One early morning in Liberia, I wrote this on my phone:
There is a smell, in the tropics in the morning. Right when the sun is about to rise and the air is just perfectly warm. Before the heat and the bustle of the day has made the air dusty and sweaty. There is a touch of sulfur, I think, maybe from the highly weathered rich soil. It is made soft by the humidity, and fresh by the long starlit night.
I remember going to school in 1999 and 2000. I was living in Tanzania with my mom, and every morning at 06:45, I left home on foot, walking the short distance to school with Veronica, our maid. I was 11 and 12, and I woke up every morning to that smell.
Now I’m 25, waking up to the smell of the tropics in the morning again. Kind of like closing a circle.
Morning by the oil palm plantation in Grand Cape Mount.
Katja Malmborg 