city adventure

yesterday, dodging rain and traffic, rufus, with james as driver, gave me a tour of parts of monrovia. i was able to see many of the government buildings, the university, the port and spend a little time walking downtown.
two things of note:
first, when trying to go to the port we needed to show identification. i did not have mine. however, we were let through with the expectation that we would grease their palms on the way out. it was my first liberian experience with bribery.
second, for some reason we only seem to buy gas a gallon or maybe two at a time. thus the gauge is always hovering on empty. while we were driving through one of the busiest markets outside of monrovia our car ran out of gas. as the cars began to honk, rufus and i jumped out to push. right away someone yelled out "white man's car broke down" followed by a general laugh. i too could not help but laugh.