Our football team has won and we’re all celebrating at the Red Lion, under the influence of Club Beers and other natural juices. Like every other day, nightfall is punctual and dictatorial. Waving Flag is playing in the background, waking us all up and making us imagine because dreaming is more difficult. It has been…
He always starts talking at about quarter past or half past seven in the middle of UN Drive. Actually, he doesn’t talk, but rather screams, shouts, and quite often sings. I listen to him. I see him. I see him every day as soon as I step out into the street. He’s always sitting down,…
The word Party encapsulates the meaning of the universe. The idea of a party offers an opportunity to escape from the powerful and dictatorial god by the name of Routine. When the lungs breathe out “party”, the possibility of possibility appears, dripping with adrenaline. A someone. Let us reveal the secret once and for all:…
Just as I was leaving the office in Mamba Point, in Liberia, a guy turns around and says, “Hey, have a look!” Piano Teeth spoke to me in a firm, hoarse, commanding voice. He was crouching down on the pavement by the bend, almost hunched over as he entertained himself with the finishing details of…
The Shadow of the Sun narrates the experiences of the Polish journalist, Ryszard Kapuscinski in Africa. Kapuscinski lives in Africa not as a ‘happy tourist’, but rather as a daring reporter who gets himself into all sorts of situations on his search for an interesting experience. He never travels first class, nor does he sleep…
They say that nobody ever saw that Spanish woman who worked for the embassy again. They say that when the war broke out she chose to stay in Monrovia. They say that after a few months she just stopped phoning. Her emails never arrived. She no longer spoke. She disappeared. Josep is now on the…
“We are going out tonight,” says François as he grabs onto my arm at the Sajj. I gulped down one more Club beer and felt apprehensively ready to hit the night in Liberia. “They’re going to throw themselves at you,” Hans warns me. And here we go. We find ourselves in a Nissan Pathfinder, the…
Did you know that the sea and air conditioning sound quite alike? When I am lying in my room wavering between the shades of dark and the air conditioning has finally stopped puffing, I can hear the waves surging against Miami Beach. I can hear the haughty sea making its way up to the zinc…
This is what expats ask each other: “Where are you from?” “How long have you been in Liberia for?” “How long will be you be staying in Liberia?” “What organisation do you work for?” “Where were you before?” They are the classics. The typical questions you will get asked, time and time again, especially by…
The meeting will begin at eight o’clock in the morning. That’s what the green paper on my desk says and that’s what I tell Roland, who has driven me here in the Toyota Prado. It’s my first ever meeting in a public building in Liberia, at the premises of the Liberian Government, in Africa. We…