (a handmade charcoal stove). The furniture in our house is mostly hand-made by local craftsmen. We have a table in our kitchen with a couple stools. We have a set of four rattan chairs around a small table in our sitting room. Two green plastic lawn chairs sit on our back porch, and a mattress lays on our bedroom floor. A few bookshelf provide a bit of organization for all of school and personal stuff.
Our work table overlooking the neighborhood soccer field.
Ask any real estate agent and they will tell you the quality of a house doesn’t make the house. Instead, it’s all about location. Our house is located in a neighborhood about ten minutes walk from the main road. We have neighboring houses on three sides, which helps with security and eases our minds about leaving the house for longer periods. We are also next door to a church building. This has been a mixed blessing. We enjoy hearing the church services on the weekends, which includes much singing in the local dialect as well as skilled drumming. Liberian church services can be a topic by themselves, but let’s say they can be lengthy and the songs can go for twenty minutes and be somewhat trance-inducing. Overall, we enjoy having the church nearby. On the flipside, during the week, the church hosts classes for a nearby elementary school. Thus, at roughly 8:30am, about 300 screaming kids descend on the church where they may or may not have a teacher for the day. When the teacher is not present, the whole neighborhood is besieged by bored and restless children. Luckily, we are usually at school during the morning, so we don’t have to endure the noise and chaos on a daily basis. The mornings we have been at home are anything but peaceful.
The weekday-morning scene outside our kitchen window.
Next door to the church is a large open field were children gather to play in the soft sand or kick around a soccer ball. It’s a lively spot in the neighborhood and can be a great source of entertainment to watch how young Liberians entertain themselves. On a rainy day, the normal activities become naked activities as small children engage in naked soccer, naked digging, and bathing.
Overall, we are quite fortunate for the city we are assigned to and the house we live in. It has some rare comforts that we enjoy and appreciate. We are definitely not “roughing it” here. And while we experience daily challenges at school and around town, having a comfortable, secure, and clean place to come home to makes a huge difference.
Angie & Ben in Liberia 