The falls the falls
People have been talking about Kpatawee since I got here. Eyes glaze over in a look of pure joy and heads shake in wonder. That show of enthusiasm is followed, most often, by a promise to organize a trip to take me. A promise broken more times than I care to count.
But this past weekend Leo and Sulaman came through. And so in the early afternoon I heard a honk of a horn outside my door and jumped into a vehicle, stupidly excited and unsure of what I should expect.
After we drove, seemingly aimlessly, back and forth through Phebe and Cuttington, we finally embarked on the jostling ride through Platotown (the village behind Cuttington) and beyond. After a while, the thick greenery yielded and a rolling expanse of Savannah emerged. That clearing is the turn-off for the falls.
We parked our caravan under a massive cotton tree and I headed toward the sound of water. And there, in the midst of trees and vines, was Kpatawee – the pride of Bong County.
People had warned me, “it ain’t Victoria Falls!”. Lucky for me, my concept of beauty isn’t limited to grandeur. And so I was pleasantly surprised by the lull of water splashing against rocks, the white froth contrasted against brown and gray stones, the spidery tracks of water plants long dried and carried away by the waning water the dry season heralds.
I was smitten.
Add to the beauty, Sulaman and his crew know how to throw a party. And so we didn’t arrive with the idea of simply enjoying nature, we arrived with two coolers full of drinks (including homemade eggnog), a coal pot ready to be fired up for food, and a stereo – complete with generator, amp, and speakers.
And so the music blared in the background as I scaled the waterfall, making my way- finally – to the top. Only falling once, staining my tan shorts where my bum slid across algae and decomposing leaves.
I drank Savannahs – a South African cider that I never drank there but that Sulaman, ever the host, continued to open and place in my hand. I danced. I made friends with some local musicians and took photos with them because we shared the “same” hair. I ate.
Mostly I smiled. Talked to people. Laughed.
It was so good to laugh.
I’m on a porch in the cool evening. The last orange embers of the cooking coals smolder in the distance – light without illumination – their glow does not penetrate the black. The lightening has subsided. What had been an amazing show of God and nature, flashing streaks of white against purple in the curiously cloudy “dry season” sky, has dispersed leaving only thick clouds to veil the stars and almost full moon.
I’m in Handii. Handii is still in Bong County but you have to drive to Kakata (Margibi County) and then backtrack to get here. We drove through Bong Mines (our stop for tomorrow) and continued into the setting that pushed the Lord of the Flies boys to forsake their humanity-thick brush and tall trees crowding for space. The road is narrow, obscured by felled trees and ruts of mud that hardened in the shape of stalled vehicles. The greenery is almost obscene. Rubber trees fight for space, banana and paw paw trees vie for sunlight, mangos ripen slowly on heavy branches. And the foliage is intensified by the ominously gray sky bearing down on us – throwing curtains of rain in the distance and inching closer to us as we drive closer to it.
It isn’t supposed to be raining, and yet we splashed through puddles and our windshield wipers frantically cleared space for us to see into the gray as we drove to Handii clinic – where I did my survey and Eric confirmed the clinic’s numbers-all the numbers.
My reality as of late – the thing that provides form and substance to my days – is clinic visits. Working on behalf of Africare, I’ve created and begun conducting a waste management survey for their 14 clinics. In order to conduct these surveys I hitch rides with whoever is heading into the interior. Sis Mary, Leo, Eric…I’ve been lucky to see a much larger swath of Bong County and simultaneously gotten to know my colleagues. I’ve also been privy to meeting the amazing folks that do the work of the clinics.
Broken Kpelle on my tongue, I’ve been befriended by staff and community members at a few clinics I’ve made multiple visits to. At others, I’ve been part of the services provided. Sis Mary and I walked into the CM’s (certified midwife’s) office without realizing she was with a patient. The mother-to-be, clearly pregnant and lying on the examination table, looked nonplussed by our arrival. I prepared to step outside but Sis Mary, a midwife for years began to take over the examination. And, equal parts midwife and trainer, she began to talk to me about the examination.
