Red Earth

"As I looked down from my flight onto the dense green rain forest that surrounds Robertsfield airport, all I could see was bush. From the air, Liberia looked lush and completely uninhabited. Fierce waves from the Atlantic hurled at the shoreline ... Finally, it came to a stop, the bell dinged that signals you can get up, the airport workers brought the steps to the plane and the flight attendant opened the door. My throat caught the scent of burning coal fires mixed with the dampness of the rain.

...Arriving on West African soil for the first time is unlike any other arrival in the world. The first thing that hits you is the smell: a combination of coal fires, dried fish, humid air, and the sea. After smell comes the feel of the air.  It is heavy, even when the sun is shining and there is not a cloud in the sky. You can never escape the humidity of the West African coastline, and in the interior, even more so. It is air so heavy that it weighs on your tongue, as if you can open your mouth and take a sip. It is a soup, a big hot pot of soupy air, fetid under the equatorial sun. 

Finally, after air you can taste and smell and feel, the sights before you almost anticlimactic: dense rain forest that ends just before the sea. Red earth. Palm trees that gleam, almost roasting, in the sun."

 

House on Sugar Hill, Helene Cooper