Looks like I might be Africa bound again

Part_Timer · January 21, 2010, 07:30:24 PM

The phone rang Sunday afternoon and it was one of the guys that set up my last trip to Liberia. It seems that they are in need of more training on the Peterson because most of the last batch of guys had to quit in order to find better work. They are also dropping a WMLT28 in a container Africa bound this February. They wanted to know if I'd ever run a band mill and if I could also train people on that as well. 8) 8) 8) 8) I might have run one once or twice. :

:

This was just a preliminary phone call. As anyone who has ever planned a trip like this knows things change, sometimes at the last minute. However right now it looks like maybe October or November.

At least this time I don't have to get the yelow fever shot so I can skip the trip the the emergency room. ;D

Captain · January 23, 2010, 07:23:37 AM

Here's hoping your benevolence is once again accepted.

Dan_Shade · January 23, 2010, 08:04:17 AM

Are third world countries really so backwards that they can't train each other?

WDH · January 23, 2010, 08:25:49 AM

PT,

Sounds like another great adventure in the making!

jim king · January 23, 2010, 09:41:05 AM

QuoteAre third world countries really so backwards that they can't train each other?

Dan_Shade:

After having lived in Africa 8 years including a short time in Liberia the answer to your question is a resounding YES.

Africa is probably the richest continent in the world but they just can´t get it going. Other third world areas on other continents are booming but I don´t see that happening there.

Dan_Shade · January 23, 2010, 11:51:17 AM

wow, that's disheartening. At least we're trying to help them.

Have a save trip, PT!

jim king · January 23, 2010, 03:04:42 PM

Dan_Slade_

If I were a bit younger and had the opportunity that Part_Timer has I would be on the plane in a minete. Africa is a fascinating place. When I was in Liberia it was the rock of stability of West Africa with very little crime and then the government raised the price of rice and a 26 year old Master Sargent named Sam Doe held a coup and shot the President. The foreigners bailed out and it has never the same, similar to other countries in Africa.

The night of the coup Doe ordered one of his men to open the Central Bank to get $5000. When ask what for he said he needed it to run the country for the next month. ???

It appears to be getting better due to the lady who is President. Liberia has a long close relationship to the US and for many years was called an American coloney by the other Africans.

I looked up some links just for memories sake to read up on current happenings. Here are some if you are interested. Those years in West Africa were some of the most fun in my life. My wife and I put a couple of Nigerian kids thru college in the States 30 some years ago and we still stay in touch. The one now owns several factories with Italian partners and the other is a college professor.

Here is a current country CIA report on Liberia:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/li.html

News Papers:
http://www.theliberiantimes.com/
http://www.liberianforum.com/index.php
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/World+News/Africa/Liberia
http://www.starradio.org.lr/
http://www.emansion.gov.lr/

sigidi · January 24, 2010, 05:09:57 AM

I think it's a lot like the old bible story; give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will feed himself for life.

Some of these countries haven't had the exposure of this kind of machinery and therefore benefit greatly from having outside 'experts' teaching them. Just next door we have New Guinea where a guy makes enough money to keep his family well fed by hand cutting lumber using a chainsaw and 'transporting' the cut timber to market by donkey.

mcfcfan · January 25, 2010, 04:47:02 PM

Hi Part_Timer,

Just quoted some mills for Liberia, you can do the training for me :D :D
Have a safe trip if you end upo going air_plane.
Cheers Lee

Part_Timer · January 29, 2010, 08:02:22 PM

Jim is right, for some reason things just don't happen over there like they do here. One thing I see is that the guys don't want to teach themselves for fear of breaking something because you can't get parts so they just don't use it. I do like it over there, the food is good and the people for the most part are very nice. It is strange to have to show your papers at checkpoints and the tanks and APC's on the streets take a bit of getting used to.

mcfcfan: just add the $1600 for the air fair to the cost of the mill and tell them I want eddle stew and fresh pineapple for supper. You haven''t lived until you've had freash pineapple from a tropical area.