SLIDING IN LIBERIA

he car slowed down to a crawl. Ahead, silhouetted by the headlights was a scene that no amount of prior research could have prepared me for. Lengths of rope tied together were held taught across the road while young men lingered in a combination of traditional dress and dusty football shirts. I didn’t have time to register what Premiership teams were most popular in this part of Liberia. My attention was fixed on the number of machetes caught in beam of our headlights. Tension in the car was palpable, made all the worse by the fact that there were 11 of us crammed into a 5-seater VW Golf. I kept my head down, this was not like the other official roadblocks. This roadblock looked to have been organised by one of the infamous bush societies of Liberia. One of the individuals at the side of the road may have been its leader, known as a ‘Devil’. These societies, still found deep in the Liberian bush, blend a unique combination of traditional sorcery with threat and intimidation. Ritual murder and sacrifice