A Kind of Homecoming

by Braithwaite, E. R. ;

  “With independence there must be belief in its rightness and responsibility for its effective operation. My trip in the hinterland was more than for the purpose of ‘selling’ independence. Each time I go I try to learn a little more of the people and their ways, and I try to arrange things so that they are able to learn something about me. The time is past when in Africa one governed from a distance—even the distance between this house and the cotton tree.”

  “But, Sir Maurice, how can you be sure that the policies you speak of are necessarily the best for the people?” I asked. “For as long as they were subject to decisions from Whitehall they had no choice, but will they not now be likely to think differently about what is best for themselves?”

  “There will necessarily be changes,” he agreed, “but I do not think we need anticipate anything so terribly drastic. You must bear in mind that much of the country’s affairs have for years been in the hands of the Africans.”

  I spoke of the large number of unemployed I had seen, especially in Freetown, and the problem of its increasing as more and more youths left school. What would happen if subversive elements got in among them and stirred them up?

  “We must, and quickly, find employment for our people,” he agreed (saying “our people”, something I had not heard from any of the other Europeans), “not in order to block the possibility of Communist agitation, but because people who are employed are in a better position to think and behave responsibly, and set about the job of general improvement in standards of living. Our plans for employment, as with other plans for the country’s development, won’t be based on fear. It is, however, in keeping with wisdom to take careful note of what has happened and is happening in other African territories that we might deliberately avoid the risk of serious error.”

  “I have spoken with some young men, Sir Maurice,” I said, “and learned that they are eager to avail themselves of scholarships and other opportunities for study offered by Communist countries. Will any attempt be made to either stop them or restrict those opportunities? And do you see any danger in such a trend?”

  “That is nothing very new,” he replied, “and I would be very loath to deny anyone an opportunity for educational advancement. Our task here is to bestir ourselves and provide openings which they can fill when they are trained, because there is no doubt that we’ll need every trained one of them.”

  Conversation switched, I don’t recall when or how, to life in the West Indies, with which both Sir Maurice and his wife were very familiar; he had been at one time colonial secretary of Trinidad. In this Lady Dorman joined freely, recalling many happy anecdotes of the times spent there. I felt completely at ease with these two charming people, whose easy manner betrayed little of the heavy responsibilities they bore every day.

  For me the significant point of the whole evening was the Governor’s oblique remark about other African States and the changing tide of events which kept many of them in a state of ferment. Did he, I wondered, imagine, or hope that Sierra Leone would escape the turbulence from those neighbouring vortices? Did not the excessive popular apathy indicate in itself the very unrest against which this kindly, energetic man worked so conscientiously? If, as the Lebanese tradesman hinted, independence would be seen by the young unemployed of the protectorate as a magic formula for changing “have nots” into “haves”, was it unlikely that the more numerous unemployed of Freetown would entertain the same extreme hopes?

  It occurred to me that Independence Day would see a large number of visitors from neighbouring African States and even farther afield; some of these persons might readily assess the local situation and recognize the possibilities for political agitation. Somehow, as I thought of Sir Maurice’s hopes, my own fears increased, probably out of all reasonable proportion with the behind-the-scenes realities. In my heart I wished him every good fortune, and said so as I took my leave.

  There was a message for me at my hotel. My friend wished to tell me that there had been some error in my air reservation—the plane would leave on Tuesday morning, not Monday, as I had thought. I therefore had an extra day in which to cool my heels and look around Freetown.

  Early next morning the houseboys assigned to my room seemed to be suddenly very much in evidence, fetching newspapers, clean towels, etc., in and out of my room until the truth dawned upon me—they had heard that I would be leaving that day and wanted to remind me to show some tangible appreciation of their services—this in spite of the fact that the hotel management forbade tipping.

  I called them together, explained that I would be staying another day, then tipped them anyway. It was funny to note that, in spite of the management’s interdict, they expected and readily accepted whatever tips they could get. Their menial bowing and scraping still irritated me, and I could not believe that it was merely “put on” deliberately to present a kind of stereotype which would play upon European sympathies and stimulate further tipping, as someone suggested to me. These young men fell into the pose much too easily, indicating a long-established process of conditioning and acceptance. Perhaps it would take a long, long time to educate them away from it, or then again, something dramatic could occur to produce a more immediate change.

  I spent the morning down among the crowded streets in the trading section of town, among the noisy idlers and patient market mammies, who sat on very low stools in front of the fruit and vegetables they hoped to sell. The number of vendors was truly amazing, each one selling the same kind of fruit or vegetables, not by vigilant competition, but merely sitting beside the displayed wares, as if content in the vain hope that someone would eventually buy something.

  Everywhere were groups of youngsters, apparently of school age, but possibly older (it was difficult to assess their age, as they all wore short trousers), laughing and scuffling with each other, or merely sitting around and making fun of the vendors and passers-by. God, what criminal waste! I thought of the youngsters I had taught in Britain, and their anxieties about employment and the other responsibilities which awaited them on leaving school. For these young Africans the situation must have been vastly different, as they approached their final school-day without hope of employment, or the vaguest idea of what life held in store for them.

