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Prince

In downtown Monrovia is a good sized hill,  the highest point in the city.   On this hill is where the Dukor Palace Hotel was built. I can find very little about the hotel,.. a 14 year Civil War has decimated any sort of infrastructure Liberia contained. War, neglect, and looters has stripped the country of much of it's culture and it's records. The Dukor Palace has seen better days, & now serves as a sort of makeshift Refugee Camp for Liberians who have returned to their home...or what's left of it. We visited the Dukor last week, to see some of the things we'd been hearing about. What I found was sadness. Beyond the piles of rubble, the dirt, and the neglect we could see what the Dukor must have looked like before the war-a large tiled lobby with a grand sweeping staircase...a  beautiful pool deck with a view open to half the city.  It was surrounded by lush trees and historical markers proclaiming long ago glories. It's all fallen into neglect these days, it's 350 luxurious rooms now a home to 2000+ people with no other place to go.

Usually, when you show up in places like this,  you are pestered by a number of Liberians looking for money. They are more than willing
to act as tour guide in exchange for a  few dollars. They will cluster around,  following you until you leave,  and ask for payment for their
'help'. With unemployment in the mid-'80's, their desperation is understandable. It makes good sense to grab one, offer him payment for
his time, and gently tell all the others that you have all the help you need. I spotted a young man named Prince W. Smith, all alone on the
second floor,  and asked him if I could compensate him for his time in exchange for a  'guided tour' of hotel. He took us around, showing
us and telling us things we wouldn't have learned otherwise. What the residents use for the toilet, how they came to live there, even where
the drug dealers hang out and conduct their business...outside, in back of the hotel. The residents won't allow them inside. Prince took us
up to the 9th floor, which once housed a beautiful restaurant, with floor to ceiling glass doors, and a view of Monrovia that is unmatched.



As we talked, he began to share his story. How his father was killed by ricochet from a stray bomb when he was twelve. How his mother fled to a refugee camp in
Zuenoula, Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) soon after, with Prince and his brother Albert in tow. They lived there for 10 years. Locals accepted the refugees at first, but
as the years went on, and Liberia grew no safer, it was clear that they weren't going anywhere. Refugees became targets of hostility. Walking out alone was a risk.
refugees were often subjected to savage beatings, or worse. His family returned to Liberia in 1999. Prince moved into the hotel two years later. He's been there for
three years now. We asked if we could see where he lived, and he obliged us. He lives with his brother Albert in a little room just off what used to be the dining
room. It looks like it used to be a storage closet or coat check room.  Outside of the room hung a chalkboard that was covered in writing.  Nearby walls were also
covered with multiplication tables & math problems. I asked Prince about it. He said he teaches makeshift classes in the hotel three days a week. He said he is also
attending classes for computer at the Matthew R. Walker Institute downtown. He is 27. He attends church at Christ Ambassador Outreach Ministries, Newport St.,

I have talked with Prince about the needs of the schoolchildren, and also his own. He is need of school supplies for the kids, 35 in all. They need chalk, notebooks, pens, and paper for the kids, and Math, Science, & English textbooks for the teachers. Prince would like bibles to use in his classroom lessons and bible studies for the kids. If possible, the children could use uniforms to encourage them to attend classes regularly. Prince has done this all as a service to God, and should be rewarded financially as such. A small cash payment him would be a blessing to him.
I will be helping him out with all of these things.

 

Meeting Prince.