Life here is a fickle two-year-old. Yesterday was the first day she didn’t cry or cower behind the nearest person not me. Yesterday she walked up to me, her round chocolate face so cute and beaming, no pants, stomach distended with a huge bellybutton bulging out like an appendage.
She smiled at me. Held out her hand for me to shake and then giggled into that same tiny hand. And it was such a small thing. Like her, a tiny fragile thing. And it filled me with something like joy. A 30 second exchange on my way home.
Today, overconfident, when I saw her, I smiled and reached out my hand. And her bright face darkened. She clutched the smiling boy beside her and looked as if she might cry.
My heart fell. Yesterday’s fragile joy forgotten. Shattered on the frown of a capricious child.
And my days here are like that. Tiny triumphs sandwiched between mundane disappointments.
This weekend I hung with my friend, Dimples, in Monrovia. While waiting for him to arrive I found myself getting my purse fixed by a man sitting on a corner. I held his umbrella to shade him from the brutal sun while he worked and we chatted, When I told him I was a volunteer he looked at me blankly, a rarity here. And at that moment a woman walking by stopped and said, “I know. A volunteer taught me to write.”
We continued to chat – me being scolded by a random man walking by because she was stooping to write down her information- turns out she is the director of a health NGO in Bomi. And when I finally met up with Dimples for fish at his favorite spot we chatted easily about his new apartment and me almost looking like a Liberian (my dress created the illusion that my unfashionable teva shoes discredited).
And I was all laughter and ease.
And the laughter is a salve to the training that still hasn’t been set in stone or the inconstant internet or my bean fatigue or taxi drivers and market merchants charging me extra.
Tomorrow I’ll pass by that spot with the little round-faced girl with the sometimes fearful eyes and sometimes delightful smile. Her house sells the best ground pea candy and there hasn’t been any in weeks. Maybe the fickle winds of Liberia will blow in my favor tomorrow and I’ll get some candy and a smile.
Tags: liberia, me-ness, transition, travel, volunteer
Our pump is out of water. Not all pumps, but the one closest to our house. And the one in front of the nursing school has bad water. The next pump I’m familiar with is on the other side of the school and I’m not- I can’t – haul water that far.
Well, I suppose if necessity truly dictated I could, but I have succumbed. Instead, with the help of Gutz, we’ve commandeered a few kids to fetch a single bucket of water every few days. The rest of our water needs can be met through the temperamental pipes that bring silt – and who knows what else-infested water into our waiting containers at sporadic intervals during the day.
But drinking water…drinking water is elusive right now. And it’s a bad time for water to be ify. It is the dry season. And dry it is. The winds kick up orange dust and spread it everywhere. And my skin is parched and tight, compelling me to slather on cocoa butter despite the blazing heat. And I’m thirsty. I’m always thirsty.
In Monrovia this weekend, I was thrilled that I finally crossed the threshold of tourist into resident when I moved from the bottled water sold in grocery stores at 70LD ($1 for a liter and a half) to the plastic sachets sold on every corner for 5LD per half liter.
The mantra to listen for is “mineral water” yielding sealed bags of treated water- “cold water” brings in bags of water that are filled by people at the pump or whatever water source they have.
Actually, I moved to the sachets last week out of necessity. Evaluating a training for USAID, they ran out of bottled water and brought in the bags to supplement the water dispenser (usually filled from wherever people can find water). Although I carry a liter with me everywhere…a liter is far from enough water during the course of a day in the dry season.
Ah the magic of the bags.
I am always amazed at how fragile my access to water can be when I travel. In South Africa my host father would pump water from our bore hole into a huge reservoir that lasted for weeks. Pulled from deep below the rocky surface, the water was delicious and I never filtered or boiled it. But when it ran dry, sometimes it would take him a few days to come and pump again. Then I’d be held hostage to the rain water collected from the roof – a much sketchier option. Beyond that I don’t know what I would have done, I never could figure out where the women in my village collected water in the absence of a pump. In South Africa we didn’t have the little sachets of water.
Even with the abundant hand pumps here I still find myself preoccupied with water. And when water isn’t presented in a processed and sealed form, I filter it. The reality of such high water tables in the second rainiest place on earth is that anything can find its way into the water. Doing clinic visits in Gbarnga a few weeks ago I saw an unlined trash pit that had blood products, medical sharps, and medicine discarded in it. I almost stepped on a needle.
Clean water takes on new importance in the shadow of that.
