Liberia Adventures

2006-11-17T06:14:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 23, 2006

This blog was maintained while I was conducting research in Liberia, and for a few months after I returned to the U.S. (The posts from when I was actually in Liberia can be found under December 2005 and January 2006.)

I am now back in Liberia, working with a human rights organization. My new blog, "Plantains and Palm Trees," is accessible here: http://allabuja.blogspot.com

Prostitution and School Fees

2006-05-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

In Monrovia I heard anecdotal evidence that young girls prostitute themselves at night to afford school fees. A few days ago Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA) published an article describing this trend in refugee camps. As Liberia becomes more stable, many non-governmental organizations are shifting funds away from refugee camps to focus on development projects. As a result, schools in refugee camps that used to be subsidized are either shutting down or charging attendance fees. Because work opportunities in refugee camps are limited, girls are apparently turning to commercial sex to raise the funds necessary to attend school.

I don't know enough about the reallocation of development funds away from refugee camps toward development projects to have a position on this. But I think the impact of this shift deserves more attention.

The CISA article is available here.

On Charles Taylor and my Job Search

2006-04-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. Much has happened in Liberia since my last post on this blog. Under lots of pressure from the U.S., Ellen Johnson Sirleaf asked Nigerian President Obasanjo to hand over Charles Taylor to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. Charles Taylor was dramatically captured while trying to flee into Cameroon. He now occupies a cell in Freetown, but probably will be transferred to The Hague. Despite the very real risks that would accompany trying Taylor in West Africa, I do not think he should be sent to The Netherlands. I agree with John Leigh, the former Sierra Leonean ambassador to the U.S., who has argued that an essential component of nation building is improving a country's administrative capacity to enforce justice. Leigh says that transferring Taylor to The Hague, "would defeat a main purpose behind the establishment of the court in Sierra Leone: to teach Africans, in their own countries, the fundamentals of justice and to drive home the principle that no one is above the law. The special court has the potential to help raise West Africa's standards for accountability, transparency, fairness and the humane treatment of defendants." I feel the same way.

Also, since last posting on this blog, I have completed my thesis! I have posted my introduction, appendix, and references here. If you are interested in reading the whole thing, send me your email address and I will email it to you. I truly welcome any comments - positive or negative - from anyone. I would be especially interested in feedback from Liberians or Lebanese in Liberia. My permanent email address is shelbygrossman@gmail.com

I refuse to write a concluding entry to this blog, if only because I really hope that I will be able to live in Liberia for an extended period of time at some point in the future. So while entries will be sporadic, I will continue updating occasionally. Again, thanks for reading, and for all of your thoughts, criticism, and comments about my blog over the past few months!

A TRC sans Teeth

2006-02-21T13:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Ellen Johnson Sirleaf inaugurated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission mandated to investigate human rights violations from 1979 to 2003. Like the South African TRC, however, it will not have prosecutorial powers. Analyst article available here; BBC article available here

I have an article in this semester's International Horizons. You can view it here. If you've read my blog, though, some of the article may be a little repetitive.

New Years and Batteries

2006-02-05T06:26:00.000-08:00

Below are some pictures I had burned onto a CD. Enjoy!

New Years at the Mamba Point. Almost everyone there was Lebanese, so it made for nice interview networking.

Women often carried large loads of goods in baskets on their heads. I'm not sure how they did it.

New Years at the Mamba Point, with the son of the hotel's manager.

The hat matched my shirt.

New Years at Mamba Point. The hotel flew a South African band in for the week. This was the first time I saw a single Lebanese woman.

Somewhere around Firestone. This truck (?) looks like it could be from the 1950s.

Village near Firestone.

Sarah found some mens shoes in the lounge at the convent, grabbed my purse, and danced along to some European music television show. The TV remote that she is holding never worked, because everytime the convent staff put batteries in it, someone would steal them.

Some guys trying to hang up an Ellen poster. On the right, a young girl is balancing a load of snacks on her head.

Hard Drives and Taylor

2006-01-27T15:05:00.000-08:00

A few days ago my hard drive crashed. I lost everything on my computer, including all remaining Liberia pictures that I hadn't gotten around to posting on this blog. Oh well. If my Emory IT friends manage to salvage anything worth posting, I'll put it up early next week.

BBC: Taylor 'not priority' for Liberia
"Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf says prosecuting her predecessor Charles Taylor is 'secondary' to her agenda."

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4655186.stm

"Liberia Gets First Traffic Lights" -BBC

2006-01-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

"Liberia's capital, Monrovia, has got a working set of traffic lights for the first time since war broke out more than 16 years ago...People who drove in the city before everything was destroyed in the 14-year war say the war-time drivers need to learn how the lights work. But some of the new drivers argue that, even though up to the outbreak of war they had not driven, at least they saw traffic lights before the country collapsed."