“put your hand here…no right here where my fingers are. That is the head,” she said. “now listen,” she held a tiny aluminum cone to the woman’s belly and motioned for me to put my ear next to it. It took a moment but then I could hear it, faint as new hope, a tiny heartbeat. We measured her belly and then I was shown how Sis Mary teaches her traditional midwives – who don’t get measuring tapes – how to calculate how far along a mother is. And all the while the mother looked as if this was the most natural thing in the world while I gently touched her arm and tried to be as unobtrusive –as if that is possible with my ear pressed against her belly and my hand on the head of her unborn child – as possible.
Today’s trip to Handii was tamer. I took my usual pictures of waste disposal pits and asked questions about changing sheets and sterilizing equipment. But the interesting thing about this trip is that it is overnight.
We arrived as the sun was fighting the iron curtains of rain and the dispenser and CM were busy cooking dinner over multiple coal pots. Country rice, palava sauce, and fried plantains…a delicious meal. And then we chatted as the utter darkness of the night embraced us – only the glow from my laptop and eric’s flashlight as he poured over numbers intermittently piercing the black.
Tomorrow we head to Bong Mines to visit their Outpatient Department before heading home – backtracking through the narrow muddy strip parading as road.
The smell is what got to me. Despite the buffet of assaults to my sight and sensibility of norms and expectations, it is always the smell of antibiotics – thick as smoke –that permeates the hospital. In the past it has stopped me from venturing beyond the admin area, but today I had purpose that propelled me forward.
The Michigan midwives were doing an in-service before their departure, and so I ventured into the stench of penicillin and the eerie quite – broken only by the occasional wail of a child in a distant room the halls are dark. A lone energy efficient bulb glowed in each segment of hallway breaking up the shadows momentarily before the light is swallowed by cool shadows. The early morning was still cast in the gray clouds of the previous night’s brief rain. The breeze, cool against the skin, inspired knitted caps and extra layers on people milling in front of and inside the hospital.
The nurses and midwives assembled around 8:30am. The nurses’ station situated between a bare ICU room with three lapa-clad occupants. Lorpu, one of the Michigan nurses/midwives led me in. One infant nestled unattended on the scale while the other two were in what appeared to be shallow beds. Lorpu directed my attention to the one on the right, she is hydrocephalic – fluid in the skull causing the head to swell well beyond its normal size and increasing pressure against the brain. In the States we would shunt (drill a hole to relieve the pressure) but here…here she will die…I imagine slowly and alone. Lorpus cooed softly to the little girl, stoked her foot softly, and rearranged the lapa to cover her small body against the chill in the air.
We returned to the nurses’ station, the little girl’s mother was in the room on the other side of us. She had seized twice during labor and had finally awakened but still wasn’t speaking.
The final side of the station would look over the hall connecting the various patient rooms but a woman, breast exposed and IV in her arms, lay motionless with only a blue screen separating her from the bustling hallway and us glancing at her periodically through the nurses’ station six-foot long window.
A man passed between her and the blue partition, peering intently at us and seemingly oblivious to the prostrate woman he passed.
I was called away before the training ended but my morning was a lesson I’m still digesting.
We lost Stanley.
After keeping the pantry door closed against our resident bat on and off for four months we had grown lax. We hadn’t seen Stanley and so assumed he’d moved on to more fruitful pastures. But a few days ago I stumbled to the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning and my path was tangential to Stanley bobbing and weaving his way into BushDiva’s open bedroom door. I made a mental not to make sure my door was closed and thought no more of it.
Later that day, as BushDiva rummaged through her closet, I heard a yelp and then a slow motion shuffling of feet across our tile floor. She’d found Stanley dangling amidst her clothes and he’d winged himself into our spare bedroom in his rush to escape. I shut the door behind him and we laughed for a while and then went about our day.
BushDiva checked on him later. Cracked the door just enough to see him dangling from the white mosquito net. And with him momentarily stationary she taunted me into getting my camera for a Stanley close-up.
Fearful that he would wake up, spread his wings, and fly towards me (the little rabies carrying rat with wings) I steeled myself for a closer up and shut the door swiftly behind me. Staring over the pictures I mused, “Stanley looks dead.”
BushDiva retorted no, but took my camera in for a closer look. Several shots later she was all the more certain that his peculiar one foot dangling was him getting restless and I was ever more sure that his footing was slipping from what would be his final perch.
