The Dung Beetles of Liberia

CHAPTER 2 AFRICA

CHAPTER 2AFRICA

My first sight of Africa was as we passed over a small island near the coast of Dakar. I gazed down out of the cabin window of Pan Am Flight 50, a state-of-the-art Boeing 707. Narrow dirt roads connected small, rough dwellings with an occasional thin column of smoke rising from them. We began our descent in a light rain. The landscape was a monochromatic grayish green. The first human I saw, as we were on final approach, was an old man, bent over as though he were in fear of being hit by the airplane.

We deplaned down a rusty metal stairway and hurried on foot through the drizzle to the terminal building. In spite of the rain and the high cloud cover, it was hot. Hot enough to make steam rise from the pavement in small, vanishing filaments. Eventually, we were shown to the transit lounge where we were to wait for our connecting flight. There was moderate chaos all around with people shouting and gesticulating. The odor of curry dominated the close atmosphere. Acrid cigarette smoke filled the lounge, turning the outside grayness, filtering through the window shutters, into grim bars of semi-light. Indefinable noises came from every direction. The overhead fans in the transit area did little but stir the heated, smoky air. I bought a draft beer at the bar and went back to my seat. Staring into the diminishing foam at the top of my warm beer, I wondered where this seemingly rash decision would take me.

When I looked up from my second beer, a woman with huge forearms and dressed in an official-looking uniform announced that Air Afrique Flight 156 to Monrovia was boarding. I emptied my glass just in time to join the crowd squeezing through the glass doors to the ramp where a dented, scarred, and faded DC-4 waited.

In the cockpit were two French pilots who looked as though they could do with a night’s uninterrupted sleep and a square meal. The passenger cabin smelled faintly of urine, stale cigarette smoke, and aviation gas. The passenger seats were torn or worn through. In the rear of the cabin stood a disheveled flight attendant who spent most of her time glaring at us.

After a two-and-a-half-hour flight, we touched down at Roberts International Airport (known locally as Robertsfield) about thirty-five miles outside of Monrovia, in the late afternoon. Again, it was raining. The wet season had begun in tropical Africa and it would go on for several more months. I made it through throngs of people to the reception area of the terminal. The building was an open-sided concrete shed with bars on the windows, no glass anywhere, and plywood fastened over some of the openings. Customs and Immigrations were inside. People were yelling and shouting. Three or four men tried to yank my bag out of my hands, all loudly offering to carry it.

“I carry it for you, boss! I carry it for you.”

But I hung onto it until I got into the customs line. I politely refused the offers. (I was told, before I left home, that I should always be polite. That would get me out of most scrapes). Then, about fifteen officials appeared and started marking passengers’ bags with an X in chalk and began opening them. Mine was not marked and was not opened.

A large European who I had not noticed took me by the arm and said, “Are you Mr. Kenneth Verrier?”

I said yes. He had an African with him who picked up my bag. We went through the terminal past customs, walked around to the back of the building, and got into a Cessna 185 that was as ragged an airplane as I had ever seen. I was shocked and, for a moment, thought of not getting inside. It simply didn’t look like it would fly.

Much to my disbelief the engine started and we took off and flew, surprisingly without incident, to Spriggs-Payne Airport, a smaller airstrip on the edge of Monrovia where a tall, dark-haired man with a soiled shirt and a cigar wedged in one corner of his mouth met me.

He extended his hand and said, “Mike McCoy. I manage the operation. I also own part of it. The pilots call me Mike or Boss. Everybody else here calls me Boss.”

“Ken Verrier,” I said. “You’re American!”

“Yes, from Texas.”

“Who is Mr. Haddad?” I asked.

“Oh, he runs a hiring agency in West Africa—got a lot of connections. Everyone hires their pilots though him.”

Mike quickly showed me around what turned out to be a pretty small operation and introduced me to various people who worked for him. They hardly looked up from their tasks and did not seem interested in meeting me. The desks in the office were piled high with smudged and wrinkled papers. The maintenance area was dirty with machinery and tools carelessly scattered about. It did not look promising.

Mike then took me to my new accommodations. It was called a guest house and it was run by a woman named Lilly Gella who was part Dutch and part Indonesian. A number of African Air Service pilots lived there. Lilly would prove to be a good landlady, always attentive to detail. She reminded me of a good fraternity mom keeping a bunch of rowdy boys in check.

Toward evening we drove into Monrovia. The traffic was mainly a heavy concentration of people moving on foot along the sides of the road. The women carried something—a child, a soiled bundle on their heads—while the men trudged along ahead of them. Most of the vehicles were, as Mike told me, known as “money buses.” Money buses looked like Volkswagen hippy vans, only twice as long with open sides and wooden bench seats. There were, of course, the more expensive taxis and independent buses, but most people crowded onto a money bus, paid their few cents, and took their chances.

We stopped at Heinz and Maria’s, a restaurant and bar in Monrovia that catered to Europeans, but especially to Germans. It was an odd combination of West Africa and a German Rathskeller. On the bare concrete wall there was an empty picture frame with the words “Der Fuehrer” on a brass plate attached to the bottom. A large flag of the German republic hung over the bar. We ordered dinner—knockwurst and sauerkraut and several bottles of Krombacher.

“Finest beer in Germany. I don’t think you can get this stuff in the States,” Mike said, holding up the glass of golden liquid as though it were his most prized possession. After taking a long swallow and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he explained what I would be doing for the next few days, which would be going through the tedium of getting all my paper work done—my work visa, my residency permit, my work permit, etc.—and obtaining an actual Liberian pilot’s license.

