August 14, 2011 B-First

The sound of a preacher woke me up Sunday morning. I can’t tell where he was, but he had a powerful microphone system that allowed his LOUD, repetitive messages to enter my bedroom before 9 in the morning.

Albert and I took the school car; he showed me where the nearest Catholic church is and promised to work out a schedule for him to drive me there so I don’t always have to charter a car. We also stopped in at the Royal Hotel. Around 11:30, the managers shut off the internet connection there. The reason being that they serve an $18 buffet from that time until 3pm, and the management needs to free up the tables normally used by internet users for people paying the big bucks for the buffet. Note to self: Do not go to the Royal Hotel on Sunday for WiFi access.

We, the faculty living on campus, had expected the last member, Linda, to arrive Sunday night. Turns out that our information was wrong and that she won’t arrive in Monrovia until August 19. Because we had expected to go out to dinner altogether, we decided to carry on with our plans and find a restaurant.

After over an hour of unsuccessfully trying to hail a shared taxi to Sinkor, we finally found Amos, the school driver, and the school car. Ed drove Adisa and me to a Bangladeshi restaurant called B-First. I had the chicken fried rice and the garlic naan (bread). Overall the place struck me as reasonably priced and clean…until I saw a cat run through the front door and into the rafters with a dead mouse in its mouth. Ed was not phased, commenting that “at least the cat was doing its job.”

During dinner, I think Adisa explained Liberian culture best. She said that Liberians don’t get the idea of why or concept of explaining themselves. It’s just always been a certain way and that’s what they stick to even if they don’t know the cause or reason for why it started out that way. For example, at the Bangladeshi restaurant, I tried to order an appetizer. The waiter told me, “It’s Sunday.” What did he mean? “None. It’s Sunday.” I inquired further into why there weren’t any appetizers on Sunday. Let’s just say that I didn’t get very far.