Listening to scraps of conversation between the children, I found it very difficult trying to understand them. Their intonation was American-inflected, but the words were deprived of their endings and sounded strange and un-English. The headmaster introduced me to the members of his staff, two of whom were Americans, one black and one white. For them this stint was both a challenge and an experience in living, but they were candidly critical of the set-up, deprecating the fact that the curriculum and textbooks were “too American”.
One of them told me, “Most of these kids learn to read and write, after a fashion, but few are able to apprehend quickly what they read. You see, they have not grown up with the habit of reading, so it is mainly a schoolhouse chore. If you listen to them you’ll know what I mean. Books are things they like to own—as if they could become literate merely by association with the books—but there is very little interest in inquiry, or appreciation of the pleasure to be had from reading.
“This does not mean that they lack ambition. They all want to be doctors and lawyers and scientists, something big, but such ambition is not related to serious study and application. They all hope to go to college, preferably in the U.S.A., and seem to imagine that by some strange process the mere fact of being in an American college will transform them into brilliant people.”
“Part of the trouble is an insufficiency of schools,” his colleague suggested. “Right now, in this school, we have to cope with a wide range of age and ability in each class, and one has to be content with the little positive result achieved. With more school space it would be possible to grade your children and teach more effectively.”
“Perhaps,” the other agreed, “but even with what schools there are, much more could be done by better planning, especially at primary level. Better methods. Teach the infant to think while teaching him to read and write. Make books meaningful to him. In my view somebody will soon have to begin to think of producing educated Africans instead of half-educated quasi-Americans.”
They said they were both enjoying their stay in Liberia.
“What are your impressions, so far?” I asked.
The black one replied, “You quickly discover that a black skin does not make one African. I’d never before realized how American I was, not black American, just American. So many things I once took for granted now appear terribly significant, probably because I’m forced to do without them—newspapers, radio, novels, conversation, friends. Guess if I remained here long enough I would either forget about them or find substitutes. You know, you see something funny or read something and want to talk about it, and it’s not easy to communicate the whole thing if there is no point of common reference, no understanding of the nuance which springs from an appreciation of mutually familiar circumstances. Guess these fellows feel the same way when they are in the U.S.A., even if they too are in a predominantly black group.”
“And you?” I asked his white countryman.
“I came over here to teach, that’s all. It so happens that the people here are black. That doesn’t matter one way or another. Sometimes I’m irritated, pleased, frustrated, pleasant, sad, what have you, but it’s all part of the business of teaching. It would be the same wherever I was, but it is the thing I want most to do.”
It was time for school to commence, so I left them, and shortly afterwards Ken and I were on our way north. Near Belefuanai we stopped to refuel at a small filling station. Chatting with the attendant was a young officer in the blue uniform of the President’s personal guard. He came over to us and spoke to the driver, who turned to me and said, “The officer wants us to take him back to Gbanka.”
“Nothing doing,” I replied. “Tell him we’re headed in the opposite direction.”
At this the officer—he wore a lieutenant’s metal chevrons on his shoulder—came over to my side of the car, his right hand resting lightly on the pistol holstered at his hip. “I’ve got to get to Gbanka.”
It was like something out of a cheap cops-and-robbers film, the right hand vaguely implying some kind of threat. My temper is not always dependable and suddenly I was angry. “You’ll just have to do what you would have done if we had not come along,” I replied.
“I can commandeer this car.” (I think the word he used was ‘commandeer’, although I got his meaning more from his manner than from the words he used.) He flicked open the holster but made no attempt to withdraw the pistol.
I turned from him and said to Ken, “Just what the hell does this fellow thing he’s doing?”
Poor Ken was quite agitated. Perhaps he better understood the situation and knew, from experience, what might happen. He opened the door, walked around to the officer and whispered to him. Whatever Ken said must have impressed him because, without another glance at me, he walked off to lean sullenly against the petrol pump.
The attendant had been observing this interplay intently from a safe distance. Now he hurried over and filled our tank, eyeing me slyly.
Once more on our way, I asked Ken what he had said to the officer.
“I told him that you were a big man from Europe, and that the Old Man himself had given you this car to do some special business. Those fellows can make a lot of trouble just because they are close to the Old Man. He had a gun.”
Yes, he had a gun, and that meant power. Maybe it was well that Ken had acted so correctly and avoided an unpleasant situation. Men with guns are very prone to rely on them as the final argument.
Zorzor, Voinjama, Kolahun, all were spaced nearly equidistant along the continuous borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone, each a counterpart of the other, presenting an incongruous but encouraging juxtaposition of primitive and modern living, modernistic multi-storied buildings here and there rising alien and somewhat contemptuous above the small metal-lidded huts and shops.
