A Liberian in London

A lot of my Liberian friends have never left the country, or boarded an airplane. I've often imagined what it would be like to have one of my Liberian friends visit America or Europe (and I am sure a lot of Liberians daydream about the same thing). I would love to be witness to their reaction to all the things they've never seen before.

I had the opportunity recently to experience this in some form when I showed a co-worker around London recently. It was much like I had foreseen it to be, in terms of his general astonishment, but I thought his observations, those things he did take in and those he didn't comment on, were worth sharing:

(1) Heathrow Airport, larger than the entire city of Monrovia.

(2) The difficulty of finding rice at meals. Liberians are famous for their preference for rice, and I know many don't even consider a dish without rice to really even be food, and I saw this in practice where my colleague was left dissatisfied with couscous and basmati rice. He said he would recommend that Liberians travel with their own rice when going abroad, although the practicalities of having this served at a restaurant would still be an issue.

(3) We had a bit of time for sightseeing, and he wanted to see "that huge church," so I took him to St. Paul's Cathedral. It being the summer, it was quite crowded with tourists; there was a line out the door to get tickets (St. Paul charges for entry). Luckily but also a bit curiously, my colleague had little interest in seeing the inside, but mostly wanted his picture taken outside the building. So we were there about 5 minutes.

(4) The London Underground mesmerized him. "A whole city under the city," and "There are people living underneath us while we walk on top of them," were just a couple of a the many comments he made. He seemed less impressed with actually riding a train and the whole automatic entry system etc than with the general idea of inhabiting the subterranean. He commented on this repeatedly; the whole idea seemed to almost terrify him. I think he found it unnatural that people spend time under the surface of the earth like that.

(5) Back at ground level, he observed that most buildings were made "out of stone," which I took to mean the marble and portland stone façades, as opposed to the painted cement of most multi-story buildings in Liberia.

(6) Also, he didn't recognize what was sticking out of the roofs of most buildings; I hadn't anticipated this: I explained what a chimney was, which confused him a bit as he didn't see any fires lit inside any of the buildings he had been in. I realized how odd it sounds to explain that everyone has central heating but occasionally uses a fireplace, for recreational or ceremonial purposes...? How strange is that, when you think about it that way.

Pepper Coast

I had learned during my very first trip to Liberia that it was known as the Pepper Coast, but I had never heard the term "Malagueta" before I saw this historic map recently.

Malagueta peppers are now more closely associated with Brazilian cuisine, there is a popular restaurant in Astoria, Queens called Malagueta, and a lot of Brazilian, Portuguese, and even Mozambican food use melegueta peppers, which in Mozambique are called "piri-piri."

These peppers originate in the Liberia-Sierra Leone area, which for centuries (originating with the Portuguese in the mid 15th century) was known as the Malagueta Coast, as can be seen from this old Dutch map above (Cape Palmas is labelled and easy to spot, as the boundary between Malagueta (in yellow) and Guinea (in pink)--matching the Liberia-Cote D'Ivoire border of today; and Cape Mesurado and the St. Paul river, among other tributaries, are discernible). The peppers were later brought over to Brazil, and although the term Pepper Coast has survived the Anglophone colonial period (there are several companies named Pepper Coast in Monrovia), the later colonization caused the disuse of the geographical term Malagueta.

The peppers themselves, however, are easy to come across in markets throughout Liberia. And they are hot--I also learned in writing this that there is actually a measurement for the spice intensity of peppers--but if you can handle it, they are tasty.

Fiamah Market, March 2010

Escargots

I knew that Liberians eat snails, and that there were huge snails that came "from the bush", as they say, but I had never seen them for myself until I encountered these wheelbarrows full on Benson Street today. Rather than eat these guys, I'd be more inclined to keep them in a terrarium, but that would involve finding someone to building one, and cutting glass is still not a common trade here.

I didn't buy any of these fellas and haven't tasted this local dish, but it was remarkable to come across a small mountain of fist-sized tree snails in the center of the city.

Bats! Bats! Bats!

I don't know how many West African cities have large populations of large bats, but I can say that both Monrovia and Accra are filled with humungous colonies, which take over entire trees in the downtown area. At first, they look like dead trees, with dry leaves clinging to the undersides of the branches, until you realize that you are looking at clusters of sleeping bats.

I'm not really afraid of animals, but I have to say that I think bats look sort of diabolical.

Anyway, today was quite an event on Snapper Hill, when, just as we were driving by, a huge crash came from one of the giant trees nearby. It sounded like a strike of lightning, or an auto accident. Instead, it seems as though we witnessed an incident of the straw that broke the camel's back: there were just too many bats on this one branch, and it all came crashing down. Pretty fascinating, from a physics/mathematics point of view.

Well, this resulted in bat pandemonium. The bats, being nocturnal, were mostly asleep, and I also wonder whether their eyes are even worse in broad African daylight than in their normal night-time setting. The bats panicked, and thousands of them started flying all over the place. Some right into the ground, others into chain-link fences. One or two hit the side of the car.

This, in turned, caused a rush from all the people nearby-- running to catch them with their hands or even buckets and nets. Not a quarter hour later, there were bats for sale in the streets, a few blocks away (I was tempted, but didn't buy one…)

Bats for dinner across the city tonight!

View from the Palm Hotel & Bamboo Bar

The Palm Hotel is situated on the corner of the most important intersection in the city, (and the perhaps country): Randall and Broad Streets, the center of the original Monrovia. The rooftop has a fine bar and Chinese Restaurant, the Bamboo Bar, with a superb view over the bustling scene, including the Old Executive Grounds (see the Architecture Tour).

By the way, I don't think the place is run by the Chinese. I am pretty sure that the owner is Lebanese. However, the Chinese food is pretty good, but I also like the Garden Restaurant in Congo Town.

Friends House for Dinner

My friend and his brother had me over to his house in Gaye Town for a meal today with his parents. It was nice to hang out with a family, kids, etc. We are rice and soup, of course, with a potato green sauce.

Its the rainy season here (although it hasn't rained very much at all) and my friend's house is really in the swamp, so sometimes there is flooding, and sometimes crabs come up through the floor.

Palm Butter in Fiamah

I was invited by my friend's girlfriend to her house for palm butter. I can't even microwave at home, so I am not the one to recount how you make palm butter, although more than a few of my Liberian friends have tried to explain how you take Palm Nuts, crush them, boil them, and then some other steps, until you have this nice, creamy, nutty sauce.

To be completely honest, Liberian cuisine has taken some getting used to, due to the selection of meat in the dishes. I like the variety, in a way-- some fish, some chicken, some shrimp, etc. But no matter what, I can't get used to the bones, or the skin, or beaks, or scales, or tails, or jaw bones, etc.

At home, I have my cook prepare the meals with only the chicken breast and other white meat, or filet the fish. Other than that, I love the sauces, especially kidney beans, okra, and cabbage. Palm Butter is virtually the national dish of Liberia, and I prefer it over potato greens or goat soup.