Holiday Adventures

Since I couldn’t go home for the holidays, my friend Shahrzad decided to come to Liberia to visit me (and admittedly, to get her Africa fix since she's an Africa junkie like myself). After nearly having her trip cancelled due to the blizzard that hit the east coast last month, Shahrzad finally arrived in Monrovia. To welcome her to Liberia, I took her out for some typical Liberian cuisine: sushi. No, sushi is not actually a Liberian delicacy – but surprisingly enough, Monrovia boasts two separate sushi restaurants, one of which actually has really amazing sushi. And since West Africa isn’t known for its food, this seemed like a good option for her first evening in town.

For Christmas, we joined up with a former work colleague and some Peace Corps Response Volunteers and traveled to Robertsport, a beach town about two hours west of Monrovia. There, we set up camp under a tree on the beach and basked in the sun and the waves for three days. Despite having been in Liberia for three months, this was my first time swimming in the ocean because the water around Monrovia is pretty dirty. The water at Robertsport was amazing, however – not to mention that there were no monster waves (a la Ghana) threatening to drag me out to sea. The only down side to this part of the trip was the dinner on Christmas. Having spent all day in the sun, and having eaten some really delicious barracuda on Christmas Eve, we were salivating by the time dinner rolled around. To our chagrin, we arrived at the beach restaurant to find that there was not actually any dinner offered, leaving us to feast on lunch leftovers of Pringles and canned hummus. Never fear, though – what we weren’t able to spend on food, we were able to spend on booze, so the night was a success nonetheless.

From Robertsport, we traveled back to Monrovia, where we proceeded to buy up half of the fabric in the market. We also visited the Ducor Hotel, which was once upon a time the most luxurious hotel in the country. It served as a headquarters for Charles Taylor’s rebels during the war, however, and as a result, is a bombed out shell of a building today. Climbing to the top floor where there used to be a rooftop restaurant provided the most stunning views of Monrovia I’ve seen – you could see the entire city practically. The beauty of the view contrasted starkly, however, with the looted floors and shattered walls of the hotel. Nevertheless, none of was surprised to hear that Qaddafi has bought up the property and plans to eventually renovate and reopen the hotel.

The next stop on our holiday tour of Liberia was Buchanan, located about three hours east of Monrovia. Also on the coast, Buchanan’s beaches were framed with coconut palms and the surf was mild enough to allow for hours of swimming. We stayed with a Peace Corps Response Volunteer named Suzannah while we were there, along with several other PCRVs. In addition to checking out the beaches, Suzannah introduced us to the fine night life of Buchanan, including brightly colored gas stations that double as bars. We spent New Year’s Eve dancing our asses off to Liberian music (really music from Ghana and Nigeria, but I think of it as Liberian since it’s what everyone listens to here) and taking endless photos of ourselves making funny faces. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to continue pretending that I am still a PCV and on more than one occasion caught myself referring to myself as a Peace Corps Volunteer like the rest of the group. If only…

There was no sleeping in to appease the requisite New Year’s Day hangover, however, due to the fact that the church across the road from Suzannah’s house was having a raucous three-day revival, involving painfully screeching singing that went into the wee hours of the morning and then started again at sunrise. Since sleeping wasn’t an option, the group of us surprised ourselves by actually being ready for the next stage of the trip by our scheduled departure time of 10am. However, as everyone who has ever been to West Africa knows, nothing ever happens on time. So while we were all ready to be picked up at 10am, the taxi driver who had promised to pick us up at that time to take us to the next stop on our holiday itinerary (the town of Gbarnga, supposedly only 3-4 hours away) was naturally nowhere to be seen. After about two hours of waiting, the taxi finally pulled up and all seven of us climbed in (two with the driver in front, four in the middle, one in the trunk). Unfortunately, the weight of seven people turned out to be too much for the poor taxi, and it could not even get out of Suzannah’s compound. So we all disembarked, helped push the taxi a short ways, and then piled back in. A few short minutes later, however, a police officer pulled us over for having too many people in the taxi (Liberians pile way more people than seven into a taxi), meaning that two members of the group had to climb out and secretly hitch a ride on some nearby motos in order to meet back up with the car and climb back in on the outskirts of town.

Once we got all seven of us back in the car and onto the road to Gbarnga, things started to go more smoothly. Our friend Johnny busted out his speakers and we probably had a good two hours of road trip sing-along time. Yet, what is an African adventure without several break downs in the middle of nowhere? So the dance party to 80s favorites was briefly cut short due to tire bust #1, although we were able to pick up where we left off once it was replaced with the spare. However, since we didn’t have a second spare, this made tire bust #2 a bit more problematic, especially since we were on a rarely traveled back road whose villages were far too small to boast tire shops. Hence, we all climbed out of the car yet again to sit for several hours while our driver went in search of someone able to fix our busted spare. This would probably have tried my patience if I were by myself, but with Shahrzad and the Peace Corps folks, we were able to entertain ourselves by playing various games with the village kids, eating peanuts and getting our hair braided. Around 5pm, our driver arrived back with the repaired tire in tow, and off we went again.

This time, the tire lasted less than an hour. So we pulled over in yet another village. Before the seven of us could tumble out of the car, however, we were swarmed by a mass of very drunken and animated village people. It was New Year’s Day, and literally the entire village was drunk except the small children. It was honestly a sight like no other that I have experienced in Africa thus far. At one point, Shahrzad went so far as to give the drunkest one in the group a sobriety test. Though the woman kept crying that she was “JUST HAPPY FOR 2010” (that is to say, high on life, not alcohol), she failed miserably at touching her finger to her nose, and even her friends in the village could not help but laugh at the sight of her trying. We ended up staying in the drunk village for another three hours or so while our taxi driver again went in search of a tire. Thankfully, the village chief (probably the only sober one) turned up after an hour and more or less saved us from the drunken mayhem that had surrounded us since our arrival. He also fed us, which was much appreciated after a long day of nothing but peanuts and bread. (BTW, opossum does NOT taste like chicken.) By the time our driver finally returned with yet another tire, it was well into the evening. Though we debated just sleeping in the village for the night, we ultimately decided that we’d rather try our luck on the road once again. This may not have been the best decision given the several near-accidents that ensued, but miraculously we made it to Gbarnga in the end (and after only 12 hours of travel!).

After spending the night in Gbarnga, we set off the next day for the last stop on our itinerary: the Kpatawee waterfalls. Less than an hour outside the town, the waterfalls were beautiful and (most importantly) swimmable. We picked up a jug of palm wine on the way and spent the morning sitting in the falls and diving into the pools. The most entertaining moment was probably when Shahrzad tried to climb through the waterfall from where three of us had been nestled behind the water peering out. The water pressure from above was too much, pulling her bathing suit bottom down so that she mooned me and another friend still hiding behind the waterfall while simultaneously pulling down her top so that she flashed the rest of the group, including several Liberians, from the front. Quite a show. Less entertaining for me was when I took my final swig of palm wine and spat out what I thought was a small seed. It was actually a small worm. Needless to say, that was the last of the palm wine for me.

After the waterfalls, Shahrzad and I said goodbye to the Peace Corps folks and made our way back to Monrovia. We spent our last day sipping white wine on a rooftop bar in downtown Monrovia playing Scrabble. All in all, the vacation was a blast. I was so happy to have Shahrzad come visit and to have the chance to see so much of Liberia – particularly parts of the country that I don’t get to visit for work. It was definitely a holiday to remember.