Talk

There are less than four million people in Liberia.

A third of them live in the capital.

And they all know each other.

I'm talking names, ancestors, youthful follies, family scandals. All your business is public knowledge because

            Small-town familiarity
      + Story-telling culture
+ Close quarters
            = High-speed gossip mill

Forget the internet: word spreads like wildfire in Monrovia.

First, there was the rumor that the Vice President died overnight in December. This belief had so thoroughly permeated the working class that I called my mother to confirm. She hung up on me, still laughing.

And there was the one about people buried on the beach and suffocating in containers during last year's riots. This so incensed the opposition that my journalist and governance buddies took police escorts and went exploring. (I sat in the car where it was cool and where I was safe from future lectures from Mom.)

There are, of course, the rumors that turn out to be true. And pics of political leaders in threesomes make fantastic roadside billboards.