Memories of Liberia
Received from Ann Johansson
1970-1973: Buchanan - Liberia
The worst thing ever in my life was moving back to Sweden, I was frozen, uncomfortable and just wanted to get back home to loop 4, house 409.
My old friends in Malmoe, my hometown, had become superficial, knew nothing about the world outside and if I told anything about Liberia the comments wasn't bright!
I stopped telling about my adventure and kept the memories to myself i.e. how it all started:
My father (Thore) who at the time worked at the shipyard Kockums became acquainted with a Mr. Notefors that has spent eight years in Liberia.
After an impressive evening in their home it was decided: we were moving.
Thore applied, got hired as Senior Foreman at Workshop, and the rest of the family joined three month's later.
You all know how the flight trip was, looong, we became three hours delayed due to the worst thunderstorm over Mali. What a scenery in the middle of the night!
When we landed at Robertsfield Int. Airport and got of the plane I got the same thought as the rest of you, that it was the heat from the airplane engines that hit me.
The spotlights was surrounded by big -something that flew- it was not close to swedish mosquitoes, that much I understood.
The smell of the tropical night and it's sounds still gives me the goosepimps.
Boy it was hot!
Mother Jane's nylon stockings came of in a hurry in the Volkswagen bus. If I have had a pair of scissors I had cut of my long thick hair. It was pitch-dark and the road to Buchanan bumpy. At arrival to our first house in loop 2 it was straight to bed. Funny? Not!
I asked daddy to turn off that machine on the wall, it was too noisy. He just laughed; "No way!"
The sight that caught my eyes in the morning will forever be glued to my mind, the palm trees, hibiscus bushes, the sun, I wanted more and I was hooked.
We went on a trip to River Cess and met an enormous group of flying dogs and an army of red ants. It was hot like h.. and my sweat dripped along my pale legs. I heard my grand ma's warning: Why are you going there? You will get a sunstroke!
What a luxury to drink Fanta, Coke & Sprite as much as you wanted to cool down.
In the afternoon we went to Casons Beach, some of my friends to be was there and we said hello and made small talk. I soon understood that Bubben and Rudi made fun of me. I had that southern swedish accent, like a hot potato in the mouth, and they tried to copy it, that's why their laughs was drowning the sound of the waves.
The water was salty and warm and I had to pinch myself to understand that this was my new home country.
I was born a beach freak so this was paradise for me.
After a couple of days it was time for school, grade 7, Bengt Wickström was the head principal and Rolf Öhrneman class teacher, Gun Colliander french teacher.
My first assignment was reading out loud (thanks Rolf :o) what a giggle!!
It was my accent again! I was almost mute for some time until Birgitta Andersson told me to speak more capital Swedish (stockholmska), when I look back a bit foolish but then it was important to be accepted.
It took a while to cope on the lessons since they were mostly held in English but it went smoothly after a while (I think - I hope!)
English lingo came as a gift as well as Liberian (we still use frequently in our family, for fun).
The school time went on very well, nice teachers and few incidents.
This was life in paradise, sun, warmth, bathing after lessons, lots of friends, kind girls and some nice looking guys.
When I think of it ... so many places we had to spend time at!!
Movie in Buchanan - always with "Single Girl" by Sandey Posey as intro.
It still makes me sentimental when I hear it, and no movie without a mouthful of Chicklets.
Our own clubhouse in Vianinni that we painted and worked with till our butts bled.
Lena's park with Mama Annie that adopted me and everyone else.
A place that my parents should have no knowledge of that I spent my time in, but I'm sure they knew, we loved to sit on the porch and listen to the ocean between the songs on the jukebox and longing for "our" sailor boys from the ore tanker Nuolja, that was anchored outside.
So incredible it was to watch the sunrise from Gunnar Collianders beach house.
A family that always had open arms although my grades in French was rock bottom.
Nautical with the water that smelled of iron ore and it's black sand, the raft we swam to, the sailboats we used, our own parties, movie nights with many no-no's in the bushes, our card games, Coke and hot dogs that I signed coupons for all the time that made my father flip, when he found out on payday.
The tennis courts where Bubben, Chester, Rudi, Risto and the other aces showed how a game should be played, trainer Deadman that had the patience of an angel with my hopeless backhand, it was more fun to be waitress at the Peppersoupnights at the Golf club when they had meetings.
The Football Club with it's jukebox, pool table and ping-pong table where many gallons of sweat was produced.
And last but not least our beaches, Cason Beach with the kiosk Catacumbey that sold the worlds best Fanta, paradise Silver Beach with the reef where I snorkelled and our own palaver hut where I gladly could live forever, and our dear friends in the village.
The parties at Pia Fundell (she had a cobra in the freezer), John-Peter Smith pop-corn with sugar all over the sofa - vexed mother) Birgitta Andersson
(gin/grape & the latest Led Zeppelin), Cheryl Holmes (sleep over or did we sleep?)
Bjorn & Ingela Andreasson (father came home with newly cathed croc and threw on the kitchen table) forbidden bachelor flats.
All trips to Yekepa, with and without parents, that alone is a book of memories.
Nalle, Josef Galic, Lelle Broberg, Leif Kring, Anné Crone, all Ann's ..
Once we were no less that 5 Ann's at the pool, the visits at the radio station, bars.... all those bars.
Weekend trips to Fanti Town, canoe trips on River Cess with Peter & Heidi Brackebush, sweet water lagoon at Edina(?), pigeon hunting at dawn, flights over Buchanan, barracuda fishing , wanderings in Monrovia, Nimba, Belle Yella, Saniquelle, lepra colony and all other villages is forever printed in my mind.
