aduna moyyu

From Liberia to DC to Afghanistan

2010-10-17T03:21:00.006-04:00

The end of Liberia went swimmingly. Fantastic time. Lovely country. Wonderful people. Hope to get back there again one day.

After finishing my work in Liberia, I went to visit my host family in The Gambia. It was incredible. Loved every minute and had so much fun seeing how all the kids had grown but still remembered me. It was awesome. :)

Then I went back to DC, settled down on a street called V, decided to indulge myself for the month of September since I had been in Africa all summer, got really really comfortable with indulgence and just never stopped having fun, but actually learned a lot in the fall semester while working considerably less than I did in the first year, danced a lot, sang off key in karaoke bars, traveled to Jamaica over Christmas break, studied for and squeaked through Oral Exams, had more fun, had more fun, had more fun, had more fun, had more fun, graduated with a group of amazing, beautiful, and talented people, fully embraced funemployment and East Coast travel in June, started looking for jobs in July, got hooked up with a lovely temporary gig with a small NGO in Bethesda, realized - in the span of one week - that I couldn't afford rent anymore and moved my possessions into the welcoming and generous homes of friends and family, existed and thrived in the temporarily vacated, awesome apartments of fantastic, world-saving friends for almost two months, as well as the non-vacated home of an equally fantastic, brilliant, and world-saving amiga, and then transitioned to a six-month position with DAI. In Afghanistan.

And so here I am.

:)

Fisheries Forever

2009-07-20T11:54:00.000-04:00

Meeting with community members in Greenville, Sinoe County about their current fishing industry and the potential for a cold storage unit in the city.

"Liberia Becomes Satanic Shrine"

2009-07-20T11:11:00.003-04:00

I had a revelation on one of the long car rides of last week: I’m doing incredibly cool stuff this summer. Last semester, my internship consisted of sitting silently in an office I shared with two to three other interns, depending on the day. My desk was dilapidated and child-sized. My computer didn’t work. I read and took notes on things I’m not convinced ever got read. And I never once used the printer. Though I did get to go to a lot of interesting lectures and Senate Hearings, I myself was doing very little of substance. I did not contribute.

Today, I edited a Press Release from the Minister of Internal Affairs, in response to the National Chronicle newspaper front page headline, reading: “As Liberian Zoes, Witches, Bodeos Dedicate Chiefs’ Compound: Queen of the Coast Arrives – Liberia Becomes Satanic Shrine.” Underneath this headline is a photo of the President and then my boss, Hon. Ambulai Johnson. Apparently, the “Queen of the Coast” – also known as the Queen of Sheba, is from Egypt and not so much admired by the church. Our response was that we didn’t invite the Queen of Sheba, that the President had nothing to do with inviting her, and that the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not appreciate the Chronicle taking advantage of freedom of press in order to incite the people by accusing major leaders of witchcraft. Random, yes, but substantive as well.

After editing that, I worked with my two consultants on our project briefs – which are slow going and need to get done asap. I am finishing mine today, by the grace of Allah. Before editing the press release and meeting with the consultants I was working on a Communal Farming Policy that – if it actually makes any sense, which is hit or miss – will be given directly to the Minister of Internal Affairs and would be implemented at a nationwide level. Which, when you think about it, is pretty ridiculous. Cool. But also ridiculous.

Then there are the template ordinances and mayor Terms of Reference that I need to finalize with my counterparts, and that will be used to structure city-level governments throughout all the counties.

All this needs to be finalized in the next two weeks. Yikes.

Project Assessment Trek: River Gee and Sinoe

2009-07-19T13:52:00.002-04:00

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 . . .

Charles Taylor Begins War Crimes Defense

2009-07-13T05:09:00.003-04:00

This week, Charles Taylor will begin his war crimes defense in the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague. Some stories and quotes from BBC:

Jerine Colendo, Monrovia: "I feel bad that Charles Taylor as a former president has been taken to a foreign land for trial. Whenever his birthday comes, I think about him. But equally so, justice has to be done. He has to face justice and there is nothing that we, Liberians, can do about it.

Alusine Fofana, Sierra Leone MP: "Even though Charles Taylor did not appear, I feel happy that his trial has started. I feel good that the day of justice is here and he will answer to any part he played in the destruction of Sierra Leone."

Deddeh Lavala, Monrovia:"I want the trial to be free and fair so that if Taylor is guilty of what he is accused of doing, he will be convinced that he is guilty and face the consequences. But if he is not then surely the law should set him free. Witnesses being called must feel free to testify in the name of fairness."

Amalia Smart-Kamara, Freetown: "I have come to the special court to listen to how the proceedings are going. I believe in justice and I am happy that Mr Taylor is facing justice. It is one of the happiest days in my life."

Ibrahim Khalil Sesay, Freetown: "Members of my family were killed by rebels. Without him the rebels would not have been as strong. I did not have the chance to go to watch the trial, but the trial starting is good news for the people of Sierra Leone, both dead and living."

For pictures and more quotes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/africa_charles_taylor_trial/html/1.stm

Some background articles:

The charges against Charles Taylor: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4871656.stm

Taylor starts war crimes defense: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8147181.stm

Taylor made rebels eat enemies: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7295300.stm

The Morning Commute and the Ability to Look Past

2009-07-12T18:49:00.008-04:00

The body was on our left. Undeniably dead, sprawled out on side of the road. We were in the car, on the way to work in the morning, listening the BBC’s report on “Michael Jackson’s Monkey” (Seriously? Seriously). A relatively small crowd, orange cones, and two police officers directing traffic marked the scene. It was unclear if the body was struck by a car in the night, or murdered. The irreverence of the moment was what was most striking. A crowd of strangers, an uncovered body, legs exposed, face towards the road, on display for the unending line of traffic passing slowly, methodically by. We drove by only seconds before the monkey-keeper started talking.

Some of it maybe had to do with not wanting to really think, first thing in the morning, about a dead man – young-ish looking – who’s face was turned towards our car, who has a family and friends and didn’t want to die. It was easier to look at him as a body than to think about him as a man. You find that here – it’s often easier to look at terrible or sad or depressing things and acknowledge they are terrible or sad or depressing, but not to really think: children selling deodorant in wheelbarrows during school hours, government employees wasting the day sleeping on their desks, men with scars on their arms and faces from machetes or bullets, amputees, blind singers, grown men with shriveled legs crawling through the market begging. The list goes on. It’s not surprising, but it is shocking, how much you can look past without really, really letting it register.*

* During the same one-hour-ish family car ride, a BBC interviewer asked a man working with gang rape victims in London, “Were you surprised or shocked about [something or other]?” His response: “I wasn’t surprised, but I was shocked,” stimulated discussion about whether or not it was actually possible to be shocked, but not surprised. The verdict: no, but it makes you think for a second, and I like that.

Truth, Reconciliation, and Red Lips: Can You Have Peace without Justice?

2009-07-12T18:35:00.004-04:00

"Charles Taylor used to call me ‘the girl with the red lips." My co-worker said this with a flattered smile on her face, but she has no illusions: he’s a brutal war criminal. He killed arbitrarily, depending on his mood, depending on the way a potential victim walked down the street. He took lives simply to take them, innocent lives, young lives, unborn lives, old lives, he made people die in undignified ways, just because he wanted to. And everyone knows this. Nonetheless, when Taylor comes up in conversation – and he often does – you certainly here about his war crimes and brutality, but you also hear about his charisma, his great smile, his ability to say just the right things to make people crumble a little: Ah, it’s the girl with the red lips. True assholes always seem to have that ability.

The TRC just released its report last week. I mentioned this in a previous post, the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) was formed to hear testimony about people’s actions during the war, and help the country move towards peace and reconciliation. The TRC had the mandate to make recommendations for the next step in the reconciliation process - thus the document last week. A document that recommends a list of people to be tried as war criminals, and another to be banned from holding public office due to economic crimes committed during the war. It’s been met with mixed reactions. Some people say it was too heavy handed, while others say that it goes too easy on some of the main perpetrators. Furthermore, it’s been accused of being overly vague about the wartime role of some key political players. Both of the lists include not only very wealthy Liberians, but heavily political Liberians. Many of whom are members of the Senate, House of Representatives, and various Ministries. Including President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She’s not being recommended to be tried for war crimes, but recommended to be banned from holding public office for 30 years.

I haven’t actually read the report yet, so I can’t say whether it’s thorough, or goes too easy on certain people, or is too heavy handed. But putting Ellen on the list has definitely stimulated some interesting office discussions. Ann Dora, my co-worker with the red lips, began talking about her days working in the Executive Mansion before during the time that Wilton Sankawulo was the Chairman of the collective presidency that lasted from September 1995 to September 1996. This “collective presidency” brought together the previously warring factions into one joint government – meaning that Charles Taylor, leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL); Alhaji Kromah, who headed the United Liberation Movement (ULIMO-K); George Boley of the Liberia Peace Council (LPC); and a civilian representing the interests of civil society, Oscar Quiah, were all supposed to be working together with Mr. Sankawulo.

[Sidenote: Wilton Sankawulo was not a politician by nature – he kind of got swept into it. He was primarily a writer – Liberian folklore, specifically Kpelle culture. He got his MFA from the Iowa writer’s workshop (which is impressive!) in the late 60s and has written ten books. Haven’t read any of his stuff yet but will look into it…]

Anyway, Ann Dora worked directly for Mr. Sankawulo, essentially as his administrative assistant. She worked closely with him in the executive mansion, and often saw and worked with Taylor and those other ex-warlords. During Sankawulo’s time as the Chairman, he was hosting his daughter’s wedding at his compound in Monrovia. Ann Dora had done all the arrangements, and had spent a good deal of time working on this wedding, so she was at his house the night before for the last minute preparations. But things weren’t right. There was a lot of talk going on around the city that Taylor’s people were mobilizing, and just a general sense of unrest growing in the city. So Ann Dora’s husband shows up at the house, asking her to come home. But she promises him things are fine and despite his protests, insists on staying.

Not long after, Taylor and Kromah appear with their people in the compound. Ann Dora is in the next room, listening, when the two warlords essentially tell Sankawulo that they’ve decided to take control, and they’ll kill him if he resists. After they leave, Ann Dora realizes she probably should have listened to her husband – and tries to leave. But there are no cars, people are running around naked and painted for war, and it’s clear she’s stuck. Luckily, her husband returned and got her out of there and that night, the city broke out into chaos and Sankawulo had to seek safety with Taylor, the only person powerful enough to protect him.

The point of the story: everyone has a connection to the war and war criminals and people who aided and abetted. Does it make it right? No. But in a place where half the population could be held liable, how to pick and chose who should be held accountable? The charge against President Sirleaf is that she provided financial assistance to Taylor when he was in the bush, prepping to take over Monrovia. She’s never denied that. The real question is how clear his insane-war-lord-ish-ness was at that point. I don’t know the answer to that, to be honest. Interestingly, the US supported Taylor, particularly Jimmy Carter – who really liked him. Not saying Carter should be on the list too, just noting that Taylor was a charming and convincing man . . .

I myself am currently supporting two warlords. Taylor was one of the founders of the cell phone company I use, Lone Star. And, best of all, the house that I am currently living in is owned by Mr. Saa Gbollie, current Representative for Margibi County and former, under Taylor. The headline of this article: "Saah Gbollie Was Responsible for My Torturing."* A co-worker told me to give some rice to the boys next store – former rebels – and they’ll make sure we’re protected. Again, there’s the underlying layer of surreality that you can so easily miss: we live in the house of a former rebel leader who is actually on the TRC report’s list to be tried for war crimes. And it’s not uncommon. That’s just how it is here.

It will be interesting to see how much truth and reconciliation this report will bring. So many on the list are in power - politically and financially. The former warlords are in the House of Representatives, so the likelihood of the recommendations passing in the House seem slim. It has stirred up some underlying tensions, but so far, in my limited scope of understanding, it seems to be mainly in the political realm and not spreading in the population. However, what do I know? I have too much to learn about the TRC - politicaly implications and motivations etc etc etc. It's difficult to tell where to draw the line with the accusations and the trials - and begs the question - can you have peace without justice? Without holding these public war lords accountable, how will the country move on? But at the same time, is the country strong enough and ready to address these issues without inciting more tensions?

*Full article: http://allafrica.com/stories/200811270843.html

Project Assessment Trek: Grand Bassa and River Cess

2009-07-12T18:07:00.002-04:00

A bit over a week ago, we went on our second trek to check out two more of the six pilot counties involved in our project. This was supposed to be a longer trek, but ended up only being 2 days, 1 night, because the other team members were set on getting back to Monrovia as soon as possible (…even if it meant not doing as thorough a job as we should have...). Anyway, lots of driving down crazy unpaved roads in the dark, always safe and always fun. I kept some notes on during the trip and I think they’ll be able to say more and capture the mood in their original form much better than my verbose rhetoric will. It's a bit stream-of-conscious . . .

A quick overview – I’m going out to 6 villages in 6 different counties to do project assessments for a joint MIA/UNDP project that is aimed at increasing local governance capacity and advancing the goals of decentralization. So, here’s how the trip went down:

River Cess, 29 June 2009

Meetings: difficult/challenging but good!

Highly political - Informal market - Focus on technical - Walked to see sites – cool

Cestos = fishing village, cold storage = big deal

Rain came – heavy - Took refuge in church – took pics of heavy rain

Noticed what looked like a body lying in a dark corner

Was not convinced alive…but moved.

Woman.

Soiled lappa [skirt].

Laying facing wall

Me: Is she ok?!?

She’s sick, here for spiritual healing.

Me: Sick in the mind or the body?

In the body.

Me: So we just leave her?!?

Yes.

