The Dung Beetles of Liberia

by Daniel V. Jr. Meier

  “You are too young to remember de var,” he said. “Germany had its back to de vall und der Fuehrer vas de only von who gave us hope. You know,” he said, hesitating with a slight smile stretching his lips, “I could never understand how de American pilots vere so goot. I mean, America is a mongrel country made up of all kinds of people, settled by religious fanatics und de scum of Europe. A nation of moral degenerates. How can such a people become so rich und powerful und produce such goot pilots?”

  “Maybe Hitler was wrong?” I said almost as a reflex.

  “If der Fuehrer’s ideas had been allowed to develop, de vorld vould be a better place, I can tell you. Vat vould be so vrong, I ask you, vith having a vorld made up of beautiful, highly intelligent people, free of genetic diseases and deformities? Vhat, I ask you?”

  “I didn’t know Hitler had any original ideas,” I said. “I thought he made up his Nazi creed from the droppings of Nietzsche, Wagner, and the barnyard scatterings of Nordic mythology—all that nineteenth century romantic, sentimental, anachronistic stuff.”

  Fritz’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. Just what I thought he might have looked like before pulling the trigger of the 20mm machine gun in the nose of his Messerschmitt BF109.

  “Here, here, gentlemen, no politics please. Ve are here to honor a friend und fellow pilot,” Deet said, showing me to a seat, and indicating to Fritz where he should sit.

  After everyone was seated, the waiters began pouring beer from glass pitchers into large ceramic mugs. Then the meal was served—an assortment of German sausages, boiled cabbage, and a variety of mustards. There was a woman sitting across from me. She looked about my age, and I could not take my eyes off her. There are some women who are so beautiful that divine intervention in their creation seems to be the only explanation.

  After a while she glanced in my direction, but I still could not look away.

  “Yes,” she said, with a symmetrically perfect smile. “And you are?”

  “Quite dumbstruck,” I said.

  She laughed and, as I expected, her teeth were perfect.

  “No, I meant what is your name?”

  I told her, and to my surprise she seemed to want to chat. She was curious about life in the US and about my university experience. I learned that her name was Ana and that she had graduated the year before from Heidelberg University with a degree in economics and social studies. She had also studied English extensively. She was curious about why I came to Africa and whether I planned to finish college. I assured her that my time in Liberia was only a break from the regimen of higher learning. She said that she had come to believe that no one intends to remain in Africa, but that after a while, even though they say that they want to leave, they never do. It was her opinion that life was too easy for Europeans in Africa—everything and everybody was cheap and there was plenty of what one needed if you had money.

  “And money is everything here,” she concluded.

  I noticed that the volume of voices had gotten much louder. Beer was flowing more freely and the pilots started singing old beer hall songs, then Luftwaffe fight songs. One of the pilots stood up, swayed several times, took a couple of gulps of beer, and started singing the German national anthem. Everyone joined in, including Ana. When that was finished a pilot, whose name was Willy, climbed onto the bar, rolled up his right shirt sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a red swastika on his upper arm with “Deutschland Für Immer” inscribed beneath it. He started goose-stepping up and down the bar giving the Nazi stiff-arm salute and shouting, “Leben sie Langa, Liebe sie Langa, Fur Gott, Fuehrer und Vaterland, Machen Deutchland Wieder Groß!”

  The pilots cheered and toasted Willy with mugs of beer and then began a rhythmic pounding of their feet on the floor while shouting, “Ein Reich! Ein volk! Ein Füehrer! Deutschland für immer! Ja, ja!”

  Ana seemed a little embarrassed. She glanced at me several times and smiled slightly then looked away.

  “I have to leave,” I said, getting up from the table.

  “I am sorry,” she said.

  As I was leaving, I came up behind her and stooped to whisper in her ear. “Will you have dinner with me?”

  “You don’t waste any time,” she said primly and smiled. Then, “Yes, you can reach me at the embassy.” She wrote her phone number on a paper table napkin and handed it to me.

  I drove back to the guest house feeling as though I had just witnessed a kind of satanic rite that, once seen, leaves one scarred forever. I started trembling and continued trembling until I crawled into bed, folded myself up into a comfortable fetal position, and waited longingly for sleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  MANDINGOS

  I spent the next several days flying with Deet and other company pilots, learning the routes, procedures, and navigational landmarks to the mines, villages, and missionary stations that the company served. The iron mines were owned by large international companies, including some based in the US. The companies were all well capitalized and had the best airfields. The laborers were housed nearby in concrete block buildings with metal roofs, and there was often a small store owned and operated by a Lebanese merchant. The engineers and foremen had quite substantial and very comfortable quarters. The iron mines were in Liberia to stay.

  In addition to the iron mines, there were four principal diamond areas in the country. They were fairly close together, maybe within a radius of a hundred miles, and all located in the northeastern part of the country near the Guinea and Sierra Leone borders. Foremost of these was at a place called Wiesau on the Lofa River.

  There were no roads going to these mines as there were to the iron mines. Building roads to these places would have been extremely difficult and enormously expensive because of the mountainous terrain. Neither the government nor the mine owners were willing to bear the costs. As a result, these outposts were supplied by primitive airstrips only, which had been hastily dug out of dense forests.

