We were counted!

As I think I mentioned in a previous post, Liberia's national census began last Friday. The last time the country conducted a census was 1984. The President declared Friday to be a national holiday so that everyone could stay home from work and be counted. There was much anticipation.

It turned out that few Liberians were counted on Friday, but we learned that the census was meant to take several days. There were 10,000 people staffing the project, more than 3,000 in Monrovia alone. It was an old-fashioned, door-to-door, pencil and paper effort, bound to last longer than 24 hours.

On Sunday afternoon there was a knock on our door. We answered it to find a census worker, ready to count us! Obviously we weren't counted as Liberians, but as non-citizens working in the country for a finite period of time.

There weren't too many questions...name, age, marital status, religion, continent of origin, etc. I was designated "head of household" by my housemates, which was pretty great.

The photo I'm posting is the census worker marking our door with chalk, letting the world (well, really our immediate neighbors) know that we had been counted. I don't think I have been this excited about a national effort since the first time I voted. This was Liberia's first census in nearly 25 years and I got to be part of it!