Liberia’s capital Monrovia through the eyes of a 20-something Australian hoodlum, veteran of over 50 countries, on his first visit to Africa. Taking his motorbike down every alley in every neighbourhood from Congo Town to West Point, the hoodlum found a place like none other. A place where a recent Presidential candidate invited him into his personal home office. Where he nursed on his lap in a village deep inland an 8 year old grandson of another candidate, Prince Johnson, later Googled and learned to be a notorious former warlord credited with torturing in 1990 the then-President Samuel Doe, then eating him, seizing control of the capital. Where police captains requested bribes for motorbike offences and seconds later plugged their personal phone number into his Lonestar phone. Where church crowds roar in prayer to the heavens, collapse to the ground in trances, then hand over money they surely cant afford to part with to the performing pastors, their faith so watertight that they never seem to question where God was during the decades their fellow Liberians tore the heart out of their country, their families, and themselves. A place, like neighbour Sierra Leone, still in the top handful of the poorest nations on Earth. And still scarred. A capital still patching the superficial ones left by shells of AK-47s and rocket launchers. And still without a functioning electricity grid, people forced to rely on expensive generators for their power. Where amputees who lost limbs …

Tags: Africa, LIBERIA., Monrovia., people, Streets, West