My Days of Anonymity Are Over

We bought a motorbike at the end of August. It is a TVS Apache, which is an Indian brand, and goes for USD 1,550. I had visited a number of dealerships to check inventories and prices. I was looking for a Japanese dirt bike - a Honda or Yamaha or Suzuki. But they are USD 4,000 and above. We thought about what the resale value might be and probably it would be quite good but we decided that it was a bit more than we wanted to spend.
       So I suggested the Apache because it looked fun and sporty and got pretty good reviews on the websites that I checked. It would not be ideal for the dirt roads outside (and inside) of town but it is light enough so that you can to muscle it through a rocky patch or a sandy strip off the tarmac. Also, I saw a few of them around town but not so many that it would entirely blend in. In countries like Liberia, motorbike taxis swarm the roads like a locust. They are piloted by young men with no other job prospects and there are too many of them on the roads to make for a good living. They ride the same cheap model - here it is the Bajaj Boxer - and they will carry anything or anyone that pays a fair. I routinely see four people crammed on a Boxer, which is a very small motorbike, or a passenger carrying a television set or a mattress or a coffee table or something even heavier or more oddly shaped.

         Also, they have no road etiquette. They speed through intersections, striking the klaxon repeatedly rather than slowing and looking both ways. They weave ferociously between cars (yes, I do that too...) and stop traffic to make a U-turn between intersections (no, I don’t do that); they cut cars off (I don’t do that either) and each other (nor that) and they routinely strike out into the opposing lane to pass the traffic in their own (nor especially that). They are taxi drivers, not motorcyclists.

         When we went to the TVS ‘dealership’, which was a small shop that (ironically) advertised selling ‘Japanese motorcycle parts’, at first Jess wanted to get the model with purple stripes. It was less expensive than the Apache at USD 1,050 because it has a 125cc engine instead of the Apache’s 160ccs.

         ‘But it’s so big,’ Jess said waving a hand at the Apache.

         ‘They’re both pip-squeaks,’ I said, because anything less than 500ccs is that.

         ‘It’s heavy and it’s going to fall on me,’ she said.

         ‘It’s not and it won’t,’ I said. ‘Besides, when they go down, they're more like to spit you off than fall on you.’

         She frowned.

         ‘How about this - the Apache has an electric starter,’ I said.

         She saw that the purple model had only a kick starter.

         So we agreed on the Apache - Jess because it has an electric starter and me because of the (slightly) larger engine and sleeker lines. Then we had to choose between the black, yellow, and red models. Jess wanted the black model.

         ‘If I can’t have a girly color, then I want to blend in,’ she said.

         ‘I don’t want you to blend in. I want everyone to see you coming and to take full notice,’ I said, citing the safety that comes from visibility on a motorcycle.

         Jess naturally shies away from exhibitionism or even really from being noticed at all.

         ‘You like to put me on display like my dad used to when I was young,’ she said.

         ‘You’re my tall, blonde, beautiful girlfriend - of course I want to put you on display,’ I said.

         ‘I can tell my days of anonymity are over with you,’ she said, frowning.

         ‘Honey, your anonymity was pretty much over the day you landed in Africa,’ I said glibly but not entirely falsely.

         She argued with me over color for a few minutes but I was not going to back down. This was to be the bike she would learn to ride on and I was going to have it be as safe a bike as possible.

         ‘Fine, I know you want the yellow, so let’s get you the yellow,’ she said, conceding.

         I did want the yellow because it’s a good and flashy color and because it is a good contrast to the black engine and frame. But she knew I wanted the yellow as an homage to the BMW motorcycle that I had been planning to buy next year until I discovered that the model and sun yellow color scheme had been discontinued.

         We bought the Apache. It came with a matching yellow helmet, which Jess initially refused to wear because it was ‘too flashy’. Her reaction reminded me of my grandmother who used to never wear a seatbelt when riding in a car.

         ‘Ma, why don’t you wear your seatbelt?’ my mother once asked.

         ‘It wrinkles my outfit,’ she said.

         ‘So you would rather be covered in blood instead of wrinkles?’ my mother said.

         With Jessica I have learned that shaming often works better than reasoning. This is because she already knows your reasoning because she is smarter than you will ever be. She knows the reasoning but she has decided against it for whatever her reasons. But she knows and she knows you know and she knows you know that she is being silly and she only needs a reminder of this from you to make her think again about it. So most often a well-inflected, drawn out ‘Ohhh-kay’ and an facial gesture of ‘whatever’ is enough.