Full article available here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4647710.stm

Pictures: Round 6

2006-01-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

Kids in Tubmanburg...and a turtle. I was much more impressed with the turtle, than they were. It was just walking around the courtyard.

Pigs at a farm in Tubmanburg.

A Lebanese boy who was on vacation with his Lebanese dad and Egyptian mom in Tubmanburg. He was climbing a look-out tower at Pakistani Point. As much as I trusted the professional Pakistani UNMIL troops, and their never-ending committment to the Liberian-Pakistani Friendship, the look-out tower seemed a bit unstable to me.

Kids in Tubmanburg. The one of the left is sucking on the beads of a cross necklace.

Kids in Tubmanburg trying to sell some food after mass.

Cute horizontal girl in Tubmanburg.

This was my flight from Monrovia to Freetown. Clearly nobody wanted to leave Liberia the day before the inauguration, except for people like me who weren't thinking when they booked their plane tickets.

Me and "John," the amazing Carter Center/Associated Press guy who helped me with everything. Should I still be using a pseudonym now that I am showing his picture? Not sure. (Don't worry. We are at the airport. This is the day I left. I wasn't planning on walking the streets of Monrovia in a tank top.)

The Red Cross had a project attempting to reunite families torn apart during the war. These posters showed pictures of children (who are living) but don't know where their parents are.

Pictures: Round 5

2006-01-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

This was my very good Liberian friend. I like this picture because he is wearing a World Food Program t-shirt. T-shirts advertising peace or democracy or, in this case, the WFP, were the Abercrombies of Liberia.

So one of the things that amazed me about Monrovia was the ubiquity of poverty. When I was in Lima, Peru, there were definitely nice parts of the city. In Monrovia, no area was immune from poverty. This is a building almost directly across the street from the Mamba Point Hotel, which was arguably the nicest hotel in the country. To the right, outside of the picture, is the Ministry of the Interior. Maybe 100 people lived in this building, and another 20 or so in the shacks that surrounded it. If the area looks fairly clean, it's only because two nights before I took the picture Liberian officials came and "cleaned" the place up for the inauguration. I am pretty they knocked down a shack or two as well.

My always-adventurous walk to the Mamba Point...

UN SUVs were everywhere. You would often see a small sedan, with 15 people in it. Including 5 sitting in the trunk with their feet hanging out. (It reminded me of those competitions on late-night talk shows where you try to squish as many people into a VW Bug as possible.) Then you would see a couple of UN cars drive by with one or maybe two people in it. Seemed like a waste. Although I'm not proposing that the UN become a taxi service. Just some thoughts.

On the left is my absolutely awesome Lebanese friend who worked for UNDP. On the right is an American woman who worked for an organization contracting for USAID. We bonded over our mutual fear of cockroaches. This picture was taken at the Mamba Point.

I love this picture, and I can't believe I forgot to post it earlier. This intersection clearly needs a traffic light. Instead, it got a policeman for a couple of hours a day. I felt so bad for the guy. There was no shame in disobeying him. It looked more like the cars were directing him. He would put his hand up to one stream of traffic, and motion for another stream to start driving, but the first stream wouldn't stop, so ultimately, instead of looking powerless, he would change his hand motions to let the cars that were moving keep moving.

This is at the health clinic in Tubmanburg. I took the picture at 7:20 in the morning. The clinic doesn't open until at least 9:00. Yet people are already lining up.

One of many Lebanese-owned electronics stores.

Typical security precautions around an anonymous compound.

Pictures: Round 4

2006-01-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

You may be noticing that I don't have a lot of pictures from Monrovia. I was constantly afraid that if I whipped out my camera on the streets someone would swipe it. So here are some more pictures, mostly from Tubmanburg.

During mass at St. Dominic's in Tburg children would periodically dance up the aisle. The youngest (or maybe shortest) kids would lead the lines, and they were always watching each other to make sure they were moving at the same pace. They took their job very seriously.

Picture from mass. I love the orange dress. I have no clue what she is holding. Does anyone know what it is?

Children leaving the church...interested in the camera I think.

I love this picture. I love the face of the girl in the blue dress.

The daughter of the Dutch woman who took me to Tubmanburg. She was very photogenic (sp?).

Picture from mass.

A little boy standing in the aisle during mass.

Sarah, the girl who stayed at the convent. She liked having her picture taken.

A Nigerian gold trader who was staying at the convent for part of the time I was there. This picture scares me. The gold trader scared me too.

This is the Liberian club called The Village, during the day time. I was too scared to go at night. It was here that I experienced my first and last taste of Club Beer.

Pictures: Round 3

2006-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

Virtually all billboards were advertising some NGO or UN project.

Housing for Firestone rubber tappers.

A bad picture...but amusing nonetheless. This is at the Firestone Staff Club golf course. An overweight American Firestone executive is golfing while a Liberian caddy holds his clubs. This picture disgusts me.

A very bad picture from my dinner with priests and nuns.

