"Mountain" Disappears in Sinoe, No Comment from Superintendent

A report from July, bylined O. Testiomeny Zeongar in the Heritage Newspaper, as reprinted in AllAfrica (emphasis added, as always):

Reports gathered from the South Eastern Liberian County of Sinoe say a rather strange occurrence has taken place in that part of the country.

According to the reports, a mountain approximately 30 feet high, has suddenly disappeared from the land space it had previously occupied for several years, and is no longer visible in the area. The mountain, named Tarjue, which was situated between Tarjuewon and Gbarzohn Districts, the reports divulged, recently vanished in thin air, leaving many persons in Sinoe County in a state of bewilderment. 

The reports further divulged that the Tarjue Mountain, which is believed to be rich in the mineral resource of bauxite, vanished when preparations for mining activities by the Valley Exploration Company heightened. Prior to its reported disappearance, the ownership of Tarjue Mountain was heavily contested by Sinoe citizens from Tarjuewon and Ggbarzohn Districts, the reports intimated. 

Meanwhile, authorities of the county, including Superintendent J. Milton Teajay are yet to comment on the reported mysterious disappearance of the mountain in question.

 (Is a pile of possible-minerals the height of a 2-story house really a mountain?)

"Business Class Travel in Liberia, 1975"

Continuing to look back at Air Liberia. Here is one of three amazing archival Super 8mm films of life in Liberia, c. 1975, which were posted under a pseudonym on YouTube. This one shows the airport at Greenville, Sinoe county, on a windy, somewhat gloomy day about thirty-six years ago.

A few ex-pat businessmen iare waiting in a dingy, lightless concrete house, acting as a terminal. Several long shots pan across the dank, decrepit waiting room: concrete chipped, paint peeling, water leaking into puddles.

Perhaps the plane isn't on time. One businessman naps in an old chair, head against the concrete wall. Another, blonde-haired, smartly-dressed man orders a Heineken from a Liberian fellow manning a forlorn, concrete-block bar. Passengers are weighed on a standing scale, their briefcases on the counter.

Two employees of Air Liberia, in full uniform, slowly push the luggage cart across the grass field. A head-wrapped woman cuts across the field toward her home, through the tall grass, a lazy gait across the landing zone. The blonde fellow paces outside in the open breeze, bored, impatient.

Finally, a small plane appears over the trees, lining up with the airstrip against the grey sky. The speck becomes an oblong, banana-yellow trimotor, touching down a few yards away, its wheels make a small cloud as they hit the dusty earth.

Only when it comes to a stop does the ground crew reach to the edge of the clearing to get the gangway stairs. The plane is fueled up: a groundsman squatting on the wing. It starts to rain. The passengers dash out from the small terminal to board the aircraft in the warm drizzle, anxious to head back to Monrovia.

Liberia National Airlines, April 1967 Schedule

Images courtesy of Björn Larssen of Timetable Images.

A previous post lamented the current lack of any domestic air service in Liberia in the wake of Elysian Airlines' demise. Its also interesting to explore how extensive such domestic operations once were. From the depths of the internet comes this delightful artifact: the schedule of Liberian National Airlines from April 1967, showing services from Robertsfield to Buchanan, Rivercess, Sinoe (presumably landing at Greenville) and Cape Palmas (Harper, Maryland).

Whats especially interesting is that the service includes a flight between Spriggs-Payne airfield and Robertsfield, a distance of scarcely 50 kilometers, a hop which the schedule allows twenty minutes to complete. A box below details the leg northward to Freetown from both RIA and Spriggs on Wednesdays. A separate matrix details passenger fares and excess luggage charges.

Despite the sleek jetcraft zooming across the glossy cover of the brochure, LNA operated only two sputtering Douglas DC-3s to run its entire network, so recalling this as the golden age of Liberian domestic air travel may be somewhat rose-tinted. According to the Encyclopedia of African Airlines (Ben R. Guttery, 1998), LNA eventually merged with Ducor Air Transport to form Air Liberia in 1974, a carrier which survived until the outbreak of fighting in 1990.

Special thanks to Björn Larssen of Timetable Images for allowing the reposting of the above images.