Precious Tina and the Prostitute

The Liberians have recently completed their second set of “free and fair” elections since the end of their civil war, reelecting Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to her Constitutionally last term as head of state. The inauguration ceremonies are Sunday, just days away. It was a somewhat disputed election, so I’m glad to be flying this evening, just in case the losers get uppity. I doubt that will be the case, as the mood of the people seems high and preparations are in full swing.


Our CEO will be here for the festivities, as well as our VP of International. Joining them will be dignitaries and VIPs from around the world (and perhaps a few VVIPs), and they are starting to fill every hotel in town, including ours. Every morning and evening, there are new folks here, the more recent ones better dressed than those who came before. Nicer cars fill the parking lots, and the drain on the power grid must be measureable, as we just had a brief outage.

Our Mainer, Brian, knows all numbers of people in Liberia from his work in the Peace Corps in the 1960’s and through multiple subsequent visits and sabbaticals. He’s on the phone talking with locals, or having us drop him off somewhere, or getting picked up at the hotel, so it was no surprise a well dressed young woman appeared at our usual veranda dinner table. My first thought was that she was the daughter of a friend, come to pick him up, and he was taking the opportunity to introduce her to potential American contacts. That seemed true, as she said that she knew Brian because he worked in her village while in the Peace Corps. Although that was fifty years ago, and she couldn’t have been more than twenty five today, I attributed it to my lack of understanding of the patois.

Being polite expatriates, we invited her to join us and bought beers for everyone. [The local brewery, Club, makes a very nice lager, and was one of the very few factories that weren’t damaged during the war.] Shortly thereafter, a couple more of Brian’s local friends showed up, and we were introduced, but what I thought for a moment would be a large group for dinner turned smaller, as Brian left with his friends, and left Precious Tina with us.

After we completed the construction of the dam in the 1960s, the Company hadn’t returned to
the project site until a year or two after the breech, in 1993. A few of our current team were there at the time and related a story about how one of the crew, an avowed teetotaler, fell off the wagon one night and, while trying to ditch a persistent local prostitute, fell down a set of unlit stairs and broke his ankle. Due to the political situation at the time, he had to be evacuated overland to the Ivory Coast and more intensive medical care.

The main floor of the power house is full of large and small holes, just right for eating ankles. Then there are the turbine pits in which you could fall thirty feet before getting sliced into very ugly parts by what wasn’t stolen of the turbine blades. There’re no rails at all along the perimeter of the powerhouse to keep you from dropping twenty feet on to jagged rocks and water. Examining the embankments and channels forces you to scramble up and down sharp, uneven, and sometimes unstable gneiss. The trails through the bush are full of snakes, there’s malaria and yellow fever, and the Liberians drive as bad as Jamaicans. Historically, however, the biggest threat to a consultant’s safety is escaping from hookers.

That’s why, when our small group had drifted off except for three of us and Tina, and she was joined by a more obvious working girl, we remaining three quick bade them good evening and, carefully minding the stairs, hightailed it to the safety of our rooms.

Why Brian introduced us to local prostitutes is still a mystery.