Cold Storage – very logical for fishing community

Ate lunch like starving

Felt terribly hungry – shaking.

Devoured entire plate: rice, eggplant, fish. Left only bones.

Worm?

Meds amy gave me for running stomach = lifesaver!!! [spent weekend sick with running

stomach, pain, fatigue, but meds cleared it all up]

Super Star Boat – US$2,500

Ghana – few days drive on river, not difficult

On the way here, team members kept saying road was terrible.

But not as bad as South Bank road in the Gambia. Would actually be considered a better road in The Gambia

Woman just came in and covered sick woman with a fresh lappa.

Matta – cool woman, in cold storage focus group, not “educated” but SMART.

Asked by David: Are you married to an educated man?

Matta's Answer: Yes, my first husband, before the war killed him, he was a medical

doctor.

Hiding in church from rain, 1 hour now. . .

Backtracking: Cold Storage Meeting

Got lots of info, frustrating at times

Lendeh – knows technical stuff well but told me I was “too interested in the economic side” – funny because I am NOT an econ person

Just want to actually justify projects and make sure they’re a good idea by lookin at REAL numbers. . . So hard to get real #s though . . .informal markets

Also, community members look at me and tell me higher prices because white denotes money

Original cost of canoe – US$15,000 – after other community members raised alarm, price revised to US$2000. Some people are honest!

Escaped church. . . Ankle deep in H2O. . .18:15 but where are we going to sleep?!?

The place we were supposed to sleep at got burglarized last night . . .

Buchanon. [a bigger town about 3 hours from Monrovia]

Found place to sleep

Smells like urine and bug spray.

Went to get beer with the old boys.

Hooker bar. Bakini’ed women painted on the walls. So loud music it was un-hearable, one Michael Jackson tribute song on repeat.

Didn’t finish beer.

Back to motel, confused how I end up in some places sometimes.

Sat and chatted with other team members in “lobby”

Chatting ended when ------- came home with women. Two.

Wanted to stab little man with sharp things. Disgusted/embarrassed.

Do what you want to do, but I don’t want to see it. Esp. older, married men.

Lame.

Bedtime.

Now horrified that this is a whore house

Old man Lendeh is vexed about the hookers – he was supposed to share room

with -----. I don’t blame the old man! I’d be livid. . .

I hear arguing in hallway, hookers leaving.

Not very long deh!

Can’t bring self to lay down in nasty bed.

Stood in room and took self portraits for 1.5 hours. What else can I write about….

Backtracking – the ride from Cestos to Buchanon was terrible

Road seemed MUCH worse at night. Tried to sleep

Seat didn’t recline

Felt car sick.

Also thought I was having a heart attack. Maybe just indigestion? Or OD'ed on

Amy’s stomach medicine?

2.5-3 hours in dark, bumpy, tired, dizzy, indigested, chest-painy, kept leaning

head on hand then punching self in face when we hit bumps. Often.

Tried deep breathes and happy thoughts.

Survived.

NOW exhausted. About to pass out. Sitting on side of nasty bed. Baby steps. Smell of urine has subsided – or I’ve adjusted.

Mosquito nets has holes. Wonder how much this place will cost me?

Grand Bassa, 30 June 2009

Sitting in a tea shop – owned by Fula men. Love breakfast of tea and bread.

3 motorcycles parked in front of a huge puddle as a parade of Buchanon Renewables 18- wheelers, honking and waving to people. New trucks. Shiny and Off to Monrovia.

Jumped in UNDP car, made good time to Desoe town – here by 11.

Toured town, chatted, took pictures with kids, men, women, chatted more. 12. 1. 2. still now the other car has not arrived. But no network to call them.

Not sure where they are.

Want to start meeting – but everyone else thinks we should wait for the other car. It’s been hours.

But village is bereaved. Old man died last night. They want to get on with their lives.

I started the meeting at 2:30. We arrived at 11. I think we waited ample. After 45 minutes they show up, annoyed that we started without them – they were carrying the Commissioner. Politics. Silly.

Meetings went well but we should have stayed longer to be more thorough .. .. .. big rush to get back to Monrovia. In UNDP car again - made it back to Monrovia by 10:30 . . . the other car got stuck, had to stay in whore house again. Ha. Glad i wasn't there. . . . . . .

The Death of the King of Pop in Post-War Liberia: Surprisingly Traumatic

2009-07-03T09:47:00.002-04:00

When I first heard about Michael Jackson’s death, I took it with detached sadness. Being out of the media mix that is America, I’m not inundated with constant updates about the details surrounding his death, the possible funeral plans, his attitude at his final rehearsal. And that’s nice. Of course, I remember Michael Jackson fondly – excluding the shadiness and the increasing creepiness of his later years – he was a true rock star. We had every possible cassette tape you could own with a Michael Jackson song on it. Our Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra complementary cassette tape was my first introduction to Man in the Mirror, and I distinctly remember being struck by the words each morning, buckled against the gray interior, surrounded by the “new car” smell, decked out in my plaid Catholic school uniform and grasping my oversized cooler/lunch box my mom made me carry (despite the fact that I got teased daily and pleaded with her each morning to just give me a brown paper bag). I still love rocking out to that song while driving. It’s an amazing song! All his songs – Man in the Mirror, Bad, Black or White, Heal the World – these songs were the odd but beautiful soundtrack of childhood growing up in America in the 80s and 90s. And so, yes, hearing that Michael Jackson is dead is rather sad, but being here in Liberia and missing the frenzy makes it almost surreal.

A surreal-ity which is only increased by the deep, deep sadness with which Liberians took the news. The Daily Observer, one of the country’s biggest newspapers, ran a full front page photo of MJ the day after the news broke. I heard a story about a Liberian newscaster reporting the story and breaking down on TV. Grown men and women cried in offices. A Liberian without access to internet gave me a note asking me to print anything I could about the death of Michael Jackson. The love that Liberians have for this man is striking. I didn’t expect people to even know about it, let alone mourn over it in a nation that has experience far greater tragedy than the death of a pop star.

There’s no mention of the legal problems, of the issues with children, of his strange and erratic behavior (I’m assuming that comes up in the US media, does it?). But here, he is just a pure and fantastic musician. Not a guy with a sad and tortured past, not a guy who’s clearly got some issues – but a man who can sing and dance and engage people and who is loved simply because of that. And also because of one particular song: Liberian Girl. It’s not one of his most popular in the states, but it gives him knightly status here in Liberia.

In an article in the Washington Times, a woman in Ganta, Nimba County – an area that experienced heavy fighting during the war and is a full day’s ride from the capital, talks a little bit about the impact of MJ’s Liberian Girl (ironically, a song that wasn’t even about/related to Liberia, as you’ll read…):

“ ‘When that music came out ... the Liberian girls were so astonished to hear a great musician like Michael Jackson thinking about a little country in Africa,’ Mrs. Carson said. ‘It gave us hope, especially when things went bad ... . It make us to feel that we are still part of the world.’

Mr. Jackson’s music video of “Liberian Girl” doesn't indicate the song was for or about Liberia. It begins with supermodel Beverly Johnson chanting in Swahili, a native language of East Africa. Liberians speak English. The video includes appearances by nearly 40 celebrities, including Paula Abdul, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Olivia Newton-John and Steven Spielberg.

But what matters to Liberians are the lyrics: ‘Liberian Girl, you know that you came, and you changed my world ... I love you, Liberian Girl.’

‘The song promotes Liberian women and makes her feel good to be one,’ Mrs. Carson said. She has four daughters, who she hopes will become successful in a postwar Liberia still rife with many obstacles – including an 80 percent unemployment rate and an education system that still is recovering from years of civil war.”

For the full text of the article: http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/king-of-pop-uplifts-liberia/

This from the Daily Observer, in the obituary section, surrounded by the names and stories of regular Liberians:

King of Pop, Michael Jackson Is Dead

Published: 26 June, 2009
Los Angeles -- Authorities have confirmed the death of Michael J. Jackson. News broke Thursday afternoon that the star had called emergency services and had been rushed to the hospital, having suffered cardiac arrest.

Half an hour later, it was reported that he was in a coma. Shortly thereafter, credible sources reported he had died. He was 50. Medical minds say as many as 50 causes can lead to cardiac arrest, and that the care a patient receives in the immediate aftermath is critical.

In a brief but emotional press conference held by the family, Jackson's brother Jermaine revealed that Jackson's attending physician was present at the time he suffered the arrest, but that an hour-long effort to resucitate him had proved fruitless. An autopsy is underway.

Liberians will certainly miss the King of Pop, remembering him especially for his 1987 single, "Liberian Girl" from the album Bad. Jackson fans the world over are mourning his loss.

Funeral arrangements have yet to be announced by the family.

Website:http://www.liberianobserver.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/17119/King_of_Pop,_Michael_Jackson_Is_Dead.html

Black Man’s Wish

2009-06-28T16:22:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, Saypah was telling a story about a woman who got raped by a chimpanzee. I know, incredibly random. But also striking – was this a story that she heard growing up, or something that was told during/after the war? Rape was so common here during the war, and is still a huge problem – we’ve heard a really wide range of estimates on the number of women who have experience sexual abuse, ranging from 33% to 75%, but the fact remains: a large number of women in Liberia have been the victim of some sort of sexual abuse. It seems logical that stories like this are the result of the years and years of conflict. They have to be. It was interesting because she told this story with all the kids listening, the idea of “rape” wasn’t something she hid from them. Basically, a woman has a pet chimpanzee, but as it grows up it gets tooooo strong and toooo big. One day, the chimp rapes her and she gets pregnant. Her husband has been dead for a long time, so many people in the village are whispering and there are many rumors. The woman is scared that the baby will be deformed but it’s a nice little boy and he grows up happy and healthy, but never knows who his father is.

He takes a wife and she gets pregnant. When she has the baby, it’s a chimpanzee. The nurses at the hospital are scared, so they kill it and tell the couple the baby just died. The same thing happens a second time. Then a third. On the fourth baby the nurse decides she has to say something, so she calls the man in and tells him, “Look. Your baby is a chimpanzee. All the others were too but I killed them.” And the man was veeeery angry, so he went to his mother and demanded to know who his father was, and the mother tried to lie and lie, but she knew that she had to tell him. So she told him what the chimpanzee did to her and the son grew very angry, very very angry. He went to the chimpanzee and he killed it. Then he killed his mother. Then he killed himself.

Seriously, that’s how the bedtime story ended. I was like, “Ummmm, well, wow.” What do you say to an ending like that?!? I mean, that has to be a remnant of war: a horrible story with a theme of rape and murder? I just listened, I don’t want to butt in and say, “No, that’s impossible. This is biologically impossible.” Maybe I should have – the kids are listening and “learning” . . .but I don’t know, she was so emphatic, and she believed it so much. She’s quite a good storyteller actually, it’s just that this story was so jarring.

After a little reflective silence, Saypa continued, “You see, the black man is always destroying. That is his wish. But white man’s wish put ship on the water. White man’s wish put plane in the sky. White man’s wish made the radio talk. White man’s wish put submarine under the sea. Black man’s wish is to destroy. Black man’s wish is to kill small children. Black man’s wish is bad.”

Wow, wow, wow. What do you say to that? No! Not all Africans want to destroy! Not all Africans want to kill! Most don’t! At all! But what do I know? She was the one who lived through war, who witnessed the murder and rape of her family and friends. I can tell her she’s wrong, I can tell her that human-chimp babies are biologically impossible, I can tell her that the “black man’s wish” is not to destroy, I can tell her there are many “white man’s wish”-es that are bad and wrong and destructive, I can tell her these things but I really don’t know what it will accomplish.

It’s hard to imagine what this country was like without war, before war. It comes up suddenly, in simple conversations, sometimes in matter of fact tones, sometimes tones of sadness, sometimes tones of pride: I survived. Matthew, who works in the Peace Building Unit with Thorodd, my classmate from Georgetown, drove us to work a couple times. One day, we were simply driving, chatting about mundane things one minute and then suddenly the conversation shifts to the day he had to flee to Cote d’Ivoire and almost died on the way: “When we crossed the border, we were so happy. Covered in mud. No clothes. But it was the happiest feeling ever.”

At the soccer game last week (more on that at some point. . .), my friend Javi met and talked with some ex-combatants. Javi can certainly tell the story better and in much more detail (my roommate Jenny and I are hoping he’ll write something to put up as a guest post, though it might be in Spanish….). Basically the boys were 24 years old – making them about 18 when the war ended. Making them incredibly young when the war started. They told him about doing/being forced to do cocaine, heroin, and pot as seven-year-olds and then going out to kill people. Javi talked about their scars – bullet wounds, large cuts, needle marks – which they showed him. The one guy was in Chucky Taylor’s Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU). Chucky is insane – he grew up in Orlando but later joined his infamous father, Charles Taylor, in Liberia. If you want a better idea of what this young 24-year-old probably witnessed/participated in, and how Chucky Taylor went from Orlando to his father’s stronghold in Gbarnga (the town I’ve visited a few times…) to being the commander of a security unit known for its utter brutality, and just to get a better sense of what child soldier/ex-combatants went through, and what Liberia was like during the civil war – read this article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/22828415/american_warlord/2

Hearing Javi tell the story – the point he made that was most intense was the fact that this 24-year-old kept saying, kept wishing, with anger rising in his voice, “But that life is over! I want a happy life! I want a happy life!” He’s 24. He can’t go back to his village because the people know what he did. The police know him. He’s marked as a killer. As Javi put it: “They not only stole his childhood away from him. They stole his entire life.” Parts of everyone’s life were stolen – from the victims, from the ex-combatants, from the people that fled to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, and the US. And it always comes up. It didn’t go away when Ellen got elected: all the underlying tensions are still in place and hearing Javi talk about his encounter with that 24-year-old, it just highlights how tenuous the peace actually is. There is a whole population of fighters here (who were often victims as well), and there’s a whole population of straight-forward victims – and there aren’t jobs, and there aren’t strong local governments….but the commanding structures of these militias are still in place. Yet on the surface, it’s a peaceful country, it’s moving forward, there’s hope. But there can’t be any of those things if you’re not addressing the needs of people who wish for happy lives but who have been branded as life-long killers.

