Despite warnings of a treacherous journey ahead, a mother battles police roadblocks and craterous dirt roads to take her children to Kpatawee Waterfall, Liberia, where she learns lessons of resilience that distinguish the ancestors who protect this ancient land. This story was written by a student on our Craft of Travel Writing Certification course.
Something light, the weight of a droplet, lands on my head. Could it be the rain? The West African monsoon is fast approaching. But the thick thatched roof of the baffa, the traditional cabin, is dense and impenetrable, and the night is eerily quiet. As tiny legs start creeping towards my ear, any further musings are abandoned. Bugger. I clutch what I want to believe is a beetle, a living monument to the biodiverse paradise of the Upper Guinean Forest.
With stealthy movements, I crawl under the mosquito net, walk past the backpacks, reach the wide opening above the solid wooden beams in the bathroom, and help the beetle out, towards the stars. Wide awake, I sneak out and sprawl out in the grass, the soft cotton of the t-shirt soaking up the moist of the night, caressed by the woven shades of green of the jungle and lulled by the distant roaring of the waterfall.
Kpatawee, the mystical waterfall in the heart of the Upper Guinean Forest, which covers some 60% of Liberia’s territory, has been at the top of my bucket list for months. The even more mystical route to Kpatawee, and especially the infamous dirt road that has become the stuff of urban legends in Monrovia, makes for some tricky planning; too rainy, too dusty, too busy. A window of opportunity materialises, but it is far from ideal, as it means travelling alone with the kids. My spine tingles in trepidation, horror stories overwhelming my brain: ‘Last time we travelled, both cars in our party broke down. It took us over seven hours to get there.’ ‘Scary drive I tell you, we were out of gas, and no one sold fuel within a 20-mile radius.‘
The car is meticulously packed: two extra jerrycans of fuel, blankets, four litres of water per person, a torch, excited kids, and a great friend. The patient, adventurous, and good-humoured Johanna has joined me, as keen to explore the country as to leave Monrovia behind for the weekend, not least the steel embrace of its traffic, the burnt charcoal fumes engulfing everything left outside, and the thick air filled with bright colours and loud honking.
The road out of Monrovia towards Gbarnga is slick and smooth. The car cruises with the gleeful energy of a barn animal set free to roam after the long winter. Wide and gentle bends in the road grant unparalleled sights of the rubber plantations of Margibi, their neat vastness a remnant of a bygone era of meticulous and callous exploitation of these lands.
White words on a rectangular blue sign tell us we have reached ‘Police.’ Conveniently, some two hundred meters ahead, a police roadblock appears. A tired hand holds up a dangling rope stretching loosely from a shanty barrack on the left side to another barrack on the right. Two red-and-white plastic barriers block most of the carriageway, effectively reducing the road to a single lane. A young chap dressed in civilian clothes waves at us to slow down. Walking up with the confidence of someone who has won the jackpot, he says while I lower the driver’s window: “Miz, do you have a permit?”
A permit? On a public road? I want to ask, but my voice stays put, my mind racing to movie scenes that should have stopped shaping my prejudices about West Africa long ago. My hands grip the steering wheel tightly to prevent shaking. I finally get some words out and ask, “Are you a policeman?” He calls his supervisor, who is in fact dressed in a police uniform. As soon as he sees us, and the car with its dark blue diplomatic CD plate, he looks admonishingly at the young kid and waves us through, yelling “Let them pass” to the hand holding up the rope and doing a military salute.
Well, some things, like how status and number plates determine your fate, do not seem to change. Mindful but no less uneasy with the reality of our privilege, we cruise towards the unspoiled, lush landscape of Bong County, the vivid green of the jungle mellowed by the warm tones of the afternoon sun. Huge cotton trees, standing tall and proud, guide the wanderer to their destination, as they have, timelessly, for centuries.
The dirt road brings us down to earth in a most welcome way, as we find ourselves, like any other mortal, navigating tricky moon-like craters and dried-up ridges in a cloud of dust. You know the feeling of driving an old car on difficult terrain–you don’t know how far you can push, how cautious you should be. Beads of sweat trickling down your back, you want to lean backward but are scared of leaving stains on the leather seats. You lean forward instead, neck and shoulders tight with tension.
I see none of the finely decorated tin-roof mud houses, nor the young women sorting peppers on large white linens, or the small children chasing a goat–sights that the kids will happily share later on. I do stop, however, as the forest finally opens up, to take in the bright green of the rice fields, the water shimmering in the sunset, the line of triangular thatched baffas standing against the lavishly forested hills. The chirp of the crickets welcomes us to Kpatawee. A huge sigh of relief escapes from my aching body. One milestone down, one to go.
Later that night, as I tuck myself back into bed, wondering about the beetle and the stars, I note happily that the kids are still fast asleep. It will make tomorrow easier, I think, drifting into a dreamless slumber.
We set out on the forest trail as the night mist still lies over the lodge like a thick, comforting blanket, and we follow the river upstream to the mighty Kpatawee Waterfall in the cooling shade of the jungle, under the cloudy sky. Randall, our tour guide, is a fast walker, his strides smooth and precise through the thick vegetation. He is a proud Kpelle, the largest ethnic group in Liberia. His ancestors have stewarded these forests for a thousand years and know their secrets better than anyone.
With every stride and every answer, I tune in to his Koloqua, the Liberian English that dispels any illusions of encountering no language barriers while travelling through Liberia. In Koloqua, the ending of most words is cut (so “my feet are hurting” becomes “ma fi herti”), as if it is the intention of the word itself that matters, its bare essence, rather than the end result. Oh, the liberating feeling when you realise all you need to do is try!
As the trail veers uphill, the mist and the clouds are gone, and the sun peers through the forest canopy. Randall pauses and picks up a grey, oval, naked acorn–a Kola nut. I recall the proud sign at the lodge… “We gave Cola to the world.” He tells us how the Kola nut, a powerful source of stimulants, travelled from the dense forests of Liberia, through the deserts of Mali all the way to Timbuktu–the mythical imperial capital of Mansa Musa, the richest man ever to have roamed Earth–and onwards to the market towns of the Mediterranean, where it was found as early as the 1200s.
The sharp bitterness of the nut, its boundless lingering in my mouth, releases new energy to continue the walk and gives Randall the opportunity to catch up on my incessant questions. He became a guide long before the new management took over, after Ebola. He likes his job a lot, but what he loves the most is the quiet walks deep into the forest. “You know the forest, it is always there, it does not change.”
“It’s like New Year’s Eve. I know I have survived another year. I did not have any accidents. I still have a job and my family around me.”
We can hear the waterfall before we can see it. The sun is now high and scorching in the sky. The water is spouting with the primeval energy of the Earth itself. As I sit in the water, holding tight to a rock so as not to slide in the natural pool just below, the water crashing over my shoulders and deafening all thoughts, humbling truths surface.
Against hardship and uncertainty, the bread and butter for too many Liberians, resilience takes the shape of human connections. Built to last and to rely on, like family ones and perhaps also the extemporaneous, based on a convergence of interest like this meeting, between me and Randall, the forest and the waterfall.
Later that evening, having earned a beer (or two), I lay in the grass, looking up at the glowing equatorial sky. Longing for a connection to Mother Earth brought me here. Embracing koloqua, embracing intention rather than perfection, helped me overcome the deference with which I am usually met, and brought me closer to appreciating the determined resilience of Liberia and its people. The beetle creeping through the cotton trees seems to nod in approval.
