nimba county, part I

wednesday morning, i packed my backpack full of the minimal necessities and rufus and i went to the red light.
i cannot remember if i talked about red light before so i will just mention it briefly.
of course, in most of our minds "red light" brings with it a certain connotation of that shady part of a city whose primary source of commerce (to be unnecessarily kind) is sex. in this case, strike that from your mind.
red light, in paynesville, liberia, is outside of monrovia and is a bustling, crazy-busy area with peddlers of anything and everything (that is, within the confines of liberian economy). to drive through is to be like moses, only you are parting a sea of people.
the red light is called such because it - had a stop light. simple as that. the stop light is still there. but like other intersections, it hangs limply and without light (in fact, i am only aware of only one working stoplight in all of liberia).
it is from this mass of humanity that we ventured into the interior - the bush.
[if you have been reading my posts, it was at the red light that my car ran out of gas and some people found great humor in the fact that "white man's car broke down". i have only one or two sly pictures taken here because the crime is pretty high and to pull out my camera would prove to be too great a temptation for some...]