There are definitely programs and initiatives going on – Thorodd just visited an agricultural center in Nimba County that works extensively with ex-combatants. They go out in to communities and talk to them about whether or not they will accept reformed soldiers back. Meanwhile, they are training these former soldiers in a 4-month agricultural skills training program. If they successfully complete the program, they’re given some capital to start their projects and then sensitively reintegrated into the host communities. I’m really not sure how “sensitive reintegration” works on a practical level. . . but I’m hoping to get up there and visit the center at some point.

So, the black man’s wish vs. the white man’s wish. I should have told Saypah she was wrong. When Charles Taylor and Chucky were around, people just needed to survive, a lot of the killers were children! A seven-year-old forced to do drugs and shoot family members isn’t making a choice. And once you’re forced to do that: what else is left to do but keep killing? Charles Taylor’s Presidential campaign slogan speaks volumes: “He killed my Ma. He killed my Pa. But I will vote for him.” In a country where this mentality has been instilled in a large portion of the population, there’s no capacity to wish. The actions Saypah witnessed weren’t the “black man’s wish” in Liberia. Everyone just wanted to survive, the wish is now – to move on, to have a happy life. The challenges are so vast though, it’s hard to imagine the wish coming true for so many in a generation of victims and fighters.

NO PHOTOGRAPHY apparently means NO PHOTOGRAPHY

2009-06-27T13:58:00.001-04:00

I was so smug. I knew I wasn’t supposed to take pictures, but I really wanted a picture of the seal: UNITED STATES EMBASSY MONROVIA. It’s pretty and rather colorful and just begging to be photographed. And I got two good ones. I would show you the picture so you could see how pretty the seal is, but they were both deleted by an Embassy Official. I was so proud of myself too, chuckling as I walked away with my pictures in tow. So smug. Ha! No photography! Whatever, Embassy. I was on my way to meet Kristen from Gbarnga, in town for a couple days, for dinner. I was actually looking out at the ocean as I walked, thinking about the mixed reviews I had heard about Monrovia before coming – and musing over its harshness and beauty. There’s filth and beauty and the dirty aspects just make the pretty aspects even more pronounced. I was in my own little world thinking about juxtaposition, still smug about my pictures. Then I heard the guard behind me telling me to stop. I thought about running, but then thought – eh! Me! I can talk my way out of this.

The guard would have none of my talking. He could have cared less. And made me walk all the way back to the main gate. After he shot down my initial attempt to talk my way out of it, I wanted out of the game. I told him I would just delete the pictures in front of him, but he insisted I go see his supervisor. Awesome. I really wasn’t in the mood, and was pretty indignant. These are my excuses for being mildly bitchy: fatigue from my field assessment that day, filth from the sweat and travel, the fact that I was dropped off at the wrong hotel and had to walk 20 minutes to the right one, with ominous stomach irritation. I should have just kept my mouth shut – I mean, the guard was doing his job to protect my country’s Embassy, I shouldn’t be a jerk. But really – the seal? Why on earth would you paint such a pretty seal and not let people take pictures of it!? He didn’t answer me when I posed this question.

His supervisor wasn’t very nice to start. And I actually tried to be nicer to him. The supervisor takes down all my information and then says, “Isn’t this the second time we’ve stopped you?” Absolutely not, though I had previously taken an illegal picture of the embassy without getting caught (see above). So this guy proceeds to call his supervisor. And I wait outside the embassy for a couple minutes with guard #2. I realize I am being not friendly, but at this point it seems pointless to fix it. Then a young State Department guy emerges and asks, “Took a picture?” Yeeeep. I was pretty annoyed with myself because I then proceed to have an amicable conversation with this guy after being annoyed with the guards, who are, again, simply doing their jobs. That wasn’t very cool, I know. I tried to apologize with handshakes but they had had enough of me. To be honest, they were a little too seriously for the offense committed, but again, doing their jobs. Thank for you protecting my embassy, Guards.

Anyway, the State Dept. guy, Nick, takes my passport info, deletes the two pictures I took, and then explains that the expat embassy community is really small, and they are always looking for new people to hang out with. So, got detained AND got on the embassy email list for Embassy/Marine parties. Toga party, July 18th. Oh the randomness of being an ex-pat.

Slash and Burn Agriculture

2009-06-27T12:36:00.002-04:00

Project Assessment Day Treks

2009-06-27T11:34:00.002-04:00

Last week, I went to Beajah, Bomi County and Gbarma (not to be confused with Gbarnga), Gbapolu County. We went out and met with community members to assess potential projects in the counties. I’m working with the County Development Support Secretariat (CDSS) within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). CDSS works along with Liberian Decentralization and Local Development (LDLD), which is a joint MIA/UNDP (United Nations Development Program) effort to increase the capacity of local government and community structures. There are 15 counties within Liberia, and this project is focused on 6 pilot counties. Each county is allocated US$100,000.00 to start a variety of projects. Within each of the six counties, one “growth center” has been selected. The growth center is a village or town that is a hub (or potential hub) of economic activity within the county. They’ve already done 1-2 site visits to each village to give some background and let community members know what’s happening.

So now we’re going into the villages and sitting down with groups of community members to assess the feasibility of a variety of projects within each county. UNDP has hired three Liberian consultants who have expertise in implementing these types of projects and can assess the economic feasibility: rice/cassava/plantain/pineapple farms, rice/cassava mills, vocational training centers, and cold storage units (more on cold storage later….). I have a bunch of concerns, to be honest – number one: we are assessing, not promising. But I’m not sure how clear that is to community members. No matter how much you explain that, I fear there might be some confusion there. And I’m really not sure how clear this is being made to begin with. Also, if multiple projects are deemed “feasible” and implemented in the same village – will there really be the capacity to manage more than one project? It’s often hard to find the people to manage one project, let alone multiple ones. I’m not sold on the strategy of implementing multiple projects in one village at the same time.

The mandate of the LDLD/MIA Project is to build local capacity. That’s the primary goal – not poverty reduction, not income generation. Build the capacity of the local level governments. I’ve mentioned before how Monrovia was a city built for 200,000, but with internally displaced people (IDPs) fleeing to the capital during the war and never going back, the population has soared to 1.5 million – in a county with a total population between 3 and 3.5 million. Much like the population, all the government activity and power is in Monrovia. Local leaders have very little power to make and enact decisions without either coming to Monrovia to get a signature or approval of some sort. Ellen’s government has really been pushing for “decentralization” – there’s legislation pending in the Senate right now which should be passed before I leave. Anyway, this project that I’m working on is a direct response to the need for decentralization: we’re trying to give local governments the capacity to not only make decisions, but to actually carry them out. Another element of my work that is related to decentralization is creating a template Ordinance that can be used throughout the various counties to dictate how decisions are made at the local level.

With that in mind, the approach is somewhat different than that of an NGO. An NGO might show up in a village and ask: What do you need? It might be a well, or a school, or a clinic, or a farm, or a cold storage unit. If any of them is identified as the primary need, the project is (ideally, but not always) formatted to create structures that will support said project. What we’re doing is going in to communities and trying to figure out what community or management structures already exist – and then introducing projects that will give those structures the opportunity to gain more experience and build capacity. Do they have a farming cooperative already? How can we help that be more efficient?

It’s interesting to look at development from this angle – having the priority of building local capacity and community structures, with poverty reduction as a secondary objective. We are basically bolstering up projects that would exist (in theory) whether or not we come in with money or not. It’s not the poverty reduction isn’t important or valuable, it’s just not the focus of these funds. It does make sense, too. If the community structures are stronger, if the management is reliable – the projects will be more sustainable and poverty reduction will be achieved. There is a place for the other approach too, if it’s done “well” – which is really hard to define. . . Another concern of mine is that community members will – justifiably – tell you what you want to hear in order to get projects in their communities.

So we’re going in, identifying projects and assessing their feasibility: economic as well as in terms of management capacity. We are not implementing these projects - of course, training is part of the budget, but the communities are in charge. They have the local knowledge and local capacity, and we’re just assisting them with some guidance/training in management. It’s great in so many ways – it’s very Chambers-ian (for any Morfit grads reading this). Buuuuuut at the same time . . . we are depositing US$100,000 into a community bank account? And allowing the community to disperse these funds? Hm. That’s really the way it should be. And it does work towards building the management and accounting capacity of local governments. But I question whether Liberia is at the point where this is going to be an efficient approach. Or if $50,000 is going to slowly disappear. . . But, that’s our mandate (a word used ohhhhh so often in magic UN world…and a word that often seems to justify decisions that don’t otherwise make so much sense...). The funds will be monitored of course, and the projects followed up on, so it’s not like we’re throwing money in a bank account and walking away. I feel like such a pessimist – maybe everything will run smoothly! :)

Back to cold storage. This, clearly, is not my area of expertise. Luckily, we have a consultant who knows his stuff! He was trained in Syracuse on the technical side of refrigeration and he knows it inside and out. He’s good. I don’t know how to make a refrigerator, he does. And that’s cool. However, there are multiple gaps in his understanding of our project that are seemingly insurmountable. So while he really really does know how to make a refrigerator, I now am apparently the one assessing the management/economic viability of the cold storage projects.

That’s completely fine. Now, the two towns we went in to last week didn’t seem like the best candidates for cold storage. It would certainly help them – there’s no doubt! But in terms of how we’re approaching this: does the structure exist to support this project from the beginning. No, neither made sense at all. Cold storage dramatically improves the fishing industry in villages. However, the two we went to last week don’t even have fishing industries! They are hubs where people who actually fish come to sell their fish – but the number of fisherman in the villages: 0. The UNDP argument is that a cold storage in these places would be great, no doubt, but would require the formation of a fishing cooperative that doesn’t exist, therefore it doesn’t fall into the infamous mandate. I agree – but the cold storage consultant is not getting this. It would be great for the consumers and the community – no one is arguing that – but it doesn’t fit the goals of LDLD.

When I try to explain to him that it’s not really viable with what we’re trying to do, he asks: “why don’t you want to help these people? Why can’t you see this will help them?” I try to explain – “I know this will help them. An NGO can come in and do it. Or WHO or FAO. It would be great. But it’s not in our mandate.” I instantly feel lame throwing out mandate mandate mandate, but it’s completely true. He just shakes his head and starts over, “But why don’t you want to help these people?” We had this discussion for about an hour yesterday. It’s frustrating because we’ve done these site assessments, but I’m pretty positive he didn’t assess – but told people they were getting it. Concerning, no doubt. I worked with him on Wednesday’s site visit, trying to get some information from community members – how many fisherman in the village (0); how many fish sold in the market weekly (not clear); how much do fish cost (varies). Whoi! A little difficult to put together a report on economic viability with that info – but it says a lot about the fact that the community probably isn’t ready for a cold storage unit in terms of management.

This LDLD Project is a big project, it’s “real” – run by the Government and UNDP – not run by some clueless Peace Corps volunteer alone in a village looking for something to do…but it kind of feels the same way at times. I do have to keep in mind, these were the first two treks, and myself and the consultants are still learning the process – so hopefully next week will be smoother. We’re heading to Grand Bassa County and River Cess from Monday to Wednesday, I’m really excited to get out for a couple days and see a little deeper into the countryside . . .

Monrovia: heap of trash, outdoor market, billboard about modernization

2009-06-26T17:59:00.000-04:00

An Exercise in Trust (or: An Offering to Karma)

2009-06-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

I did something ridiculous last week. I knew it was ridiculous, but I did it anyway to test something – though I’m not quite sure what. A man approached me on the street between Internal Affairs and Foreign Affairs, where I was walking to catch a ride home. He started talking:

Hello, Miss. Can’t you please help me. I am from Uganda. I am a teacher, I teach grade school students. I am here for a conference but (I actually forget these details – but something went amiss with conference planning…). I was expecting a daily stipend but the office is now closed and I can not collect my money until Monday, and then I will go right to the counties. Please help me with some money – $40 – so I can have a place to stay tonight, I have no where to stay, I know no one here. I hear that it is very dangerous here at night. Please, save a man’s life. I will come to you and drop the money next week once I receive the stipend. I can give you my passport if you need it. You can hold it until I return, please please, help me. Help me. Save a life!

I know this sounds horrible, but to be honest, I was a little annoyed. It was Friday afternoon, I just wanted to get in the car and go home to shower for happy hour, I didn’t have any US dollars on me, there’s something unsettling about having a grown man beg you to save his life, and I didn’t really believe the story compleeeeeetely. It’s not the worst thing ever, but it’s sad? frustrating? misguided? that any African can see me and think I have much capacity to help them. In the Gambia I was once brought in the room of a dying, wrinkled old woman (who was so cute and had been rather nice to me) and asked to “do something.” I was really upset – and just remember shaking my head and saying, Mi waawa hydara. I can’t do anything. I wanted to help, but I just couldn’t do a thing. She was really old and dying. I couldn’t change that with my Advil and Neosporin. I was utterly useless. Sometimes that’s hard to explain. I am starting to tell people here, “I am almost in as much debt as Liberia. I really can’t give you money.”