That our fathers had a rough time at strikes, shut downs, conveyer belt problems and so on was nothing that effected us or that we understood at that time.
That our mothers learnt to play tennis, golf and had social assignments that did them happy, that we understood.
My little sister Jennie (whom I always was afraid that something should happen to because she was the most curious kid on the block and should touch everything that crawled or moved but I kept an eye on across the schoolyard at Kindergarten playing with Pia Furtemark ) have other memories and we have had long sofa nights with
Ahh.. do you remember ?…
Today I'm 51 and an amazingly long time has passed since all this happened but now when I'm writing this down it feels like a more detailed story is going to be written later, there is so much Liberia in our memory, isn't there ?
One special episode :
Thore, Peter Brackebush and myself were going pigeon hunting at Bokoa,
we started at 03:00, it was exiting to hear the bush wake up.
It was comfortably cool and the trip to River Cess pleasant.
We arrived at a town , I have forgotten the name, and paid the villagers for coming with us and of we went. A mangrove swamp is fascinating to stare at. We sat quiet heard the cicadas, fish splash and some rustle in the trees. The heat came fast and
the blurry water was tempting but the thought of not knowing what was down there
for once kept me from jumping in.
After a while we arrived at Bokoa and we gave the villagers two sacks of rice.
It was nice to sit in the shade in the chiefs palaver hut eating fruit.
I was allowed to take pictures of his family, how we laughed when posing together.
We walked into the bush and had to wade in the shallow river until we came to a half open space where silence ruled, we sat down looking for those birds.
They must have been on the other side of earth that day. About 2 hours before
departure and when almost giving up , the Flock came.
Big Game hunters shot and the catch was 11 pigeons. Not fun at all, they were
so cute. Time to head home , walking in the warm river water I felt a firm grip in
the back of my hair and I was pulled back, I almost walked into a huge spider web !
The thought still makes me shiver.
After 15 hours it was really nice to come home and take a shower, but what a day!
After-hunting-party was held the weekend after at the Brackebush resident
and the pigeons tasted plenty good, specially the gravy together with Club Beer.
I thank my parents with all of my heart for giving me this innocent free
youth.
Bao fo nau!
Ann
Received from Donna Bleasdale(McHugh)
hello, i would like to add my memories of liberia to your site!
I was there from 1976-1979,80 and lived in Buchanan, my dad worked in the ore handling dept, we lived in loop4 then moved to loop extension 1, house 155, my memories, as were everyone elses there, were very happy childhood ones, i was 13 the year i arrived and 17 the year i left, so many happy days! I have many vivd memories, of lifelong friends, schooldays, beach outings to furtemarks and silver beach, thumbing lifts with locals on the back of pickups (f100s, like my dad had for work) , an unheard of act now, can you imagine us as parents now trusting anyone to take our precious darlings in the back of a truck? luckily, i was always with a gang,
Mats,(Holmgren) being in 'charge' used to take good care of us, my dad would say 'as long as mats is going' then he would allow me! Other trips with the 'gang' would be to the ice cream parlour and the picture house in buchanan, normally we would all walk there, sometimes in a taxi. often stopping at the markets to browse the local jewelry stalls and pick up a trinket or 2 along the way! Such fun we had, sitting in the top tier of the pictures, watching the big curtains move with the wind and rain, that would often come in and soak us, or else , as a few of us would spot, rats, running along the floor, then at half time break, go outside to the 'candy men' and buy a handful of sweets or chiclets, for 20c! My parents had lebanese friends who lived across the road from the pictures, so i always had a safe place to go in case of trouble, whhich incidentally never occurred , i recall once having to go and ask Sophie to ring my dad!
Another wonderful memory, our gang riding mini hondas all over lamco, but we never dared to go into buchanan, i was told by my parents, our little lamco township was safe but we needed a licence to be in charge of a motorcycle in Buchanan! We often went in unison to the nautical, a favourite after school haunt,where we would buy cinammon rolls, made by the mums, washed down with bottles of sprite or coke!(of course, not forgetting to firstly buy the important book of tickets!) At the weekends we would have discos in the golf club, or country club as we called it, very often run by a barman, sometimes my friend sadie (Detoles) and I would go and help 'choose; the next record, in the later years as many of the older kids went to their hometowns to attend school, afternoons in the week, consisted of video shows, where the famous VCR would be rolled out to an audience of eager, children, watching US shows taped, such as THE SONNY AND CHER show and DUKES OF HAZZARD, although myself, too interested in the what the boys were doing to actually watch the program! Whilst watching the tv, we would order plates or baskets of chips and smother them in tomato sauce!
Not forgetting, the many tennis games i would watch as I was keen to keep an eye on a certain young man, who happened to be a fantastic tennis player, wonder if he still plays? (Bob Dicks Jr), talking of whom , i had a crush on, we were in the same class! At break we would go behind the single mens flats, or SP1 and SP2 as we nicknamed them, and some among us would have a sneaky cigarette!, and talk about our latest crush! Aah such fond memories, ........... i have a photos of those days, i havent scanned them into the our beloved liberia site yet, ....if anyone has similar memories, i would love to hear from you as when someone else remembers certain things it triggers that memory, then making us remember more!
Just wanted to thank you for your efforts.
Be sure to check out the Memoirs page of "Liberia Reunion site", although only in Swedish: Liberia Reunion "In the Dust" page