Tags: food, health, liberia, observations, travel
The first time I saw an apple beyond Monrovia‘s city limits, it was nestled beside un-refrigerated yogurt cups and foster clark’s *packages. They, along with a myriad of other random and unrelated objects – crackers, soap- bumped along the rutted dirt path in front of the nursing school. The apple was 70LD ($1) and I was so giddy to see it that I saved it, waiting for just the right moment. Unfortunately, perishable foods being what they are, it began to rot before my moment arrived and it was weeks before I saw another apple in my community.
But apples aren’t the whole world and wheelbarrows here are amazing things. They carry everything from piles of used clothes to bootleg holly, bolly, and nolly (Nigeria)-wood movies to raw pig‘s feet. The number of wheelbarrows and the things they sell increases exponentially as cities increase in size. Perfume -knockoffs and the real thing, Listerine, and electronics are heaped into neat piles for easy viewing and access. In a stroke of evolution, nesting, or just plain fatigue, some wheelbarrows morph into sidewalk stalls. Makeshift affairs with wooden tables invisible under the plethora of wares splayed out for viewing and easy purchase. Vendors position large umbrellas to shield against the brutal sun.
Ah…electronics.
Liberia being a cell phone nation, every conceivable accessory for a cell phone -hands free headsets, adapters, cords- peak out of wheelbarrows and adorn street stalls in throughout the capital. My needs were more mundane though…earphones. Specifically earphones with a microphone. In my haste to pack I didn’t consider my technology needs, I didn’t think they’d be important. I underestimated the dichotomy of my Liberian experience…the “lack of” in contrast to the “abundance”.
And so we were without eggs up north but ah…Randall street is full of dozens of men selling headphones of every persuasion. Earbuds, ergonomic headsets, huge padded deals with built-in mics. And I looked and as I looked the price retreated from $10 to $5 to $2. One guy showing me what he has – a lone voice until my eyes wander or I begin to walk away and then the men beside him chime in with an explanation of their wares, their better prices.
Behind them, on the uneven and crowded street, wheelbarrows navigate the gauntlet of pedestrians, pinpins (motorcycle taxis), and cars…all vying for space. My gaze wanders, distracted by some color or sound in the distance and a wheelbarrow is tilted in my direction for a better view of the products expertly balanced inside. I shake my head and look away. I’ll buy pens or pigs feet, towels or toothbrushes, tomorrow.
*foster clark’s is an aspartame sweetened version of Kool-Aid
Tags: liberia, observations, travel
It took a moment for the sound to register. Kids congregate at our house, and since the tree in our back yard started producing some tiny pear looking fruit – they spend hours throwing rocks and sticks high into its branches, enticing the little green and red fruits to fall. it isn’t unusual to hear screaming, shrieking and general laughter. It is also normal to have to occasionally disperse said screaming, shrieking, and laughing children, since they don‘t seem to know how to keep the noise down. So it took a moment before it clicked that the wailing had been going on for a while and didn’t appear to be subsiding.
I wandered onto the back porch to find three boys lounging calmly around the pear tree and another one wedged in the Y of the trunk. When sticks fail to yield sufficient fruit the kids climb nimbly up the tree without aid of low hanging branches. Unfortunately for this boy his knee was stuck and his arms were starting to shake from the strain.
In quintessential pre-pubescent boy-ness, the three others were laughing and teasing him as he cried. Pointing and occasionally throwing things softly in his direction, they were unconcerned with helping him descend.
I walked over and stood under him, put his free foot in my hand, bracing against my chest, and ordered him to stand. At first he was unwilling to let me support his weight but his arms continued to shake and his friends continued to laugh. Finally he put tentative weight into the palm of my hand and I instructed him to stand and begin to work his leg free. This order inspired his friends to help and one of them began to jostle the wedged leg up and down inspiring a new wave of stifled wails.
Finally he wrenched his leg free. But even then he hung there, one foot in the Y and his arms still shaking. One of the other boys climbed the tree effortlessly and moved behind him and then roughly maneuvered the crying one to the other side of the tree where he was able to drop to the ground.
He stood there looking dejected, his friends laughing, and I retreated into the house.
I want to believe that such indifference to suffering is unique to the age – a stage in development – but this morning as the shuttle bus emptied itself of riders, those waiting to board jostled for position. when the aisle finally cleared an older man, disembarking slowly with bandaged foot and crutches, inched his way toward the door. His gait was slow and deliberate. It looked pained.
But those waiting for the bus rushed on before he could descend. A few nurses pushed past him in search of seats on the empty bus. BushDiva tried to hold people back and was finally successful, giving the man a few moments to smile good morning as he limped toward the hospital door.