  Remembering what the Lebanese trader in Kabala had said, I took a more careful account of the trading section, and it was true that all the smaller shops and a few of the larger ones were owned by Lebanese and Indians, whose wares were mostly tinned foodstuff, cloth, and the cheaper variety of domestic appliances. These goods were all readily saleable and presented little or no problems of deterioration. Some youths could be seen sitting outside these shops, as if hopeful of earning some pence by doing an occasional errand. The contrast between the prosperous Lebanese and Indians and the poverty-stricken Africans was very striking. The haves and the have-nots.

  Wandering around I could not help noticing how dirty the trading section of town was—not merely because of the scattered garbage by the numerous shops and vendors’ stalls—but the stinking decayed matter which cluttered the open drains along the side of the roads, and accommodated enormous swarms of flies. I had been told that every Sierra Leonean I met was a miracle of survival. Everything around me seemed to support that remark.

  Later that evening my friend and I dined at the hotel and then visited the large new cinema a short distance from the cotton tree. Within the same building was a modernistic bar, managed by a tall, bosomy redhead with a thick Scots accent; a gaudy juke box provided music which was too loud to encourage ordinary conversation. Here we sat after seeing the film. The other patrons were invariably European men with African women; sometimes a group of three or four young Lebanese men entered, quickly downed their drinks and left.

  “Once upon a time the Lebanese men found wives among the African women, but nowadays they go home and marry their own women,” my friend said.

  I found myself thinking of the bosomy redhead
and the strange patterns of human behaviour. Men would come in, order a drink for themselves, invite her to join them in a drink, and chat with her a while across the wide expanse of shiny counter. She would sip her drink, smile pleasantly and listen, until the next customer appeared to repeat the entire performance.

  “I come in here quite often, but I’ve never seen her even tipsy,” my friend remarked, noticing my preoccupation. “I figure she gives nothing away, at least not so’s anyone can notice. That way she keeps everybody hopeful and happy. What’s more, she’s doing very good business with the bar.”

  Yes, it takes all kinds, and Africa is no exception. I sat with my friend until it was closing time, drinking and reviewing the pleasant time we had had together. I still did not fully understand his motives, but there was no doubt he loved his country and was deeply concerned about its future.

  “You’ll be hearing about me,” he said, cryptically, as we parted.

  Part Three

  Liberia

  IN THE LOUNGE AT Lungi Airport I got into conversation with an American student on his way to Liberia. The usual thing—he had come in two hours ago from Abidjan, on the Ivory Coast, expecting a stop-over of no more than an hour before continuing on to Monrovia, but two hours had passed and the plane still sat quietly on the tarmac and we could see no sign of readiness for the take-off.

  Out of this irritating situation, and our gripes about it, we talked a little about ourselves and our reasons for being there. Chuck Randell was a graduate of Columbia University, in political science, hiking through Africa, studying at first hand the development of political awareness and responsibility among African leadership; that’s how he put it. When he learned that I had worked at City College, New York, it seemed to give us a point of common reference and we got on like a house on fire.

  “What’s it like back there?” he said, inclining his head in the direction of Freetown. “Things must be really jumping with independence around the corner. I rode in with a bunch of European guys—Germans, Frenchmen, Czechs, you know—like business representatives or salesmen. Figure they are all trying to get in on the ground floor when the boom starts.”

  Everything about him suggested an enthusiasm for living and knowing. About five feet ten inches of tough-looking muscle and large bones in a creased suit of tan linen, a wide, strong, pleasant face, and the inevitable crew-cut, which left each blond stub shiny, erect and somewhat pugnacious.

  “Yes,” I agreed, “I expect things will warm up, come independence.” Things had to, there was no other direction in which they could possibly move except up.

  “You know, Africa’s great,” he went on. “Boy, I’ve been in some places! Those guys know how to live. Christ, we’ve got such a lot to learn! You know something, before getting to Africa I had it worked out about Africans—you know, they were kind of like American Negroes but without the American living standards. But, boy, some of those African guys I’ve met! They’re alive!” The word took on special significance from the way he exploded it.

  “What other parts of Africa have you visited?” I asked him.

  “I’ve bummed through Egypt and Ethiopia and stayed a while in Kenya and Tanganyika. Boy, that Tanganyika is some country, you know. I’ve seen a little of Nigeria and the Cameroons, spent a week in Ghana. Things are moving in Ghana; the country’s like one big W.P.A. project with everything happening at once. Funny thing, I went around to their parliament building, you know, to take a look. Right in front of it is Nkrumah’s statue. Whoever made it should have fixed him up with the national dress, you know. Lots more impressive than shirt and slacks.”

  I liked this chap. His enthusiasm was most infectious, although it required some effort to adjust to his rapid-fire staccato manner of speaking.

