Project Assessment Trek: River Gee and Sinoe

Day 1 and 2, 13/14 July 2009: Long journey, only to be delayed in Zwedru

Another adventure into the African bush, and here I am typing this in Zwedru, watching a Nigerian film and charging my phone, sitting on a leather couch, above me a chandelier, before me, drapes. This, too, is Liberia.

I’m staying in the Superintendent of Grand Gedeh’s house: Mr. Christopher Bailey. It’s quite a nice place, in quite a nice city. Zwedru has paved roads, night life, amazing city layout, and nice people. Seems quite livable, the model city for the decentralization efforts I would think. This is day two of the journey, and my second night in Zwedru, though last night should hardly count – since we didn’t arrive until 1:33am, after a long, arduous, painful journey from Ganta, on a road that would have been bad during the day, but turned terrible during the night: you can’t actually see the bumps so you hit them harder, more awkwardly. It’s far from glorious. This night driving on bumpy roads makes me annoyingly car sick. Sat limply in front seat, head flailing about with each bump, organs rattling, deep breathes to fight nausea. I had a hard boiled egg and laughing cow on bread for dinner, constructed in-transit (remember: bumpy) with my exceedingly sharp knife. Not advisable. I kept picturing accidentally puncturing my stomach and thinking about how not worth it that sandwich would be. And it wasn’t – it actually made me feel terribly nauseas. By the time we finally got to the Superintendent’s house, I was never so happy to see a bed on the floor covered with a silky green comforter. So fantastic.

Though I can’t really complain about the journey – I got dropped off at the Superintendent’s house and my green, silky, comfy bed and the men (traveling with 5 African men on this journey) then went to look for a place to sleep. They ended up sleeping in the car. So so so so so so glad I was not among them. We were supposed to drive on to River Gee this morning to meet with community members – about a 3.5 hour drive from here – but the car was far from agreeable, and spent the day in the shop after last night’s adventure.

On Monday morning, just before leaving MIA, I had a meeting with the Minister, who asked, “How are you getting to River Gee, flying?” No no, I say, we’re driving. He looks apprehensive as he asks, “Whose car are you taking?” I respond, “George’s.” He looks amused as he comments, “Well, I hope you make it back.” What a lovely omen, and already coming true after the first, and possibly easiest, leg of the journey.

So, what to do during a free day in Zwedru? Well, this morning I visited the unfinished mansion of President Samuel K. Doe. He started building the place to commemorate his birthday, and then the war broke out and he got killed before he could finish the place up. Doe’s death was beyond cruel, carried out by Prince Johnson. Prince Johnson was in my office last week for a meeting: so strange to see a known, violent, murderous, insane warlord-turned-Senator simply sitting at the conference table 10 feet away from me. If he had killed my family – how would I feel about him just sitting there? Man, I would be bitter and livid. Thinking about it that way gives you an understanding of the need for a good TRC. He should be held accountable. Interesting interview just published in Foreign Policy this month: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/07/you_cant_look_back?page=0,0&new=

Last night while we were driving, my body hanging limply against the seat belt, I listened to the conversation: TRC of course. President Johnson Sirleaf essentially gave the TRC credibility by really pushing for it, and then making the statement that she would support it no matter what the recommendation. That clearly puts her in a tough spot now that her name is on the list. My informants think someone bought out the Chairman of the TRC, convincing him not only to put her name on the list, but to release it without showing her first. All very political. Some people don’t want her to run again. But this TRC report brings both her and the warlords on to the same side – when she was trying to isolate them to get them out of power. Problematic in many ways.

Anyway, back to Doe’s mansion – it would have been gorgeous! Huge, nice design, lovely really. And the writing on the walls was epic. Said so much about Liberia during and post-war. Some of the most telling images were the crude drawings of rape and guns. Also striking, the messages scrawled on the walls in charcoal:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mtd933/TheWritingOnTheWallsDoeSUnfinishedMansionZwedru

Nigerian Film

This Nigerian film is going to depress me. You have in this corner the perfectly happy African couple. And in that corner, the pesky, non-supportive, I-don’t-approve-of-your-husband-African mother-in-law, in another corner, the once-in-love-with-your-husband-but-now-“born-again-Christian”-let’s-all-be-friends sister. And now, suddenly, shockingly, one of the happy couple’s kids just died. Oh man. I think the sister who once loved the man poisoned the kid. Oh man! Another one of the kids just dropped dead Good Lord, now the shock has killed the unborn baby in her womb! Wow.