  The diamond mines were not actually referred to as mines—they were called potholes. Essentially, they were shallow holes dug in the earth. During the wet season, workers would wait for the potholes to fill up with rainwater, then they would pan for diamonds that might have been washed into the pit. It was like panning for gold. During the dry season, they would simply dig with what tools they had.

  The area around Wiesua was rich in diamonds. The diamond mines in Liberia were strictly an African operation. The government would not allow the Lebanese or the Europeans in there at all. The Mandingos seemed to be the people in charge. The Mandingo people aren’t necessarily Liberians but come from various parts of Central and West Africa. They were the ones with the money, and they ran the supply chains. Most of our payloads of rice, beans, and other staples went through the Mandingos. They also owned the stores at the diamond mines, but the big money came from the sale of rough diamonds.

  Mandingos are a very tall and slender people. They wear long, colorful robes and are always clean and meticulous about their dress and appearance. They don’t do manual labor, and they were, without exception, Muslim.

  They were not part of the government but, owing to their wealth and business acumen, had much influence. The Liberian government was well aware of the contribution of the Mandingos. They always paid for their passage with cash and usually in small bills. There were several very wealthy Mandingos who had accounts with African Air Service, and we called them Big Men although in Liberia that term normally referred to Americo-Liberians of wealth in positions of power.

  When the Mandingos transported diamonds with African Air Service, they would conceal the diamonds, wrapped in note paper, in their robes. We would fly them to Monrovia where they could get the best prices. The diamonds were raw and of different colors, grades, and sizes, and there were several diamond cutters in the city that could cut them.

  The diamond mines were worked by local diggers. It was all voluntary labor. No one was forced. The laborers would dig and pan for the diamonds and the Mandingos would buy
them at fairly low prices. Generally, the workers felt like they were getting a good deal, but I never learned how they were paid by the mining company. They did steal a diamond now and then, but the Mandingos let it go.

  A digger could quit at any time, but to do that, he would have to walk through the bush for several days to get out. These laborers were mostly urban or village dwellers and did not do well in the bush. Nevertheless, if they survived the trek through the bush, they would typically wait until they were back in town, had sold their diamond, and had gotten sufficiently drunk, then announce they weren’t going back to the mines. This trek through the bush did not happen often, and when it did the laborer would often return to the mines after sobering up.

  At the end of my seven-day training period, Mike thought I was familiar enough with the country to let me go out on my own. I called Ana at the embassy. She answered with an official voice.

  “Hi Ana, its Ken.”

  “Ken. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been learning the ropes, couldn’t get away. I’m very sorry. Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  There was a long pause, maybe even a hesitation.

  “I really shouldn’t, but I do know how it is here.” Then, “Sure, why not. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at the embassy at seven. I thought we could try the Phoenician. The guys say it’s pretty good.”

  “Yes, I have heard of it. It has a good reputation. All right then, I’ll be looking for you at seven.”

  There was a musical quality to her voice that told me that I was at least partially forgiven for not having called sooner.

  I parked the little Volkswagen Beetle outside the embassy about ten minutes before seven, and at seven sharp Ana came through the gate. She saw me and waved. She was dressed in the normal business attire for the tropics—loose blue skirt, which went below the knee, and loose white blouse. She jumped into the passenger seat and smiled brightly at me.

  “You can’t believe how happy I am to get away from there. It’s like a prison sometimes,” she said.

  On the way to the Phoenician she told me, in a brief and guarded way, what working at the embassy was like. I parked as close to the restaurant as I could and before I could close and lock the door a street boy, possibly near my own age, was standing beside the car.

  “I watch fo you, boss. Keep bad men way.” Somehow I sensed that I had better take him up on his offer or certainly confront a couple of flat tires when we returned. I put a quarter in his hand. “Many thanks,” I said. The young man looked at the coin, smiled—the dash was acceptable—and put his hands in his pockets.

  Feeling somewhat relieved but not certain that the car would be there or usable when we returned, I put my arm through Ana’s arm and we walked over to the Phoenician. The owners had gone to considerable lengths to emphasize the Middle Eastern tone and atmosphere of the place. There were oriental rugs on the floor and walls, and each table supported an ornate brass tray. A polite waiter with a soft voice showed us to a corner table, and we settled into overstuffed upholstered seats. Ana ordered a bottle of wine for both of us.

  “I’m told they import the wine from Lebanon,” she said.

  “I didn’t know they produced wine in Lebanon.”

  “Oh, yes. It all started there, you know—in the Middle East. It was so important that Christ himself turned his host’s drinking water into wine. You’ve certainly heard about that.”

  “Yes, I remember something about it,” I said. “Are you religious?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone in Germany today is. Oh, a lot of them go to church, but I think they’re there for the music. It helps them not think about their next meal or if they can afford the rent. Even though it’s been sixteen years since the war ended, things are still bad in Germany. It’s odd, you know. A lot of people got jobs cleaning up the damage from the war. Old Berlin is now a great mound of rubble, covered with dirt and grass. These mounds are all over Germany. That’s where most of prewar Germany went—and in the cemeteries. Now the rubble that was once German cities has been cleared away and, slowly, new buildings are being put up. The common laborers who did the cleanup work are now out of a job.”

