What a Sight!
I stood in awe at a wondrous sight Monday morning, fascinated at the world around me. Some would call it beautiful, some would call it eerie, but it was an incredible sight nonetheless. But first a bit of background.
The new embassy compound is at a site call Gray Stone. The old embassy compound is on Mamba Point, the most western point of Monrovia, sitting on the top of a steep hill/cliff overlooking the ocean. Gray Stone is several hundred yards inland sitting at the top of the hill. It’s most distinct feature is, as you might guess, the gray and black stone outcroppings that run, now, throughout the compound. But that’s not the only thing that the new embassy compound has.
When I had my in-processing meeting with the Ambassador (she’s a wonderful, dynamic, engaging leader and the State Department recognizes it - she’s just been nominated for a top position and will leave us at the end of February after a 4-year tour) she commented on the new embassy compound, which we were just about to move to. She told me a story about what almost stopped construction of the new embassy. The US wanted to acquire the property for the new embassy, and during the negotiations over whether we would be allowed to build there, President Sirleaf said had one major condition - “Promise me you will not cut down the bat trees at Gray Stone.” The Ambassador did, and the embassy was built.
So what is a bat tree? No, it’s not a type of tree. It’s a grouping of trees where the bats nest. These are huge trees that bats hang from during the day. And these aren’t small bats, these are bats with what look from a distance to have 18”, maybe 2’ wingspans. Thousands of bats. At this time of the year you can see them clearly (yes, trees will lose leaves at this time of the year, even in Liberia). It’s like a tree ripe with fruit, but it’s not fruit. It’s like a tree with thousands of pods, clusters, lines of them, hanging from the bottom of the thick tree branches. And there is one tree in particular that is just simply impressive. Think National Geographic impressive. Something you could imagine seeing in the middle of a jungle, but this is downtown Monrovia.
The first time I walked onto the compound someone pointed the trees out to me. I could hear the squelching, but I didn’t know exactly where from. Once the main tree was pointed out, it was obvious. Then someone dropped a heavy truck tail gate at the motor pool and it was like the tree exploded, hundreds of bats swarming around the tree for about half a minute before settling back down to rest.
So everyday, as I walk up the hill to the consulate, I look over to the bat tree.
Today I happened to go into work half an hour earlier than usual and I was just mesmerized. The tree was barely populated, that was easy enough to see. No pods or lines of bats, just several hundred bats swarming around nervously, as if it wasn’t quite time to settle down. But then I noticed a wisp of black movement feeding the swarm, and I let my eyes follow it. It traveled upwards, then curved right for at least a couple of miles, towards the south-east, inland to an area of marshlands just outside of Monrovia. I stood and watched as the black wisp moving in from the distance became darker and darker and the swarm became bigger and denser. Slowly the bats started landing in the trees for the day; more and more landing while more and more arrived. All the while the sound of bats squelching increasing as the numbers of bats increased. In the few minutes that I stood there and watched, I must have seen a thousand bats in flight, a thousand bats landing. I stood simply in awe.
What a way to start the day!