This is ridiculous. My oh my I love Nigerian films. But they can be so depressing. They’re not a happy couple anymore. She’s rather depressed and going insane, and it’s wearing on him. Ugh, and the bitchy woman is totally poisoning the kids and now the wife, all to get a man. Ugh, and now the wife is really going crazy, accusing this amazing and attentive husband of cheating and trying to kill her (the influence of the sister) and being really really really mean to the husband. Who is a nice guy. And very sad. And who just got angry and beat the wife after years of being super attentive to the cost of his own health. And now everyone is against him and telling her she needs to leave him. Even though he’s awesome and she’s been a bitch to him.

Nigerian films are great – they can make you sincerely and passionately defend a man who beat his wife. Oh but wait! The mother-in-law just reappeared and is suddenly supportive – and encourages the daughter to take him back! And, gasp, they catch the sister trying to poison the last surviving kid. The end.

Travel Compadres

A quick note on my travel compadres. We are traveling in a much smaller group this time – only one car, with me and five men. George is the boss man, and also does the driving. Then there is Lendeh, 72 and obsessed with refrigeration. Then D. Karfala Johnson, the consultant for the rice/cassava mills. Then Aba and Lendeh’s travel mate (son?) – referred to collectively as “the young men,” though both are older than me, and pretty much around to fix/push the car if necessary. Anyway, they are all good people. George is cool, funny, down to earth. And then there’s Lendeh and Johnson. Both lovely individuals. Really. Lendeh is super nice to me, tells me he’s praying to be 30 again so he can marry me, and tries to buy me things often. Quite flattering. So, while not calling into question the nice-ness of these men, just imagine if you will a 10 hour car ride with 1.) Johnson: a rogue-preacher-like character always in sermon mode, paranoid that no one cares enough about redemption to listen to him: Are you listening to me? Maggie, are you listening to me? He also has the propensity to proclaim things like: “Wherever you are happy, there you beeeeee!” – his voice rising in volume and pompousness. And, of course, my favorite: “Life! What is life?! What is life but an empty dreeeeeeeeam?”

Then there’s Lendeh, who is set in his ways and only talks about refrigeration. I mean that literally, even when conversation shifts to the TRC he will swing it right back to refrigeration. And he is loud, animated, passionate, constantly in angry Donald Duck mode: arms flailing, irate sounding, and wide eyed. Please, I beg you, imagine a ten hour car ride with Donald Duck and the rogue preacher trying to talk over each other. Again, lovely people, but hour ten, car sick and exhausted, tests my already short-fuse.

Day #3, 14 June 2009: Fish Town, River Gee County . . .and then into the forest en route to Sinoe

The men are cooking a monkey and I have commandeered the Superintendent of Sinoe’s bed. It’s been a long day.

We started out from Zwedru, though right now that seems like weeks ago. Headed on the road towards River Gee, to the town of Fish Town. It was about a 3 hour ride on a muddy but not terrible road. I’m a little disappointed in the meeting in River Gee – small crowd, not very energetic, seemed like we were all going through the motions. Lots of women though, which was good. But we rushed, got all the information but didn’t spend any extra time there, which to me seems ridiculous after taking over two full days to get to the place. Two full days to get there and we only spend 3 hours there? Not the way I like to operate. Can’t wait to be the boss.

