This morning’s Today programme on Radio 4 had an interesting feature about the recovery of one of the many ‘failing’ African states recovering from civil war. This time it was Liberia and one of the ventures that’s helping to heal wounds and grow the economy is surfing. Actually it was a surfing aidworker friend of a friend of mine who first saw the potential of this west African state and set up a surfcamp. It has now spawned a small local surfscene as well as visiting surfers.
Is this the acceptable face of coasts less surfed surf colonialism? OK, you have to use loads of carbon to get there but you actually get the feeling that the foreign owners of the surfcamp are giving more back to the local economy and helping to build the country after decades of strife.