This morning BushDiva came looking for me, “Stanley is dead,” she relayed.
And so he was -his little fuzzy form in the same position as the night before- wings unfolding from his body. I got some closer photos and then left the door open – much to BushDiva’s dismay. But after she closed it she chimed, “Are we going to have a funeral for Stanley?”
Somehow I doubt it but we are wracking our brains trying to figure out who likes us enough to help him to his final resting place.
Tags: crazystuff, liberia
The clouds were thick and gray, swollen cotton balls on a tile counter, drenched sheep in a blue pasture. The sky darkened and I looked up hopeful. We haven’t seen rain in months. No smattering of drops – nothing to replenish the dwindling wells.
It wasn’t the first night the sky hinted. She’d teased before. Assembled all the players for a thunderous rainstorm and then slunk away to sparkling stars unobstructed by even a sprinkle of moisture. But last night…last night my skyward glances were rewarded with first isolated and then competing drops of cool rain dancing on a north blowing wind.
I stood, first in the midst of the misting, and later in the shelter of the front porch…holding my arms against the unfamiliar coolness of the breeze watching the rain.
Today, puddles dotted the usually dusty roads – orange mud reflecting a still gray sky. Leo invited me to lunch and we ate a meal of dry rice and fried dried fish under a palava hut (a thatched roof structure so named because palava means problems and traditionally that is where peole in the villages would go to solve problems). The owner came out to chat and we exchanged names.
Tinapu…it is raining….
“I was born in August in the middle of the rainy season. It was raining so hard they caught buckets and buckets of water that day. My mother couldn’t make it out of the house to go the hospital so she had me right there in the house. So I am Tinapu.”
“We had Tinapu last night,” I said smiling.
“Yes. Yes we did,” she smiled back.
We almost didn’t stop.
The dust, a cloud of cinnamon caught in a sneeze, billowed before us as we raced down the dirt road, gullies carved on either side in anticipation of future rains. We were racing time and honking as pedestrians wandered into what I imagine is usually a deserted strip of road.
We almost didn’t stop.
But the shirtless men, sweat streaming down their torsos, looked pained. And so we slowed. Uncommitted. And finally rolled to a stop a short distance from the deserted thatched stalls of that area’s market grounds.
The other county vehicle stopped a little ahead of us and we began to disembark – some with purpose, others – like me, out of curiosity.
She was in labor – perched in a makeshift hammock tied to a long branch and held off the ground by several of the men who had flagged us down.
There was confusion. Would we take her? Which vehicle? Would she make it to Salala in time? Gutz, with four children of his own, leaned over to me, “she’s going to give birth in that vehicle.” And he was right. Before we could drive away there was commotion in the back of the vehicle with the mother-to-be.
J hurried to the other vehicle and settled into the back while the rest of us scrambled for shade and speculated on what might be happening. Through the windows we could see lapas being held up and people motioning and adjusting and readjusting below our window sightline. J opened a window and called for my camera, I’d been ordered to take pictures when we stopped. Camera in hand and brief instructions on its use, and the window closed again.
There was the occasional flash, J moving from his perch in the back of the vehicle to the front seat – back pressed against the glass as he focused. And all around the vehicle we chatted among ourselves…about the four-hour walk the woman and her traditional midwife embarked upon to get to where we’d found them -there was no clinic near their village…about the luck that we’d stopped at all.
Ten, maybe 15 minutes later the passenger door opened and the certified midwife from Salala’s clinic who happened to be riding with us sat holding a quiet little boy. Eyes tightly closed, he didn’t look like a newborn at all. But there he was, brand new to the world and wrapped in a blue lapa against the dust and sun.
Loaded up with mother and her new bundle we continued on to Salala – now after business hours – and opened the postpartum wing so mother could rest. Then the certified midwife went about the business of birthing…settling the mother, urging her to let the baby nurse, and weighing the placenta (heavy placenta is an indication of reproductive problems).
Once on the road headed back to Phebe, J informed us that one of our colleagues had just died at the hospital. He had lassa fever. More importantly, he’d had lassa fever for nine days.
Nine days.
