The Old Cape Palmas High School Building

(December 11, 2012, Liberia)

It was on Saturday night or should I say, Sunday morning; because it was after 12am in Liberia when I placed a cell phone call to Cousin Joshua Bedell – an exceptionally and incredibly intelligent young man.

On a regular basis, I call Cousin Joshua. Sometimes is in a “blue moon.” When I say “blue moon,” it’s not that type of “blue moon” when it takes so long. The fact that it takes a little bit longer than it should for me to call a senior and well-informed cousin of mine, makes it a “blue moon” to me.

Each time I placed this call to Cousin Joshua, it’s always at night. And that’s mainly to check on him. Because in my personal view, I owe it to him and other senior relatives of mine that I am closed to or I have a good rapport with.

Each time I made a call to Cousin Joshua, we usually talk on minor issues. When I say “minor,” I mean just chatting and laughing. This time, the call was of a different nature.  To add more to that, it was lengthy.

Let me help you set the driving force behind this recent call to cousin Joshua. And also help you know what made the call different from previous calls. After that, then I can move on to the real story prompting this post. So bear with me.

See, Liberia is quite an expensive place to live. If you don’t believe me, ask Amara Konneh, the Minister of Finance!

Considering the work I do as a volunteer in the country and spending my own hard-won money to carry on this work of mine, I always find ways and means to cut cost. By this, I mean, I design strategies to take advantage of certain business Promos so as to make ends meet. By so doing, it allows me to do my work without feeling the severe financial pinch.

Having lived in Liberia for over five years, I realized the most competitive business industry in the country is the cell phone industry (MTN). That’s my opinion. This industry has so many offers so much so, the competition gets very stiff.

To date, there are four cell phone companies in Liberia: 1) LONESTAR, 2) CELLCOM, 3) NOVAPHONE & 4) LIBBERCELL. All of them are continually vying for subscribers. And so they all continue to launch ongoing Promos.

COMUIM changed its name to NOVAPHONE. COMIUM used to be competitive. But now it is drowning in the Sea of competition. To bounce back, it changed its name and threw a monkey wrench in the competition. It starts to offer great and affordable Promos. Truth be told, these are Promos no one can just reject . Because they are great!

If anyone thinks I am doing commercial for the cell phone companies in Liberia, then it will be because I’m saying a lot about the cell phone companies. Why? Because this is the only competitive industry that I know about in Liberia. If this view of mine is commercial for the cell phone companies, then bless my heart! In order to get to my story, I thought by bringing in how the story came about is also as important as the story.

Now, this cell phone Company in its wake like a “sleeping giant,” came face-to-face with another giant cell phone company by the name of CELLCOM.

CELLCOM has been in the business of stiffening the competition with largest cell phone company, LONESTAR. CELLCOM jumped right in the competition with full force. And then “boom!” the dynamics and variables changed. CELLCOM comes with offers that no one can reject; be he a common person or not.

LONESTAR was left in the proverbial cold in all this activity. And so, its marketing department threw its weight into the competition. And “boyo-boy!” as soon as LONESTAR enters, the Ocean of promos engulfed every inch of the country, especially Monrovia from where I author this post. LONESTAR is offering three different promos all at once. And no one really understands how the three promos can work with one company. But all the same, it’s good; that’s business in competition.

First, LONESTAR offers STARZONE which gives you discount up to 100% when you call ONLY LONESTAR customers! On that Promo, LONESTAR adds another Promo - after 3 minutes of talking time which you pay for, the rest of the talk time on the phone BECOMES FREE! Along with that, LONESTAR has another offer: you buy US$5 and you get 200% bonus. Which means, you spend US$5 and get additional US$10 added to the purchase. But there’s one catch: you have to use the FREE $10 that you get as Bonus by 12am. Otherwise, the Bonus will be returned to LONESTAR. Your account in this case becomes zero.

In other words, all these Promos give one the opportunity to call just almost everybody one knows just to use the available $10 bonus before it is midnight.

And that’s exactly what happened when I called Cousin Joshua that September 22 day. I wanted to use my Bonus. And so, I raised a lot of talking points.

See, Cousin Joshua is my senior. He lived in Maryland long before I did. And so he knows a lot about Maryland in his days then I do. So I wanted to get a history lesson from him. He did not hesitate; he provided the lesson to me free-of-charge. And truly, I am appreciative and grateful to him. I learned some things from cousin Joshua that I did not know. I’m sure there are others who are in my shoes until now.

Thanks to cousin Joshua.

To show my appreciation to cousin Joshua, I wish to share the history lesson that I learned from him with anyone whose desire it is to learn what I did.

And this is how it went.

Our concentration was wholly and solely on Maryland County, our Hometown. We talked about the five Vice Presidents of Liberia who came from Maryland with focus on only two of them - J. J. Dossen and Allen N. Yancy. We talked about their burial grounds and their residences in Maryland.

During that time, a cross-section of issues was discussed including our family. Joshua’s paternal grandfather – Hon. Thomas Bedell was top of the page in this family discussion. It was during Hon. Bedell’s term of office as Representative of Harper District that the Capitol Building, a 21^st century state-of-the-art real estate property was built. I found this out when I visited the Capitol Building on one of my research missions. Cousin Joshua confirmed the info. And then he told me more about our family. I can’t discuss all we talked about our family. Most of it is for the family not my readers herein.

Than we arrived at the schools in Cape. Each time I say “Cape,” I am making reference to the whole county of Maryland.

Cousin Joshua has an excellent sense of history and love thereof. Besides, he lived in Harper longer than I did. And so, his command over the history in the 40s and 60s is greater than mine when it comes to what was in Cape long before my time.

Besides talking about other schools, we ended on Cape Palmas High School. I learned a lot. And this is what I learned.

Cape Palmas High School, prior to building the new campus directly opposite the Museum on Maryland Avenue, used to be on Reevy Street directly opposite the old Library next to the residence of the late Cllr. James Shannon, former Chief Justice of the Republic of Liberia. The Library was located right in the back of the residence of Hon. Theo Milton, former superintendent of Maryland County.

The old Cape Palmas High School building, Cousin Joshua tells me, is the building that housed the Arm Forces of Liberia personnel during my day. We used to cut through there and go pass by Teacher Viola Campbell’s house to get to Water Street.  This building had been there all these years and nobody told me it was the first Cape Palmas High School. I was shocked when Cousin Joshua told me so. The building sits right on my proverbial nose and I did not know. And all my days in Harper from kindergarten to high school, nobody ever told me where the old Cape Palmas High School was located. My phone conversation with Cousin Joshua made me know all this.  

Cousin Joshua even pointed out to me that the late Cllr. Willie Neufville was the registrar at the time. He also told me Cousin Catherine Bedell Wood and others graduated from that old Cape Palmas High School building. “Boy!” would I have known all this had I not called Cousin Johsua? Probably not!

Cousin Joshua added something interesting things to my history lesson. I didn’t know the late Cllr. Willie Neufville was a registrar at Cape Palmas High School and the late Joe Bush served as principal at that time. All this time all my thinking was that Cllr. Neufville only practiced Law. And I always thought the late Joe Bush became Principal of Cape Palmas High School in the mid-70s. Because I think Mr. Bush held on to this post on to the doorstep of the 80se before he relinquished it.

Until Cousin Joshua drilled me through this history lesson, I never knew all this about Cape Palmas High School, Cllr. Willie Neufville and Mr. Joe Bush. I’m sure I am not alone in this experience. There are other Marylanders and Liberians as well who were in my shoe until now.

Thanks to Cousin Joshua for the history lesson. We will indeed cherish it!