And I’m not sure anyone noticed. Not sure anyone thought twice about running through a man to get on a bus that wasn’t going to leave before they clambered on. And while nobody laughed, nobody looked appalled by the scene either. It was simply a day like any other, a person like any other, a move to stay one step ahead…like every other attempt to stay ahead.
Tags: liberia, observations, volunteer
This morning I woke up with a start. Bleary eyed and wondering what time it was since I, once again, fell asleep with the light on. Half an hour more of sleep but the bathroom was screaming at me so I attended to that and then turned off my light. A few moments later, after zipping myself safe and sound into my bug hut, I heard a raspy whisper of my name.
I sat up with a start but didn’t panic too much, assuming this is just my mind playing tricks on me. I waited. And there it was again, clinging to the underbelly of a rooster letting a cacoadoodle doo rip. And then again…and again. So I unzipped and turned on my light.
My name persisted. Raspy and low and close to my window.
It was 6am. I didn’t sleep again.
I listened for half an hour and then when I could stand it no longer I crept into the living room…trailing lights as I left. There I could hear the roosters without the melody of my name. and there I sat, as light crept over the horizon on arthritic legs.
Back in my room 10 minutes later, and my ears strained hoping to NOT hear anything. But sure enough, there it was clear as day was trying to be. And so I stood immobile in the hallway that connects the bedrooms willing BushDiva or our guest to be awake to see if they heard what I heard. But when BD woke up a few minutes later, she hurried past me before I could comment. And then it was gone.
As the day brightened the voice faded. I walked outside to examine my windows – to look for footprints or maybe someone playing a practical joke…who knows what I was looking for. Whatever it was I was looking for, whatever might have been there, wasn’t when i searched. The only proof of its presence is my nagging sleepiness left over from my early morning rise.
Of course later, in the gray cool of the day, BushDiva and I compared notes. She smelled smoke wafting into her window in the dark hours of the morning, maybe the same time that I heard my name. she also remembered during one of the nights when we first arrived she heard her name as well. She chocked it up to mefloquine because no one here says her name (or mine for that matter) correctly. That is the most logical and compelling argument against what I heard.
So I’ll blame it on the mef…even so, I still feel uneasy…and this morning, assured that it was my imagination, I heard it again. My fellow volunteer heard no such thing…so yeah…I’m blaming it on the mef.
Tags: liberia, observations, travel
One match to light the coal pot. You’d think I’d discovered fire but no…I simply lit our coal stove with one match. Yesterday we went to Gutz’s house to fry potatoes and plantains on his coal pot. We gathered around to watch how to light it properly since for us it usually involves copious amounts of plastic, kerosene, matches, and fanning cardboard.
He made a crater in his coals and tied half a plastic bag into two loose knots. He lit one end, coaxing the flame gently, and then buried it lightly in the middle of the coals, piling pieces all around the flame. After a few minutes we could see the bright glowing embers of lit coals smoking at the heart of the coal pile. A few more moments and the heat began to rise in earnest.
Today, a PCV guest in our midst, we decided to cook breakfast. I volunteered to start the coal pot, wanting to try out Gutz’s trick. So I tied my “wick” as I’d seen him do it, piled my coals up in the pot and struck a match. It took and the plastic burned almost invisibly for a few seconds. I buried it lightly in the pile of coal and waited.
A few moments passed and soon heat rose off of glowing orange coals.
One match…well, technically the first match crumbled when I struck it against the side of the box to light it so I don’t count that…but I do count that one match that actually ignited itself and my wick to start a fire for French toast. And what lovely French toast it was…one match’s worth.
We were the United Colors of Benetton. Indian, Korea, Malaysian, Black…Christian, Sikh, Heathen…the comfort was in the differences that somehow made us the same. And that was my reality through high school – until I made a conscious decision to go to an HBCU (Historically Black College/University). Other than family, I’d never been in an environment where most people looked like me.
Despite what we all looked like, Florida A&M University (FAMU) was an experiment in diversity for me. Garveyites shared space with Black Republicans shared space with poets shared space with my male friend who sometimes wore a skirt and my then-boyfriend’s female best friend who often dated women.
It wasn’t a singular experience by any stretch but, like the Benetton crew before, there were similarities despite the differences. We laughed about being told we talked “white” or the twisted “compliment” that we were “so articulate…and spoke so well”. It was there that I learned that other people had had their blackness questioned because of the music they listened to, the hobbies they had, or their travel aspirations.
