- 6 weeks ago
Anthony Bourdain visited Liberia in the sixth season, sixteenth episode of No Reservations, which aired on July 19, 2010.
This was the only time he visited Liberia during his television career.
The episode, which focuses on the country's history as the first independent nation in Africa, settled by freed American slaves in 1847, features Bourdain exploring Monrovia, the capital city, and engaging with local culture, food, and people.
He met with a Liberian man who fled the country during the 2004 unrest, visited a local market, shared tea and a game of Scrabble, and ate street food in a historically dangerous area.
He also traveled to a rural community to learn about tribal traditions and sample local cuisine.
This was the only time he visited Liberia during his television career.
The episode, which focuses on the country's history as the first independent nation in Africa, settled by freed American slaves in 1847, features Bourdain exploring Monrovia, the capital city, and engaging with local culture, food, and people.
He met with a Liberian man who fled the country during the 2004 unrest, visited a local market, shared tea and a game of Scrabble, and ate street food in a historically dangerous area.
He also traveled to a rural community to learn about tribal traditions and sample local cuisine.
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TravelTranscript
00:00Liberia. No place I've been has ever thrown me so completely. Confused me,
00:23intimidated, depressed, inspired.
00:32With every hour in Liberia, it seemed, I was shown how wrong I was about what I'd
00:37seen or thought only an hour previous.
00:43I'm Anthony Bourdain. I write, I travel, I eat, and I'm hungry for more.
01:13It was supposed to be a little America, a faraway mirror image for freed American slaves, a
01:23utopia for abolitionists. Of course, there were already 500,000 people living here when,
01:29initially, 12,000 freed slaves descended from tribes all over Africa began to arrive in
01:351822. They quickly formed an elite, and if not enslaved, relegated to secondary citizenship,
01:43the people who had lived here before them. So there was that.
01:51Its more recent history contains periods of unbelievable, mere surrealistic violence, beginning when
01:59Charles Taylor marched his rebel force into Liberia on Christmas Eve, 1989.
02:06Over the next 15 years, an estimated quarter of a million Liberians would be killed. That's
02:11one out of 17. Drugged, heavily armed combatants, often child soldiers, some in wigs and wedding
02:18dresses, and carrying AKs and machetes, hacked, shot, and mortared their way across the country.
02:26Those who were lucky enough to escape fled to Guinea and Sierra Leone, often making their way,
02:31eventually, to the U.S., whose flag and way of life and aspirations they always believed so closely
02:38resembled theirs. So it's only right, I guess, that our story begins here, across the harbor in my own
02:45city, New York, rather than on the other side of an ocean, Staten Island.
02:59Joe Dubow was born in Kakata Township, Liberia. In 2004, the Civil War once again ravaged his country.
03:06He fled for his life.
03:07When I left Liberia, Monroofi was a dark city. A lot of the buildings were destroyed or vandalized.
03:15There was no electricity. There was no running water.
03:19He had to leave a daughter and his son, Rocheford, with family back in Liberia,
03:24who he hasn't seen since. He's one of thousands of Liberians living on Staten Island.
03:29I left, came to the States, and then I applied for political asylum.
03:34But you still have family there?
03:36Yeah, I got my son there. My daughter, she's there too,
03:39because they have U.S. law. When you pass the instrument, they want you on your own.
03:44But I hope to reunite with them one day, either here or there.
03:50His wife, Etta, prepares a favorite meal from back home.
03:53Pepper soup, fufu, palava sauce, and rice.
03:57That looks good.
03:58Yeah, that's the palava sauce. That's my favorite.
04:02That's crawfish, that's pig feet, that's pig feet, nice.
04:07Both dishes have palm oil, meat, chicken, dried fish, crab, pig feet, and hot pepper.
04:13Flavor combinations I'm going to be getting used to, or not, over the days to come.
04:19There was always this aspect of Liberia. The idea was that it would be kind of a little America.
04:24Yeah.
04:25You haven't been for a while. I mean, what's it like now?
04:28I don't know. The only thing I know about Liberia right now is what my son tells me.