  “Do you think there will be another fascist movement in Germany?” I asked.

  “No, not likely. Hopefully, after two bloody world wars, Germany—and Europe for that matter—has learned its lesson. If anything, and if history is any guide, Germany will swing the other way, which it seems to have done. In fact, I think all of Europe has moved to the left, partly as a reaction to the war and partly because fascism is so self-destructive”

  She lowered her eyes and her brow wrinkled for an instant. “I want to apologize,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For that vulgar display at Heinz and Maria’s.”

  “You mean the goose-stepping and heil Hitlers?”

  “Yes, that and the whole attitude of those guys. It’s as though they haven’t learned a thing. That vicious war and the horrible people who brought it on us. Germany will be hated for a long time to come.”

  Her eyes were brimming with tears, and I could see that she was fighting for control.

  “Please don’t apologize,” I said. “I understand how you feel. Look, I try not to make judgments about anyone, but I have to admit that I was a little out of place there when the singing started. Pilots are lousy singers, and for the most part, they tend to see things in straight lines, in black and white. I went to an air show once at Andrews Air Force Base when I was in high school. There was a section of the ramp roped off where spectators could get close to the airplanes and the pilots, all dressed in their flight suits and silver braided hats. One person standing near me asked about navigation and the pilot tried to explain the electronics used in navigation. When he saw that he wasn’t getting very far, he paused, then he explained it as a point on a graph. ‘You are only a moving point on a graph. That’s all you are,’ he said.

  “When it comes to politics, great social movements, or interpreting history, pilots can be the most naive people in the world. Our American hero, Charles Lindbergh, is a good example—brilliant pilot but naive as a child about politics.”

  The wine came and the waiter told us that it was Chateau Kefraya from the vineyard at Mount Barouk. It was the smoothest, most delicious wine I had ever had.

  “Do you have a girlfriend back home?” she asked.

  I hesitated. I couldn’t describe what I was feeling, but I knew it wasn’t good.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrows slightly.

  “Are you engaged to her?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “I think she wants to get married, have a family and a house in the suburbs.”

  “And you don’t want that?”

  “For now, let’s say I’m not ready for it. That’s part of the reason I’m in Africa,” I said.

  “What is the other part?”

  “Let’s just say it truly was a dark November in my soul with a ghost I need to exorcize.”

  “You sound like a poet rather than a pilot.”

  “Thanks, but I’m really a failed physicist.”

  “You’re not interested in art or literature?”

  “Yes, of course, but math, physics, and the sciences make the world sensible for me. To me, the sciences deal with unambiguous truth and beauty. I have a hard time dealing with illogical or subjective concepts.”

  “Emotions, feelings, make no sense?” she asked.

  “Insofar as they can’t answer the question of how, yes, they make no sense. But I have to admit, emotions and feeling are strong motivators. I think of them as colors that an artist uses to paint pictures and those pictures could well be our lives.”

  “And what about that dark November?” she asked with a slight smile.

  “As I said, it’s certainly part of the reason I’m here and as soon as it ma
kes sense, I guess I’ll leave.”

  “Sounds like you’re a bit of an artist too. Do you paint or anything like that?”

  “Very perceptive of you. I prefer to sketch, but I also paint in acrylics.”

  “Are you good at it?”

  “I think I’m a fairly good sketch artist and a fair painter. It’s a hobby really—a way to deal with the boogieman.”

  “And does it work? Does it keep the boogieman away?”

  “It helps but, then again, I have many ways of keeping the boogieman away.”

  “You’ll have to tell me about them sometime.”

  “Be happy to, but only when I know you better.”

  She laughed. We talked for a long while about Cornell, and I think I convinced her that my decision to come to Africa was based partly on logic and partly on the dark November. She planned to return to Germany and get into the film industry. Germany, she emphasized, was going to grow, and she wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to get into the production side of the film industry because she believed that was where the real value lay. She was convinced that Germany was going to lead Europe in film making. Performing, as a career, she believed, was too ephemeral, based as it is on youth, appearance, public whims, and an enormous quantity of luck.

  “And besides,” she said. “I’m afraid of being in front of the camera.”

  The dinner was excellent—malfouf (a stuffed cabbage roll) and baba ghanoush (roasted eggplant with garlic and tahini sauce). It was satisfying without being filling, and I was pleased to see that she didn’t light up a cigarette afterward. We chatted for a while over coffee, then I drove her back to the Embassy and walked her to the Embassy gate.

  “I’m going to be busy for a while, but can we do this again?” I asked.

  She hesitated, looking me directly in the eyes. “Yes, I would like that.”

  I drove back through Monrovia to my guest house. Lilly was up finishing a large glass of rum. Since all of her guests were pilots, who by the nature of their work were coming and going at all hours of the day and night, the rules were slack about coming in late or leaving early. Lilly waved at me but didn’t speak—probably because she couldn’t get her lips to form the words. I went up to my room and crashed onto my bed thinking I really needed a place of my own.