From Eden to Armageddon: The Tragedy of the Liberian Civil War

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

(Where the Devil Celebrates Christmas)

Christmas Eve was much like any other bridge night at the Peace Corps house except that David and Lisa had picked up canned eggnog for about two and one-half dollars a quart. They got six cans. There would be no party during this evening but the next night. Tonight was Mid-night Mass at St. Mary’s Church.

The short-wave radio featured the Voice of America World Service bringing them news of what Peace Corps were doing around the world. Places like Saipan and America Samoa were using makeshift Christmas trees out of palm leaves and sticks. Each place would adapt local customs into their respective Christmas celebrations much as the pagan traditions in Europe had been absorbed by Christianity.

There were no Peace Corps on Pitcairn Island, but a reporter took a plane with pontoons there and did an interview with its two hundred or so descendants of the Munity on the Bounty. They shared their own traditions for his audience.

The Peace Corps let the houseboy have generous helpings of popcorn and eggnog while they prepared for the mid-night mass. David and Lisa got there early and sat behind Pa, who turned around and somehow hummed his best version of Here Comes the Bride. They said nothing but smiled and let him have his usual fun.

People filed in wearing what they thought looked best on them. Some managed Western-style suits with coats and ties. The lay preacher who held God Palaver in the surrounding villages wore a white Mandingo robe. He was once a Muslim but had converted in the early days of the mission. His message was quite valuable because he knew both the Muslim mind and the Christian mind.

David had aired out his summer-weight suit and Lisa wore one of three dresses she owned. This time Father Sydney said mass because Father Anthony and other priests were doing Christmas Eve in Shelloe and as far as Voinjama. They had to hold two or three services each to serve everybody who wanted to come.

It went without incident. As Father Sydney was placing the hosts on the worshippers’ tongues, there came a steady banging such as they had heard during David’s first week in Bolahun. The Devil was coming to church.

Well, almost. They concluded the mass and gathered outside. Father made a speech of thanks for the Devil coming all that way to help the Christians of Bolahun celebrate Christmas this year. Father Sydney knew the identity of the man in the costume of the Bush Devil they called Landai. Again he was represented in the crocodile mouth and headdress. There were accompanied by small boys, who were initiates in the Poro Society. The fathers of Bolahun accepted this part of Liberian culture without opposition to it. Their reward for their appreciation for the best things of the local culture was the fierce loyalty of the mission church members.

After a few minutes, Landai withdrew with his retinue for the evening.

The next day the parish performed what would have been called miracle plays in Medieval Europe where troupes performed for Christians, who could not read. The first play was straight out of Genesis, or it was more like Milton’s Paradise Lost .

High school students played the part of Adam and Eve. They more or less made up the dialogue as they went. A small kid dressed in a gunny sack played the part of the serpent. At long last he enticed Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit. That day it was a banana. She broke off a piece, but the serpent said, “Save some for me.” When Adam ate it, the angel then came and chased them out of the “garden” with a Liberian cutlass.

Later was a play about Jesus’ birth. Small boys without shirts played the part of shepherds. They lay down in a circle and slept while an angel in an acolyte’s robe raised her hands and spoke to them. They woke up and went to see Jesus.

Then came three well-dressed men in African robes, speaking three local Liberian languages to each other. They got across that somehow they were looking for the baby Jesus and were asking first in Jerusalem, where Herod was king.

Pa, who played the part of King Herod that day, dressed up in a country-cloth robe and wide brim hat that he borrowed from another Timne named William.

Well, everyone got the message. Lisa said that the world over would express their understanding of what Christmas meant in their own hearts.

In the afternoon, Lisa and David went into town to watch Landai dance. He ignored them and went his way to the accompaniment of drums and women beating rhythm on their instruments of seed-filled gourds with beads attached to strings as they sang. Landai would sit before a house and a woman would come out and leave a coin with the Devil’s spokesman and dance to the music. He would move on and do the same thing again. It continued until he made his rounds through the whole Bandi Quarter. For some reason he ignored the Kisi Quarter. It was because, they later learned, he was not getting enough money to make it worth his while.

The party that night was a quiet one that included some of the recent graduates, who had remained on the mission compound but would to travel after New Years. They had varieties of delicious country chop and some amazing fruit salads as could be found anywhere. Principal Willie had waited until pineapple plants by his house had ripened and cut them. He risked someone else coming by and helping himself in order to get them at their biggest.

The students played Monopoly, but it bore the names of streets in London and also the English railroads. They’d say, “Pay me fifty bucks!” to each other. David never corrected them. The British game used the Pound.

Lisa noticed but said nothing.

She and David left together. He walked with her up to her house. “Remember, I want to have you over for a candle-light dinner on New Year’s Eve.”

“What about the party that night?”

“We can be late. Wear something that makes you enjoy being a woman in and something pleasing for me to look at.”

“Sure.”

After a passionate kiss, they departed.

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