From Bangkok to Monrovia... -ish

Last week, I packed up my apartment in Bangkok and left Thailand as discreetly as possible—so as to avoid getting soaked with water and chalk powder by the revelers celebrating Songkran, the wet & wild Thai New Year that coincided with my departure date. There aren't as many direct flights between Bangkok and Monrovia as you would imagine, so my itinerary was somewhat circuitous: I first took a long flight from Thailand to Qatar, and then from Qatar to Morocco. I stopped over in my fellow Fellow’s first placement country for a few days and took in a little sightseeing:

In front of the Hassan II Mosque, the second largest mosque in the world, in Casablanca

I then flew to Senegal and finally on to Liberia. Well that last transition is actually still in progress: I was meant to transit through Côte d’Ivoire but my onward flight was canceled without warning and I’m now kind of stranded in Abidjan. My French fluency and US citizenship got me out of what could have been a really miserable situation and personally I’m enjoying this little unexpected adventure. This stopover in a crime-ridden postwar city is the perfect introduction to my third and final placement in Liberia. Clearly my family is not as thrilled, but the airline is taking care of me and I should be getting on a flight to Liberia within a few days at most... Fingers crossed!