Liberia on my Mind

So Sjona and I are in our last few days in Morocco. We are pretty much done with the field work (what little there was) and we  are starting to write up the report. From here we will be going to Portugal to visit extended family in a beach town for 2 weeks, and then on to Greece. While this kind of vacation sounds appealing, I am not sure how welcome it is after what seems like almost a year of forced vacation. I was feeling pretty down the last few days and I decided to say the long obligatory prayer, which I hadn't done in a while. In fact, I haven't really been praying for a while due to the crisis of faith that I have been experiencing. But that is a different story. Anyway, around the same time that I said the prayer, two things happened, I found out that my former graduate advisor submitted a version of my thesis to the journal Urban Studies, and I was invited to interview for an IPA position in Liberia, helping to manage an RCT testing the effects of former child soldiers into healthy civilian life. I interviewed for it yesterday, the interview went okay. She started out by stating how dismal my undergraduate GPA was, and asked why I wanted to eventually pursue a PhD in economics after quite a bit of meandering. I figure that I answered those questions okay. I flubbed a question about the difference between RCT's and before and after impact evaluations. Oh well, I definitely know now. Then she spent a while trying to scare me, the living conditions would be harsh. Rationed water and electricity, rent and imported food is three times that of Boston, so I would survive on Rice and veggies while in the city. Salary would be just barely enough to live there, and maybe not even enough for travel. Also, there are no real hospitals, so if I broke a leg, or got sick, I would probably have to be flown out to Ghana. For the country excursions, we would depend on fried goat parts and corn mush containing rocks. 85% of the country is unemployed, containing many restless former child soldiers. I just saw a documentary where they were touring the slums and interviewing former rebel generals, who told of massive murder, rape, cannibalism, etc. It is said that 70% of the women have been raped, and a good portion of the former child soldiers have eaten human flesh. Anyway, if I got offered the job, I would also have to contend with the fact that Sjona would be joining me in the Spring. What would she do, would it be safe for her? There is supposedly a Baha'i Academy that she could possibly serve at, but we can't find any information about it. Anyway, well see if I get offered the job. It would be a great opportunity both to serve in a righteous cause, and also for my career, as it would give me some experience implementing a study, the type of study I would eventually hope to design.

Guess I should keep praying