Welcome to Liberia!

She tells me her name is Mamawah. She was living in Washington DC and is going home for a couple of months to work.

She looks out the window as we descend into Monrovia, "You see how green?" she says. "Yes, it looks very beautiful," I respond anxiously, wondering what will come next. Palm trees and others I don't know the names of, as far as the eye can see.

As we get closer to the ground, I can make out the letters, "UN" painted on the sides of white pick up trucks, lining the airport's runway. Liberian men cradling AK47's in their arms, standing on guard.

It is dusty too. It's harmattan (dry) season, when sands from northern Africa travel south, invading West African landscapes. It's a white dust, that doesn't scratch the eyes or burn the throat. And stays until April.

I hear a girl talking about journalism behind me. I turn around and recognize her from a video I found online about the organization I'm with, Journalists for Human Rights.

I turn around. "Do you work with JHR?"

"I used to. Now I'm coming back to make a documentary for Oxfam."

I can't believe my luck. We talk for a while and I turn back to Mamawah.

"You see?" she says, shedding her scarf from her shoulders. "You have friends in Liberia!"

Mamawah had given me her number earlier and now I have Arwen's number. I know two people in Liberia and haven't even stepped off the plane.

We shuffle awkwardly out the plane's front door and down the bouncy metal stairs. A warm soupy heat surrounds us. I take Mamawah's heavy bag and we walk into the airport. I get in the visitors line. Mamawah returns from the residents line.

"Janey! Come!" She is with an official looking woman. "Give me your passport." I hand it over. She and the lady with the badge around her neck disappear.

I wouldn't normally do this. But as my dad always said, "Trust your gut."

I trusted it, but a minute later I start to worry. "Where are they? I've already been naive and I've just landed. Shit."

Mamawah pokes her head around the corner, "Janey, come here!"

I bend down, under the security line over to the two ladies.

"This is my friend, she works with immigration. She will take care of this for us and make it go faster." We stand by the conveyor belt of rotating luggage with some other officials Mamawah chats with. "We will look for our luggage and she will return with our passports." I smile at the officials, who smile back.

As we stare at the foreign bags, searching for our own, the official returns with our stamped passports.

I eventually see my black bag with the pink ribbon on the handle, and scratch my hand on another. It starts to bleed.

Mamawah has a driver who collects her bags and gets us through the next security check with ease.

Covered in luggage, I scan the greeting crowd outside for the JHR driver Kamara. He looks like a sweet old man. He'd be called Papaye (pron: Papa-yay) - a formal greeting in Liberia for a man over 60.

He has a kind face and is smiling when I approach him. Kamara reaches over the fence and gives me a hug. "Janey, we have been awaiting your arrival, it is good to see you! Welcome to Liberia!"

Relieved and tired, I wait with Mamawah and her driver until Kamara brings the truck around. It has LMC (Liberian Media Center) plastered on the side.

I say goodbye to Mamawah and promise to call her when I get a phone.

Kamara has a soft high pitched voice that smiles when he speaks. We drive along the highway; a two lane road resembling paved country roads in Ontario.

People have their hands out to catch a lift. Layers of dust linger in the fields and as we approach the city, smoke from coal fires mingling with the dusty smog.

The sun almost disappears as more people fill the streets. The only lights from cars and suddenly more, coming from a string of solar panelled lights that stand like statues for a few meters.

"They were put here for a UN conference," Kamara says.

After we pass them, it's lights out for miles.

"You will like Aaron," he says. "He is very friendly."

Aaron is also with JHR and has kindly offered me to stay with him for a week in Monrovia while I get to know Liberia. After that I'm on my own, three hours north in Gbarnga.

Kamara's truck weaves through people and taxis and we stop at the Liberian Media Center to pick up Yeama - a Sierra Leonean who is JHR's workshop facilitator. She greets me in full African dress as we hug by the side of the road. I like her already.

We eventually get to Aaron's apartment. We shake hands and they bring my bags upstairs. We had already talked on the phone and he was ordering Lebanese food. I had a chicken shwarma on its way.

Inside we drink Heinekens with Kamara, Yeama and Jess - an American girl with JHR working at the university. She tells me that some of the journalism professors are former warlords. Now they are promoting human rights. We discuss the irony.

Out on the wrap around balcony that overlooks the city, sit two Americans who are in the country to work with refugees. They are pounding foreign beer and talking about their most embarrassing moments. They invite me out but it's been a long day.

Aaron, who is Canadian from Vancouver, helps me get out a mattress that leaning against a wall.It's as hard as a rock and I long for my pillow top mattress. Then I remind myself where I am. Adjustments must be made.

Lights out.