Liberia's Streets, Spirits Brighten

But for now, the country's generating capacity remains a tiny fraction of prewar levels. Rebuilding the hydroelectric plant will take a minimum of three more years and cost tens of millions of dollars.

Even collecting payment for the electricity that's generated is difficult; of the $250,000 worth of power produced each month, about $40,000 is stolen by thieves who simply attach their own wires to public lines, Yuan said. Lights illuminating one of Liberia Electricity's generators were among the sources for electricity theft until they were relocated within a security fence.

Johnson Sirleaf has repeatedly urged patience from Liberians as she attempts to cultivate a culture in which the government is seen as something more than just a source of jobs and largess. She trimmed the civil service by thousands of jobs and has made a priority of tax collection, often a neglected art in countries such as Liberia where much of the national budget is paid by international donors.

Billboards across Monrovia feature an illustration of streetlights shining on a road at night. To the side, in a separate image, a girl is pictured drinking water from a communal tap, another slow-moving success story as some neighborhoods get what Liberians call "Ellen water" in affectionate homage to their president.

"The Process is On," the billboards declare. "Your Taxes At Work."

But for every freshly painted shop and smooth new stretch of pavement, there is a building in advanced decay and a piece of roadway where potholes require drivers to navigate a perilous slalom. Many walls still bear the pockmarks left by bullets.

U.N. checkpoints, marked with coils of barbed wire and sentries toting automatic weapons, are another reminder that war raged across Monrovia not long ago. As a warning to any force that would consider renewing hostilities, white-painted U.N. tanks on some nights still cruise Monrovia's streets, their treads rattling on the pavement.

Red Light is essentially a dusty, dense market sprawling along one of Monrovia's busiest, smoggiest highways.

Some of the most established merchants here sell their wares from the open fronts of rusty shipping containers. Other traders display goods in rows of battered wheelbarrows -- typically rented for the equivalent of 30 cents a day -- that make it easy to roll inventories home at closing time.

The bustle here speaks of an economy that, however much it falls short of the prosperity of the nation's heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, is visibly alive. Among the items easily available in Red Light: cellphones, bluejeans, compact discs, cigarettes, fabric, leather shoes, handbags. The horns of passing taxis and the banter of traders combine in a cacophony of commerce.

Before Taylor left, the staccato pops of automatic-weapons fire often broke through the din, sending merchants and customers scurrying into nearby woods. Yet with stable government, the U.N. force and Taylor on trial at an international court in The Hague, Liberians say they are confident peace has come to stay.

"We had almost 15 years of war. Every time you started something, the gunfire began," said Prince Avery, 38, owner of Gracee's bar not far from Red Light. "Fifteen years went down the drain."

He added, "War will never come back here."

Now Liberians worry about the routine frustrations of citizens of poor but peaceful nations anywhere. The price of rice has spiked. Jobs are far too few. Taxes are high. Road construction has caused traffic jams and kicked up a mess of dust that irritates eyes and chokes throats.

But there also is something to celebrate.

"Light has something to do with life," said Sarah Barpolu, 42, a mother of seven who sells ice and water by the soft radiance of the streetlights. "If there wasn't light, we couldn't be sitting here. Everybody would be afraid."