Bizarro Day

Most days here in Liberia strange things happen, but some days the entire country seems to be doing everything backwards. We call those bizarro days. Today was definitely one of those days. It all starts when Andrew, Matt, and I are driving into town and the traffic pattern has a stranger than normal feel. Taxis cutting us off. UNMIL trucks stopped dead in the road. We go to Randall Street in the heart of Monrovia to see our friends, Mohammed and Mohammed at Auto Spare Services, which we bought our generator from. Unlike in America where you go to K-Mart, buy something, take it home, and only go back if you need to buy something else, in Liberia you have to maintain the relationships with retailers so that you will continue to get good deals. So every once and awhile we need to make the rounds and see everyone that we have bought anything from, and sometimes business owners that we have not gotten anything from. So we see that Mohammed and Mohammed are well but it doesn't stop there. I got sat on a tiny bench only a foot off the ground, Andrew is in a chair next to me, and Matt is leaning on a gigantic generator. Mohammed and Mohammed assume their spots behind the painted green counter. Now that everyone is in position we have to take Lebanese coffee. I enjoy coffee very much but if you have never had this particular brew it is something you must experience. The coffee is very strong, a little bitter, and almost leaves a chalky consistency in the mouth. It is served in shot glass sized coffee mugs with no handles. They must be hard to come by here because most are chipped, cracked, or look aged. Mohammed and Mohammed's coffee is usually very hot and it takes a long time to sip it down. All the while an awkward conversation is going on. Matt "So how is business?' Mohammed "It's small small." Matt "Well it is rainy season." Mohammed "Yes, dry season business is good." This continues in a similar manner for a while, five men sipping coffee from mini-mugs making niceties and staring at each other. We finally kill the coffee, which means we have met our obligation in the relationship. Then it starts to rain… hard. I look outside and I have to make a choice. Get wet or stay for more conversation. If we stay any longer lunch will be served and I don't feel ready for that today. I bolt out in the rain for the car. Bizarro.
Matt drops Andrew and I off at our other friend Ali. We are renting a Nissan Pathfinder from him for the team from Texas. I feel I need to clarify this cast of characters at this point because it will move fast and don't want you to get lost. Now Ali is the brother of the Mohammed from Building Material Center or BMC. BMC employs Mohammed, Mohammed, and Mohammed as well as another Ali. So there is Mohammed and Mohammed, Ali, and Mohammed, Mohammed, Mohammed, and Ali. I am not making this up. We bought our car from Ali at the car lot's brother Mohammed. Ali works for their uncle who imports vehicles into the country. So it is still raining and Andrew and I are standing in a car lot waiting for Ali to get there. This is not a car lot in the traditional sense of paved parking lot and guys in suits telling you what you want to hear. This is more like a gravel lot with a bunch of used cars and 4x4s and a slew of Liberian guys standing around while a few are working on vehicles. Andrew and I walk around and inspect some of the cars. I see a foot under a car. It is not jacked up or anything. It would not surprise me if it were just a foot. The fact that a man was attached to it working in a very small space seems even more improbable to me. Ali finally shows about fifteen minutes later. We go into the small, padlocked office at the back of the lot. He sits behind the desk and we sit in two Ghanaian made plastic chairs. An old Liberian man comes in and asks him how he wants the rental agreement. Andrew tells him we only need the car for two days so the old guy leaves to draw up the papers. Andrew starts the conversation "How is business?" Ali "It's small small." And so on. Twenty minutes later the old man comes back in with a hand written receipt. Ali scolds him because it is not a typed rental agreement. He sends the old man away. It is too late in the day for coffee so Ali sends someone for sodas for us. They come back with two cokes and Ali gets two Lebanese wraps that he offers us for lunch. We start talking about orphanages and what we do with the relief program. Ali has a friend in the port that imports most of the rice for the country and he would be able to get us a better price if we buy enough. He calls the guy and Andrew talks to him. It all seems so ridiculous but this is how business is done here: coffee, cokes, and phone calls to friends. The price is never discussed only quantity. Businessmen always say "We are friends now so price doesn't matter." They don't understand budgetary constraints. While we are having this conversation I can hear the typewriter going in the next room. A keystroke every few seconds. This could take forever. More and more awkward and finally he comes back into the room. The old man reads the rental agreement aloud like a medieval herald giving proclamation to all the land. We shake hands and Ali takes us out into the lot to the best vehicle out there. He is renting us his personal car. Bizarro.
While all of this is going on Andrew has sent one of our security guys to Red-light, a major market area, to secure a van for the Texas team. Moses in normally an absolute gong show but sometimes he has these moments where he can really hustle. He has now gone from Red-light to downtown with a guy that owns a bunch of vans. We get into Ali's Pathfinder and we are immediately consumed by Lebanese pop music, a cross between early 90's trance beats, Celine Dion grandiosity, and Bollywood nightmarish dance sequence vocals. We drive two blocks and Moses is flagging us down in the rain. We are hurried into a concrete block shack with a tin roof. It is still raining and it is only getting worse. The shack is half full of wooden benches and half full of used tires. The guy running the vans looks very familiar, like common white guys features on an African. He tells us that the van is on its way from Red-light and will be there soon. We wait and wait and finally the van shows. It says John Long in big green letters with a yellow outline. I have seen a bunch of these busses around before. I noticed them because John Long used to run the family camp in Dunkirk, New York that we went to as kid. John died a few years ago and I have wanted to get a picture of me with the van to send to his family. These busses, however, are right hand drivers from Ireland. They normally seat twelve but this is Africa so I estimate at least eighteen people could be packed in. Andrew went out into the van to take a look. The owner of the van, some guy in a suit, the driver, Moses, and some other guy all piled in with him. The negotiations have started. The bus was parked pretty much in the middle of the street and it was almost impassable by traffic in either direction. It was raining even harder now as I watched all these guys piled into a bus. There seemed to be a lot of talking and the windows quickly fogged up. It must have been like a sauna in there. Outside, though, Africa was still occurring. Guys in flip flops washing their feet in the rain runoff on the side of the street. One guys did it and I thought to myself "That can't be normal, this whole city is like a toilet, nobody would wash their feet in this, that guy must be nuts." I almost finished the thought when another guy crossed the street and did the same thing. Bizarro.
The negotiations finished and we got back in the car and left. On the way out of town we got pulled over by the same police officer that had hassled me a few weeks ago about driving in flip flops. He stood in front of the car and yelled to Andrew to turn on his parking lights. Something was getting lost in translation and he could see that so in Liberian fashion he yelled it louder, faster, and twice. "Your parking lights, parking lights!!!" Andrew finally realized he meant the hazard lights. He came around to the driver's side and asked Andrew for his driver's license. Fortunately he had it on him. The guy looked at it and asked where it was from. Andrew told him it was Canadian. The officer said, "You are charged with misuse of a driving instrument but since you are here to help my country I will let you go." He walked away and we just looked at each other like "What the heck is going on?" We drove back to Fatu's Orphanage and things started to go back to normal. That is just one of many bizarre days here. A weird vibe everywhere I go and the whole day just leaves me feeling like it was all an elaborate joke. Bizarro.