So This Is The New Year

I welcomed ’09 dancing with a handful of random people on the most beautiful beach that I had ever seen at a wedding of two strangers that I had never met. It was something else.

On the 29th I headed out with the Waines family and volunteers to Robertsport, just a 3 hour drive Northwest of Monrovia. Robertsport is nestled between the vast Lake Piso and a strip of beach that offers Liberia’s best surf. Despite the ruins of bulidings blown apart by the war, the town is idyllic. We pitched our tents under the shade of two enormous almond trees on a strip of the coastline known as Cassava Beach.

When you stick nine people in a place like Robertsport there is no lack of things to do. Surfing, swimming, hunting crabs and roasting them, eating pineapples, buying fish off the local fishermen and cooking them in the fire, just lying around reading and chewing on sugar cane. None of this, however, compared to the phosphorescents. I’ve seen them before, but this was something else. I dived in the water and my whole body glowed. Every time my arm entered the water it was trailed by hundred little green sparks. When you clapped your hands underwater there was an explosion of light. And when you put on goggles and swam underwater it was just about to much to handle.

Near to where we were camping, a South African guy called Joe and his brother who isn’t really his brother called Robert had built a surf lodge complete with a bar. Dave, the extremely extraverted patriarch of the Waines family, got to talking to Joe and found out that Robert had managed to find himself a beautiful Norwegian girl and that they were going to get married on the beach on the 31st. Dave got us all promptly invited.

It was by far the quickest and oddest and possibly the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever attended. There were a few friends and family of the couple, but at least half of the guests were people that just happened to be staying in the lodge at the time, and our little army. The bride rode up on an ATV. Since this was a strictly secular ceremony, they had hired the local judge to marry them. She took the whole procedure a whole lot more seriously then anybody involved. When the groom mispronounced one of his vows she made him repeat it three times. Then slamming down her mallet on the table she sealed the deal. She stood there with an immense sense of pride on her face. There was an awkward moment while we all waited for something to happen. “Can me kiss?” asked the groom almost hesitantly. “Certainly,” said the judge, a little taken aback, as if it was an absurd question. They kissed. It was all very amusing.

As the sun set down everyone shifted around the tables set up along the beach and all the candles were lit. The champagne was sweet and the food delightful, the highlight being a giant Barracuda fish. I normally don’t really savor fish, but this was amazing.

It was altogether the most unique and enjoyable New Year’s Eve I’ve witnessed.

(Speaking of unique, this is a monkey-apple fruit. It tastes like...actually you just can't describe it.)