In Liberia, youth bikers chase cash

GANTA, LIBERIA

When evening falls on war-torn Liberia, the one-eyed jungle cats come out to play.

They are the motorcyclists of Ganta, a remote, northern city on the edge of the Guinean border. As they stalk passengers along broken roads, their single headlights blaze through the darkness.

While cars are seen by the handful in this no-stoplight town, there are thousands of bikers here - most of them Liberian youth. This pack runs after only one kind of prey.

“I want plenty money,” teenage biker Prince Dolo said. “Motorbike is instant money.”

During the past five years, Liberia has slowly emerged from a 14-year civil war, but widespread poverty and an estimated 80 percent unemployment rate make it difficult for most Liberians to bring home an income.

The bikers of Ganta are an exception. Shortly after the war ended in late 2003, Liberian refugees who had fled to neighboring Guinea began bringing motorcycles across the border to Liberia. In Guinea, motorcycle transportation is widespread. Soon, bikes were wheeling into towns all over Liberia.

In December, Mr. Dolo gave up going to school to “ride traffic,” as the biking business is called here. He is among many Liberian youth who are trading class and after-school studying for the lure of fast money. The nameplate on the front of his shiny red bike reads: “My Money-1.”

Mr. Dolo’s father bought the red bike several years ago for about $850. When the family needs extra money, he rents it out to drivers like his son. Mr. Dolo transports people for about 30 cents a ride. After a long day of running people around under the burning Ganta sun, he makes up to about $15. A police officer in Liberia makes about $80 a month. A newspaper journalist makes about $20.

Mr. Dolo, 18, said that he plans to go back to school. He will be in only the sixth grade, typical of many Liberians whose educations have been disrupted by the country’s protracted series of civil wars that lasted from 1989 to 2003.

But for now, school can wait, Mr. Dolo said. The money is where the rubber meets the road, and it’s just too good to pass up.

Liberia officially was founded in 1822 by free-born black Americans as an experiment by a group of abolitionists and slave owners called the American Colonization Society. The new settlers and their descendants began oppressing the indigenous Liberians, leading to a coup d’etat in 1980. Tribal rivalries and the desire for power among different factions led to war in 1989, when rebels led by warlord and later President Charles Taylor invaded Liberia.

Fighting didn’t end until late 2003, shortly after Mr. Taylor fled the country. But by then, Liberia was stripped of all power, running water and most of its infrastructure. An estimated 200,000 people died while tens of thousands became refugees in other countries. Now, more than five years after the war’s end, Liberia is experiencing peace and democratic rule under President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. But most Liberians continue to struggle to rebuild their lives in a burned and broken land.

Here, most people are on a hunt for money. This has led to high rates of stealing and armed robbery, especially in the capital, Monrovia.

But hustling for money also has made poverty-stricken people into overnight entrepreneurs, such as the bikers.

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