This is a bucket at the bottom of a rubber tree. The rubber is the white stuff. Most buckets had a similar amount of rubber in them. Kind of makes you wonder how many trees it takes to make a tire...

Entrance to the Firestone Staff Club.

Between 5:30 and 7:30 it was dark outside, and the generator hadn't been turned on yet. Being alone in my room was scary, so I would go downstairs and hang out with one of the young girls (I think I called her Sarah) who lived at the convent. She was orphaned during the war. I would bring paper and pens, and by candlelight we would draw pictures. We had difficulty understanding each other, but we would try to communicate a little.

This is one of the boys who also lived at the convent. I never figured out what happened to his parents. For my first two weeks in Monrovia he would walk me to the supermarket or the embassy or the Mamba Point when I was nervous walking alone. I think this picture is interesting for a couple of reasons. I asked if I could take his picture, and he insisted on having it taken with a statue of Mary. He also asked if he could borrow my cell phone, just for the picture. And he is wearing a bracelet that came free with my cell phone. He asked if he could have it when I bought my phone, and it stayed on his wrist until my last day in Liberia. Status was very important, and cell phones were a big status symbol.

A cute picture of Sarah. In the hand that you can't see, she is holding a small plastic bag of chlorine. I have no idea where she got it. At one point I caught her sucking on it. I quickly confiscated the bag, and then, with hand gestures, claimed to lose it.

Sarah pumping water at the convent's well.

Pictures: Round 2

2006-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

This was my room at the convent. It's kind of messy. My super professional briefing book is the blue binder on the bed. My mosquito net (aka blanket) is on the left. I loved my room's lighting. (Like my new sneakers? They are in front of the lamp.)

This is one of the marines who worked at the US Embassy. He's playing a drum from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

An amusing Lebanese friend at the Mamba Point.

Madame Sirleaf, looking very motherly.

The bar at the US Embassy. The guy on crutches is the marine I met on my flight from Brussels to Freetown/Monrovia.

A gas pump. I had to take a picture.

This is going to be the new UN headquarters for West Africa. I'm glad the headquarters will be in Monrovia. I think it means that even if the UN reduces the size of the peacekeeping force, there will be a sustained UN presence in the country for at least the next 10 years. This building belongs to the Libyan government. At first the UN was reluctant to lease the property, probably because of Libya's deep involvement in Liberia's wars, but ultimately, for whatever reason, they decided to take it.

MSF was everywhere!

The Carter Centre UK/ERIS office. This security guard was a great guy. I talked to him everytime I walked to the Mamba Point.

This was the convent I stayed at.

Pictures: Round 1, Tubmanburg

2006-01-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry this picture is sideways. I can't figure out how to rotate it. In Tubmanburg, one of the Liberians I interviewed invited me to see his farm. To get there, we had to walk across this stick bridge for about a quarter-mile, so that we would not step on his crops.

This is Liberia. And a taxi. Yes, they were a little scary.

I saw these noodles being sold at a market in Tburg, and I had to take a picture. Each packet has maybe 5-7 noodles. It would take at least 10 packets to make a meal for one person, let alone a family.

Everyone needs credit for anything charitable...

Me in Tburg, from Pakistani Point.

View from Pakistani Point. This is Bomi County.

This is the daughter of the Dutch woman (and her Liberian husband) who took me to Tubmanburg, in Bomi from a weekend. The picture is taken in the courtyard of the mission where I stayed.

After mass in Tubmanburg, some of the children let me take their picture. A bunch of the kids in this picture are deaf.

"Mint" and Vegetables

2006-01-14T03:52:00.000-08:00

January 11-14, 2006

I just got a phone call from one of the Lebanese guys I interviewed a few days ago. He wanted to let me know that if I write an article about the conclusions of my research, he can get it published for me in one of the local newspapers here. Ah!

This morning I went to the supermarket and picked out a couple of rolls from the bakery. There were some croissant-like pastries in a corner. I asked the woman behind the counter what was inside the pastry. “Mint and vegetable,” she said. Yum, I thought. I took one back to the convent. I took a big bite of it and swallowed, and I remember thinking I couldn’t taste the mint. Hmm. In fact I couldn’t taste any vegetables. I pealed open the pastry and looked inside. About 3 seconds later it hit me. She had said “meat and vegetables.” You probably don’t want to know what happened next.

This afternoon I visited one of my Lebanese friends at his UNDP office. He shares an office with two great guys—a Zimbabwean and a Ghanaian. It seemed like an entertaining work environment. I was more than a little jealous. On the way out of the office, I met a Nigerian UNDP officer, and at the end of a brief conversation he said, “I hope someday you will come and work for this great organization.” He probably didn’t mean it, but that one line put me in a fabulous mood for the rest of the day. Afterwards, we went to the UN-run Humanitarian Information Center (HIC). HIC has an Internet café that NGOs can use, along with all different types of Liberia maps. It seemed like a really valuable resource center. I picked out a map I have wanted for a while. The map shows the distribution of the different nationalities of the UNMIL peacekeepers throughout the country.

