Prom in Monrovia

Last night, we celebrated our friend John's 40th birthday at a fabulous, fabulous party.

Last week, John sent out classy handwritten invitations, instructing everyone to dress in formal attire, and be ready to leave his office by 5:45 sharp, at which time shuttles would take us to a secret location. When we arrived yesterday, everyone looked fantastic. Daily life is pretty casual here - except for the occasional meeting with a Minister - so it's pretty rare and fun for us to get dressed up. Three cars then took us to a secret location...the Ducor Hotel!

I don't think I've written about the Ducor in past posts, so here's a bit of context. Years ago, the Ducor Palace Hotel was the nicest hotel in Monrovia - and apparently was one of the nicest hotels in West Africa. According to Wikipedia's short entry, it was closed in 1989. Since then, it has been completely gutted and looted. Hundreds of squatters lived there during and after the war, and in recent years, they were forcibly evicted. We've found a few other stories about it from Reuters. We've heard lots of rumors of investment by a Libyan investment company, as well as sporadic stories of the Government evicting people who have settled around the grounds of the hotel. Nothing seemed to be happening, but yesterday we saw a banner proclaiming that groundbreaking on the reconstruction would take place in October. It's at the highest point of Monrovia, so we occasionally take VIP visitors there for an almost bird's eye view of the city.

We drove up to the deserted site, where UN soldiers stand guard. We were able to convince them to be in photos with us (but not to let us hold their guns - probably a good thing.)


There is no electricity in the building (and the elevators have probably been stolen) so we took the eight flights of stairs to get to the rooftop. As you can see, some flights had no railings, and many parts of the building have completely crumbled.



When we got to the top, John had set up a long table for everyone, complete with kerosene lanterns, and tablecloths. This photo gives you a sense of the view. In the background you can just barely make out the two breakwaters leading away (to the left) of the Port.

Here are our friends, Michael and Amy, posing for pictures (Peter darted in at the last minute).

After cocktails and appetizers, we were treated to a delicious dinner, catered by Rozi's.

After dinner we went to Purple Rain, John's favorite local bar, where we sat in a lovely backyard garden (very New York-y) for drinks and birthday cake. Dancing at another local hotspot, La Noche, capped it off. Well done, John, and happy birthday!