Ah! But this man, he was rather persistent. He was begging me. He kept saying, “Save a man’s life!” Alright alright alright just stop saying that! Admittedly annoyed, I took a second – ok, so what if I was ever in this position? Traveling, get your wallet stolen or something, no where to stay, no money, no contact info in the country, no way to get money from home. Essentially desperate. Honestly, in my travels in Africa, my nationality and appearance give me almost instant credibility (along with the misconception of wealth/ability to heal dying people I mentioned before), so if I went to someone with money and promised them to re-pay them if they just could help me out temporarily, it probably wouldn’t take long to find someone. I would be saved by someone. When I go out into the world, I count on karma to take care of the serendipitous meetings of people who know the things I need to know, and can show me the places I need to see, and can help me, direct me, take me in, feed me, save me.

Hm. I have benefited from blindly trusting handouts, and car rides, and advice in multiple countries. I took a deep breath, and totally accepted the fact that there was a good good really good chance I was being taken (there were strong strong correlations with the pregnant wife in hospital story that you could hear on the Barra ferry in Gambia every time you crossed, and which may have been true some of the times…..). Anyway, I embraced the potential loss of money, and I gave him most what I had – about $2000 Liberty – almost $30 bucks.

I would be so happy if he brought the money back and my inclination to doubt could be blown out of the water. I would love it if he came to my office tomorrow. It has nothing to do with the money, $30 bucks gone, I’m ok with that. But it’s strictly about his story: was he telling me the truth? Was he sincerely stuck and in need of help? I still don’t know – a week later and he hasn’t shown up at my office yet with the money. I’m ok with that. I expected it, but I just really wanted to be wrong. (Though he could still show up sometime next week. . . . . . )

Bong Mines Area

2009-06-26T11:50:00.000-04:00

Bong Mines Train Excursion

2009-06-26T11:41:00.000-04:00

Sunday, 21 June 2009

How many people does it take to charter a train? Apparently about 35. That was last Sunday’s activity: boarding a train and heading out to Bong Mines (where I had gone by car a few weeks ago to meet with the Malayah Association). It was cool to get to see the countryside while sitting on the outside deck of an old train. The trip there was uneventful except for the random woman in our group who decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of standing on the roof of a moving train and raising her arms in the arm as a sign of victory. I don’t know who she is or where she came from – but I couldn’t even watch. I enjoy doing things that are a little risky, but that was just dumb. There’s a line. Anyway, aside from that the train chugged on up the slight incline to Bong Mines and we arrived in style, though a little later than planned.

Some people had their cars on the flat bed of the train to go tour the mines, but I was amongst those who did not. So we went into town and grabbed motorcycle taxi’s to take us around. I shared with Maura, and was driven by a guy who recognized me from my last visit: You are the white woman who came here before and spoke Fula. He was a good driver, but sadly the bike was not strong – we got a flat tire at the first lake. Which was really fine, he went back to fix it and me and Maura sat in the grass to wait. Some people with pineapples and bananas passed us, so we purchases some and enjoyed them while we waited. It was pretty great, even though we didn’t get to see much of the mines. A random man did approached us and demand to know what our “mission” was at the mines, we kept explaining we were just tourists, but he was not appeased. Nonetheless, he left us alone. By the time our driver, Jacob, returned, it was time to head back to catch the train home.

We stopped to see Ma Finda in the town and she, of course, gave me 50 plantains to bring home with me – even though I only stopped to see her for a few minutes. So nice. We rushed down to town to meet the train, which was a little ways outside of town loading the cars and those people. We waited and waited and Maura started a game of duck duck goose with the crowd of kids who had gathered to stare at us. Still the train didn’t come. Apparently, the guy who kept asking us what our mission was, had called his friend and they were preventing the train from leaving. We were supposed to report our presence to them, but didn’t know. They held us up for a while, but after about 45 minutes we were allowed to go.

The way home was gorgeous with the sunset and much much faster – the slight incline down made a huge difference. Just outside of Monrovia, we were picking up speed as we passed through a town, blowing the horn all the way. But right after passing over the main road of the town the train started to slow dramatically, and one of the train guys ran past me to the back, saying, “We’ve struck someone.” It was truly an “Oh shit” moment. We struck someone!?! The train we’ve chartered has potentially taken someone’s life?!? Seriously horrible! That alone makes you think “oh shit.” I can’t not go look though, so I rush to the back of the train too. From the last flat bed, we can see a huge crowd forming around the tracks behind us. It’s getting dark. A huge crowd is forming. IF the person was struck and if the person was killed. . . how will the huge crowd react to the train-full of foreigners? Another dose of “oh shit.”

Luckily, we didn’t actually hit the person. Apparently, it was a guy on a motorcycle who wasn’t paying attention – so as the train was coming he kept crossing, the front of the train passed him without striking him but the conductor thought it would have been impossible for him to stop himself from hitting or getting pulled under the side of the train. But somehow he actually did. Once this was clear that we didn’t kill anyone, we got the heck out of there and home to Monrovia.

The beach at Robertsport :)

2009-06-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

Mud and (weak attempts at) Surfing

2009-06-26T11:25:00.002-04:00

Robertsport, Day Trip
Saturday, 20 June 2009

Ex-pats told us we would need a four wheel drive. Liberians told us that normal taxis would be fine. We believed the home people, primarily out of necessity – we didn’t know where or how to get a four wheel drive. Thus, three low-lying yellow and green taxi’s headed off on Saturday morning for a 2 hour drive to Robertsport, in Cape Mount County. The crew: my roommates Javi, Jenny, and Jacob, along with their Harvard classmates Momar and Oyebola, and then my classmate Kathy, along with “the Princeton girls” – Christine, Maura, Payal.

The main road was great – very smooth, nice, easy easy. After some slow going at the police and immigration check points (the other interns ID’s came in handy: “Office of the President”) we made it to the dirt road, passing grown men chiseling large rocks into small stones with small tools. The work looked slow and tedious, but they were each sitting next to huge piles of little stones. Impressive. It really wasn’t a terrible road at all. It has been flattened and is getting prepped to be tarred (thus the chiseling) – however, there are potions where they are laying drain pipes or doing other stuff – diversions that curve down off the main road and are usually filled with water. Rather muddy. Not easy deh for the low lying cabs. But we trucked along and along fine fine. Until Sidi, carrying the Princeton girls and Kathy, hit the mud.

A good amount of mud. Mud up to mid-tire, mud up to the bumper. Needless to say, the cab was stuck. We all unloaded out of the cars, preparing ourselves to push the car out. Corporations pay people good money to create these team building exercises like ropes courses and whatever else teambuilding people do, but really, they should just send people to Africa and have them figure it out. Teambuilding. It was fun – we – being Momar, Jacob, and our fantastic drivers – pushed the cab to solid ground. I was really quite ready to help, and did for a second, but I was standing right by the one wheel and had an image of slipping and getting run over, so stepped back to watch.

The rest of the ride was smooth – but with the police check point delays and the getting stuck, we didn’t get to Robertsport until after 12. Which was a bummer because we needed to leave around 5ish. It was cloudy but really rather beautiful – forest butting right up against the ocean, surfers dotting the water, kids hanging out under the trees, blown out buildings as the backdrop to the newer tourist tents. And not a single Bumster. It was glorious. Next time we go we’ll definitely stay over. The guys who made the movie Sliding Liberia, which I mentioned on here before, we there so we hung out with them and “used” their surfboards. Also met Albert, the Liberian surfer from the movie. Definitely check it out if you haven’t yet – it’s cool – and gives a good picture of Robertsport. Much better than I am painting with my words and pictures.

I mentioned we “used” their surf boards. It’s a loose term. It fits if by “used” you mean floated on before getting rocked by the massive and beautiful waves. In Costa Rica last year, I felt like quite the rock star. Both me and Amy were up on our first and second tries, and were clearly impressive to our instructor. He was especially impressed by our humility, which was funny because we were less than humble. Anyway, I was less than humble on my way to Robertsport. “Oh I love surfing.” “I’ve done it before.” “I’m not great, but. . .” Mmmm hmmm. Right, Maggie. The current was stronger, the waves were bigger, the board was smaller, and there was no one there to tell me exactly which wave to take and when to start paddling and even give me a little push so I could actually catch the wave. But no matter, I would have been rocked by the wave – like I was the one time I thought I was going to catch one.

I paddled my heart out. And then I was moving, face down on the board the wave was lifting me and lifting me and I kept paddling. The water foamed white around me and I push myself up from the board, ready to stand and impress myself and others. Then the board was gone. And I was upside down in the water, hands over my head to protect me from the missile-like board and having flashbacks to boogey boarding crashes at the Jersey shore as a kid. I was significantly less panicked than I used to be as a child getting rolled around under water as a wave has its way with you. Nonetheless, I popped up completely disoriented with my hair covering my eyes and spewing water out of my nose. Very similar to the Jersey days except with significantly less people and cleaner water.

That was the closest I came to surfing that day. Alas. Later, Albert, the Liberian surfing expert, took me and Jenny out to give us some lessons. He took us out far! This is when it becomes clear that I only spent a week at the Jersey each summer, and not months. I get nervous going too far away from the beach. But Albert took us out aways, near rocks. I’m a wimp with water, clearly, and now I will even reveal perhaps one of the most embarrassing things an aspiring surfer can admit: I get sea sick sitting on the surf board for too long. Seriously. It happened in Costa Rica. Ridiculous. I don’t even know – anyway, I didn’t get terribly sea sick on this trip, but much longer out there and it would have been a problem. I’m going to have to take Dramamine next time – because there will be a next time. I will stand up and surf in Liberia. Hopefully.

On the way home we only got stuck once, and a group of road workers in bright yellow slickers pushed us out. They were really cool. There was soooo much traffic in the market, so it took forever to get back to Monrovia. And then, just before the bridge to cross back into the city, our car died. Dead. Bam. Done. Luckily, another one of our parading cabs was right near us, and after some bickering over the price, we joined the other car. Ended the night with Bangladeshi food at a restaurant called B. First – 7 people, $28, and good food!

Once home, I finally hung up my mosquito net with the help of Jacob, one of my room mates. I wasn’t really getting terribly bitten before the last two nights. I attribute that to the fact that everyone else got their mosquito nets hooks put up for them a few days ago (for some reason I was skipped) and the mosquitoes were hungry and desperate. Usually they don’t like my blood too too much. So now I can sleep much better and wake up Malaria-free. :)

I posted the pictures of Robertsport – http://picasaweb.google.com/mtd933. Enjoy!
But also check out Sliding Liberia if you want to see cool surfing footage and interviews with people who lived through the war. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0eru45CK5Y)

This, too, is Liberia.

2009-06-26T05:36:00.003-04:00

Written Friday, 20 June 2009:

So, my trip today to Bomi [last Friday] was, not terribly surprisingly, cancelled. This is the third failed attempted to get out into the field with my government counterparts. However, this time, it’s actually not their fault. The rubber workers of Guthrie are on strike in the region we were planning on going to. They haven’t been paid in ?????. Apparently, the sight of UN and government cars are often the target of angry striking people, and therefore, we were forced to stay at the office today. This, too, is Liberia (a favorite phrased used by the people when things just don’t go right – it was bound to be the title of a blog entry sooner or later….)

It’s not the end of the world, I do have things to do. I’m actually researching Agro-processing in Ghana to see if we can set up some informational meetings/small training sessions there with people who are doing it on a large-scale (though it’s been impossible to contact anyone so far. . . anyone know anyone in Ghana?). Also, trying to get an outline together about the information I’ve been gathering about communal farming policy. Looking over the City Ordinances for Monrovia and a suburb, Brewerville (pronounced Bro-ville) and outline the role of City Officals. There’s some political reason they want the mayor out so we are looking in to the legal road to do that. . . or something. Also trying to generalize that Ordinance to create a template for all other cities in Liberia. I like the farming aspect of the job best :)

* * *

We actually ended up going to Brewerville today to pick up some documents. The mayor was just outside of town at the Unity Conference Center where they were holding closing ceremonies for the Truth and Reconciliation Conference (TRC). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, also TRC, is responsible for bringing peace and reconciliation back to Liberia, a lofty goal. Their mandate calls for them to 1.) investigate gross human rights violations; 2.) provide a forum to address issues of impunity as well as allow both victims and perpetrators to tell their sides of the story; 3.) investigate the roots of the conflict; 4.) conduct a critical review of Liberia’s history to address socio-economic and political causes of conflict; 5.) specifically address the atrocities committee against women, children, and vulnerable groups and pay special attention to gender based violence; 6.) publically report all findings. (https://www.trcofliberia.org/)

We were at the Conference just for an hour or so – and didn’t actually see anything, except for the arrival of the Vice President. I also found a woman selling Moringa seeds outside so I bought a bunch from her and got her number. That was rather exciting. (Moringa was a tree that was all over Gambia and is really healthy – but isn’t around here too much). This is a somewhat dull blog post, but more interesting ones to follow this afternoon . . . . . .

The Freedom Mill at an Oil Palm Plantation in Gbarnga

2009-06-18T08:39:00.000-04:00

Fear Not the World But the People

2009-06-18T08:12:00.004-04:00

I spent Monday and Tuesday of this week visiting Gbarnga (Ban-ga), being carted around on a motorbike checking out various farm sites and feeling the wind in my helmet-less hair. Few things are better than that. However, it only took a few hours back in Monrovia to remind me why motorbike riding is the utmost asinine thing you could ever do in the capital city – especially when it’s dark, and even more especially when it’s raining. It all began with a missionary and a drunk prostitute.

