One Heck Of A Ride

109 Liberia And Its Duikers The first thirty or forty miles of the road south along the coast from Monrovia to the town of Buchanan was paved, but it had so many potholes that we could travel no more than twenty to thirty miles per hour. After the pavement ended at a village with the improbable name of Cotton Tree, our vehicles were operating in four-wheel drive more often than not on the dirt and mud two-track trails. Mel Toppence wrote an article for the January/February 2006 issue of Safari Magazine that called our journey to camp “tiring but fascinating.” I could add that much of it also was a cultural shock for us. Liberia was like nothing I’d seen on my other African safaris. The farther we drove from Monrovia and Buchanan, the deeper we were immersed into the impoverished West African culture. There were a few metal-roofed Western- style rectangular buildings in the villages, but most of the structures were huts made of palm and wattlewood frames and topped with thatched Author and Earl T. Holdsworth pose with young girls whose bodies were covered with clay and ashes as part of their ritual into womanhood conical roofs. Chickens, goats, pigs, and dozens of children with sad-looking eyes were in the streets. Each settlement had an open-sided “palaver hut” where residents came together for public meetings. We were told most of the rural people we saw from our vehicles probably were members of one of the country’s sixteen indigenous African tribes. Descendants of the original settlers from North America tended to remain in the urban areas. Liberian men in the cities wore jeans and tee shirts while the women wore long skirts and brightly-colored and patterned blouses with matching headgear made of the same coarse Liberia-made fabric. In the countryside, the women usually wore colorful long dresses called “lappas” made from cloth or grass. In the remotest areas we saw bare-breasted women who covered their bodies with a hard crust of ashes and clay. (We were told this was a ritual into womanhood.) Rural men wore tattered sleeveless shirts and short pants that looked as if they had never been washed. Most were barefoot or wore shower shoes and many carried machetes It was dark when we reached a trailhead and parked the vehicles where the outfitter had a crew waiting. The camp, which consisted of a number of tents, each with en suite toilet and shower, erected on permanent slabs. Other tents served as kitchen, dining and storage areas, and housed the staff. After our gear was unpacked, we were briefed on how we would hunt. Banks said our guides would be local subsistence hunters and not professional guides, and were hired because of their ability to find game. We would hunt both day and night, each of us with a guide and a caller, by walking slowly and quietly through the forest, stopping frequently to call, for ten or more hours each day, he said. When Tom asked if I wanted to hunt with villagers across the river, I said, “sure,” not having any idea what would be in store for me. It was well after dark when he called across the river and a dugout canoe was sent over for me.