After the ok meeting, grabbed lunch on the Superintendent of River Gee’s tab, and headed on the road again – to Sinoe. An estimated 10 hour drive. It was already 3:45. I was ecstatic for another night drive, I assure you. And off we went, back in the direction we had just come for about 2.5 hours. Very pretty, lots of trees, farms, villages, and people selling lots and lots and lots of bushmeat. We had our choice of multiple monkey species, quite the variety was strung up along the side of road. Well, we passed about 6 full ones and one arm. The last place had three, hung by tails wrapped around their necks. I didn’t voice any moralistic opposition, primarily because I didn’t know on what moral grounds to oppose, besides pointing out the fact that their hands look a lot like our hands. I was surprised by my lack of bushmeat education awareness to be honest, and must rectify that. I also kept my mouth shut because I had only minutes before pulled out the morality card when I interrupted the 30 minute conversation about women from last night explaining that it was in everyone’s best interest if I didn’t expound on my thoughts on the subject but that I just thought they should know I disagree. The response was not the change of subject I had anticipated, but basically: “lighten up, Maggie, you’re one of the guys.” Ha. I am an African man who frequents prostitutes. Dream come true.

So the monkey was purchased, a full one, for $250 Liberian dollars (exchange is about 70 Liberty to US$1). Threw it up on the roof of the car, strapped it in, and we’re off. Poor monkey. Shortly after, we turned off onto the Sinoe Road, which was shrouded in mystery: would we actually be able to make it? There were horror stories of mud up to the top of the car and impassable sections of road. But we decided to try anyway. I supported that actually, the other option would have taken 15 hours, or more. So off we went, into the deep forest of the Liberian countryside.

It was beautiful – towering walls of old growth forest for miles and miles, interrupted suddenly by small patches of mud huts. As the conversation in the car darted between politics, how to keep the women you just see passing through certain towns happy and not asking for too much money (mm hm, still on that topic), the TRC, and how great and intelligent all the passengers were, it took a lot of restraint not to open door and jump out of the car and run into one of the villages and live there for, say, two years, three months. I restrained myself, while dreaming of a muzzle for poor Mr. Johnson, bless his soul, who loves to preach but has nothing terribly interesting to say. I’m being overly harsh – long drive, long drive.

The Sinoe Road was good. Good in the sense that it was fun and exciting, and never quite clear if we would actually make it. The excitement kept me from getting car sick. That, or the fact that I was actually hydrated today. Luckily, it hasn’t rained for a couple days and the ground was pretty dry in most places. That’s not to say we didn’t need the 4-wheel drive a lot, or that we didn’t almost get stuck a number of times – but had it rained today, we’d still be in transit, or we’d be camping next to our stuck car in the woods. We passed one big truck that had gotten sucked into the mud and didn’t look like it was moving any time soon. George did a good job with the driving, got us through some patches that weren’t easy. The car hung in there, although one mysterious light kept coming on…and the battery wouldn’t seem to charge.

That was problematic, because it made the lights flicker. And old growth forests in Africa are very dark. We needed lights. With the high beams on, you could see about 30 feet in front of you. Without them, only ten. George kept turning the high beams off to save the battery. At one point, the road started to seem smooth-ish and we began to pick up speed. I distinctly remember thinking to myself: we’re going too fast. The low beams illuminated the muddy hole in the road ahead just after it was too late. Bam.

George did have time to break a little, but we hit the reverse pot-hole pretty hard, with the car nailing the not-so-sloping upward slope of the hole with vigor, throwing us off course (but luckily not fully of the road) and leaving us in utter darkness and silence: the lights and the engine, both off. I was glad to have my seat belt on, for sure, since it stopped me from flying forward into the windshield. The car wouldn’t start, so here we are the in middle of the forest – Sapo National Forest actually – in vivid darkness, with no cell phone reception, and no idea how far the next village is. The sky was amazing. Perfectly clear with possibly the brightest stars I’ve ever seen. So gorgeous. The kind of sky that warrants waking people up to see – just really striking. I wasn’t worried about the situation: cars always re-start with a little push in Africa. Or someone comes along to help you. Or you take the monkey off the top of the car and roast it up before passing out in the car. In this case, a little push did the trick.