On the road we passed the nameboards of training establishments, one for teachers, and the other for agricultural students, proof that lots of things were happening here in the interior which escaped attention in Monrovia. Anyway, I was eager to get back to the capital, among other things to arrange for my flight to Ghana. I suddenly realized that although I had traversed much of the country, I had not seen a single wild animal, not so much as a field mouse. Perhaps they had either been hunted to extinction or fled before the advance of the bulldozer.
Back at the hotel it was a treat to step out of my dusty clothes and soak myself in a warm bath. I had dinner in town and a good night’s sleep, and the next morning went to the Ministry of the Interior to thank the minister for the many courtesies I had received up-country through his good offices.
The Minister of the Interior received me very graciously and expressed his gratification that I had had a pleasant and interesting trip. I had arrived as he was about to perform a small ceremony, and he invited me to witness it.
Soon afterwards a senior member of his staff entered the room. The minister introduced us, then, from a small casket on his desk, he took an intricately engraved metal decoration suspended from a wide silk ribbon striped blue, white and red. This he placed over the head and around the neck of his colleague, saying that the decoration had been conferred on him by President Tito of Yugoslavia, but unfortunately he was ill and away from his office during the President’s visit. It was one of several decorations which President Tito had conferred on staff members of the Ministry of the Interior.
Later that afternoon I went down to the Air France office and made a reservation for a flight to Accra, the capital of Ghana, on Sunday. I retired early that night and slept late into Saturday morning. I was not the only one. I met Chuck Randell at the restaurant doing justice to a large breakfast of ham, eggs and coffee. He had returned the evening before from up-country.
“How was the trip?” I asked.
“Fine, fine.” His enthusiasm seemed somehow watered down. “How was yours?”
I gave him a quick run-down on some of my
impressions.
“I moved around quite a bit up-country,” he told me, “but I can’t say that I liked a great deal of what I saw. Things are happening, of course, but there was not enough involvement of the people at the lower levels. At least that’s the opinion I got while up there. You see, they’re building roads. O.K. But it’s always with a few bulldozers, a couple of white technicians and a handful of African labourers. At the same time hundreds of men are sitting around idle in the villages. I figure they could do the job just as well without the bulldozers and lots more local labour. It would kind of give the people a stake in what’s going on. I figure it this way. Back home everybody wants to help Africa and they’re pouring money over here. That’s fine, but the money should be for things the Africans cannot do for themselves. Wherever you go you see guys blasting around in big American cars, going no place. Where the heck does all that money come from? I figure these people could do a heck of a lot more for themselves if American money was not so easily available.”
His youthful face was taut with concern and serious reflection. “You know, pal, that idea about me putting in a bid for the Peace Corps thing is not so hot. I don’t figure I’d fit in with it. Wherever I go the place is lousy with guys from home throwing their weight around. I guess the Africans put up with it because of the dollars. What the heck do you think a few guys like me could do here? Nothing. I figure we ought to get down to serious talking with the Africans, not only here, but in other places—you know, tell them they can get on with some things for themselves. Jeez, it’s crazy! Guys up-country won’t walk a couple of hundred yards. They’ve got to drive, and all of them talking crazy bop talk.”
“Sounds to me like chickens coming home to roost,” I said.
“Christ, is that all that America stands for? Do you know that whenever these Africans want free education and training they point their noses Stateside, but those who can pay for it go to Europe. What the hell do we in the States think we’re doing! I figure we’ll have to change our whole attitude in dealing with them. I got to talking with a guy up at Bomi Hills, he’d done some training Stateside. You know what he said? He told me, ‘You Americans need friends in Africa to support you against the Communists, and that kind of friendship costs money.’ That’s what that guy said.”
“Only one man’s opinion, Chuck.”
“But if you look around you can see it’s a pretty general attitude. Say, did you get up to Zorzor and Voinjama? Did you see the block buildings they’re putting up? All that expensive stuff up-country where simple building could do as well or better! And people sitting around all day on their asses waiting for work!”
We left the restaurant and wandered along in the bright warm sunshine. Near the President’s mansion a body of about a hundred soldiers was drawn up for inspection; they looked very young and inexperienced and aggressively self-conscious in their green khaki uniforms.
“Everything is like a mirror, a crazy distorting mirror, of America’s influence here. Those guys just like American dogfaces, but different. Perhaps this bunch is due for the Congo.”
“Cheer up, Chuck, it could be worse.”
He accompanied me to my hotel where we found Ken comfortably asleep on the back seat of the car. We drove out to the beach at Sinkor for a swim, and afterwards sent off some telegrams to Accra and Kumasi to inform some people to whom I had letters of introduction of the date and time of my arrival.
Next day I was at the airport at least half an hour before take-off time. There was no attendant at the arrivals section, and when one finally arrived he brusquely told me that I was too late to board the plane, which was sitting outside on the tarmac like a huge somnolent bird. After some argument he dealt with my ticket and I was passed through customs and immigration. The flight controller, however, refused to let me board the plane. He insisted that I should have been at the airport an hour before take-off time, and reminded me that it was so stated on my ticket, in the small type.