I went to Gbarnga on Sunday for a BBQ at Tate and Kristen’s house (an RPCV couple living in the area). My driver stopped the car at the beginning of the 3.5-4 hour drive and had me lead us in prayer before we started the ride, which really can’t hurt on these roads and with these drivers. The BBQ was really nice: meat on a stick, fried plantains and grilled mangos, Lebanese food, potato salad, tequila shots, and a man with a guitar. A fantastic combination, great weather, and a good time. I stayed with them in their guest room – they are great, super welcoming, and cool. Monday morning, I headed off to a meeting Tate set up for me with one of his coworkers who has some knowledge about communal farming. And by “some knowledge,” I mean taught me more than I’ve learned since being here. Great guy – Fahn. We’ll definitely be talking again soon. He was headed on a week long field trek to Lofa county, so he set me up with his coworker Jeff, who carted me around on his motorbike to a Palm Oil Plantation/Processing Site. The site is using the Freedom Mill to process the palm oil - which decreases both the time and physical energy needed to produce oil. Winrock Internation, the organization that Tate works for, is training local metal workers to make the mills so that it's actually sustainable (hopefully). If anything breaks or goes wrong with machines, there is the local capacity to fix them even if Winrock has left Liberia. It's a good plan! From there, we went off to Cuttington University (a private University located just outside Gbarnga) to see who we could meet there.

When I was planning on going to the BBQ and then missing work on Monday, I was hoping they would be fine with it because I was meeting with people about farming. And then it turned out that my work people had scheduled a meeting at Cuttington on Tuesday, so I would just stay and meet them there. Once I arrived, however, I realized that “scheduled” was a strong word – they had thought about it on their end, and it was up to me to find the right people to meet with and schedule something one day in advance. Ha. Luckily, when Jeff and I arrived at Cuttington, there was a 60-something missionary man there who was a huge help and super nice. Me, I am skeptical of missionaries after meeting some absolutely horrid ones in Gambia (just not nice or cool people). But this man made me considerably less distasteful of missionaries as a whole.

So I set up my meetings, and then met up with Kyla (PC at Pheobe hospital) to head out to Kpatawee Falls – beautiful. I actually think it would be better to go there in the dry season, because the water was rushing so fast it was hard to appreciate the intricacies of the falls, but the power was more than clear. Check out the pictures, if you so please: http://picasaweb.google.com/mtd933

Tuesday: my people arrived, only slightly late, and we had a really successful meeting with the Dean of the School of Agriculture about a potential collaboration between MIA and the University. They essentially want to create an internship program for agricultural students to work on the government agriculture projects. There’s also interest in training farmers in a short, non-degree program. All in the works, but interesting.

I had actually set up another meeting at C.A.R.I, which is the agricultural training center in the region, but we didn’t have time because we had to go back to Monrovia (I won’t dwell on the wasted resources of sending two cars, and five people out to a meeting 4 hours from the capital…). It was a much faster ride in a government car, and I was home and showered by 5:30. The missionary man, who had been such a big help to me, was actually in Monrovia for the night and didn’t know many people in the city, so I had told him I would go out with him. Thus, after a long weekend out, I cleaned myself up and headed into the city around 6. Met up with some people for yoga, and then did dinner with my missionary friend. It was really nice – he’s had an interesting life in international business and has traveled all over the world and bought my dinner.

From there I went to meet up with my housemates, who were also doing dinner in the area, to all share a cab home together. We call cabs to take us home at night because some of them can be a little shady or drunk. So one cab comes, and half the roomies jump in there, and I’m waiting for cab number two. But there’s confusion, and another cab pulls up and we run out in the rain and jump in. I jumped in the back seat first and realize there is a woman sitting in their already. But no matter, we’ll all squeeze in and we do. Though in the close quarters, it’s clear she’s drunk – from both her breath and from the bottles jingling at my feet. The driver, who is NOT the one we called, says, “No worries. She is my boss lady.” Hm. And then he gets out, disappearing into the compound next to where we were. At this point, the whole situation becomes quite clear: he’s arranging this woman’s work for the night. He then reappears, saying: “He said you should come.” And the woman gets out and we drive away. That’s clearly not cool or ideal, but if the man could get us home safely, I would have stayed in the cab. However, the bottles in the back, the drunkness of the woman, and his insistence that he “never drinks” kind of made us all wary. My one room mate pretended to be sick and we got off at the main road to wait for one of the cabs we usually take.

So we’re standing on the main road, under the awning of Lucky Pharmacy, watching the rain and the cars pass on the slick, dark road. My back was turned, but suddenly I hear a scraping sound, screaming, and a horn. Barely visible on the road is the outline of a capsized motorbike. Apparently it had been clipped by a passing car. The three passengers of the bike had immediately run/limped off the dark road so they weren’t hit. As they sat on the sidewalk recovering, a big SUV with it’s bass blasting comes barreling the other way, hits the fallen motorcycle, and drags it for about 50-75 yards of loud screeching and sparks. The motorcycle driver, in full yellow rain gear, sprints after his bike as a rather large woman gets carted our way on the back of a skinny man.

She’s bleeding from her knee and her foot and they bring her in to the pharmacy, where she is immediately yelled at by the owner for getting blood all over the place (there was a fairly good amount) and kicked out. Me and Javi go in and demand gauze or something – they must have something she could cover it with! Come on! I was annoying by this owner – turning a bleeding woman away! Just give her some gauze at the very least! So the owner gives us a small piece after I demand it and tell him I will pay for it, and I go out and give it to her as she gets in a car that magically appears and drives off in the opposite direction of the hospital, which is directly across the street from us. We also saw another accident on the way home. The next day, walking around the city, I witnessed another motorcycle crash right behind a taxi emblazoned with the phrase: Fear not the World but the People.

***

I am hopefully headed to Robertsport this weekend to chill on the beach and do some surfing! It's supposed to be an amazing place to surf even for people who actually know how to surf. They just made a movie about it - Sliding Liberia - which is a traditional surfing movie PLUS some cultural stuff that highlights the difficulties of post-war life in Liberia. Here's some links that are cool:

http://www.slidingliberia.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0eru45CK5Y

To be honest, I can't actually look at either of these because my internet is too slow, BUT I did see the movie last week and it was really great.

Malayah Association of Bong Mines: War Against Poverty

2009-06-12T12:12:00.002-04:00

Project Brief:
The Malayah Association was founded by Finda Francis, a woman of Bong Mines who wanted to find a way to respond to the destruction and devastation in her community.
The first phase basically centered on “Susu” loans (each week members pay in a certain amount, which is pooled and given to one person to start a small project, such as soap making). The association still does Susu loans, but has also moved in to agriculture, which is an area it hopes to expand in the coming months.

I originally thought it was a women’s group, but it actually pulls in all members of society – old, young, men, women. Rev. Anthony works closely with Ma Finda with the association’s organization. He’s also incredibly nice and welcoming – really fantastic people.

One man told me, “Before the war, we were lazy. We had life very easy. But now, we know we must work. We know we must rely on the land.” And so they are trying, slowly slowly, to establish a livelihood from farming – which is heavily promoted in developing countries, but much easier said than done, especially when considering the fact that it is all dependent on manual labor. It’s truly not easy, deh.

“Malayah” is translated from Kissi to mean “help me,” but it’s really more in the spirit of “self help.” Currently, there are 72 members (50 of whom are actively engaging in the agriculture project). The goal is to increase the skill level of community members so that they can have some sort of livelihood whether or not the mining company ever comes back. They farm rice, plantain, bitter ball, banana, eggplant, pepper, banana, corn, and are looking to add more vegetables to the farm as well. The farms are not centrally located – they were unable to get one large plot of land.

Opportunities:
1. Niapele Project School Feeding Program: Linking with NP to provide produce for the school feeding program will give the Malayah Association a consistent buyer. Presently, Malayah is trying to become a Government Accredited NGO, so that they have some credibility within both Liberia and the international community. Their association with the Niapele Project is not a formal link, rather NP is contracting them to be involved with the school feeding program.

2. Transportation: Bong Mines has access to a train that runs directly to Monrovia three times a week, giving community members the ability to easily and cheaply transport their goods to a larger market.

Challenges:
1. Transportation: While Malayah does have access to the train to Monrovia, getting the produce to the train is in itself an issue. The walk to the farm is about 45 minutes. Furthermore, the road is not good and difficult to access by car. In order to transport the goods back to the town, association members must pay a driver to pick produce up – it’s not cheap and it has an impact on profits. The Association is working to find a plot of land (5-6 acres) so that all the farms can be located in one place.

2. Revival of Mining Industry: There are rumors that the Chinese are coming back to re-open the mines, however I’m not sure when that will be. It’s also an interesting issue – because I wonder how many people will shift from agri back to mining if the company comes back. There are the undeniable benefits the community will feel in terms of commerce and emerging businesses, but there’s also the issue of the environmental implications: what impact will the waste have on the soil? Water? Produce?

3. Funding: Malayah is looking to expand their activities from Susu loans and agriculture to supporting sick members, peacebuilding activities, and working within the community to settle land disputes. The registration as an NGO can cost up to US$300, and there is also the need for tools and transport costs. Obviously, the goal is to be self-sustaining. And hopefully associations like the one with NP will help with that, as will a more targeted marketing approach; however start up costs are necessary and do go a long way when used well. And this group really seemed to have its act together. (They were also rather kind to me :))

More information:
If you’d like more information about the Malayah Association, you can check out Niapele’s project description (http://www.theniapeleproject.org/blog/story-field-women-malaya). When I was getting on the plane to come to Liberia from Ghana, an African woman boarded and saw someone she knew, who asked how her time in America was, “Oh but the money is finished there! It’s all finished!” That said, if you’d like to donate directly to the Malayah project you can contact me :) Or if you’d like to donate to the Niapele Project’s school feeding program, you can do so on their website (it is separate from Malayah but still doing good things!). No worries though, the money is finished in America and it’s not easy deh!

Malayah Association Members!

2009-06-12T10:31:00.000-04:00

Bong Mines: Communal Farming Research Trek, June 10-11

2009-06-12T09:58:00.002-04:00

Bong Mines used to be a thriving community known as “Little America.” It’s sitting on over $6 billion worth of iron ore (according the locals) and used to have 30 – 40,000 residents, including over 3,000 Germans from the German mining company (funny, though, that they called it “Little America” and not “Little Germany” . . . . . . . . ). It was a large, wealthy place, and the workers still talk about how well they were treated by the mining company: free housing, free schooling for children, free health care for workers and their families (much better treatment than you hear about from Firestone (more on that at some point), another huge presence in the country). Very well done, Germans.

But during the war, the success of the town turned out to be a curse: when the war was raging Bong Mines was hit hard. It was well know for its wealth and the rebels came and looted, killed, and destroyed buildings. I’m not sure when exactly the Germans left, but they did – handing out promises of employment and pensions upon their return. The main headquarters is now a skeletal structure on the side of a hill. And there are countless other skeletal buildings. The church building is completely blown out – the “new” church is a stick, rice bag, scrape metal structure nestled within the crumbling walls of the old church. And the Germans never came back – 14 years of war and the entire infrastructure of the company destroy, the pieces of paper given to residents promising employment and pensions are now meaningless.

To get to Bong Mines, you drive 1.5 hours from Monrovia to Kakata, and from there you get a jeep to Bong Mines. The drive to Kakata was very smooth, enhanced by the awesome music played by UNMIL Radio (“The Voice of the United Nations Mission in Liberia”), which plays the most random, but fantastically catchy songs. The words are in English but I have no idea where they find this stuff, though I’d like to know. The one song I particularly liked was super catchy (the driver and a couple passengers were singing along) and had a chorus of, “Life. Oh Life. Ohhhhhh liiiiiiiiife. Oh life. Bam bam bam.” Not everything has to take on elevated meaning because of the war, but it’s interesting to be singing this chorus over and over in this happy, hopeful, cheerful tone and then talk to the man next to you who explains that Bong Mines was his home before the war but he fled when the fighting got so bad, and never went back. It makes you wonder about the people who stayed – what did they do for those 14 years?! How did they survive?

I went there because a friend of mine, Megan, who works with an organization called the Niapele Project (http://www.theniapeleproject.org/), is working to establish a partnership with a farming cooperative in the village. The Niapele Project (NP) works to increase the capacity and sustainability of Liberian organizations that are working to help returning refugees and refugee children. The idea is that the farming association in Bong Mines will be contracted to provide food for the Niapele Project’s school feeding program.

The organization, The Malayah Association, was founded by a very cool woman: Finda Francis. They kept translating “malayah” (a Kissi word) as “help me,” but I think it is more in the spirit of “help myself” or “self help.” Ma Finda talked about her “vision”: she looked around her after the war and saw many orphans, widows, widowers, unskilled/uneducated young people, and a destitute town with no jobs. She came to understand that the community had to help themselves if they wanted any relief from poverty, but she wondered: Where to start? How to start? And with what? So she started the Malayah Association (I’ll be posting more about this specifically at some point today).

So, I arrive in Bong Mines around 1 after a less-than-smooth but not terrible ride from Kakata. The road is not paved and is quite rolling with many many potholes. I was sitting in the middle of the front seat, which offers a lovely view of the road but is slightly uncomfortable, especially in a stick shift. Also, the jeep kept breaking down. . . nonetheless, I arrived by one, ready to head out and see the farm. I called my contact there, Rev. Anthony, and he sent someone to pick me up at the car park, and take me to the compound.

I arrive at Ma Finda’s compound and immediately realized that I had forgotten the basics of a visit to an African village. 1. The white visitor is given water and told to rest. 2. Cooking commences. 3. Village tour. 4. More rest. And that’s pretty much how it went – the farm viewing, it seemed, would have to wait until tomorrow. Which was unfortunate because I had planned to leave at 7am. . . but once you are in a village, you are often at the mercy of said village. So, Ma Finda brings me mineral water and starts cooking slightly spicy tomato pasted plantains and crawfish (delicious! My first crawfish experience actually). Finda lives with her husband and children in one of the old mining workers quarters – even post-war they really aren’t too bad. Very sturdy, you can tell they were definitely even nicer at some point.