04:32But most of the time he says to me, Daddy, it's hard here, you know, he needs some money.
04:38That's what it is. I mean, it's nothing more. You can say, Daddy is hard, I need some money.
04:42A few days later, Monrovia, capital city of Liberia.
04:57It's hot here. And by hot, I mean really, really hot. The air doesn't move. A puff of wind, it's an event.
05:09The roads kick up red dust and that mixes with the sweat, creating a kind of paste around your neck and under your arms.
05:19Traffic is bad. And infrastructure, what's left of it after years and years of strife,
05:25it's pretty bad as well. This used to be a relatively modern, vibrant, functioning society.
05:32Hopefully, it will be again. An incredible wealth of natural resources here. Tin, copper,
05:38diamonds, rubber, unbelievably fertile soil that could, in better circumstances, grow nearly anything.
05:46But as it is to Walla Market on Bushrod Island, just outside of town,
05:50it's pretty much what you've got for the best-case scenario options around here.
05:55It's also where the final battle of the 14-year-long Civil War was fought,
05:59where Charles Taylor finally surrendered in 2003 and recovery in fits and starts began.
06:05Women tend to hold the power in African markets, and here, it's no different.
06:12Annie, one of the market's commissioners, shows me around some central ingredients of Liberian cuisine.
06:18Things we'll see again and again.
06:19This is palm nut.
06:21Palm nut?
06:22Yes.
06:22Palm oil?
06:23Palm water.
06:27Yeah, very important ingredient here. Right, and these are dried peppers?
06:30Pepper.
06:31Fried.
06:32Cassava root for fufu, a belly-filling starch.
06:36Bitter ball.
06:37Palm nut.
06:38The ubiquitous palm oil.
06:39Hot peppers.
06:40And of course, these things.
06:43Kiss meat, they call it.
06:44Small snails that you boil, crack open, and suck out of the shell.
06:48Are you ready?
06:49Eat it.
06:49You suck it.
06:50Dave.
06:52Uh-huh.
06:53That's right.
06:54That's what you're going, huh?
06:55All right.
06:59It should be noted that it was the women of the Liberia Mass Action for Peace
07:03that pushed leaders in ending the war, often stripping off their clothes and confronting armed
07:08militias, shaming them into putting down their guns.
07:12So the final battle of the last war was right here.
07:15The final battles, it was Russia.
07:17During the hard times, during the civil war?
07:20During the civil war.
07:21The market was open.
07:23Open.
07:24Yes.
07:26And as soon as they come, everybody get people to the market.
07:29Right.
07:29And we'll run to do that.
07:31You got to run.
07:32Yes, we won.
07:32But it was kind of the women who stood up, right?
07:35Yes.
07:35And confronted the militias and enacted change.
07:40Exactly.
07:43Today, there's a lot to be optimistic about.
07:46An enlightened and amazing president, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, Africa's first woman president
07:52and the world's first black female president.
07:57Have a nice day.
08:02It's the little things you notice, the signs of hope.
08:05Rebuilding.
08:07A return to something resembling normalcy.
08:11This way.
08:11Go this way.
08:14As you can see, we've got a lot of road reconstruction
08:17and a lot of development programs going on.
08:19Well, you know what I'm seeing?
08:19I'm seeing a lot of school kids in clean uniforms.
08:22So that's a good thing.
08:25Osman is the president of the Hatai Athletic Association,
08:28which is technically a Scrabble club.
08:29It looks at first glance like a rowdy outdoor bar.
08:43But inside, it's only Chinese gunpowder tea and impassioned discussion.
08:50How does it taste?
08:51It's good.
08:52I'm liking this.
08:52A little more?
08:53It's where the intellectuals meet, where presidential candidates come to make their case.
09:00And also where your knowledge of a three-letter word with the letter Q in it would really come in handy.
09:04From the Scrabble perspective, once you know the game and you know how to play the game very well,
09:09you find out most of us are addicted to agility.
09:13And we also are addicted to coming here.
09:15And we are also addicted to Hatai.
09:19Do you dream in Scrabble?
09:20Oh, yes, many days.
