I travelled in a Barbie shoe.

Traveling in Liberia I am pretty sure, is actually a form of a circus act. The taxi does not leave until they have literally packed the car completely full, meaning minimum of 4 people in the back seat and 2 in the passenger seat. In most cases, one in the trunk (ironically called VIP) and one on the roof. These cars do not have ac and sometimes don't have working windows.... Meaning, it's hotter than a coal left in a fire for a week. You can bond quicker with a person in one car ride than many people can do in their lifetime. With this background on taxis, I'd like to share my trip back from Monrovia.

It's 1:30, heat of the day and you can cut the air with a knife due to the humidity. When we finally get our taxi, approximately the size of a small Barbie shoe, we start piling in. We get 4 people in the back seat and the driver says "we can fit one more." What? No. But he manages to fit another in. My butt cheek is now touching everyone in this car and the smell of body Odor and bad decisions are miserable. The car is making this strange giggle noise and makes a crazy "eeerrrrk sqeeeek" every time he shifts. To which I say "we aren't making it." Alas, we continue on. I finally can't handle the heat anymore and need to roll my window down stat, but the window roller is MIA. I ask the driver if there is any way I can roll down the window and he conveniently hands me my missing window roller, which he so thoughtfully decided to hide for the first 20 minutes. -_- 30 minutes into our drive, our tire is  being held on by a string, a toothpick and by the graces of God and eventually we have to stop to fix it. However, "fixing it" doesn't mean actually fixing it... He just kicked it a couple times and wiggled it.... Every bump in the road, the driver would stick his head out the window to make sure our tire was still there. I'm honestly shocked it lasted the whole way. Half way into our journey, by the graces of the traveling gods, I manage to fall asleep. It was short lived as our Barbie shoe does a cannonball into a large puddle which sprays me in the face with dirty water, most likely laced with urine.... I honestly considered opening the door and falling to my death because it seemed like a much better option.... Luckily, I remembered I had brought chex mix and my survival skills were regained.... We made it safely back to Kakata but it took about an hour to regain the feeling back in my butt.

On the bright side, though traveling is uncomfortable and miserable, there is something about being in a taxi for 2 hours and only having to pay around $2 usd.... American taxis charge you more than that to breath in their presence. For that, I am thankful!
Liberian taxi:1
Dani:0