Recently we scheduled a date for finally relocating to our new village in Liberia. We talked to a Truck owner who assured us that he was going to come and pick us up the next morning to move our stuff the 35 miles down the road to the river front.
From there we had planned to unload and “ship” the items with a dug out canoe to the other side, where some villagers were supposed to meet us to carry our luggage the rest of the way (3 hours by foot) to the new village.
After waiting for the truck for a couple hours in the morning, we decided to call him. We then found out that he had some cocoa still loaded on his truck, that he said he was going to unload before coming. Still a couple of hours later, we called again, only to find out that he was on his way to another village to empty his load. Finally we called the move off.
Well, unfortunately here in Africa people will often tell you “Yes” because they don’t want to disappoint you in front of you, even though they really mean “No”. That is just what had happened to us. The owner never really intended to send his truck but he just did not want to disappoint us while we were talking to him. (Possibly also the bad road conditions played a role in him not wanting to come)
In reality, this made our disappointment even bigger, realizing that we had to unpack again and start looking for another vehicle. Now we are trying to move again next week (mid January), as we found another truck who is willing to take us.