His attitude was rude in the extreme, quite unlike anything I had ever previously experienced, so there was nothing to do but return to Monrovia. Luckily, Ken had driven me to the airport and had waited to see me leave; now he rushed up to help take my bags to the car.
The Liberian customs officer had observed the contretemps between me and the controller. He came up to me and said, “It often happens this way, if the passenger is black; but white people arrive only a few minutes before take-off and they rush them through to the plane. These American bastards like to treat our people like dirt.”
Because of his remark I took another look at the plane. It was a Pan-American Airways jet plane from Robertsfield Aerodrome to Accra—direct flight. Something else, the customs officer must have thought I was a Liberian, hence the “our people”.
“I’ll make a protest when I get back to Monrovia,” I told him.
“Save your breath, good friend,” he replied. “Do you think they care? What will your protest do? Last week six people from Guinea were here about twenty minutes before take-off and they wouldn’t let them travel. Protests won’t help. They run this airfield.”
However, as soon as the Air France office opened on Monday I presented myself and made my complaint. The French staff was most helpful and arranged a flight for that very afternoon. About the other thing, they shrugged. “We get many complaints like this,” one said, “but there is nothing we can do. Perhaps you might like to send a formal protest to P.A.A. headquarters in the U.S.A., but I’m not sure that would do any good. Maybe one of your ministers could help, or even bring it to the notice of the President.”
“I’m not a Liberian, only visiting,” I said.
They shrugged again.
I was more than an hour early on Monday. The clerk at the counter remembered me and carelessly remarked to a colleague, “If you’re tough with them they learn in time, or walk.”
I was very angry at this needless insolence, and told him I thought his conduct in the entire incident was unbusinesslike, bigoted and extremely stupid.
He ignored my outburst and merely remarked to his colleague, “This one is a talker.”
Part Four
Ghana
MY SEAT ON THE plane did not allow me any view of the city of Accra before landing. My first sight of Ghana was the nearly deserted arrivals lounge and the charming, attractive air hostess in a smart white uniform who attached herself to me and led me quickly through customs and other formalities.
There was no one to meet me and I felt rather dismayed at the prospect of scouring the town in search of a hotel room. I mentioned my worry to her and she led me to the inquiries desk on the off-chance that there was a message for me. No message, but the inquiries clerk remembered that someone had been there the day before inquiring for me. My name had been on the flight manifest but there was no information about me.
Next, with the names and addresses of two persons to whom I had letters of introduction, we tried telephoning, but without result. My air hostess then suggested that I book at the nearby hotel and try to contact my friends on Tuesday morning. That Monday was a holiday (Easter Monday) and those who could, usually went into the countryside, so it was very possible my friends were out of town for the day.
She found a porter to take my bags and walked across the courtyard to the hotel to ensure that I found a room. Her entire demeanour was courteous, helpful and very charming; in startling contrast to my most recent airport experience. I should like to pay this small tribute to her, and all those other hostesses of other countries, who, through their cheerful and considerate conduct, contribute immeasurably to the comfort and pleasure of air travel.
I secured a room and, after a shower and change of clothing, went into the hotel lounge. It was a large all-purpose room, roughly sectioned-off into dining area and lounge bar. Along the front of the hotel was a wide covered veranda equipped with collapsible chairs and tables. Both the lounge and
veranda were crowded with people of many nationalities. Indians, the women in colourful saris, bright-eyed but silent, while the menfolk kept up a continuous loud conversation in Hindustani; African men and women in their national dress; a group of six British Army sergeants sitting round a table loaded with beer bottles, applying themselves seriously to their drinking; a happy crowd of Lebanese drinking to someone’s birthday anniversary; Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, Czechs; small children climbing up the slim steel pillars which supported the veranda roof; waiters hurrying to and fro laden with frosted bottles and tinkling nuggets of ice. Hurry, bustle, and some confusion.
In a corner of the lounge a Mandingo peddler crouched on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chin, hands hidden within the folds of the striped robe, which nearly concealed him. Close by was a wide assortment of native craft and handwork exposed to tempt the tourist. As soon as anyone paused by his wares, his face would immediately pop into view, ready to go into his spiel.
There was an air of excitement about the place. I found a seat on the veranda, ordered a drink, and gave myself up to savouring the “ambience”. Across the street huge bulldozers, tractors, graders and other earth-moving machinery were creating a wild, clanking cacophony amid thick clouds of red dust, as they levelled and pounded the earth to extend the airport’s runway facilities. Lorries laden with building material lumbered back and forth along the road. People, people on foot, on bicycles, in cars, on lorries, hurrying people, as if every one of them were caught up in a collective race against time. New arrivals, passengers in transit, and locals taking advantage of the pleasure of being, even temporarily, involved in the atmosphere of travel to far-away places.
A Kind of Homecoming Page 25