Magnificent Feats of Ongoing Electricity
MONROVIA, Liberia
It's easy to believe in spirits when even the night air has a
personality. In Liberia it's cajoling; perfumed and heavy as an arm
slung over your shoulders on a warm, damp evening. Try briefly,
futilely, to decipher its scent–ocean breeze and burning trash?
Tropical flowers and raw sewage? Petrol, fruit, sweat, what? Give up
and go with it: good advice generally for West African travel. I write this in a hotel room with my head lamp looped around my neck,
off but ready, in case the lights go out again. Though the Cape Hotel
has good WiFi, magnificent feats of ongoing electricity are still rare
in Liberia, a fragile country whose capitol is either powered by
generators or not at all. Nothing's darker than a night road in
Monrovia; no streetlamps, only rare lights in houses, the occasional
car. Here in the hotel, a Stephen King movie was just starting when
Teddy, a smiling hotel employee, flipped on the TV in my room to
demonstrate how well it functioned at the same time as the air
conditioning, the lights, and the fridge. Later I unplugged every
appliance I could reach. (Sorry, Teddy!) Tonight I'm staying with 10 other journalists at the Cape Hotel in
Monrovia, our first evening in Liberia on an International Reporting
Project-funded fact-finding tour. Basically we're here to see how a
country rebuilds after virtually cannibalizing itself during a
gruesome and protracted civil war. We'll meet former child soldiers as
well as the inspiring Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female
president and a Nelson Mandela-like figure to many on the continent.
There are also planned jaunts up country to meet former warlords like
General Peanut Butter—a potential 2011 presidential candidate—and
Jewel Taylor, the ex-wife of charismatic war criminal Charles Taylor. First: sleep, if jet lag and malaria pills allow.
It's easy to believe in spirits when even the night air has a
personality. In Liberia it's cajoling; perfumed and heavy as an arm
slung over your shoulders on a warm, damp evening. Try briefly,
futilely, to decipher its scent–ocean breeze and burning trash?
Tropical flowers and raw sewage? Petrol, fruit, sweat, what? Give up
and go with it: good advice generally for West African travel. I write this in a hotel room with my head lamp looped around my neck,
off but ready, in case the lights go out again. Though the Cape Hotel
has good WiFi, magnificent feats of ongoing electricity are still rare
in Liberia, a fragile country whose capitol is either powered by
generators or not at all. Nothing's darker than a night road in
Monrovia; no streetlamps, only rare lights in houses, the occasional
car. Here in the hotel, a Stephen King movie was just starting when
Teddy, a smiling hotel employee, flipped on the TV in my room to
demonstrate how well it functioned at the same time as the air
conditioning, the lights, and the fridge. Later I unplugged every
appliance I could reach. (Sorry, Teddy!) Tonight I'm staying with 10 other journalists at the Cape Hotel in
Monrovia, our first evening in Liberia on an International Reporting
Project-funded fact-finding tour. Basically we're here to see how a
country rebuilds after virtually cannibalizing itself during a
gruesome and protracted civil war. We'll meet former child soldiers as
well as the inspiring Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female
president and a Nelson Mandela-like figure to many on the continent.
There are also planned jaunts up country to meet former warlords like
General Peanut Butter—a potential 2011 presidential candidate—and
Jewel Taylor, the ex-wife of charismatic war criminal Charles Taylor. First: sleep, if jet lag and malaria pills allow.