A viral infection, there is no cure for lassa. If caught early enough serum from survivors may be given to help fight it off, but in the absence of that it is a fight against time. If a patient can survive the renal failure and other organ damage after those first two weeks s/he may recover. Our colleague didn’t make it that far and so our excitement of the birth was tempered by death.
I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that tiny little person took his first breaths just as our colleague took his last. I don’t know why but that thought comforts me – greetings against farewells, laughter against tears, embracing against letting go…
Tags: crazystuff, health, liberia, travel
“you do not believe me but I swear to God.” He looked at me, the streetlight from across the well worn dirt road that separates my house from Mary Tiah’s casting shadows across his face. She and part of her family sat just out of earshot on their front porch.
“when a Liberian man swears to God and does this,” He touched his hand lightly to the ground to his lips and then up in the air, “it is very serious.”
I smiled at him. What words are there for someone professing love at first sight? I’d already explained my definition of love involves knowing someone – loving what you know. He countered that love is a feeling that cannot be called down but comes of its own volition. That is his definition, who am I to argue?
It didn’t change my mind. My definition. My feelings for the almost stranger sitting on my steps asking me to ask him to stay longer, to invite him back, to call.
He explained fervently that he didn’t want my love so that he could go to America, he only wanted me to stay in Liberia and get married and have children (why does everyone want me to reproduce?)
I was tired. The super bowl kept me up past 4am and it will be days before I’m fully recovered. I smiled as alertly as I could and wished him a safe journey.
“may I kiss you…on your jaw here?” he pointed to his own defined jawline.
“yes.”
And so he did, lips soft against the side of my face. “and the other side?” I acquiesced.
“and here?” he placed his hand lightly over his lips.
“no.”
“please.”
“no.”
“does it mean something?”
“goodbye,” I rose from the steps – still releasing the day’s heat despite the coolness in the night air- and walked him to the bottom step before turning and closing first the screen and then the door behind me.
Gutz is amazing. Seriously. The man provides, be it food, fun, or perspective. On Super Bowl Sunday halfway around the world…it was football.
We gathered around his television set, four Americans, one enthusiastic and one reluctant Liberian. We gathered with fried chicken, plantains, and sweet potatoes, fresh pineapple, and ginger coconut cake. Gutz sweating over a coalpot.
We gathered at 11pm and stayed past 2am. The game was good.
There we were all crammed into his bedroom, in plastic chairs and on the floor and bed. There we were screaming and groaning and cheering at the top of our lungs. By the second half, we were beginning to jump up and down. By the middle of the fourth we were cautiously exuberant.
Even Amarula started to catch Saints fever. She was contorting her face and body with us – not always sure why but caught up in the moment, in the spirit of our excitement. And so we found ourselves shrieking like crazy people in the early hours of Monday morning, verbally reenacting key plays and waiting patiently for a shot of New Orleans pandemonium to fill the screen so that we could give Gutz his house back.
Gutz is my hero. My friend. My brother. He made it possible for me to bask in the Saints victory – Geaux Saints Geaux…and geaux they did!
Food is one of the great narratives of my life, and yet I am still surprised at how much the taste and lingering delight of a good meal can dictate the texture of my day and orchestrate the flavor of my mood.
Food. More than sustenance and survival, for me it is tantamount to joy. And so despite having no plans for what I might do for my birthday, I knew what I would eat.
French toast. A simple enough dish back home, is a little more involved here. For one thing, with no current during the day, I was forced to cook it outside on the coal pot. I can’t lie – little things like that- in moderation – bring me a certain silly pleasure. Pumping water from the well is one…of course when the water table dropped and it took so much longer to get the water to flow it became less cute and more pain in my…well…let’s just say it is only cute in small doses.
Because I’m lazy I don’t drag the coal pot out much. It is a tiny little thing, simple in its construction and use (especially since I can light it with one match!!!) but it involves fire for goodness sake…and it is hot…and it involves fire…and it is hot…I think you get the drift.
At any rate, my decision to make myself French toast butted up against a conversation I had with Gutz about American breakfasts…we were both reminiscing about our favorite ways to start the day. It seemed a great fit – he would enjoy it as much as me and I’d celebrate with a friend. From there it morphed. I called Emme and invited her and her honey. Then the Patron Saint of Peace Corps Volunteers and R (she couldn’t make it), Sierre Leone and Amarula.
