Portion (out of) control

There's something about Liberia and portion sizes. During no meal here have I been left wanting more. My appetite in the field with very samey rations always decreases, and the heat exacerbates this. Many meals especially in rural Liberia are taken communally and I think people find it hard to gauge appropriate amounts of food for individuals. In Monrovia this should bode as good value for money, but we've been totally over faced by what's come to our table. The breakfast we ordered this morning had to be grazed all day and I finished it at 8pm.

A full and frantic day in the Monrovia office compound. Twelve hours of field debriefs and action points. Bobbing outside into the wall of tropical heat enabled me to get this snap of wall, foliage and contraptions, which I like.

Flying home with Laura we ended up in fits of laughter at Monrovia Airport. Except for the typically surly immigration official, all other airport staff must have received recent training on how to be over-zealous. Earnestness, not a characteristic usually associated with Africa, reached extreme levels. It culminated in 8 cheerful passport and 7 rigorous boarding pass checks, a quiz about the culinary specialties of the region I've been in and a very thorough bag search and frisk down. It's never wise to have uncontrollable giggles during the frisk, but I couldn't suppress them by that point. Laura had to walk away so I couldn't catch her eye.

Midweek night flights between Liberia and the Netherlands are not wildly popular so the plane wasn't very full. Once your heart is set on sprawling widely after take-off, the stress of wondering whether the plane will fill or someone will dive onto the empty row before you, is almost too stressful. Laura did well to jump to a row so we both spread out and tried to doze.