Liberia: Bringing Dignity and Durability to Our Infrastructure Development

22 March 2012
opinion

I had just come from the bush with a bundle of wood on my head. With it, I was struggling to mount very bad hill to take a rest at the top, but what I would witness would never leave my memory and would always haunt me about log bridges. As I reached the zenith of the hill, I saw a vehicle on the other side engaging a log bridge on the Kiantahun-Kabalahun road in Kolahun District, Lofa County. As the operator drove through the bridge towards the middle, I heard a very loud noise under the vehicle. As I positioned myself to watch the scene better, the log bridge had broken into pieces with the vehicle immediately falling below into the creek. The conductor (locally referred to as Car Boy) only identified as Musa was crying for help in the muddy water. The accident had left him badly wounded with a broken leg.

"O God, I am dying, somebody please help me", he yelped, as blood oozed from his wounded head and broken leg. That was the first time I ever saw human bone. But besides the human injury, all the goods on the vehicle, mainly coffee and coco, got damaged causing huge economic loss to the occupants of the vehicles. So terrible was that day to me that I was unable to do the normal children's play. My grandmother, apparently noticing that I was traumatized by this horrible incident, asked me to take bath and go to bed. That was way there in 1985, when I was just 12, and the memory had never left me. Each time I cross over a log bridge, I am punished by that small boy's scene.

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