In a lot of ways, FAMU was a respite for me to know that I wasn’t alone in the life and experiences I was having. The people and experiences there serve as soft landing when I find myself the lone black face in my work or leisure world or when I travel – where it is usually so pronounced.
But not here.
Here, there is more than a smattering of black faces. CRS Fellows, Peace Corps and IFESH volunteers alike, we are a collection of black folks who are all living and working in Liberia.
It makes me smile, but it is unusual. the reality is that international development work is largely devoid of Black American faces. And while that doesn’t have to mean anything it can mean a lot of things.
In South Africa it was an overlay of race interactions back home waltzing with the ones there and people greeting me, “what’s up my N*&&#%…”. In Sri Lanka it was being called Bob Marley. In New Zealand it was not being able to find hair care products. But in each of those, my point of reference was not the dominant one.
There were a few black volunteers who served with me in South Africa and we found ourselves describing a different kind of service than other volunteers sometimes…how we were treated, things that were said. You were a prostitute if you were with a white man. Expectations for language were often heightened. Behavior that was inappropriate and unthinkable to do to some volunteers was not at all to us…
But I wasn’t alone and somehow that made it easier.
Speaking with the other Black American in Liberia who have experienced all of these experiences and none of them – there was simply a familiarity. to varying degrees how each of us is perceived, how we are treated, is similar.
So often in development work the faces of the “victims” are brown, sad eyes and distended bellies pronounced against the worker – blonde and in stark contrast against those they are helping (and that is a whole other issue that maybe I‘ll tackle later). I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a poster where the person helping looked like me…or for that matter, looked like the person they were helping.
One of my friends here remembers when Peace Corps was in Liberia when he was a young man. He confided in BushDiva and myself that he was so gleeful to see us because it took him back to the first Black Volunteer he met all those years back. He said, “I remember thinking, why don’t any of the people coming look like me?”
We do.
And aid is aid and resources are resources…but I have to agree that seeing myself “reflected” in this work feels really good.
Tags: liberia, race, socialcommentary, travel
“whi wom…whi wom…” they followed me for a ways down the path., as much a greeting as a declaration. To the throng of excited children assembled, I am a “whi wom” – white woman. Some Liberians have explained it as my foreignness, white woman as a catchall for not being Liberian; others, that I am white by Liberian standards…light, bright, in their eyes white.
Just this morning Fox explained that his brother was “very black”. I stared at him for a moment contemplating his dark complexion and then asked, “are you very black?”
“no, I’m black,” he answered matter-of-factly.
That lead to a question of what everyone else was.
“BushDiva is light and you are bright,” he smiled. BushDiva laughed quietly. she is decidedly brown, the color of a pecan shell more than a pecan. Still unsure of what “very black” looks like, we at least had part of the spectrum of dark to reference.
More than a curiosity of complexion, my american-ness takes color beyond a simple reflection and refraction of light. I also see color through the lens of power and privilege. These last few weeks I have felt it more acutely than in my other travels. I am privileged here. And I wonder if this is what white privilege in the US feels like-silent and unasked for.
In South Africa I straddled some color-conscious line. Children in villages screamed “Lekogwa” – foreigner – at me as I passed. Maybe it is a quirk of language that made lekogwa more tolerable than “whi wom” – the sharp sting of a familiar phrase that is only foreign in its application to me. But that was the rural children; adults assumed that I belonged in South Africa in some capacity, Xhosa, colored…something. And I was treated accordingly – until I opened my mouth. on the side of the road trying to catch a lift, in a store trying to buy something, or at a hotel once where the attendant refused to accept the money from my hand – insisted instead that I put it on the counter- my privilege was tempered.
But here…here I am acutely aware of people in trainings submitting to my opinion and special treatment that is not simply deference to a guest. here I easily navigate a world of transportation and access to people and events, not because of the work I’ve done, instead, it is the connections I have. My network. My little blue passport. My “birthright”.
The privilege is the larger paycheck that I’d get (if I weren’t a volunteer), it is being ushered to the front of the lunch line, the expectation that I can/should demonstrate a training not in my area of expertise and with no preparation-simply by virtue of my birthing geography.
And how can I deal with that? How do I dismantle a…system…more…an idea…a norm of behavior that anticipates and even expects that my treatment will be better, my pay higher, my access greater.
There are subtle differences that make white and ex-pat privilege irreconcilable for comparison. I am visitor not fellow citizen and my privilege, for the most part, exists in a parallel universe to that of everyday life…but even as I list those I know at their core they are the same. When I am riding in hospital transport, or the university’s…when I am granted access to books without being a student at the university or the opportunity to meet with high ranking officials…it is not so much my skills or abilities that make those things possible, instead it is the privilege of my birth, my little blue book that grants me that extra boost.