At some point during the day I saw a water truck filling up a tank at the Egyptian embassy. A small girl, who could not have been older than 10, was trying to collect some of the water into her bucket that was dripping from the tube connecting the truck and the tank. This was one of the saddest things I have seen since I got here.

This afternoon I conducted an interview with a Liberian. It went ok, but there were definitely some communication issues.

Later, I went to dinner at the apartment of a woman, I’ll call her Patricia, who works for USAID. Inside Patricia’s apartment, I could hardly believe I was in Liberia. It was very luxurious and beautifully decorated. Our mutual friend, the Pakistani UNMIL commander I went out to dinner with the other night, had cooked us dinner—a Pakistani vegetarian meal. So good. Lots of interesting conversations. Patricia has worked for seven years in Somalia, and several years in Haiti, and Eritrea.

I was planning on going to the embassy after dinner, but I didn’t get home until late so one of my Lebanese friends picked me up and we met up with some people at Agenda, the bar on the ocean.

I’m going to backtrack a bit now. Wednesday was not very exciting, and doesn’t even merit its own blog entry. At night, however, one of my Lebanese friends took me out to a sushi restaurant. The vegetable sushi was amazing…carrot and onion salad with peanut sauce…I love food. I met the niece of Gyude Bryant too.

On Wednesday afternoon, however, I had a little drama. I’ve been doing a few odd jobs for The Carter Center while I’m here, and I had to meet someone at an Internet café. According to a Monrovia street map I printed out a few months ago, the Internet café was only a few blocks from my convent. I was in a good mood, and decided that I could walk there alone. Big mistake. I got very lost. I started going up to women on the street and asking for directions, and they kept pointing me in different directions. At one point, the street was too narrow and full of cars for me to walk on it. I moved onto the sidewalk. Ahead of me, I saw a group of about 20 teenage guys wearing white t-shirts. I forget if the shirts said USAID, but some organization was paying them to clean up the streets. This has been more and more common as the inauguration approaches. Usually the guys (and sometimes girls) are given brooms. This group, however, had been armed with machetes to help them clear the brush that had grown onto the sidewalks and between the cement cracks. I took a deep breath, made eye contact with no one, and started to walk through the crowd. The guys moved away, giving me just barely enough room to walk through. One guy started banging the end of his machete against the ground, and soon the rest of them joined in, laughing. They started shouting at me, as they continued to tap their machetes on the cement. Ugh, it was the worst 15 seconds of my week. I’m sorry, but international organizations should not be loaning out machetes. When I got through the crowd I approached a guy working in a goldsmith shop and, without me even asking, he “carried” me to the Internet café. (This is my favorite Liberian word. “Carry” means anything from “take” to “accompany” to “walk.”)

Some other Liberian phrases. “Chop chop.” As in “Gimme chop chop.” This is how beggars ask for food. “Gimme small small” means they want some money. One of the Lebanese guys I interviewed recently was born in Liberia and lived here for almost his entire life. Only recently, when he met his American girlfriend, did he start to learn American/British English. Before, he only spoke Liberian English. I asked him what made American English different from Liberian English. They sound completely different, but I hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what is different. As bad as his answer may sound, it’s actually pretty accurate. He said, “Liberian English is lazy English.” For example, instead of saying “What did you say?” a Liberian would say “Waiyuhsay?” But there is something more to Liberian English. I think the grammar is different.

Yesterday (Thursday) I interviewed the owner of the pizzeria I frequent. He was so cool, and he talked to me for about 3 hours. And he sent me home with a falafel sandwich. I took a taxi back to the convent (so much for “I’m never taking a taxi again”).

At night I interviewed one of my Lebanese friends at the Mamba Point. Another Lebanese guy and an American woman working for USAID met up with us afterwards for drinks.

Have I mentioned yet that most people here have curfews? UN employees have a midnight curfew. I think the curfew for European Union employees is 1 am. Most embassy employees have a 1 am curfew as well. In fact, after midnight, the UN employs people to go around to popular bars and look for any UN staff violating curfew. So people tend to obey the rules. I’ve only met two people who frequently break curfew. This is yet another reason why I love Liberia. I’m always asleep by 1.

One more thing. I found the source of my cockroach problem: my cough medicine! It’s cherry flavored, and has a very strong smell. I hate medicine so much, and now I have yet another reason to despise it. Anyways, I keep the cough syrup in a ziplock bag, and a cockroach somehow made it into the bag. I re-zipped the bag, and I intend on suffocating the cockroach to death.

I’m of to the Mamba Point to use the Internet now. I hope some interesting people have already arrived for the inauguration. I’m getting dressed up just in case there is a particularly appealing business card exchange moment. Later I’m going to the beach with a few of my Lebanese friends for the afternoon, and afterwards the embassy is hosting a happy hour that I’ll go to for a bit, if only to say goodbye to some people.