Rev. Anthony took me on a quick tour of the town – school, church, main drag. I told him I spoke Pulaar, so we went and visited the Fulas (they are everywhere and it’s glorious) and then he had to head back to seminary class. He sent two young girls, and members of the association, Hannah and Benitta to come hang out with me. In the evening, Hannah took me around to show me the train and the market. Each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a train comes from Monrovia to Bong Mines, it used to be for the iron ore but now it brings supplies and produce to Monrovia for sale. It’s a great way for the farming association to transport their goods, and the amount of goods was incredible! I’ll post pictures soon – bananas, plantains, palm oil, bitter ball, pepper, crawlfish, corn, charcoal – all in mass quantities! It was incredible – the amount of produce and goods moving out on such a regular basis. Really impressive.

From there we went to see Hannah’s stall in the market. She was in 11th grade when the war got too bad to be in school, but she’s clearly a really, really smart young woman and speaks English very well. She works in agriculture with the Association but also has a business – selling plastic buckets and sandals at the market. African markets are amazing: all these woman who are friends, selling pretty much the same thing from stall to stall. You wonder how they make any money? How people in the village decide who to buy from? Although, Hannah was the only woman I saw who was selling plastic buckets, and they’re a sure sell.

There were a ton of empty stalls though, I honestly thought people had just started to go home already because it was getting later. But Hannah says: “Hey, this market used to be much bigger. All these empty stalls used to be filled up. But all these people are dead. They died during the war.” Wow. I found it so moving, and also a little eerie, that the stalls still remain empty. And they aren’t just all the stalls at the end of the market, or all the ones in the last row, or far away from the road. They are interspersed between filled stalls, two empty ones here, another one next to Hannah, three more four rows over. Pronounced, specific emptiness. I knew if I had asked: “Who was here? Who sold what here?”, Hannah would know them by name and a story about their families. Now, I’m sure once the population gets back to its former size (if ever), the stalls will be filled in again, slowly slowly. But for now, they are strikingly empty.

Not surprisingly, the people were really so nice to me. The ones I was hanging out with were mostly Kissi, and they told me they are related to the Fulas – both are derived from the same tribe in Sudan. Many of the women in the association came to visit me and chat, and – of course – I got my very own Kissi name, which pretty much rocks: Siah Tamba (first born girl child drum). After a delicious dinner of Potato greens and rice, I went back into town again with Rev. Anthony, back from school, to see the people loading up cars with produce to take to Monrovia. So, Bong Mines definitely has a lot of poverty, but they are also definitely working hard. There was so much commerce, it was great. Still has a long way to go, but I found the activity quite impressive. And at night the town was BUMPIN’. Fancy, popular hip-hop music blasting on the street, people everywhere, generators throbbing, TVs visible inside the shops along the road. We went in to a small shop and sat in the back and watched a little TV: WWF wrestling highlights from 1991-1994. Talk about mullets. And you know, perhaps it was the setting or the fatigue, but it was soooo much better than wrestling today – it didn’t even look as fake! Quite entertaining AND really amused me since I had been savoring the post-dinner-sitting-in-silence-staring-up-at-the-dark-night-sky time that I don’t get in Monrovia. But instead ended the night with Brett “The Hitman” Hart’s mullet and hot-pink spandex. Rock on.

And then, still having seen nooooo farm, it was time for bed and a reminder of another African detail I completely forgot: there is absolutely, categorically NO ventilation in African bedrooms. I was smoldering. Smoldering. Covered with sweat, just hoping to be able to fall asleep and get through the night. It was soo soo hot in that room, but around 3am it suddenly got cool and it was glorious. It was so hot, and not just hot – heavy, stuffy, suffocating – that it prompted me to use my aircon for the first time in Monrovia last night.

The plan: wake up early eeeearly, go to farm quick quick, head back to Monrovia and go to the office (not because I have a specific task, simply because I told them I would be back by noon). The problemo – woke up to rain and wailing. Not only was the weather miserable, someone had died in the night. I heard the wailing start around 5:30am. It was far away, but it was clearly the wail of death: shrill, high pitched, frantically rhythmic. I heard it was a middle aged woman who had been sick for some months.

Obviously, I understand that people need to go mourn, but some still show up to chat and hang out with me. Really, so terribly nice. Another issue, however, is the confusion over my mission. I went there on what was essentially a research trip – I wanted to see how their farm worked. But when a white woman shows up in your village, even when she says repeatedly, “I’m just here to learn from you,” it’s hard to believe that she isn’t going to help in some way, and that she really did just come to take your knowledge and food. So despite multiple attempts to explain myself, I am now considered a partner in their efforts. And that’s not a bad thing, I want to help, I just hope I can find a way to do so (see entry “Malayah Association: War Against Poverty” if you’re interested in helping too J)

My American-ness came out a bit in the morning as we waited and waited for the rain to subside. Just sitting, waiting. Got a bit impatient – not because I wanted to go, but just because I felt I should get back to work at some point. But they were just so so so nice, and so welcoming, and so thankful that I was there. We finally had a quick little meeting, and then the rain stopped and a motorbike came to take me to the farm. That’s right – the white girl needs a motorbike to take her to a farm that old, crippled women walk to. Mmm hmm. But it was far deh! About a 10 minute motorbike ride and we only went to the closest one and saw it from quite a distance, because of the time and the weather. Crazy. This one old woman kept showing me her leg, which got bashed up in the war and didn’t heal correctly – and she walks out there a few times a week.

It was a great trip – I actually did get a better sense of what’s going on in the world of communal farming and got to get out into a Liberian village and really hang out with people and get to know them a little. I’d really like to go back to visit again, so hopefully I’ll be able to work that. After having ANOTHER delicious meal, I made my way to the car park with an escort and about 30 plantains (literally), only to find what I suspected: no cars were going at that very moment. No worry, I had planned for this and I love motorcycles, so I wrapped all my stuff in plastic, it’s strapped to the back of the motorcycle, and I ride gloriously out of Bong Mines, sandwiched between two young men in the pouring rain.

It did dawn on me that this wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had. I was on a motorbike. It was pooooooouring. I was going into the bush. And I was sandwiched between two men. Hm. However, it was a great journey – the guys, Emmanuel and Eddie, were really nice and great and the ride was as smooth as possible for an unpaved, pot-hole ridden, dirt road. It also dawned on me at one point that I was too old to be spending a Thursday on a motorbike in the pouring rain, soaking wet, covered with mud – but that was a fleeting thought: even at 27 I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do on any Thursday.

You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em

2009-06-12T06:00:00.002-04:00

Written 9 June 2009:

I’m sitting in my bedroom listening to traditional African drumming and singing coming from the hotel. It’s grand opening night tonight. We were not invited but I had the chance to sneak my way – a man offered to get me in if I went and got dressed up for the occasion. The problem – quite humorous, I admit – was that I had just changed into my “nice clothes.” So I told the man this, and he laughed in my face. Ha. He thought I was kidding, but it’s the nicest I’ve looked in a while. Perhaps indicative of a problem . . .

Anyway, it’s the GRAND OPENING of the Robert L. Johnson Kendeja Resort. I mentioned this before – it’s a huge, fancy, ridiculous place in the midst of regular Liberian people. It just seems opulent and obnoxious. I have since heard some of the back story which is both interesting and makes the place seem a little better. First of all, Mr. Johnson – who I never heard of before coming to Liberia but who I believe owns BET and who is known here as “the richest black man in America” – went to Ellen and said, “I want to invest in Liberia, what do you need?” Apparently, a very nice hotel. Ok, I can see that, you can’t encourage tourism without a nice place to stay.

I think I mentioned that they knocked down the youth cultural center in order to build the hotel. That is still true, but they already broke ground at the new site of the cultural center – which will also include a clinic and a brand new school. Currently, the hotel employs just under 200 Liberians, and I heard that will increase to 300-400 when it is running at full capacity. So, I still think it’s oddly placed and mildly offensive, BUT it isn’t, perhaps, the devil. I got all this information from Sekki, my new friend at the Attaya Shop. I’m still boycotting the hotel though.

Mostly, the music has been drumming and clear African rhythms, but not long ago I heard, “You got know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, you gotta know when to walk away…..” Very random. Ellen is actually there for the ceremony. I kind of wish I had gone over – after dressing much nicer than I am now apparently – just to check out what’s going on. But Irena, in Saypa’s compound, had just gotten back from traveling and brought me a pineapple, which was so so nice of her, so I went there instead to eat it (delicious!!!) and chat (they are awesome). They've started to try to teach me Kpelle (pel-lay) . . . though I think I may have already written about that so I'll stop here. . .

The Waiting Game

2009-06-09T12:18:00.002-04:00

Monrovia isn't the worst place in the world, at all. But I really enjoy getting out of here. I know I need to be based here to meet with people and discuss things that are going on. However, it’s really frustrating because I find myself just waiting for meetings, and then often they get cancelled. I just had a misunderstanding with a woman from the Ministry of Gender and Development. We had a 1:30 meeting but I called her to tell her that I needed to be back at MIA by 2:45 for a 3 o’clock meeting. I wanted to make sure that our 1:30 meeting time meant 1:30 and not 2:15 or 2:30, as often happens. I showed up at 1 (because I wasn’t doing anything else), wait until 1:45, and then find out she misunderstood my rather poor Liberian English (totally my fault) and thought I wanted to meet her at 3. We’ll have to reschedule. So when I’m in Monrovia I have stuff I should be doing, but it all involves working into other people’s schedules. If PC taught me anything it was the ability to wait weeks or months or even years for things to get done. I can do that no problem sitting under a mango tree chatting and cooking attaya. But sitting at a desk in a suit just waiting, waiting, and waiting . . . it’s just not healthy or right. It’s not the waiting that kills me, it’s the location.

Also, in perfect karmatic fashion after complaining about how cold the offices are here: I walked all the way back from the Ministry of Gender and Dev today, it’s actually not far - only about a 20 minute walk. But in the hot hot sun, me I sweat tooooo much, and then I return to my office only to find it sweltering – the air conditioner broke. The one time I want it to be freezing, I am now sitting in a pool of my own sweat, in my suit, waiting to meet with my Minister, insssaaaaaa Allah! This meeting has been scheduled multiple times and keeps just not happening. To be fair, he’s a rock star and is quite busy. Not meeting with him doesn’t frustrate me as much because I know he’s not sitting up in his office hanging out. I thought he was Ellen’s cousin, but then someone told me last night they were brother/sister, I’m not sure – but in either case, they are quite close. When she leaves the country, he is acting-President. So he’s got some power here. But hopefully today we can chat about community based farming initiatives and see what his vision is.

Tomorrow, I am heading to a place called Bong Mines. A friend of mine, Megan, who works here for the Niapele Project has a partnership with their women’s farming group (here’s their info on the project: http://www.theniapeleproject.org/blog/story-field-women-malaya and
http://picasaweb.google.com/msullivan215/Malaya#). So I want to go check it out and just get an idea of how successful communal farms function. Probably a good thing for me to know :) I’ll stay there until Thursday, then head back to Monrovia. Friday is a day trip to Bassa County, and then I may head back to Gbarnga again on Sunday for a BBQ/possible work related meetings on Monday, and then Tuesday another day trip to Bomi County. During those seven glorious days out of the office, I should be able to set up some meetings for later next week, and will also have some information to organize and case study stuff to type up.

***

So I just got out my meeting with the Minister - it went well-ish. Didn't find out anything new or really get a better idea of who to talk to, but just solidified my jobs. I do really need to start focusing more on the administrative task: basically setting up a template system for admin and accounting that can be used in the 148 "cities" throughout the country. It's time sensative. . . meaning it needs to be done by next week, which doesn't play well into my seven office-less day plan. I've contacted the one guy I am waiting to hear from, but I have not yet heard back. If I have to come back early to meet with him on Thursday, I'll do that. But I'm not coming in to the office tomorrow to sit at a desk and wait more. It'll be great to check out this farm and see what's going on . . . . .

We hired a local woman to cook for us three nights a week. Living with 8 people in a small kitchen makes it difficult for all of us to cook our own meals. Last night was the first night: Potato greens (the leaves of the potato plant = delicious) over rice. It's good. Tonight it my favorite: Check rice and sauce. West African dishes are notoriously heavy on the oil. These are no different. Yet I am determined that on this trip to Africa I will not gain excessive amounts of weight. So even though I absolutely love oil soaked rice dishes (seriously), I am only trying to eat them three times a week. There's just something not right about gaining so much weight in developing countries, a feat that I have consistently accomplished throughout my life.

Closing sidenote on a lesson learnt: Be stingy with number giving. A man who helped me find a carpark the other day and who I talked to a bit about farming stuff, asked for my number. He saw me use my phone, I couldn't lie and say I didn't have one. And I didn't mind, he seemed nice. So I gave him the number. Thought nothing of it, figured he may or may not call. Oh, oh, oh, he called. 21 times since noon today. 21 times. No more number giving. Ever.

Why the Peace Corps Rocks

2009-06-09T12:15:00.000-04:00

I needed to get out of Monrovia. I was feeling trapped, and just wanted a solo escape. I had heard that there was a village, Gbarnga, that was only 2 hours away AND had a leper/TB basketweaving colony. What better get-a-away could you find?