Tags: liberia, race, socialcommentary, travel
Everything takes longer. Sick. Feeling it slink in after the giddy feeling of dodging it over breakfast…boiled casava and plaintains in sardine sauce that gagged me just so after a few bites. But I spit it out and smiled smugly believing triumph over heaving. But the day marched on. Longer than usual. And the feeling of not-quite-rightness marched over me too.
An hour. Two. Later…and the need to sit outside with my head on my knees overtook me. And when that didn’t settle the raging in my belly, then I knew it was time to start the trek home because everything takes longer.
So I walked purposefully from the catholic compound. Not my usual quick step so much faster than everyone around me. I walked deliberately through the gates and down the dusty road. I ignored the voice I heard trying to get my attention. Tired and uneasy about the impending drive home I walked on, hearing his persistent voice get closer as his steps quickened to catch me.
Casimir smiled at me and began to explain how he knew me. It would be a few minutes before I recalled him but he looked familiar enough and I was determined to reach transportation so I didn’t balk as he walked with me.
He talked mostly, while my mind wondered about the eight mile drive in a dilapidated taxi with too many people squished in it. Finally to the taxi rank, conversation had moved to his French (he’s from cameroon), my desire to learn, and his willingness to teach me. An exchange of numbers and my bent posture finally seemed to convey that I really really really didn’t feel well so we parted ways.
I bought bread, which after a small bite I realized would be safer to eat once I was home and stationary, and walked to my taxi weary about what I’d find. Travel gods were benevolent. I got the front seat – for once alone in it – and we began moving within a few minutes. Thankfully the window was down and the breeze felt good against my face.
At the Bong County immigration stop we paused – as all taxis do – for at the roped “gate”. The driver – as all taxi drivers do – threw a 5LD note out the window and the cluster of t-shirted “agents” continued to lounge, one lowering the rope to let us pass.
The wind still blowing I dared to ask, “what is the point of the checkpoint?”
No one could really tell me. Just that there’d always been checkpoints. Only the money exchange was new.
“if you don’t pay?” the driver responded to my question, “if you don’t pay they will detain you and waste your time.”
But they don’t stop the NGO vehicles or any official vehicles with emblems painted on their sides. The demand is only on profit making ventures, an informal tax of sorts. The man behind me chuckled at my questions, “I don’t understand it either,” he confided.
Dropped at the junction, I steadied myself for the walk home. I chatted with a few friends and then intimated that it was time for me to go because the nausea – held at bay by the cool wind during the drive – was rising in my throat again.
A brief stop to buy a fanta and I finally collapsed on my bed. Asleep within moments, I awoke to a slightly less sick feeling, and the intense heat of closed up house baking in the afternoon sun.
4:30 and no puking yet. I hope my luck holds.
Tags: liberia, me-ness, observations, travel
war weapons
“they held me and gang raped me for three weeks.”
It hung there, with no more weight from her voice than when she’d talked about the differences between Nigerian and Liberian palm nuts.
She pointed to the jagged gash on her arm where they broke a bottle over her arm.
“I almost died,” she said of the rape. Of the everything. “but the worst part was that my children knew what happened to me and lost respect for me. “there was nothing. I lost all interest in life – in living.”
And in a seamless moment the intimacy of confession drew a thousand faceless stories into stark relief. one tangible person. One woman. One mother. One sister. One wife.
One of many.
A rape survivor.
She spoke of many things. The rape almost an aside to the reality of raising sons – hers and other’s, the expense of cooking oil, the need to increase teacher pay. And her work-making Liberia better one person at a time.
There are many stories in Liberia. People who fled. People who stayed. Held at knife or gunpoint. Escaped by some miraculous kindness. Camps in Ghana, in Guinea. Flight on boats, across borders on foot. On foot. On so many feet.
People talk of how long ago it all was. 2003. More than six years. But six years can’t erase a beating, a bullet, a brutality against everything that makes victim and villain human.
She smiles. And laughs easy. She loves big. House open to boys…so many boys…at one point 11. And she is so much bigger than even this biggest of events. But there on her arm the jagged scar that looks like a miniature shark bite, bulging in places, crooked and pale, trailing her wrist and down her forearm. A constant reminder. As if she could forget.
Tags: friends, health, liberia, politics, socialcommentary, travel, volunteer