My flight leaves tomorrow night. This time my flight to Brussels may be stopping in Dakar, Senegal, instead of Freetown. That would be exciting. I get into Atlanta Monday afternoon.

This will probably be my last post in Liberia, thanks so much for reading and posting comments! I will continue to update the blog with pictures when I get back to Atlanta.

Baby Deer and Missing Clothes

2006-01-12T10:37:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2006

This morning I went to my favorite restaurant here, the Plaza, with two of the marines. Liberia is getting very busy with people coming in for the inauguration, which is on Monday. Because the Plaza is located across from the UN DDRR building, lots of interesting people kept coming in and out of the restaurant. US Secret Service, Swedish UNMIL troops, etc. One Liberian came in with a baby deer. He walked around the restaurant trying to sell it to people until he was kicked out. As we drove away from the restaurant, I saw an Irish guy carrying the deer, which he had apparently bought. What can you do with a baby deer? Deer meat is popular here, but do people really eat baby deer? (Not to worry, I got a picture of all this. I’ll post it when I get back.)

So while we were eating brunch a Liberian guy came up to our table and introduced himself to the two marines. The Liberian did not even look at me. He didn’t shake my hand or anything. When he left, we laughed about it, but I was furious. He must have heard us talking about him, because he came back a few minutes later and apologized for not introducing himself to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t shake your hand earlier,” he said confidently, “But your friend here didn’t introduce you.” He motioned to the marine sitting next to me. This was a weird incident, but I think it speaks to a couple of trends in Liberia. First, Liberians are very concerned about status. This Liberian guy probably just wanted to be seen shaking hands with marines. The marines said that happens a lot. Also, women have very little public role in Liberia. Sometimes I forget that because I have been hanging out with a lot of ex-pats. But it’s probably true for the Lebanese as well. I haven’t met a single Lebanese woman since I have been here, and this is mostly because Lebanese women tend to stay at home.

When I had finished eating I walked right up to the Lebanese manager of the restaurant and asked if I could interview him later this week. (I’m getting very good at this!)

After brunch I got dropped off at a cell phone company office where I interviewed the Lebanese man who I had met in Tubmanburg. Immediately following that interview, I interviewed another Lebanese who works at a near by supermarket. (So productive! I know!)

I went back to my convent and a little later one of my Lebanese friends picked me up and we went to the Royal Hotel restaurant to use the wireless Internet there. The Royal is, of course, owned by Lebanese. I didn’t see the hotel, but the restaurant was large and very antique-looking. We ordered some moutabal (mmmm) and wrote emails for a while. A little later we met two American women who are in Liberia filming a documentary on the role of women in Liberia’s civil society. I was going to accompany them on their shoot today (Jan. 11), but it was pouring this morning and I didn’t want to have to take a taxi in the rain to meet up with them. We stayed at the Royal for the rest of the night….mingling and meeting interesting people. At one point later at night the generator went off and a table of Swedish UNMIL peacekeepers started singing Jingle Bells. That was a little weird. Later I met another Lebanese guy and interviewed him on the spot. (Three interviews in one day! This is a record.)

And on a completely unrelated note, I am running out of clothes. I didn’t bring that many clothes here to begin with, so I have one of the guys who works at the convent wash my clothes fairly frequently. Every time I get back a load of clean clothes, I am always missing a shirt or pants or something else. My clothes are hung dry outside, and I think some people have just been taking things they like off the clothesline. I haven’t been able to find a place to buy new clothes here. Some shacks in markets sell second-hand clothes donated from the states, but I can’t bring myself to buy them.

Tubmanburg

2006-01-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

January 7-9, 2006

On Friday I received a phone call from Dutch woman, I’ll call her Jane, who I met at the dinner with priests and nuns a while ago (recall blog entry “Priests and Nuns Rock”). She asked if I wanted to visit Tubmanburg, in northern Bomi County for the weekend. Of course I accepted. I cancelled my weekend plans, packed, and on Saturday I took a taxi with her and her daughter to Tubmanburg. The ride was about 2 hours long. The road from Monrovia to Tubmanburg was in great condition, but there were lots of UNMIL checkpoints that slowed us down. Also, once we actually got to Tubmanburg (which is technically a city, but it’s more like a large village), the roads were terrible—almost all rock and sand. We couldn’t go faster than 5 or 10 mph.

Jane works at a Catholic mission in Tubmanburg. She has been setting up a technical school that will open in a few months. The school will offer computer software classes, sewing classes, soap making classes, and carpentry training. For the weekend, I hung out with Jane and a woman who I’ll call Lauren (I’m running out of generic pseudonym names…have I already used Lauren?). Lauren is a Scottish doctor who is in Tubmanburg for the year to set up a clinic. Jane and Lauren are probably in their 30s, and are almost unbelievably energetic, funny, and laid back. They drink Liberian water (although they don’t really have a choice, as there are no places to buy bottled water in Tubmanburg) and eat fruits and vegetables sold on the street—both of these are big “don’ts” according to my travel clinic doctor. But I decided to adapt to the culture. The water tasted fine, as did the okra, tomatoes, and potatoes, mmm. And I haven’t gotten sick yet.

