Christmas in Liberia

Christmas passed with a little celebration at Mamba Point, although I met some exciting government dignitaries who came to celebrate with us for dinner. One of them brought me to a nearby little bar called Lila Browns. It was set in an old colonial home, nestled between the hotel and the Atlantic and popular with expats. It had a great jukebox and I spent a lot of the next few evenings hanging out there, listening to music and being approached by numerous well-dressed females looking for conversation and probably a partner.

During my wanderings over the next few days, I learnt we were staying less than a kilometre away from one of the biggest slums in Africa. The squalid seaside settlement was called West Point, and home to an estimated eighty thousand residents of differing ethnicities, religions, and languages. Along its single paved road, brightly clad prostitutes mingled with women in dark chadors and tooting orange autorickshaws competed with wheelbarrows for a piece of the carriageway. One always felt ill at ease walking through those rows of rusty zinc shacks, lined with food stalls and video shops as the locals continually watched and followed you, ever willing to help you in your wanderings – and probably even keener to steal your purse!

The local beach was packed with local fishermen straddling their long dugout canoes and further along the coast young children selling wares stepped their way through the human faeces that lay everywhere. This part was called ‘poo’ beach as its inhabitants openly defaecated there without any sense of shame, and then ran forward to shake your hand. I later heard that there were only four toilets in West Point, and only thirty per cent of the population of Monrovia had access to sanitation. It was hard to believe that less than a kilometre away, we lived in relative luxury at our country lodge type hotel.

Craft shops in Liberia

Some brightly coloured blue and yellow craft shops lay adjacent to the hotel entrance. One, entitled “Liberia Arts and Crafts” sold fearsome looking gunyege facemasks, most probably from the Dan northern region. Another displayed some native drums and on the wall outside hung those ever-watching chimpanzee-like kagle masks. Both were openly selling ivory although I assumed this was illegal. To the right of dilapidated one storey buildings, local children manned a busy car wash, with vehicles waiting their turn to be pampered on the beach below. It was there that many former child soldiers gathered in small groups to smoke ganja and pass away the hours. The location of their enterprise meant I was continually hassled by these young beggars who collected at the gate of the hotel each morning looking for money from me. Most of the hotel security tried to stop them pestering me with their incessant dawn chorus of ‘Please, Mr. Patrick -give me a dollar!’ Little did I know that my growing relationship with the locals may have saved my life.

One night just after Christmas I attended a drinks party on the beach outside Lila B’s bar. Some friends and I were listening to some reggae music, and watching some young Chinese tourists paddling in the shallow, turquoise water in front of us. As darkness fell, most of the others went home or back up to the bar. I remained with a female friend whom I’d met a few nights earlier. It was easy to get carried away, listening to the romantic sound of the waves crashing by the shoreline and drinking those never-ending Alabama slammers and brown sugar shots, which we got the barman to put into an empty vodka bottle. As it approached midnight, we made our way down along the white beach to lie together for a while. The moon was shining brightly on her face, and we laughed away the hours as the music gently played in the background.

Suddenly. I noticed that my friend had become silent, and her face looked deadly scared. I heard some voices whispering behind me and realised that we were surrounded by three or four natives who had slowly crept up on us. Being in a rather compromising position, I turned awkwardly around to see a young man brandishing a machete just above my head. To our left, were two others carrying knives. My friend was by now too scared to scream and instead uttered partial prayers as if her death were imminent. Then one of the robbers, who seemed to be their leader came closer to me. He bent down and looked directly at me in the moonlight. He was carrying a machete in his right hand. For a moment he stared into my eyes and then said,

‘It’s Patrick!’

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