09:24Generally, when you come here, you know, you say you talk about the important issues of the day.
09:29What was the last big issue you talked about here?
09:31It has been the TRSC report, yeah.
09:33Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
09:35Yes, of course, okay.
09:36Yeah, so that has been very heated for a long time.
09:40He's talking about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
09:42which was formed to help prosecute individuals accused of crimes against humanity
09:47perpetrated during the Civil War.
09:49Understandably, an intense topic of discussion here.
09:52The TRSC recommendations are very difficult to carry out because of those who are named
09:59to be punished in the recommendation. They find themselves in positions of authority.
10:04Right, so you have a limited expectation that no matter what the finding, justice will be carried out.
10:13Yes, I mean, I agree with them.
10:15You know, you can forgive somebody for the sake of reconciliation, for the sake of peace.
10:20We can forgive, but sometimes it's difficult to forget.
10:30Tomorrow, I visit Joe's son, Rochefort.
10:33The worst year was 1994. My aunt and I got caught up with rebel forces.
10:40Well, it was maltreated. There was no fool at that time. People would just come and do anything
10:44you want to do to us. And, you know, that was the worst time.
10:47No reservation.
11:00Rochefort growing up, I think his childhood was pretty good.
11:03He had a lot of opportunities and privileges until the war came. And then, we all had to flee.
11:13Leaving them behind was very, very hard for me. I feel like I was leaving everything that I ever worked for.
11:20Rockford.
11:24You.
11:24Hi, I'm Tony.
11:25Yeah, I'm Rochefort.
11:26Rochefort.
11:27Yes, pleasure to meet you.
11:28Very good to meet you. I bring greetings from Staten Island.
11:30Yes, you're welcome.
11:31Hello.
11:33This is Joe's son, Rochefort Dubow, 28 years old and living with his aunt on the outskirts of Monrovia.
11:41Like a lot of people who grew up during the Civil War when schools were destroyed,
11:44teachers killed, and the system vaporized completely, he was for years unable to attend school.
11:51He's just now graduating high school. So after school, what's the plan? What's next?
11:59I will accede to higher education, which is college, university.
12:04So that will be, maybe I will be specializing business.
12:06Yes, sure.
12:08The meal is Rochefort's favorite, something his mom used to make him.
12:12Okra sauce, basically a soup with fufu and rice.
12:16Okra sauce. Do you eat okra?
12:18Yeah, nice. Your favorite thing?
12:20Yes, okra.
12:22Excellent.
12:23Fingers are for a spoon.
12:26If I wasn't here, how would you do it?
12:28If he wasn't here, I would do it with my hands.
12:30So we got to do it with hands, with the fingers.
12:32Good. Very good.
12:39Rochefort was born on a concession.
12:43A corporate owned and run compound.
12:45There were a few of them, the largest being Firestone and Lamco back in the day.
12:51Started in the 1960s, Lamco, where Rochefort's father Joe worked, was a large iron mining company
12:57located in the town of Yaquipa at the base of Mount Nimba in Northern Liberia.
13:02It was a far cry from what came later.
13:05His father and mother forced to flee.
13:09Did you ever think there's no hope?
13:11Yes, sure.
13:12What was the worst year?
13:15In 1994, my aunt and I, we got caught up with rebel forces.
13:21And then we had to stay in the rebel territory.
13:24Mm-hmm.
13:24Well, it was mild treated.
13:26There was no food at that time.
13:27People would just come and do anything they want to do to us.
13:30And, you know, that was the worst time.
13:32And how do you think things are going now?
13:35Were you hopeful?
13:36Yes, things are not that bad.
13:38In our library, we said 10 is better than zero.
13:41You understand that?
13:43Yeah, I think it's better than zero.
13:47Because he knows I'm going back to the U.S. in a few days.
13:49He has something he wants me to bring his father.
13:53Tony?
13:54Yeah.
13:54Just, I was thinking if you could do me a favor.
13:57Sure.
13:57By taking this bottle to my dad, because he really misses it.
14:03It is his youth picture, you know, when he was much younger.
14:08And also, this is my mommy still when she was much younger.