And one quick comment on taxis. As I mentioned in an earlier post, taxis are “unsafe” here. UNMIL and US embassy folk, for example, aren’t allowed to use them. I always thought this was because taxi drivers didn’t drive safely, or that there was some danger of being abducted. (Nobody ever explicitly told me these things, I just made them up in my head.) Jane told me taxis are unsafe because they use second-hand tires from the US and Europe—tires that didn’t pass inspection in developed countries, for example. Tire blowouts are frequent, especially because the roads are so bad here. Apparently if a car is going fast, a tire blowout means that the car could spin off the road. Now that I know this, I am terrified of taxis. I don’t plan on ever taking them again.

Anyways, the ride to Tubmanburg was beautiful. I now know why everything outside Monrovia is called “the bush.” It’s all dense shrubbery and palm trees, with some rubber trees and small villages in between. Highlights of the road trip: One car had a live goat standing on top of it. The car was going about 40 miles per hour. A few minutes later I saw a small packed bus with people lying on top of it. This bus was also going fairly quickly.

So I got a quick tour around the “compound.” (I’m reluctant to call it a compound because it is surrounded by a relatively low wire fence. I wouldn’t have trouble climbing over it. Nor would a guy with a kalashnikov (sp?) or a machete.) The compound has a church, an elementary and junior high and high school, a school for deaf children, and lodging for the priests and staff. Deafness is common in Liberia for a number of reasons. Often, for example, a child will be diagnosed with malaria and given chloroquine (sp?) as a treatment. If the first does doesn’t work, they will be given more doses. Apparently enough chloroquine can cause deafness. Also, a condition where a baby is not given enough oxygen at birth can cause deafness.

The compound did not have running water. This was not fun. I have running water at my compound in Monrovia, and despite the fact that my shower is freezing cold and lurching, I love having running water. I compulsively wash my hands here, and I learned this weekend that this becomes very time consuming without running water. Washing my hair with a bucket of water also takes a while. The priests turn on the generator from 7pm to 10pm. Because of the water and power issue, Jane and Lauren have developed very creative cooking methods. For dinner we had “pizza,” which involved toasting Lebanese bread on a frying pan and pouring tomato sauce on it. (No cheese here, it wouldn’t stay cold.) We also had sangria, coffee, tea, nuts, and watermelon. This was easily the best meal I have eaten in Liberia yet. Following dinner, we sat outside on wicker chairs by the candlelight and talked about Liberia.

On Sunday morning we went to mass. There were hundreds of people attending. The women wore colorful outfits with bright head scarves. Most children wore second-hand clothes from Europe and the States. Lots of Nike shirts, which was really disconcerting, and a few Patriots jerseys. I’ve seen a lot of Boston t-shirts hear. I take this to mean that Massachusetts residents are disproportionately generous that other Americans. J The mass was quite long—a little over 2 hours—but it was very entertaining. Children would periodically line up along the aisle are dance down to the front of the church while a choir sang Gola songs and others drummed. (Most people in Tubmanburg are from the Gola ethnic group. They speak a Gola language, but most also speak Liberian English.) The priest is British, but speaks some Gola. He alternated between both languages. Toward the end of the service there was a group baptism for about 10 babies.

One more comment on mass: the sermon was about how Catholics should love Jews.

After mass I accompanied Jane and Lauren to lunch with the priests. The fried plantains and rice were very tasty. The bush meat in the bowl next to me, however, made me want to vomit. (That reminds me…A Lebanese friend made an amusing comment today. “Liberians will eat almost anything that moves. ‘Da bushmeat-o,’ that’s what they call any animal they want to eat.”)

Following lunch Jane and Lauren took me up to Pakistani Point. I should note that Tubmanburg is completely controlled by Pakistani UNMIL peacekeepers. The Pakistanis were everywhere. Almost every bridge we passed said something like “This bridge was engineered by Pakistanis to further the Liberian-Pakistani friendship.” Pakistani Point is a peak on a small hill that provides a panoramic view of Bomi County. I predict that Pakistani Point is going to tourist destination in ten years. I’m not going to try describe the view—I’ll try to post pictures later. I met a Lebanese guy who was visiting the Point and he offered us some beer. We sat at the top of the peak for an hour just drinking and talking.

I got up really early on Monday so that I could catch a ride back to Monrovia with some of the priests who were heading into the city. We listened to a BBC segment on the whole Ariel Sharon ordeal, and it was interesting to listen to the priests talk about the Middle East and the effects Sharon’s stroke may have on the peace process.