Saturday morning, woke up at 6:15 and got myself together – traveled uber light since I would only be gone for the day. I walk to the junction to grab a car, but it’s Clean the Nation Day. Yes, the infamous African clean the nation day where public transport comes to a standstill from 6am to 10am on the first Saturday of each month. This is actually only the second one in Liberia, great timing on my part. Luckily, motorbikes can run, so I jumped on the back of one and headed to “Red Light,” so named not necessarily for lewd activities that might take place there, but for the traffic light that characterizes the area. Sadly, the motorbike could only take me as far as Samuel K. Doe Stadium. And from there I had to walk. I thought Red Light was fairly close by . . .

But I just kept going and going. Actually, it was a good thing because I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to the car park: cars couldn’t leave until 10 and it was only 8ish as I was walking. I don’t know if anything would have struck me about the area if I had never heard about Red Light. But in the back of my mind I kept thinking about the fact that I was advised to possibly only go there with a Liberian. I think knowing that made me more cognizant of the situation, which was a good thing, but perhaps made things seem a little more intense than they actually were. Anyway, there were a lot of people milling around the streets, and no cars in sight. I actually walked completely through Red Light without seeing any “car park.” It was crowded and for one 10-foot span the smell of feces in an open space was more pronounced than I’ve ever experienced. I stayed on the main road, and it was fine. But the side streets were packed with people and small stalls and lots and lots of mud.

The thing I noticed most: no one seemed to notice me. Which on one hand you think, great, I’m blending in. I, clearly, was not blending in. For me, not being acknowledged is not a good thing – you can’t make a connection with anyone if they don’t look at you, say hello back, or at least smile. And, while not a guarantee of safety, I think making a connection does reduce the chances of having any type of problem. It was interesting to be completely ignored, and slightly unsettling, and very crowded. I stopped at a police junction to get their advice on a car, and then asked them if I could stop and rest a second at their post. Without even looking at me, they told me to move on. That was fine, but something I’ve never experienced in West Africa, police may be corrupt but they always let you sit and chat.

I continued on, not seeing any place that looked like a good place to stop and settle in for a bit. Finally, after about an hour of walking, I came to yet another police checkpoint and figured I’d see if they were more friendly. They were. We chatted and I told them where I was going and one actually found a car for me that was leaving sooner than 10. As I was standing there with them, as luck would have it, a woman approached and flashed a Peace Corps ID card. Of course, I pounce: Hello! Peace Corps! Me also! Mary Ellen, it turns out, was on her way to Monrovia to head back to the States after finishing up here. As we went our separate ways she mentioned that there were Peace Corps in Gbarnga, in Pheobe Hospital. This knowledge would prove vital.

Off I go – first car to Kakata. That turns out to be about an hour and a half ride. I was comfortable in the back seat next to Gami, who was a Kpelle woman from Lofa county. Very nice and helpful, and we ended up getting in another car together to make the last leg of the journey to Gbarnga (pronounced Ban-ga). It was a fun car ride – everyone was chatting and laughing. Sadly, I still don’t speak Liberian English so I was out of it most of the time, which was fine – it was a scenic ride: so many trees, and even some rolling hills. The car was a bit decrepit, we had to stop for repairs a few times along the way, and didn’t roll in to Gbarnga until around 2. So I would have pretty much had to leave at 3 to get back to Monrovia before dark. . .

I went to the motorcycle taxi guys and asked: Do you know where the lepers are? They had no idea what I was talking about. Ha. What? Who? Lepers? It dawned on me that I had some false information. Amy had visited the leper colony in 2007 and had mentioned the village’s name to me, but the only thing I remembered was that it began with a “G.” There are multiple towns that begin with “G” in this country. After asking about 15 different motorcycle taxi guys with no luck, I decided to head to Pheobe Hospital to look up the PCV.

The hospital was nice – had a huge compound with lots of living quarters for staff. I got quite the tour roaming around trying to follow the directions to the PC house. Finally I found it, but sadly it was empty. Hm hm hm. A bit of a conundrum: what to do? Go back to town and drive all the way back to Monrovia? It was looking like that was the only option, so I started walking to the road and spotted a Peace-Corps-esque looking couple in front of me. I stalked them, subtly, until I was close enough to awkwardly call “excuse me!” Turns out they weren’t PCVs, but as I was talking to them, a young woman, clearly a PCV, walks out of a nearby building. Kyla, very nice, working in the health sector, was on her way to dinner at the house of a local NGO couple. Would I like to come and sleep on their floor? Why yes, I would. This is just one reason that Peace Corps rocks: show up in a random African village at mid-afternoon and get offered dinner and a place to stay and shower. Fantastic.

So we head back to Gbarnga and meet up with the other PCVs from the area – Casandra, Ed, and Lauren. The five of us show up at Tate and Kristen’s house for dinner: home made tortillas and BBQ’ed chicken and cold drinks and red wine and great company. I reeeeeeeked from my travels and was utterly filthy, but Tate and Kristen are RPCVs from Cameroon, so they didn’t mind. They are awesome, and are not only working here, but are raising a two-year old here! They were so welcoming, and just genuinely cool, good people. It was really a fun night to sit around and chat, talk about all our different PC experiences. Some of us were in Africa, but there was also Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Tonga thrown in there as well. It was great night J Tate works on some Ag projects so I am hoping to actually have a work related reason to go up there and hang out. But even if I can’t justify it with work, I’ll probably still visit.

So, Peace Corps serendipity. Great weekend. Sunday morning we woke up and Kyla and I went for a walk around the community of Pheobe. She’s only be in town three weeks, so she’s still learning as well. As we walked around, we met Julie, a young guy who was standing outside a really, really nice house. Next to Pheobe is an area called “New Airfield,” which is pretty much all new houses built after the war. It’s still clearly a poor-er farming community, but I really think this was the nicest and most well-kept village I have ever been to in my life. The lawns were manicured! There were flowers that served no purpose other than to look beautiful! Every single lawn and yard was swept perfectly clean. I really was amazed. It was lovely! I was ready to buy property.

Julie walked us around a good part of the neighborhood, pointing out all the trees, plants, and crops. It was a great review for me, a nice refresher course from old Gambie, so I don’t look foolish showing up at a community farm and not be able to identify beans or eggplant (garden egg) or something. Though, admittedly, that’s still a possibility. He also took us around to the riverside, and even the cemetery. I thought it was interesting to go to the cemetery and even walk around some tombs, because in Gambia I wasn’t even allowed to look in the direction of the cemetery as a woman. That’s an exaggeration, but I certainly wasn’t allowed to go there, and never did. And I’m sure there were no marked graves.

This one actually had rather large, above-ground cement tombs for “special people,” meaning those with money. But there was also the head nurse at the hospital that was just buried a few weeks ago: she was riding in an ambulance on her way to pick up a pregnant woman when the ambulance struck a parked truck, hidden in the dark on the side of the road. I actually saw the ambulance on the side of the road before hearing the story, and it was reeeeally mangled. Two people died in the crash. That’s a huge problem along the roads upcountry – cars or big trucks break down and park off to the side, but they don’t have reflectors, so you can’t even see them until it’s too late. Needless to say, I will not be driving at night. I was talking to Kyla about this, and it’s ridiculous to think about all the capacity that was lost because of that one truck parked on the side of the road: an ambulance in a country that has very few, a highly skilled nurse in a country that has very few. Furthermore, the ambulance driver was arrested for reckless driving. Have to blame someone apparently, though I’m not sure why the person who parked the truck isn’t accountable as well?

After the walk, I made my way home to Monrovia. It was a direct ride and went much faster. I had the whole front seat to myself: not because I insisted, but because the driver insisted. He kept saying, “No, no! You’re skin is too big!” Hm. Interesting. I didn’t argue too much because by taking the front seat and paying just a fraction more, the car could leave right away without waiting for another passenger. The only problem: it was mid-day. The sun was too hot. And I was sitting like a tortured bug under the magnifying glass that was the windshield. I got pretty burnt. And all I could do was sit there and burn, for 4 hours. I knew I was burning, but I had no sunscreen, no cloth to cover myself. I am pretty red, but turning gloriously bronze J

It turns out, there IS actually a leper colony around Gbarnga, though I think the one Amy was talking about was actually in another village called Ganta. Ah-ha. Next time. But I didn’t even need lepers to have a great time!

Sunset in Monrovia

2009-06-08T08:27:00.000-04:00

“Politics is like PBS, without the ‘P’”

2009-06-05T07:25:00.004-04:00

My co-worker, who lived in Atlanta during the war, has this quote on a bumper sticker on her car. It’s awesome to see everyday sitting outside our government office. And it’s true. Right now, I’m supposed to be a in the midst of a 6-7 hour drive to the bush, to visit a fishing village, Bogeazay, and discuss plans for a cold storage facility. But instead I am sitting at a desk, in front of a computer, in an office, waiting for the current to be put on so I can access the internet.

The trip was cancelled because of “politics.” The superintendent, who had previously agreed to the plan, then decided that he wanted the project to happen in his village, which is more isolated and harder to visit and brings in less fish on a daily basis. Doesn’t seem to make much sense. The Minister overruled the decision, but wanted us to postpone the trip until ???. It all has to do with party politics, which I don’t have a clear understanding of here yet. The President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is part of the Unity Party. And this Superintendent who is not happy is Liberty Party? There are other actors from different parties involved as well, I don’t have a good handle on the details, but I know the BS of politics prevented me from getting out of the city and seeing what the counties actually look like. Frustrating.

The problem I face now is that my main project – creating a streamlined communal farming policy – really can’t be tackled without getting out to see what’s actually happening. I’ve started to stalk some people on the phone to see if I can meet with them and chat about what’s going on out in the field, but haven’t had much success yet. Hopefully, I’ll make some progress today and then be able to actually get out next week. I don’t have internet yet because the Minister is out of town today, and so there’s no rush to put the current on. Although, there’s also the chance that we’re out of fuel . . . . .

***

The woman who graciously lets me share her office, Ann Dora (who is a rock star), came to MIA from the Ministry of Planning. She was pretty high up there, but was not getting any respect – it was a male-dominated ministry and her ideas were not respected or listened to. So she resigned and joined Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). This all happened a couple months ago, but last night on her way home from work she was listening to the radio and the headline was: Mass Resignations at Ministry of Planning. The story proceeds to mention her, and then the Minister of Planning, her former boss who wasn’t very nice to her while she was there, proceeds to get on the radio and talk about how he doesn’t know why she left, she was a valuable asset, was a very good worker, etc etc. Then he makes the comment: “She’s moved on to greener pastures. She’s making three times her salary.”

That’s a lie, she might be making a little more (maybe?), but definitely not three times more. As she was explaining this to me this morning, she was clearly a little annoyed and kept saying how it was bad to be on the radio. I wasn’t putting two and two together until she spelled it out for me: the false information about her high salary could make her vulnerable to armed robbery. Which she’s already been a victim of twice. During the County Development Agenda (CDA) process, government officials went out in the communities and met with local people to gather their ideas and input into how the counties could be improved. It’s an element under the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) approach – where local level participation helps formulate policy. Anyway, she was very active in that process, and had received a LD$50,000 (Liberian Dollar) check to pay all the county level workers. Things leak here, people heard about it; she left the check at the bank, but armed robbers showed up at her house while she was out and beat up her husband, father, and daughter.

When you’re thinking about development, it’s easy to overlook this stuff. It’s not just about getting the money to people so they can survive, it’s also about the rule of law – allowing people to feel secure. Then there’s sanitation. There’s health care. There’s housing. Garbage removal. Roads. Schools. Electricity. There’s a lot do. Another thing I never really thought about before – a developing country’s blood bank.

A friend of mine works at the Clinton Foundation here, she’s doing policy development and research on blood transfusions. She was telling me about how there is no formal blood bank in Liberia – what often happens is that if your family member needs blood, you donate. But it’s not tested, for anything. There’s clearly an element of trust and desperation there that is not safe. During the rainy season (high malaria season), the demand for blood jumps by over 100%, with most of the recipients being children. Whether the blood is from family or other volunteers, it’s still not tested. I forget the percentage she told me, but some ridiculous percentage contains syphilis, hepatitis, more malaria, or even HIV. So, you have a child who is so sick and so worn down from malaria, a disease of the blood, and you’re giving him or her blood to save their lives . . . but that might also infect their already depleted immune system with another disease. Basically the logic is: save their lives and then treat them for syphilis. Pretty ridiculous. And pretty difficult to address as well, without infrastructure, storage facilities, reliable electricity, and trained staff.

There's just so much to do here. On so many levels. The farming policy I'll be working on seems to pale in comparison to the other health, security, infrastructure etc etc etc etc etc issues. But, at the same time, in a society that is needs its agricultural sector to be strong enough to support itself and it's urban population, it's important to have a strong farming sector. One of the major challenges facing agriculture in general, is the fact that the rural population is so depleted - so many people fled to Monrovia and never went back. The challenge now is to stimulate "reverse migration." The idea is basically to develop the rural sector to encourage people to return "home." Sounds great, but really really really incredibly difficult. Anyway, I need to go stalk people and try to make them give me some insights into the current communal farming policy.

Hoping to take a mini-out-of-Monrovia adventure this weekend . . .

Air Conditioning and Liberian English

2009-06-05T07:16:00.002-04:00

I am freezing and I can’t understand English.

You would think having an air conditioning in your office would be a good thing. But it’s a curse. I prefer natural air in general to air conditioners, but here there is very little choice in my shared office. There’re just so many reasons why it’s wrong:
- Waste of energy
- Sometimes right before it rains, it’s not even that hot
- I’m physically uncomfortable, have goosebumps, and am shivering. In Africa.