14:13So, it was just for, you know, remembrance of his youth days.
14:18So...
14:18I'd be honored to bring that to him.
14:29Across town, the Gurley Ghetto, formerly one of Monrovia's most dangerous neighborhoods,
14:34which is quite an accomplishment, as things can get very, very hairy around here.
14:41This is, by the way, one of the most Christian of countries.
14:45There are churches everywhere, and believers get into it.
14:49This nation is an hour of victory, isn't it?
14:54And I prophesy today, you are the one that is going to turn it around.
14:59You are the one that will turn it around.
15:01You are the one who's going to turn it around.
15:02You are the one that will turn it around.
15:15Somebody shot Tony Leroy!
15:45You are always there for me.
15:48Oh, Maria, oh, Maria.
15:51You are all in all.
15:54I know what is this.
15:57I know what is this.
16:00I know what is this.
16:02I know what is this.
16:04I know what is this.
16:06I know what is this.
16:08Bishop Francis Thomas began the Holy Ghost Ministry right here
16:12because, as he saw it, this is where people needed some saving.
16:16Very exciting service.
16:18Oh, thank you.
16:19Beautiful music, too.
16:20Yes.
16:21How long has your church been here?
16:23It's been years, 12 years now.
16:26This place used to be the worst place in the whole country.
16:36Redemption and Speedmeet.
16:39They go together.
16:41Are there those who can never be forgiven?
16:47Anyone who goes to God, God will forgive you.
16:53But the forgiveness can be sold out from your heart.
16:57But the healing is a process.
16:59Think, for example, I met a lady one time.
17:02She said she passes.
17:05The person that violently raped her, she sees him all the time.
17:11So it's going to take us some time to let that go.
17:14Let's take, for example, somebody who killed your uncle.
17:18And now he's driving a taxi.
17:21You know, we had a case like that, right, somewhere on the street.
17:24And the young man grabbed the driver's hand, slapped it.
17:28So it takes some time to let the wound in her heart get healed.
17:34You're saying there's forgiveness even for them?
17:36Yeah, there is forgiveness.
17:37There must be.
17:38Absolutely.
17:39There is.
17:40What else do you think Liberia needs other than God?
17:42What else do you think Liberia needs?
17:44Quality education.
17:46So education first.
17:47No, God first.
17:48God first.
17:49But after God, next education.
17:51Yeah, yeah.
17:52Education, guys.
17:53And certainly there's a lot to be grateful for recently.
17:56I mean, times are pretty good, getting better.
17:59Yes.
18:00Stable government, growing democracy.
18:03Who can sit like this and take drinks and eat without rocking and dodging the bullets?
18:10It's a blessing.
18:11Sure.
18:12Sure.
18:19Next, we head north, off the grid-aways.
18:24A journey without maps.
18:31No reservations.
18:33In 1935, a young Graham Greene, one of my favorite authors, took a long, badly planned,
18:46and near disastrous trek through Liberia to write his classic, Journey Without Maps.
18:51His voyage, entirely on foot, wove mostly through rural villages isolated from each other.
18:57A system of customs and beliefs that still persists today.
19:0475 years later, author and journalist Tim Butcher retraced Greene's steps.
19:09I thought he'd be the perfect guy to give me a knowledgeable, but outside, perspective.
19:16We're headed to a rural village.
19:18Not on any map.
19:19Zharwalubal, home of the Bay Tribe.
19:20We find it by GPS coordinates, from above.
19:21This is the real deal.
19:22Welcome to a Liberian village.
19:23The Bay Tribe, giving you a traditional welcome.
19:24This is the Jeep.
19:25That's an amazing feature about Liberia.
19:26You get females from the Bay Tribe.
19:27The Bay Tribe.
19:28We find it by GPS coordinates, from above.
19:29This is the real deal.
19:30Welcome to a Liberian village.
19:31The Bay Tribe, giving you a traditional welcome.
19:32This is the Jeep.
19:33This is the Jeep.
19:34That's an amazing feature about Liberia.
19:35You get females from the U.S.
19:36It's a democratic way.
19:57This is probably the most remote, isolated place I've ever been.
