Monrovia, Liberia

Feb. 23, 1934

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The people here in town are really nice people, mostly all men. Perhaps because there are just a few of us whites, we get along better; of course, there are undercurrents but it could not be otherwise with the mixture of nationalities here.

I went to the Du last week and the week before that. It is nice. All the homes are like country estates at home. They have wide lawns, beautiful shrubbery, tropical trees, etc. The houses are wide-eaved and have large rooms and waxed floors. They are furnished in mission furniture and are modern in every respect. They do have to carry water from the cistern for my bath.

We can get all kinds of fruits, including avacados at three cents each. The foods from home are expensive because they are imported in tins.

Last week I went to Kakotan [Kakata] on the edge of the bush (the bush are trees, three times as large as I have ever seen them, with tropical undergrowth of all kinds between them). We crossed the lost river on native canoes.

Kakotan is the [site of the] Booker T. Washington School for Negroes [now known as the Booker T. Washington Institute]. It is the only type of mission work that is worth a thing. It teaches the native agriculture and the industrial arts, whereas too many of the missions teach the natives the liberal arts which they cannot use. If you ever heard West Coast "pidgin" English you understand even better how useless it is, and the people here do not need clerks but builders and farmers, men to open up the country.