         Also, Jessica - like me - has a smaller than average head - yes, for me this is only literally true while for her it is figurative and literal - so, while the motorbike was being prepped, we took a walkabout to see if we could find her a smaller helmet in another shop. We had no luck but I managed to find a well fitting pair of fake Levi’s at a Lebanese men’s clothing shop before we returned to collect the motorcycle.

         I checked the fluids and then I rode her up the street and around the block.

         ‘She rides good for a pip-squeak,’ I said when I came back. ‘She’ll be good for you to learn on.’

         ‘It’s very yellow,’ Jess said as she swung her leg over the passenger seat.

The Cras-man

We were walking to the hotel where there is the good restaurant and the many televisions so that we could watch the Olympics. I always get stopped on the street because maybe they assume that I carry all the money or because they think I will be protective of anyone trying to speak to ‘the lady’ beside me. The grown boy who stopped me this time was short and thick and round-faced and too-much smiling.

       ‘Excuse me, sir. I am a craftsman,’ he said, which sounded like ‘E-cuze me suh. Ah am uh cras-man’ in his thick local accent.

       He kept fast pace beside us as we walked. I walk fast always and Jess likes to stroll but she walks very, very fast when somebody unwanted is trying to get her attention. I know this because she has suddenly begun walking fast many times when I am the only one speaking to her.

       ‘What do you craft?’ I said.

       ‘I make chess pieces out of bullet casings,’ said the cras-man.

       He extended a faded, wrinkled paper that was his brochure and he withdrew a few samples from a plastic bag he held in one hand. The rim and the primer of the spent cartridges formed the base and the casing was hammered flat and cut roughly into the familiar shapes from a chess set.

       ‘Where do you get the bullets?’ I said.

       He smiled.

       ‘The bullet are from everywhere after the war,’ he said. ‘There are two colors in the chess so one pieces I polish and one pieces I leave unpolish.’

       ‘So is this going to be a novelty on our coffee table?’ Jess said after I made the arrangements to have my own set of chess pieces made and we were again strolling to the restaurant.

       ‘Yeah, until we’re go to Toronto and I can ship it to...as a wedding present,’ I said.

How Can We Be Friends

‘How can we be friends?’ he said.

       He spoke in that thick local accent that is so hard to understand because of the way it swallows the ends of words so that they sound like a firing of short, terse syllables. I was walking home from the gym and I had a podcast coming through my earphones so that his question did not register at first.

       Often when I walk someplace I get stopped at least once or twice because of the novelty that I represent. Sometimes it is because the solicitor wants just to greet me but mostly it is because someone wants to sell me something. In these cases I have found that wearing earphones is the surest and politest defense. Those who want to sell you something always begin with a greeting of some kind so that I acknowledge the gesture of greeting with one of my own and then quickly divert my attention as though I cannot hear the sales pitch that follows.

       ‘How can we be friends?’ he said again.

       I heard it and understood it this time and because of its strangeness I decided to respond.

       ‘These things just happen, I think,’ I said.

       He was an older boy but he was small and clear-faced so that he looked younger than he really was.

       ‘Where do you live?’ he said.

       ‘In Sinkor,’ I said, which is the neighborhood of Monrovia where we were.

       ‘No, I mean where is your house?’ he said.

       ‘Why?’

       ‘So that I can come visit you sometime,’ he said, his local accent breaking the last word into a staccato ‘son-tie’.

       ‘We need to be friends before that,’ I said.

       ‘OK,’ he said.

       He extended his hand and then I mine and we shook and then he walked away.

       ‘I guess he couldn’t argue with your logic,’ Jess said when I arrived home.

We Are on Patrol

‘Look at these guys,’ I said. ‘They look like they’re right out of the Hurt Locker.’

       There were two of them, short and stalky, and they wore thick, black protective equipment over dark blue fatigues. The protective padding was at least two centimeters thick in every place and in their shortness and for the padding that forced their legs apart as they strode, they looked to me like trolls.

       ‘They must be on patrol,’ Jess said.

       We were walking towards them and they towards us on Warner Avenue, which is just off the main boulevard that goes into downtown. We had just left the apartment and we were going to buy groceries  and have a beer and a late lunch at the restaurant of the nice hotel where we could watch football if we decided to sit inside. It was the afternoon after a gloomy morning of cloudiness and rain. Now the sun was emerging from behind the spent clouds. It was becoming warm and humid and the wide puddles and muddy sidewalks were beginning to dry.

       ‘What’s with all the gear?’ I said.

       ‘Maybe they are afraid someone will hurt them,’ she said.

       ‘Yeah but, if they are police or soldiers, they haven’t any weapons or even badges or insignia on their uniforms,’ I said.