So I got back to my convent and went to the Mamba Point to check my email for a bit. When I got back, the generator still wasn’t on, which was weird. Apparently the generator is going to be down for the next day or two. That should be fun.

Later one of the marines called to tell me that the embassy was opening up the bar for happy hour. I took a shower by candlelight, knocking over the candle approximately 7 times. Fortunately the water put it out immediately. I’m really bad with fire. I couldn’t get a ride to the embassy, so one of the marines came by with the Land Cruiser to pick me up, which was very nice.

A very interesting crowd of people was at the embassy. There were a lot of US secret service, but they could never tell me what they were doing. I went up to one really buff guy, for example, and started talking to him about Liberia. I asked what he was doing in Monrovia. “I’m with Save the Children,” he said, smiling. “Really?!” I responded, “That’s great! What type of work do you do?” He told me he hands out candy and diapers.

Ann Curry (sp?) from NBC (and her whole crew) was also there. I don’t watch news on TV, so I didn’t recognize her, but apparently she is well known. Anyways, I had lots of odd conversations last night.

January 6, 2006

Today was the last day that the son of the Mamba Point manager was staying in Liberia. We went out to lunch at the Mamba Point and then his dad came souvenir (sp?) shopping with us to help us bargain down some prices.

I conducted two interviews with Lebanese today! Sometimes I’m so productive. Both people I interviewed insisted on buying me meals, so I essentially had two dinners in a row.

Two of my Lebanese friends took me to a cute little bar tonight. The bar was right on the ocean. We didn’t get back until late, so I had them come upstairs and kill some of the more obvious cockroaches in my room. (Just for you Lisa, I named one of them Ernie. Thanks for the suggestion!)

Returning from the Bush

2006-01-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

First picture, Monrovia, notice what the cars are doing.

Second picture, me and one of My Lebanese friends on New Years at the Mamba Point.

Sorry I haven't updated the blog in a few days. On Friday I got invited to go to Tubmanburg, in Bomi County, for the weekend. Lots of stories, but unfortunately I haven't had time to write them down yet. I'll post again soon.

But briefly, a lot as been going on in Monrovia and as people are preparing for the inauguration on Monday, a week from today. For example, a group of widows of Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) fighters are demanding compensation (about 20,000 Liberian dollars, or $400 US) that the transitional government promised them. The women are afraid that when Ellen is inaugurated the promise will no longer be valid. So on Thursday or Friday, I forget, these women created road blocks around the city, effectively bringing Monrovia to a standstill. One of my Pakistani friends who is an UNMIL peacekeeper called me at one point to tell me that people had started throwing rocks in one part of the city, although I'm not sure if that really happened. Ellen requested that the women negotiate this week, and as I understand it, they agreed to lift the roadblocks. I have heard lots of stories of people who were stuck in 3 or more hours of traffic. Fortunately, the day this happened, I was hanging out with one of my Lebanese friends who works for UNDP. He had his radio, so we could figure out which roads were ok to travel on.

But I have lots of Tubmanburg stories. I will post again soon.

On Cockroaches and Generators

2006-01-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

January 5/6, 2006

This afternoon the American woman who works at the YMCA (from now on I’ll call her Rebecca) took me out to lunch. We went to Diana’s, a small but cute Lebanese restaurant. Traffic was an absolute nightmare. The restaurant is a five or ten minute walk from my compound, but the drive took us about 25 minutes. At lunch Rebecca gave me a copy of the Rice Committee Report that I have been trying to get for the past week, unsuccessfully.

Rice is a political good in Liberia. Liberians survive on it. For political reasons, almost all politicians in recent memory have enforced a price ceiling on rice. As a result, there is a fair amount of black market rice importing. During the recent presidential campaign, Gyude Bryant, the chairman of the National Transitional Government of Liberia, asked Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to chair a committee to analyze how the price of rice could be reduced. Some people suspect Bryant asked Sirleaf to take on this task because he thought it would distract her from campaigning. In fact, Sirleaf wrote a very comprehensive report that was published in one of the prominent daily newspapers here over a period of four days in March and April. In the end, it probably helped her campaign. Anyways, I am interested in rice because the Lebanese have a monopoly on importing it.

There is a club a couple of blocks from my convent called The Village. The Village terrifies me. I have driven by it at night and there are always huge crowds of people around the entrance. Everyone seems drunk, and people often throw glass beer bottles on the ground for kicks. There never seems to be any police presence. But I still wanted to see the inside of the club, so today one of my Liberian friends took me there in the middle of the afternoon. We met up with his brother, who works at the club (yet has a degree in philosophy from a university in Guinea…he can’t find any other work), and drank some Liberian beer (eww).

Later I went out to dinner with a Pakistani UNMIL commander. We went to Beirut, yet another Lebanese restaurant. (And oddly, I’m not sick of Lebanese food yet.) I got picked up in a UN SUV, which was fun. The commander has been in Liberia for a while and has been stationed mostly outside of Monrovia, so he had lots of insights on the Lebanese community near Sierra Leone and Guinea.

