Monday, January 24

Andrew, Tito and myself were arrested this afternoon for not having the proper license plate on the vehicle. For 2 years vehicles have been using pieces of paper that are taped to their windshields with their license plate numbers printed on them, and this was acceptable because the government did not have any license plates in the country to give to all the newly registered vehicles. Apparently now the license plates have arrived to the Ministry of Finance. Instead of communicating with all of the organizations/businesses via radio, telephone, or newspaper that their plates are in, the government ordered a mandate to the LNP (Liberian National Police) that all vehicles with paper plates need to be parked at the police station and held until the proper plates have been installed. Even though we have our proof of registration and have paid everything we have ever needed to pay, our vehicle had to stay put. This too is Liberia. (Another one of our "properly plated" vehicles came to pick up Andrew and I, and we were able to still make it to our meeting.)