It was a full house. And so I listened to laughter filtering out through the screen as I dodged ash and maneuvered soaked slices of bread across hot oil and real butter (compliments of the Patron Saint). Slice after slice came off the pot and was devoured in pieces or in its entirety by the group – some more enthusiastic than others.
Oddly, all that hot work was a delight. A delight to do for my friends who are always so generous with me, to share my day and prevent it from simply merging into every other day.
As we laughed and joked, one of Wine’s sons came to the door bearing her gift to me…palm butter (the son dropping it off actually cooked it) with fresh bush meat and fufu(pounded and fermented cassava) . Delicious!
I visited with Wine, played cards with friends, made falafel and sipped fresh passionfruit juice. There was laughter and more laughter and it was – at its core – a happy birthday.
Tags: friends, liberia, me-ness, transition, travel
goat soup and Orion
I thought he’d forgotten. I languished beneath my mosquito net half reading a poorly written novel but mostly succumbing to the brutal heat still lingering in the late afternoon.
My morning had been fruitful. My lift into town dropped me far away from the Catholic compound- barely in the city limits. On the side of the road, unable to catch one of a dozen pinpins driving by (PC forbids us to ride them) I walked beneath the shadowless reach of afternoon sun. My new acquaintance, a nearby justice of the peace forewent a quicker cooler ride on a pinpin and instead walked beside me along the dusty road. He shared his thoughts on justice and court. He talked about the war and how he had housed Mandingos, on his farm and was called to task for it, ordered killed. But when asked why he harbored them his answer, “because they are humans. They are not armed. They are seeking safety,” was set free.
I arrived tired and late for my French lesson but despite that (and my missed session last week) it went well and afterward I sat around laughing and talking with my teacher…my friend…
That, the long walk and brainwork, lead to me sprawling on my bed, only half annoyed that I’d been stood up. Only I hadn’t been. Sierra Leone called to arrange meeting at Starbucks in 30 minutes, and there he was ready to walk to SKT as the sun headed briskly toward the horizon.
It isn’t a long walk but there are no sidewalks – and in some places, no footpaths along the long stretch of paved road that cars and pinpins race down, narrowly missing potholes, each other, and pedestrians (most of the time). The perilous walk was worthwhile. We meandered up a side road in SKT (a town I’d only driven through) and passed curious onlookers until we reached Caucus.
Caucus is known joint in these parts – renowned for its goat soup. Apparently Sierra Leone had called ahead and so we had two steaming bowls brought to us. Goat soup is a spicy broth based soup with huge chunks of goat in it…some I could identify others I wasn’t so sure about.
Sierra Leone watched me for a little while and then inquired, “why are you leaving the skin?”
“it’s a texture thing,” I responded. True…the skin has a layer of fat beneath it that grosses me out – but the thought of chewing on the skin itself was unpleasant.
He shook his head, “that is the best part. When we make goat soup we purposefully leave the skin on, that is where the smell of the goat is. We eat the soup because of the smell of it. You are leaving the best part.”
I shared the “best part” and shortly after we began the dark walk home. En route Sierra Leone teased me about not going out at night (transportation is an issue and so I’m out of practice) and chided me for thinking I can’t walk around alone at night. He assumed my reasoning is Africa based.
I corrected him, “I don’t walk around by myself in the dark anywhere, it is ingrained, but add to that I’m foreign and people assume I have NGO money, it isn’t a good mix.”
“but here you could here,” he argued, “because you are foreign people watch out for you.”
It is true. I have been blessed by many a person who extends a helpful word or action in my direction because I am not a daughter of this dust…but as in all places, it is not the majority I am worried about…it is the one in a thousand…the one who doesn’t have my best interest at heart.
“I have interactions all the time with men who talk to me inappropriately or try to do things that aren’t ok,” I answered. He looked genuinely surprised.
“…still…”
We walked on in the dark, dodging traffic that whizzed by blowing dust, debris, and diesel into our path and occasionally stopping to look at the stars. We didn’t see my circumstances the same but we could both admire Orion.
Tags: food, friends, liberia, socialcommentary, travel