  “Hope to stay around Liberia for a week or two, then back home—Akron, Ohio. Ever been there? Got to put in time on my Ph.D., but I’d like to come back to Africa, you know, to work with the people some place.”

  “Like a missionary?”

  “Hell, no! Like an ordinary guy. Teacher or adviser, or something like that. Do you know lots of those guys just live off the land without knowing what the land can do? I mean, anything grows, so nobody worries much about soil biology or things like that. But they can learn. You should hear some of those guys talk—especially some of the French guys. Do you know, some of those guys know more about philosophy and classical literature than I’d ever heard about?” He laughed in wonder, in retrospective pleasure about things seen and heard. “How long are you fixing to stay in Liberia?” he asked.

  I explained about my visit to Guinea and Sierra Leone and said I hoped to do about the same thing in Liberia.

  “Guess I’ve seen more of Africa than you have,” he said, laughing.

  Just then our flight was announced and soon we were airborne en route to Monrovia, following the irregular Sierra Leone coastline, with its multiple network of swampy estuaries. From the air there was nothing recognizable as a line of demarcation between Sierra Leone and Liberia, no break in the panorama of flat coastal areas with a proliferation of lagoons and creeks. Ahead, the beaches of Liberia gleamed pink and enticing, edged by the rolling white-crested breakers, but from six thousand feet up it did not seem as if modern progress had ventured very far inland.

  “Gee! Looking down there it makes you feel you can really go places and do things,” my companion enthused. “It’s like being personally involved in history and knowing that you are able to make things happen, to change events in a big way. I’ve been reading about what they’ve done in Brazil, you know, the new capital and all that. What’s to stop these people from doing the same thing here?”

  “You ought to join President Kennedy’s Peace Corps,” I suggested. “That would give you an opportunity to do things, and, with the President backing you, you can’t miss.”

  He did not laugh at that. His face became serious, suddenly mature. “Could be,” he said. “Yeah, I’ve been reading about that. I’ll check as soon as I get home. Don’t like the name, though, ‘Peace Corps’ sounds a bit odd, you know, as if it’s against something or other. I’d like to team up with something which does things, you know, like clearing land, or building, or teaching folks how to improve their stocks, things like that.”

  We landed at Payne Airfield and hastily promised to get together some time in town before we became separated in the mêlée of chasing baggage and the formalities of customs and immigration clearance. I had a room at the Ducor Palace Hotel, and on the way there by taxi was very impressed by the building projects all along the route, most of them earmarked for government offices and ministries. Everywhere along the wide asphalt-surfaced streets huge American cars whizzed to and fro, sometimes driven by gleeful youngsters who seemed intent on proving how fast they could drive the shiny juggernauts.

  We drove through the clean streets in the centre of Monrovia, past the graceful old-colonial mansions and up to Mamba Point and the half-completed glass and ferro-concrete magnificence of the Ducor Palace Hotel, which dominated the entire skyline. European and African workmen swarmed everywhere, as if in a race to complete the building by some imminent deadline.

  After the sticky heat outdoors the cool, air-conditioned interior of the hotel was most welcome, and though it was a severe shock to discover that my room would cost about six pounds a day, it would have required more courage than I possessed to leave and begin searching for alternative accommodation, especially as the desk clerk hinted that I hadn’t much time to make up my mind—there was a long waiting list of eager applicants. Six pounds a day is a hell of a lot of money, I think, for a room, meals extra, but it was wonderfully comfortable, pleasing in design, complete in equipment, and opened on to a balcony which provided an excellent view of the town and the blue Atlantic. I luxuriated in a warm bath, then checked the many addresses of persons to whom I had letters of introduction.

  From the balco
ny I could hear all around the various noises of construction: power drills cutting away at the rock behind the hotel, where they were building a new swimming pool; the frequent noise of blasting from a nearby stone quarry; the tap-tap of the stone-crackers, men and women who sat under makeshift sunshades and laboriously reduced large rocks into small fragments; the noisy, grinding whir of cement-mixers, all part of a continuing activity which seemed the more remarkable because of the heat in which the workers laboured. Below me a group of young men were carefully planting grass seedlings in the prepared earth along the sloping approach to the main door of the hotel where already several young coconut palms were swaying in the fitful breeze, nearly recovered from the ordeal of being transplanted a few months ago. All this was very encouraging, in keeping with my expectation of a country free and independent for more than a hundred and forty years. It would be fun wandering around here, among these industrious, energetic people.

  That evening I dined in the hotel, and was glad I had taken pains to dress myself carefully. The other diners, all Europeans except one (who, I learned later, was a visiting diplomat from one of the newly independent French-speaking States), were well-dressed in summer lightweights and brightly patterned dresses, cut to expose as much as possible of their very attractive suntans. Conversation was in German, French and English. The Germans seemed to be the more numerous. The food was truly excellent; even now I can still taste the wonderful hors d’oeuvre of fried prawns and wedges of chilled avocado. But when the bill arrived and I realized how much the meal had cost, I resolved to find some other eating-place quickly. The room was expensive enough, but the food!