Editor's note: Journal Staff Writer Philip Marcelo is traveling to Liberia in August to report on that country's progress 10 years after the end of a devastating civil war. This is the latest installment of an online and print series called "Rebuilding Liberia: The R.I. Connection." The project is funded by the International Center for Journalists, in Washington.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- When Lincoln Chafee landed in Liberia for his first and only time, he received a surprising welcome from the driver sent by the U.S. Embassy.
"This is where Mad Max meets the post apocalypse," the then-U.S. senator and now Rhode Island governor recalled the man saying. "That was the description."
It was late October 2005 and Chafee had been invited by then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as an election observer for the West African nation's first free and fair presidential race since the end of nearly 15 years of conflict.
He was joined by former President Jimmy Carter, his wife Rosalynn Carter, and the late U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, D-New Jersey, among others.
Chafee said he was chosen because of his status as a senator from Rhode Island, home to the largest per-capita population of Liberians in the country, and as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As the envoy made its way into Monrovia, the country's capital and largest city, Chafee found the driver's description rang true.
"There was no electricity. Generators flickering at night. People carrying jugs of kerosene and gas," he said. "You'd see [electricity] poles. But there were no wires on them. Everything of value had been scavenged."
Chafee and Debbie Rich, his then-press secretary and now a spokeswoman for the state Division of Motor Vehicles, stopped by The Journal's State House bureau this week to share photos and stories from that 2005 trip.
During the four-day trip, Chafee was based at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia and observed voting in Bomi County, just northwest of the capital.
Of the places he's traveled, Chafee said Liberia, in those early post war years, was the worst he had seen. "This was the most challenging. No question. This was years of destruction. It had been going back since the 1990s."
But as he visited polling locations on Election Day, Chafee says he was struck by one thing: "They had such resiliency. They were lined up all day. Umbrellas to shade them from the heat. Waiting to vote. Everywhere. Just everywhere."
He continued: "And they had such pride. Even with the mud in the roads and the open sewers, they were dressed in their best, clean clothes. Incredible."
Indeed, the 2005 election in Liberia had a large turnout. The United Nations reported that 70 percent of those eligible to vote did. The country, at the time, had about 3.5 million residents.
Chafee ranks the trip among his favorite as senator.
While he has not been back since then, he believes -- based on what he's heard from local Liberians and in the international press -- there are reasons for optimism as the country completes its tenth consecutive year of peace.
"I'd assume it's gotten much better," Chafee said. "The basics at least. Electricity. Schools to be up and running. All of West Africa, it seems, is picking up. The cities are teeming."
Out of that 2005 trip, Chafee would forge strong ties with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state.
Months after her election, Chafee invited President Sirleaf to Providence, where she was greeted by throngs of supporters at City Hall.
He also hosted Sirleaf at the Rhode Island State House in May 2011, just a few months before the Harvard-trained economist would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.