20:01After the chopper leaves, well, I'm feeling a little bit disoriented.
20:05I'm, frankly, bewildered, a bit intimidated, no idea what to do, how to behave.
20:14And I'm looking to Tim for guidance.
20:17The best thing you see here, that how we want you and us to be together.
20:26What we eat, that what you will eat.
20:30They play with sleep, that what you will sleep.
20:34Jerry is our local fixer and guide and translator.
20:37So what you eat, we will eat.
20:39Where you live, we will stay.
20:41You'll give us shelter.
20:42And we'll live together like these intertwining branches.
20:45Yes.
20:46That's good.
20:47We're presented with a plate of rice, egg, and a few pieces of chalk.
20:52An initial welcome.
20:53So this traditional way to do it, they will eat it and then put it on your face.
21:00Yes.
21:01Choke.
21:02You are welcome.
21:03You are welcome.
21:05Feel free as you are here.
21:11For now, Tim and I are swept up on the floor.
21:14You are welcome.
21:16You are welcome.
21:17All right.
21:18You are welcome.
21:22Got one.
21:23Got one.
21:28For now, Tim and I are swept up on a mass of drumming, chanting, singing, and dancing.
21:43You can see on my producer's face that the situation is pretty much abandon all ideas of
21:51Any kind of plan, just hang on for the ride.
22:10We will start with the preparation of the...
22:13GB is the meal, the ceremonial meal, the food, right?
22:17Yes.
22:20Down to the fishing spot.
22:21The drums subside.
22:25The village gets back somewhat to regular routine.
22:31The rhythm of everyday life through much of Africa.
22:35Cassava being pounded for fufu.
22:37Thatched huts, pounded earth floors, western t-shirts donated or resold from aid groups, and plastic bottles are some of the only immediately visible changes from hundreds of years ago.
23:05The women fish and do most of the cooking.
23:12In this case, anteater, I think.
23:17Meat, such as it is, is what you find.
23:19There's no supermarket down the way, no market at all.
23:23You don't spend much time worrying about the providence of your proteins around here.
23:27While the men, ain't that typical.
23:33Down the trail to Palm Wine City, where everyone knows your name.
23:36Men only?
23:40Men.
23:40No girls allowed.
23:44Not in my treehouse.
23:46This is a smell, I'm beginning to realize, that permeates everything, by the way.
23:52The Palm Tree being a giver of life.
23:55Palm oil, palm butter, burning fronds of palm, and of course, alcohol.
24:00But every day, you've got to get it out.
24:03Two more.
24:03Three times a day?
24:04Three times a day.
24:05Take the palm.
24:05Yeah.
24:06That's encouraging.
24:08Here we go.
24:09Palm wine is not distilled.
24:12It's drained directly from the tree and ferments naturally and quickly.
24:16Just drain out the bugs and get ready for a low-intensity buzz.
24:20It's sweet and aromatic, and not, frankly, my favorite taste in the world.
24:28And the consistency?
24:30Well, you can insert a Peter North joke here if you like.
24:33I ain't laughing.
24:34Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:37Yeah.
24:38Yeah.
24:39Yeah.
24:40Yeah.
24:41Yeah.
24:42Yeah.
24:43Yeah.
24:44Yeah.
24:45Yeah.
24:46Yeah.
24:47Yeah.
24:48It's a play of compromise.
24:51He and this gentleman, they've been having a long conflict.
24:57This is where serious and longstanding disagreements and even feuds that might otherwise tear at
25:01the fabric of the tribal structure can be hashed out and resolved.
25:05Where you're free to speak your mind, but where, at the end of the day, you're expected
25:14to drink deep and shake it out.