“Essentially, African Air Services,” he went on to say, “is an air transport company. We fly anybody and almost anything that will fit into the airplanes anywhere in West Africa. The company is very prosperous. You will be paid a flat salary, to start, of nine hundred dollars a month plus a percentage of the profits. There are five other air transport operators on the field and the competition is stiff. Actually, it could best be described as cutthroat and backstabbing, but,” he chuckled, “that’s to be expected where there is a lot of easy money. After all, TIA.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means ‘This is Africa.’ The Europeans use it to explain or excuse things that seem illogical to them or are out of their control.”

After dinner Mike offered me a cigar.

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

He congratulated me with a wry smile and lit a Cohiba, blew some smoke in the air and studied the smoldering cigar with satisfaction.

“The Germans prefer this place. Heinz and Maria are escaped Nazis. In fact, most of the people you see here are ex-Nazis. Only I’m not so sure the prefix ‘ex’ is appropriate. I personally like the food. The Americans and Brits like The Gurley Street Bar and Restaurant. The Israelis have their own places. The Spanish eat on the cheap from roadside vendors. I suppose it reminds them of tapas, diarrhea and all.” He snickered.

He leaned toward me and looked directly into my eyes. “You’re a very young man, so let me give you some friendly advice. Stay away from the local girls. The girls are sent out of their tribes down to the city to find a husband, so the second you invite one in to live with you, they bring the whole family. And you are expected to take care of them. Prostitutes, they’re okay, but don’t take a mistress or in any way get involved with the locals. If you do you’ll be in a world of hurt you never even thought about. The Liberians have a word for it—palaver. It means a huge hassle, bullshit, expanding trouble—a real s**t storm. Stay away from it.” He took a long drag from his cigar.

“Also, just remember most whites are here because they want something. The Peace Corps is here. They want to ‘do good’ and have the Africans like them. If they stay to themselves and don’t cause trouble with the locals, they should do all right. The missionaries want to convert the Africans to their brand of Christianity. Everybody else, including the international corporations—especially the international corporations,” he emphasized, “is a hustler. They’re going to do what you are probably going to do.”

Before I could say “What’s that?” he said, “Roll as much money out of this country as they can then bug out.” He took another long draw on his Cohiba. “And another thing—you’ll need a gun.”

“A gun!”

Just then, Mike looked up and recognized the two men who had walked into the restaurant

“Deet, Joe, come over. I want you to meet our newest pilot.” Two very handsome men somewhere in their late thirties waved and smiled, showing perfect teeth. They wore wrinkled and faded lightweight leather flight jackets with the imprints of former military insignia on them, and khaki shirts and trousers.

“This is Dieter Lothair Hoffman. We call him Deet. And this is Joachim Muller known as Joe. Gentlemen, this is Ken.”

“Aha yes,” Deet said, still holding his smile. “De American college boy, das is goot. Ve need to lift de standards around here.” Both pilots laughed.

“Goot to have you aboard,” Joe said, extending his right hand, which was badly scarred across the top.

“Ve need to talk to Heinz to see if he vill buy de drinks tonight,” Deet said.

“Before you go,” Mike said, “I want you to take Ken for a route check when his paper work is ready. I’ll let you know.”

“Ya, vor shore, I vill give him a goot check out,” Deet said, his perfect teeth glistening in the light. Then he and Joe made their way to the bar where they were joined by two of the local bar girls.

“Ya know,” Mike said with a slight smile, “I can’t figure these guys out. They are Nazis to the core, yet they’re the first ones to get tangled up with the local girls.”

The next day Mike sent Paterson, a local who was somewhere between twenty and forty, to pick me up at the guest house. Paterson told me that for the next two days he was to take me where I needed to go, but after that I was expected to have my own transportation. I thanked him for the information and told him to take me to the Liberian Civil Aviation Authority. I got the clear impression that Paterson did not appreciate his new role. His father had been a taxi driver in Paterson, New Jersey, and he, Paterson, had been named after the city of his birth. The American connection gave him a slight edge over the native Liberians. I was also to learn that work status was very important among Liberians, and Paterson wore his faded white shirt and stained tie with pride.

To get to the office where a Liberian pilot’s license could be issued, we had to walk down a side street, go through a very dark room, then climb a ladder to an upper room where an extremely gaunt man in his sixties took my twenty dollars plus the obligatory small bribe Paterson had warned me about. They called it “dash” or “Saturday.” The way you did it was to say something like “Hey, let me help you out” or “Here’s your Saturday.”

The gaunt man typed out the license using an old Underwood typewriter. It was a small piece of paper with two misspellings. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in seeing my US pilot certificates. He handed the piece of paper to me, and I was a licensed pilot of the Republic of Liberia.

Paterson then took me around to complete the rest of the required tasks. He knew the system very well. He had, by this time, already spread the necessary dash. Absolutely nothing in government took place without dash. Sometimes the official would say, “You gotta help me. You gotta help me small.” The bribes weren’t big—a dollar here, five dollars there—but they were omnipresent.

The officials knew that our bribes would be bigger than the locals, so we were escorted by a large man in an official-looking uniform to the front of the lines. The lines were incredibly long, but no one protested our preferential treatment even though they would probably be there all day. When all this was done, I was at last able to go to work.