From there, smooth sailing to Sinoe, just long, muddy, and late. We arrived in town, Greenville, at midnight. This was a late night ride I didn’t mind though – no car sickness and an exciting adventure. We came to the Superintendent’s place to find a bed for me, but the place was packed. It’s actually more of a guesthouse owned by the Superintendent than his personal house. I can sleep anywhere, under any conditions – I may complain about it, but I can still sleep there – but I don’t mind being pampered and put in nicer places if it means I don’t have to witness loose men and their questionable activities. Thus my accepting when the Superintendent moved his stuff from a room and I stole his bed. He seemed like a really nice guy (though I learned later that he may or may not have stolen almost a million dollars from concessions in the area…….hm). By the time we were settled it was almost 1:00am, and the men went off to cook the monkey. I declined the invite. To be honest, I might have tried it if it was placed in front of me on a platter, but I was a little grossed out by the fact that monkey’s hands are very human like AND that the carcass had been sitting on the side of the road for ???? and on top of our car from 3pm to 1am AND it’s a monkey!

About to go to bed in the Superintendent’s room and some loud electronica is blasting through the walls – Oh Susanna. Random.

Day #4: 15 June 2009: Greenville, Sinoe

I felt like a cannibal. The monkey meat was densely packed and dark, and its hand, doused in cassava leaf and oil, floating in my food bowl, made me feel ill. Nonetheless, it was presented to me on a platter, and I looked at it as a research opportunity: why do people even want to eat monkey? Is it really so delicious?

Perhaps it was the fact that this one was killed over 24 hours ago, rode on the top of a bumpy car for 7 hours, was cooked at 2am the previous night, and had never known the glory of refrigeration….or perhaps it was because I kept thinking about it poor hand, our common ancestry, and all the hard work of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force and the weekly newsletters I’ve browsed for the last year or so. Whatever the reason – the meat was not delicious. I cringed as I ate it and they all laughed at me – a few weak bites and I was spent. Conclusion: don’t eat monkey. No clear signs of Ebola yet.

So, this monkey lunch followed a long and productive morning/afternoon of meeting with community members in Greenville and visiting their fishing sites and market site. This is how these meetings really should work. Got a lot of great information, got to know people, spread the word about our project, got to walk around, see the community, understand the layout, etc etc. Fantastic. Great place for a cold storage – must get that brief done and get this money rolling . . .

Even after I passed my chunk of monkey on to one of the men, slightly nauseas and pretty horrified, I could still feel the meat in my teeth. I bought a Fanta to try to burn it out of my mouth, and then we all jumped in the car ready for the long trip back to Monrovia, estimated at 8 hours. It was 4ish, but again I didn’t mind because I was just ready to get home. We bumped along, bouncing on the hardened road – really hasn’t rained much at all this week – and felt like we were making fantastic time . . . until we hit a bump, then heard a rattle followed by a scraping noise that just wouldn’t stop. The rod connecting the two front tires had come loose on one side. To me, it didn’t seem completely necessary so I encouraged tying it up and continuing on. Turns out, it was necessary and George couldn’t really control the car so well. So, turn around, back to Greenville, check back in to the guest house, and settle in for one more night.

Went out for beers with Aba, George’s son, and Henry, Lendeh’s son who actually lives in Greenville, of course we talked about women, the TRC, and the Taylor trial, the most popular subjects in Liberia. After explaining why I would not accept my husband having girlfriends on the side, I made a comment about the bad-ness of Charles Taylor. Aba looked at me very very seriously and nearly whispered, “Do not say anything bad about Charles Taylor in Liberia.” He went on to explain that Charles Taylor was actually NOT a bad person, it was simply the people around him who were bad. And then explained that if Charles Taylor came back to Liberia today he would instantly be made President because the people love him, and admire him, and want him to be there leader. It was one of those moments, sitting at a plastic table, drinking beers, surrounded by African men and a few, scantily clad women, when the world seems to have shifted to a place you never thought it would go.

Wait – Aba, you like Charles Taylor? He did, he does, and he doesn’t think the man should be found guilty. Furthermore, the table next to us, having the same conversation, came to the same conclusion. Really makes you wonder what you’re working for and what this country will be like in ten years? Crazy.

Day #5, 16 July 2009: Homeward bound

We were supposed to leave Greenville at 4am, but delayed until 6am – ate dry, peppery rice and were on our way. Made amazing time, home in Monrovia by 1, asleep on my front porch until 6pm. Quite possibly the best nap I’ve ever taken. Went off to Garden Café – a live music/hooker bar (ohhhh just can’t seem to escape that) to see everyone after being in the bush for a week . . .