In Liberia’s capital, residents call Chickensoup Factory home
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Version 0 of 1. There is much to love about Liberia once you can see past the Ebola epidemic that has thrust the country into western consciousness. The coast line and countryside are beautiful, where they haven’t been destroyed by 14 years of civil war or decayed by neglect. Liberians are exceptionally friendly people, despite hardships—the civil war that killed 200,000, grinding poverty and now the Ebola outbreak—that might easily have crushed their spirit. One endearing custom is the way districts in greater Monrovia are named after some, well, unusual landmarks. Hence Monrovia’s “Chickensoup Factory” neighborhood draws its moniker from a never-built plant that was indeed going to produce the deli specialty. Ditto “Chocolate City,” a suburb of the capital, where a chocolate plant was never constructed. Over in “Cemenco,” there is, in fact, a large plant owned by the company that produces the construction essential. The “540” neighborhood sits almost adjacent to the hulking concrete skeleton of what would have been the new Ministry of Defense building on Monrovia’s main road, Tubman Boulevard. It too was abandoned part-way through its construction because of the civil war. When the conflict ended, the story goes, the government gave fighters $540 each and mustered them out of the military. Many spent the money on small houses in the area. “Soul Clinic” is not a place where aging white guys like me go to get their groove back. In fact, the origin of its name is a bit of a mystery. We asked our guide and driver, Samwar Fallah, an editor at the local paper Front Page Africa, to check into it, and the explanation sounds more like urban legend than anything else. Back in the day, he was told, there was a wound clinic in the area. Liberians call them “sores,” and over time the “sore clinic” area morphed into Soul Clinic. Even Sam was a bit skeptical about this story. My personal favorite is a small district out near Roberts International Airport, where, the story goes, a small enclave of white ex-pats lived comfortably after World War II, cooking fragrant dishes that local blacks could not hope to enjoy. The section has been known ever since as “Smell-No-Taste.”
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