A Liberian Journey

Creator

Date

Coverage

Transcription

Thur Sept 23 – A day of packing. I started in my dark room -. First came a thorough washing of all trays and instruments with 2 subsequent drying in the sun – a nice hot sun. I took the table out and washed it too. Then my developing box was packed and the movie rack taken down and dismantled. Just before lunch Hal and I took on of the washmans tub and poured into it some of the excess Hypo which we unfortunately have. In this brew we set some water bottles and some soda water which we have brought with us. Hypo when dissolved in water absorbs heat so that a temp of 50 or lower can be got and it was for that reason that we did this. With the cold soda we made fresh orange lemonade for lunch – not bad for the tropics. 

            In the afternoon I returned to the packing game packing up my tin trunks, films, chemicals to take with us etc until about 400 when I went down to the village with Hal to take some pictures of weaving if possible. I happened to get some very good carding which I needed and spinning thereby finishing the series except for growing, harvesting the cotton and removing the seeds. Then back to camp to pack up my movie films which needed 100 ft to fill the box.

            I have now taken and developed 1100 ft in Monrovia which I left there. I then took 4000 ft of which I finished 3500 making a total of 5,100 ft.

            At supper we had a cocktail for all in honor of our last night together and Dave Linders birthday which comes tomorrow but which we cannot celebrate. Then I got out my hard suffering ukulele and played for a couple of hrs. After that Hal; Dave, Theiler and I went down to the Mandingo village where they were again dancing and again for an hour or more we watched the swaying bodies. There are two more or less professional dancers who kept beautiful time with one another and frequently dance “duets”. One feature of their dance is the body bent over with arms hanging limp and swaying from side to side like reapers. They also occasionally do the more stag step like this <Drawing of stick figure>. But it is fascinating to watch them in the half shadows of the moon with the calabash drums keeping perfect time.

            One man danced – very cleverly indeed – a dance which would make a very big hit if used as one of Keiths acts. It was more or less stunt dancing in perfect time divided into small sections at times moving his feet very fast, at times letting his ankles turn over or stepping with one leg over his other extended, etc. 

            But we must return to camp. Theiler and I sat around and talked till after 1200 when I fed my lemur for the last time. The other one died today – the one with the limited capacity and Dr. Allen when skinning it found that its skull had been cracked when natives had caught it. The one I fed I will leave with the others as we will be travelling too fast and far to care for it properly. 

Type

Identifier

Citation