25:19a spot in the shade the stew of cassava leaves dried fish and anteater known around here as
25:46ant bear served with what's known and loved as gb similar to fufu nearly the same difference best
25:54i can tell is that you're not supposed to chew the gluey starchy balls at all and then just dip
26:02all the way all the way right swallow that's why don't you why not chewing food is about chewing and
26:19taste this is about swallowing that's a big difference and an important difference
26:27no one could explain exactly why it's wrong to chew your food but
26:30all in good fun i guess until somebody chokes but tony if you want to you can take a piece of
26:35the fish or the meat this is it the meat you can chew oh yeah that's good
26:43amber is good amber it was a fish that was nice but the meat's good it's not too gamey it's fresh it's
26:52cooked well
27:05guess or not i'm told this is pretty much typical evening activity
27:08the light fades but the heat stays still rising up out of the earth with the sound of village life
27:21closing down for the night i collapse on my cot hoping that tim's warnings of midnight critters
27:27are misplaced in the end i sleep like the dead next i wake to find that the devil is coming for a visit
27:39it's a society built on secrecy and to some extent fear just like medieval
27:43villages in the uk were god-fearing they feared god
27:58a night of surprisingly deep sleep in a hot humid hut
28:14good morning
28:17now tim scared the out of me talking about the pissing habits of the frequent nighttime visitors around here
28:22rats their urid carries lassa fever he explained so i slept face down mouth clenched shut at least i hope i did
28:33on the surface this is a deeply christian society but often the old ways still hold sway
28:41traditional animist beliefs a parallel world ruled by what are known as devils
28:48it's something that every outsider has tried to understand about this place
28:51as recently as you know during the war trying to work out why this war was so violent here why
28:55people were using black magic wearing wigs wearing you know ball gowns and wedding dresses
29:01that was due to the fact this society these societies are secret and uh you know easily hijackable
29:07that's one of the major problems with devil society so my devil is more powerful than yours
29:10it's a society built on to some extent fear there is it is said a daytime devil and a nighttime devil
29:18outsiders are not permitted to even look at
29:29now this devil is friendly here to show us a good time his attendant is tasked with making sure that
29:35not even an inch of human flesh is seen from beneath the devil's grass skirt
29:51the devil is that of governing and spiritual leadership with its power in the community often exceeding
30:18even the chiefs the devil is the law and order of the village
30:26in some secret religions like plural a dame mentioned with lowered voices even today i guess
30:32it should be mentioned there was precedent for cannibalism mutilation sacrifice and the totemic
30:39preservation of remains there are those who will seek to minimize the importance or prevalence of
30:46these activities but there it is ask anybody who lives here for 15 years or more anybody
30:54so it's disconcerting in the extreme given what i know how generously i've been treated better than
31:06anywhere else in liberia i come to find out because looking back i'll barely remember this
31:11what i will remember is the chief's hand on my arm making sure i'm having a good time the children teasing us
31:25the quiet details of daily village life the pride of a people an extended family really who seldom
31:31entertain visitors from abroad the men laughing and ball busting over a glass like anywhere else in the world
31:41next up it's back to monrovia and some surfing but not before a 48 hour long and puke fest
31:53i need a chair and a cold compress
31:58all right where might be my ceremonial pantaloons
32:01the first thing is that i miss my son very much i wanted to be there to see him changing you know
32:16becoming a full man but it's just not possible i want to see my son growing up and find a job to do
32:25and start his own family
32:42the traffic and dust of monrovia seems like a million miles from where we've just been
32:46back in town and less than six hours after my last meal i'm sick very sick
32:53i pride myself on not having been food poisoned since 2000 but this is bad chief suspect a giant snail
33:01result 48 hours of rib cracking puking and crawling around on my hands and knees between bed and bathroom
33:08praying to every known deity by the time i emerge from my room i nearly pass out from exhaustion just on
33:15the way to the lobby but according to my producer michael it's time to go surfing
33:25robertsport is about 10 miles from the sierra leone border named after joseph jenkins roberts
33:31liberia's first president it took a while for the war to hit here but when it did it hit hard
33:39once a beach resort for well-to-do liberians and tourists it's now a shell of itself buildings from
33:46the golden era of the 60s and 70s have been stripped and burned to empty shells
33:51i arrive while still experiencing what a doctor might call mentations i can still not even hold