And then I walk outside and start sweating profusely because the temperature change is so drastic. The aircon really disturbs me. Right now, I don’t have a room mate at the intern house (. . . think Real World Monrovia :( . . .) and I refuse to sleep with the aircon on, for multiple reasons that closely echo the ones above. It’s really pretty great (though admittedly a little hot) – but you can hear the ocean through the open window! And, sometimes, there’s even a nice breeze right before it starts to rain. There will be 5 girls in the house once everyone arrives, and three rooms. Thus, one lucky person gets to be gloriously alone. I am hoping to scare people away from being my roommate by insisting on sleeping with the aircon off and the windows open while maintaining a somewhat vile personality. Insaa Allah that will do the trick.

Aside from being alternately shivering/freezing and oppressively hot, I can’t readily understand English. I’m getting better, but Liberian English is a whole different dialect than Gambia English. It is certainly English. That’s true. But me, I can not understand too many things. Sometimes, I’ll be sitting there and I think people are talking in a local language, and then I hear a sentence I understand and realize it’s English. It’s so much thicker than Gambian English! My problem is that I keep speaking Gambian English, so I sound non-American, but still, no one really has a clear idea of what I’m saying. As soon as I get a better grasp on it I will profide examples. My favorite thing so far is adding "oo" at the end of words or sentences to express emotion. "That's bad oo." It's fun. Another interesting thing about the Liberian language - when you ask, "How are you?" or "How is the morning?" - the common response is "Thank God." I didn't really think too much about it, but then a friend was telling me that it's left over from the war: the shortened form of Thank God I'm still alive.

My work at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA)

2009-06-01T11:06:00.004-04:00

Some background on what I’m doing - I’m working for the Government of Liberia (GoL) at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). MIA is in charge of local development within the country, as well as creating a decentralization policy to strengthen local government and capacity. They work closely with UNDP and other agencies in country. I’ll be doing a bunch of different things most likely, but primarily focusing on two main projects:

1. Develop a rural government management/accounting system (me?!?)
2. Develop a communal farming policy

These main projects are run through the Liberian National Decentralization and Local Development Program (LDLD), which was established with support from the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). So it’s a joint effort from these organizations – my two main counterparts are George Kollie, a Liberian working with MIA, and Mr. KNS Nair, from UNDP (his Indian name is too long to pronounce so he goes by his initials). So far, Ben Spatz, who set me up with the internship, has been a huge help getting me settled and letting me share his office, so that’s been nice.

The job will consist of treks to the provinces to check out projects and conduct interviews and research. I’m hoping for more travel up country than time in Monrovia, but even little stints out of the city will be nice.

Last week, I interviewed the Provisional Major of Monrovia, Mr. Peter Kerkula. That title may sound impression, but even he admitted his lack of governing power. Monrovia is autonomous from the National Government, and the municipality only really has any say over taxes and garbage, neither of which are successfully collected. The legal system is not strong enough to make people actually pay taxes, and the infrastructure is not in place for garbage to actually get collected. All the other details that a city government might have some say over, such as roads, schools, etc, are administered through the National Government and don’t consult with the municipality on those decisions. All very interesting stuff – pointing to the need for more effective government institutions.

Also went to a meeting about the 2 Millennium Development Villages (MDVs) in Liberia. MDVs are villages or regions infused with practical technology to help them meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). I'm not exactly sure how it works operationally, but hoping to learn more and check them out. . . I'm slightly skeptical of their impact, but would like to be proven wrong. The session ended with a discussion of one of the MDGs: Gender. Me and six African men in a room talking about gender. The argument: you can’t continue to talk about educating girls girls girls because young boys will start to feel marginalized. On one hand it was amusing to listen to these men talk about men and boys being marginalized, you could hear a hint of defensive-ness in their voices. But I actually agree with them. Especially in a post-conflict area where many of these boys have been forced to fight and have seen terrible things. Now, the concept of the MDGs is not to marginalize boys, but to give girls and equal chance at education. And that’s how it should be. However, it is often misunderstood at the local level (both in Africa and America) as just being about women and girls, and not being about how to create equal opportunities for all people. That’s a common misperception about gender in general – it’s not about creating policies and programs that solely benefit women, it’s about creating policies and programs that benefits all sectors of society, and give all people an equal chance to engage in education, income generation, etc. The misperception is a problem. (For more info on the MDGs: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/index.htm)

Speaking of gender, I’m also hoping to be working with the Ministry of Gender and Development – going out to see some of their communal farming projects, hopefully on some longer treks. I hope that gives a clearer idea of what it is I’ve been doing and hope to do over the next couple months.

Off to work :)

A glorious return to Africa

2009-06-01T09:09:00.003-04:00

After landing in The Gambia in 2004, I still distinctly remember the drive from the airport, the massive ENJOY COKE signs along the road, the strip of ostentatious tourist hotels, and the throngs of people walking along the side of the road in bright skirts and kaftans. My first impression of Monrovia, however, greeted me before I even landed: a massive UN helicopter on the side of the runway. There are ample COKE signs here, of course, but far fewer kaftans (Liberia is only 20% Muslim, compared to Gambia’s 98%), no tourists, far fewer hotels, and – while this may just be my imagination or the fact that I haven’t traveled much in the city so far – the fabric doesn’t seem as bright or as abundant. The UN, however, is abundant. The mission has actually been scaled down in the last few years from its highest point at 15,000 troops to around 10,000 now. I’ve only seen two heavily armored massive white tankers plowing down the middle of city streets, though they used to be everywhere in the years immediately following the war.

I’ve only been here about a week, so I have much to learn about the city and the country and its people. But it’s interesting to be in a post-conflict country – I feel completely safe. I’ve met nice people and many of the blown out buildings in Monrovia itself have been repaired. If the UN cars and trucks and buildings and checkpoints weren’t ubiquitous, it would be hard to immediately identify Monrovia as a city that was recently engulfed in a war. At the same time, wars don’t just come and go without leaving any marks. There are security risks, and you just have to be conscious of them.

I find myself wondering when I pass people on the street or talk to them on the side of the road: what’s your story? Did you flee to Monrovia looking for safety? Did you lose your home? Your land? Your livelihoods? Did you lose your husband? Your wife? Your children? There’s a lot of people – both old and young – who have seen and lost a lot here. It’s subtle, but (comparing to The Gambia again), there’s clearly of loss of innocence here. The people are so nice when you talk to them, very kind, friendly – but on the street, passing people, there’s not that same lightheartedness as there was in le Gambie. It’s hard to explain, people are still nice, kind, friendly when you chat. . . but it’s different, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the natural personalities of Liberians vs. Gambians, but it’s hard not to think that the war had something to do with it.

I’m living about 11 miles from actual downtown Monrovia. Which has its negatives and positives. The negatives were glaring at first – it can take up to an hour to get into Monrovia during rush hour, it’s a pain to find someone to drive you all the way back late and night, and you can’t really hang around the city after work too late unless you’re with another person. But the positives became more evident over the course of the week as I walked through the neighborhood. We live in a neighborhood of utter contrasts: we’re in a rather comfortable compound; to our right, an as yet unfinished, ridiculously expensive 5-star hotel; to out left, Liberian families surviving on, maybe, one meal a day; and of course, everything in between.

On Sunday, I went and sat with Saypa, a neighbor who we’ve hired to help our incompetent Western selves with laundry. I’ll end up doing most of my own, just because it’s kind of fun (when it’s a choice and a novelty…). But it’s great to help her have some kind of income. Her sister, Cecilia, works at the hotel – but Saypa was unable to get a job there. So she’s home, with her three kids, and Cecilia’s one kid, doing “nothing.” I quote that because I find it hard to believe an African woman ever does “nothing.” Had she any food to cook, she’d be busy cooking, but there’s no breakfast or lunch to prepare, so she actually does have some time, unlike many African women. Not that lack of food to eat and cook is at all ideal: “If we are lucky, at the end of the day, we can have cassava.”

We were sitting, chatting, and I was asking her about where she was from. So many people here are not from Monrovia - they fled to it during the wars. Monrovia was a city built for 200,000 people, but now hosts between 1.3 and 1.5 million (this is a huge percentage of the total Liberian population, which is estimated at 3.5 million). Our area, Kendeja, is not included in that count, but clearly the entire greater-Monrovia area has been impacted by swelling population. Saypa is originally from Lofa county, which is one of the farthest counties, sharing a border with Guinea’s Forrest Region. When the war first started, primarily in Nimba county, Saypa and her family were able to stay in Lofa. Her father, however, became ill, had no access to medicine, and died. As the war intensified, Saypa and her family fled to Monrovia to escape the warring factions. She married (though I’m not sure if this was before or after fleeing) and has three children: Michael, Patricia, and Emmett. Her husband left her for another woman in Monrovia. She lives in a sturdy cement shell of a house, has no fence, no privacy, no real compound to speak of, no support, no money. She’s 35 and says, “Since my eyes could see I have only seen war. My whole life is only war.”

She’s surprisingly young looking for having three kids, a traumatic lifetime, and current struggles to feed her family. But when she was talking about the war, she looks so sad: “We have seen too much. Terrible, terrible things. They killed too many people. The women, the children, the old people – they suffered the most. The soldiers would kill and kill, they would beat. They would rape.” She just shakes her head. I don’t know what she went through, and I don’t want to ask her too much, not yet at least, I don’t even know what to say, I just shake my head to. She talks about fleeing, about babies dying on their mother’s backs, about how one of Charles Taylor’s rebel soldiers almost shot her: he stopped her on the road and tried to forcibly remove her earrings, as he pulled at her ear, his gun, pointing downwards, accidentally fired into the ground, narrowly missing her feet. It’s hard not to cry: sitting in extreme poverty (0-1 meals a day! Makes Gambia look like a resort!), listening to this young, beautiful woman talk about how her whole life was uprooted, her family members killed, her innocence lost, all because “some people just wanted more power.”

Walking with Saypa through the town, she points to a compound: “During the war, this whole place is filled with bodies. Everywhere you look, you only see bodies.” It’s crazy to just walk by this place, and the thousands of other seemingly innocuous places around Monrovia, that were scenes of chaos and mass death not that long ago. Saypa also took us to Maa Maartha’s Orphanage. Maa Maartha and sixteen kids living in an unfinished (blown-out?) cement structure.

This is all, remember, within 100 yards of the 5-star hotel serving $3 cokes.

* * *

That was, perhaps, not the most uplifting of initial "I’m in Liberia!" blog posts. . . but there are good things here! There is progress! I went out Bomi County on Saturday for a workshop on Decentralization. The format was essentially going through Liberia’s pending decentralization policy and getting local feedback. The workshop had about 60 participants from throughout the county – from the Superintendent (who was a powerful and cool lady) to regular people. The goal is to build strong local government capacity so that the center of power is NOT based solely in Monrovia. And the people were involved, they were interested, they were active participants and they had great ideas and suggestions. I just watched and learned. It was really great to see that side of Liberia – even though the surrounding hillsides were peppered with blown-out buildings and deserted towns, there was a clear and strong feeling a hope and potential. We also stopped in and saw Blue Lake, an old iron-ore mining site now an expansive, crystal lake. Quite lovely.

And even Saypa, though her story is hard and sad and just tragic, she’s a happy person. She wants to send her children to school, she would love to be able to be a teacher herself. She still has dreams and potential. She also has a small plot of land, so we’re going to try to plant some banana and such.

We walked on the beach this weekend up to the lagoon, it’s truly beautiful (having the unbridled Atlantic as your backyard is fantastic). And probably much, much safer than the beach. I went swimming Sunday in the ocean and didn’t go past mid-thigh level water – the tide and undertow were super strong. Reminiscent of Bermuda, circa 1995, when we went swimming on a deserted beach right before hurricane Felix hit. Maybe not quite that bad. Still, for just being a regular, clear-skied beach day, it was pretty intense. A bunch of people were swimming where we were, but none actually venturing very far beyond the shoreline. I mean, you can be sitting on the sand and a wave will come in and then it’s just like a rope that pulls you out. I am not a petite person, I was getting thrown around, it’s quite exhilarating, but it’s one of those beaches that reminds you how strong nature is, and strongly implies that you don’t mess with it. Luckily, I do acknowledge and accept my weak swimming skills and won’t challenge the strong tides (so don’t worry, Mom). But the lagoon is great – calm, peaceful, not deep, no waves or tides.

So far, the country seems to be one of contrasts: the extreme poverty next to a 5-star hotel, the history of violence versus the current peace, the former power-hungry leaders versus a government working to decentralize power. It’s an interesting place to be and an interesting time to be here, especially working within the government, getting to go out to the counties where much of the war played out, hopefully getting to contribute in some small way, and most certainly learning a whole lot.

Today I went to a meeting with the Mayor of Brewersville, it's about a 30 minute ride outside downtown Monrovia. But when we got there she wasn't there - her aunt had died and she went to the funeral. So then we drove back. And that's been my day so far. Slowly slowly. I'm now supposed to write a policy memo for the Minister of Interal Affairs on how to organize and fund an emergency election in Brewersville within the next week. Hm. One of those things that I don't even know where to start . . . at all . . . but going to go try to figure something out.

This Friday, I'm heading out to the provinces to a village about 5 hours outside the capital. We're going to talk to community members of the village, Borgeazay, about a potential agro-storage project in the village. I'm looking forward to get out of Monrovia, even if just for a night. It was great to get to Bomi this past weekend, but it will be nice to really get out there and see what's going on in the countryside.

So then, until next time :)

For more information and background on Liberia’s civil unrest and war: You can definitely get a lot on google of course, but if you’re looking for a quick and fantastic beach read, check out: This Child Will be Great, by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. It’s an autobiography of her life (the first African female head of state, current President of Liberia, and – technically, at least – my boss), but it’s also a very good overview of the history of Liberia. It really is a great beach book – I sat on the beach and read it this weekend :)

2009-05-19T16:03:00.001-04:00

Liberia, Summer 2009