       The two men stopped us where our courses met.

       ‘Hello. We are on patrol,’ the first said.

       Jess greeted them and I extended a hand for shaking, which seemed to surprise them.

       ‘We are on patrol,’ the second repeated after the greetings.

       ‘That’s good,’ Jess said, which seemed the most appropriate response that either of us could come up with.

       I looked at her standing beside them and I though what a fine funny sight they were: her so much taller and light skinned and gracefully slender and them so dark and short and thickset like bulldogs from the heavy protective equipment they wore all over.

       ‘We are on patrol and we haven’t any water,’ the first said.

       We both paused and it must have seemed as though we were considering the gravity of their situation.

       ‘Yes, we haven’t any water,’ the second said as though to emphasize the point.

       I looked at them and I did not recognize their uniforms. I had not seen any municipal police dressed as they were and I was not accustomed to seeing soldiers patrol the streets in this country. Mostly, I did not like that they had not any badge or name tag or insignia anywhere on them.

       ‘I’m sorry. We haven’t any water either,’ I said to them and I said, ‘Goodluck.’

       They looked disappointed and a bit bewildered as though they had not prepared for the possibility of this response but they did not detain us further as we began to continue our walk.

       ‘I think they wanted money to buy something to drink,’ Jess said.

       ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but could they really not have a dollar to buy water with?’

       She shrugged.

       ‘You know, once you start giving money to police or people who look like police on the street,’ I said without completing the thought.

       ‘Yeah,’ she agreed.

       ‘Anyway, it’s a far fucking cry from South Sudan, isn’t it?’ I said.

       She smiled and we continued our walk.

The Too-Big Chip

‘You can wait in the line at the store or I can have someone give you quick service right now,’ he said.

       His tone was labored as he motioned to the store where a few customers were queued and he smiled broadly at the end of his sentence. He wore a dress shirt and slacks and sweater vest with a pin that identified him as a ‘Customer Service Representative’.

       ‘And how would show my appreciation for the quick service?’ I said.

       ‘It is up to you,’ he said, smiling broadly at the end.

       I thought that I was in no particular hurry to purchase a new sim card for my phone and the line did not look so long, but also I thought that this is part of learning a place.

       ‘I will be happy for you to expedite the service,’ I said.

       He smiled and called the boys who wore company polo shirts and sat talking at a table under the shade of a canopy in front of the building. One of the boys detached from the group and approached.

       ‘This is my good friend,’ he said to the boy who came. ‘Treat him very well. Register him with a sim card. Make it double fast, please.’ Then he turned to me and he said, ‘The sim is five dollars. I will go to the store and get one for you.’

       I gave him the $5 and sat with the boy in the shade of the canopy while he went into the store. He returned shortly with the sim card and we opened my phone and found that the card was too large to fit in the slot.

       ‘This is a too-big chip,’ the boy said. ‘His phone needs the small one.’

       ‘Yes, I see that now,’ he said and turning to me, ‘the micro-sim is 10 dollars. I will try to return this to the store.’

       I gave him the $10. He went back to the store and was a long time in retrieving the micro-sim so that this was no longer the quick service it was advertised to be and I was annoyed.

       When he returned, he delivered the micro-sim to the boy who fitted it into the phone. In his other hand he still held onto the too-big chip.

       ‘They would not refund for this sim because the box is open and the chip has been detached from the card,’ he said, ending the sentence with the wide smile.

       I grinned because now I could see how this particular scam was done. The too-big chip was suddenly a convenient token of appreciation for the quick service, which had resulted to be not at all so quick as was broad-smilingly advertised. Of course, $5 is otherwise far too much to give for the few minutes of dragged out quick service unless you wanted to take the unneeded too-big chip with you and try to show appreciation with a few banknotes.

       When the micro-sim was fitted into the slot and the phone had registered the new network, I helped the boy to navigate the settings on my phone, which were all in Spanish. In Liberia it is a law that the cellular providers must maintain a database matching each number to a registered user with their name, birthdate, national ID number, and a photograph. If the sim card is not registered within a certain period of time, the provider will disconnect the phone number from the sim and eventually assign the number to a new customer. The boy recorded my information in his smartphone and attached a photograph of me taken from the phone’s camera. A few moments after he hit ‘send’, I received an sms that my number had been registered under my name.

       ‘So I was not able to get a refund for the other sim,’ said the Customer Service Representative representative as I checked the sms confirming that my number had been registered.

       ‘I suppose you will keep the sim and our business is finished here,’ I said.

       ‘Yes, that will be the good way,’ he said and waved the box containing the too-big chip in a gesture to the boy who had registered my phone number.