34:02down so much as a sip of water at a saltine but there's a beach a beach and it's beautiful oh sand
34:10your healing powers meet alfred lomax liberia's first surfer must be alfred hey hey hey how long
34:22you've been surfing now i've been seven like five years you are the first i'm the first librarian
34:28you're like the new kuwanamoki of uh of of liberian surfing who are those guys they are my students
34:34students so so this is a growing sport here now he's the pioneering leader of a small group of
34:41other surfers all of whom have learned from him oh my god i can give you some stuff less yeah you think
34:47so 53 years old i'm out of shape oh and i've only been on a surfboard for yeah about three seconds
34:53there's hope for me yeah it's fine
34:55well i'm excited and a little afraid this of course was a very very very bad idea i can't even
35:05summon the strength needed to paddle out i'm dead on my board you may as well have strapped jimmy
35:12half of this thing he'd be far more animated and graceful
35:29as i see it the fact that i didn't cough yellow bile on my board was a big win
35:42so they say there are times in your life where you're confronted with your own mortality this
35:49was not one of those moments i was confronted with the imminence of my own death like choke on my own
35:54vomit drown because i was too weak to raise my head yeah well it was fun man thank you now i know to
36:03stay away from the water how about the only viable legal commerce around here these days is fishing
36:10these guys do this about three or four times a day
36:18they are going to pull the nets into the water and we pull it on shore they're going to pull it in
36:23and see what you got to see what about yeah sometimes comes out nothing at all you can't get nothing much
36:30but they don't get about fifty dollars you never know yeah
36:42got something a quick look reveals there will be dinner not a bad uh not a bad haul yeah not bad at all
36:52best fishing we ever did the owner of the boat skims off the best stuff the rest is split up evenly among the workers
37:07beach barbecue liberian style and i think i believe i may actually be ready to eat
37:14they just dragged a load of fish out of the water my appetite is finally and i mean finally coming
37:40back a bit and our host mrs peabody has agreed to cook us dinner right on the beach
37:45this is tuna that looks like grouper and of course there's fufu rice some great collard greens
38:14sweet potato green stew now given my recent near-death experience anything with palm butter or strong palm
38:21flavor is off the table but the fish smells good god knows it's fresh enough and i'm even up for a beer
38:29always a sign of life life-giving beer
38:33so you started surfing five years ago you said yeah now tell me about i heard you walked from here
38:48like when when the troubles were still going on you walked from here to monrovia yeah when the world
38:52first broke my year i don't want to be a part of the world they started fighting coming coming coming
38:58until they get down to robertsport so you walked all the way to monrovia about two days and a half
39:02bit on the beach two days while stopping while in monrovia with the war still raging alfred hid in the
39:08bush venturing out only to scavenge for food on the way to a u.n food bank he saw a boogie board stashed
39:14under some stairs he took it when he returned to robertsport he taught himself to surf later a visiting
39:22american surfer taught him a few more tricks and upon leaving robertsport gave alfred one of his boards
39:29so who who actually taught you like every day who was uh i just told myself you just taught yourself
39:38my friend you don't know the sport right so you're teaching other people this is my local how many
39:43like we are learning right now 11. you saw some of the guys yeah they were good how old do you know i'm
39:4943 43. so you got a plan you got a long career out of you with that
39:58liberia was tough for me not so much physically as trying to wrap my mind around the place
40:04the past is still too close and the good i fear too weak to overcome the bad just yet this is a place
40:11that's endured the worst that deserves better much better i'd like to sum up with hopeful words
40:18i look forward to a brighter future but i don't believe it
40:26a few days later i was back in new york and headed out to staten island again
40:31i had one more thing to do
40:38i think what the world did to me and my family it didn't separate us spiritually but physically it
40:46separated us i know it takes time but it's not going to be forever i knew that we'll be
40:54again by the christ of god we'll meet again
41:10hey to me who are you oh good to see you man good to see you again oh brought you something uh oh thanks a
41:16lot that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot come on have a seat that's from your son yeah that's come a
41:25long way my friend yeah i know who's that who's that that's my wife we've been having this for more
41:31than 25 years but we're very young and we're not even married when we had this bottle we decided to
41:37see our relationship so as long as this brother still stays close like this we stay together thanks a lot i
41:46appreciate that
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