After dinner I went to the Mamba Point for some drinks with two of my Lebanese friends. These two guys are lots of fun and they are both very well connected. For example, the other day I told one of them I would be taking a taxi to get to the Lebanese embassy for my interview with the ambassador. He insisted that taxis were not safe and tried to convince me to let him drive me to the embassy. I felt bad asking him to take off work just to drive me somewhere, so I refused to tell him what time my interview was at. As I was leaving the embassy after my interview I got a text message from this Lebanese friend. It said something to the effect of: “So your appointment was at noon, but you got there at 10 and he agreed to see you early. I’m impressed.” I have no idea how he figured this out so quickly. The only people I saw were the ambassador himself, and the secretary.

Around 4:00 am this morning (January 6) I woke up to a clicking sound. It was coming from a pile of supermarket plastic bags that I keep in the corner of my room. I reached for my flashlight and shined it on the bags, but I couldn’t see anything. It must be the humidity, I thought. Maybe the bags were getting compressed, or something like that (I never took physics…). Nonetheless, I stared at the bags for about 10 minutes. Finally, I saw a cockroach scurry across the floor. Ugh. I was tired. But there was no way I was going to fall back to sleep knowing there was a cockroach in the room. I reached for my book, my keys, and my shoes. I got off the bed and saw two smaller cockroaches scurry across the floor. For a good three or four minutes I thought I might be dreaming. The malaria medication I am taking gives me weird dreams, but usually only on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I took a couple of deep breaths, closed my eyes, and opened them again. And then I saw another cockroach. I wasn’t dreaming. I ran out the door and into a small room with chairs and a couch, and I saw another cockroach! I went downstairs and read by flashlight for about four and a half hours. Two minutes after the supermarket opened I had purchased some strong insect killer chemical spray. My room now smells worse than Deet. I don’t even want to know how carcinogenic the spray is. (Fortunately, the spray’s label is in Arabic so I can’t read the warnings.) I’m going to find some place else to sleep tonight.

Did I mention I still have not had a single cup of coffee or any other caffeinated (sp?) beverage since I got to Liberia? Sometimes I impress myself.

January 4, 2006

I’m still sick, so today wasn’t much fun. I went food shopping, then to the Mamba Point to use the Internet. Thanks for all of your emails!

Tonight I spent a while talking to one of the girls who lives at the convent, I’ll call her Julia. I had always thought she was the daughter of the owner, but it turns out her real parents abandoned her when she was much younger. In exchange for helping to clean the convent on Saturday, she is on a scholarship to attend school here. Julia is in seventh grade, but seems a lot older. She has lived under several foster parents, some better than others, and spent time living on the street. Despite surgery that removed a bullet from her back (she was caught in crossfire), Julia still has a remnant of the bullet in her back that has been causing her problems with her feet. Her story is amazing, and she is the first Liberian here who has really gotten under my skin, in a good way. This is partly because she speaks very good American/British English and I can understand her perfectly. This makes me feel a little guilty. I am much more inclined to try to help her than some of the other children I have met, partly because she speaks my language. So, almost inherently, I am biased against children who are less educated. I’m not sure what the solution to this is.

I’m going to try to have her podcast (sp?) her story later this week with my tape recorder. I think her story highlights the effects of school fees on the livelihoods of girls her age. She told me stories about many of her friends who attend school at the convent compound who prostitute themselves to afford the fees.

And now for some random fun facts. First fun fact: Currently, Kofi Annan, Oprah, Laura Bush, and over 20 African heads of states are scheduled to attend Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s inauguration on January 16. It is rumored that Condoleeza Rice may come for the day as well. (Did you know Condoleeza Rice spent a couple of years during her childhood living with an aunt in Liberia?) Second unrelated fun fact: It costs $360,000 (US) to operate a generator 24 hours a day for a year for a compound the size of my convent’s compound. Think about all of the money that could be saved if Monrovia had a functional electricity grid.

A Day with the Ambassador

2006-01-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

January 3, 2006

Really weird and exciting day. This morning I had an interview with the Lebanese Ambassador to Liberia. Our interview was scheduled for noon, but because I had no sense of how long it would take me to get to the embassy I left really early. Fist, a little about taxis.

Everyone I’ve met here has told me not to take taxis. Apparently they are not safe. In fact, all UN personnel—civilian and military—are forbidden from using taxis. But, for a number of reasons, I had no other way to get to the embassy today. So I hailed a taxi, which took about 30 seconds. My taxi driver was a nice Liberian and a safe driver. When we got to the embassy I asked the driver how much I owed him. “What do you want to give me?” he asked. I gave him US $2. Given his huge smile, I’m fairly sure I overpaid him, but I didn’t care. I feel I’m not making enough investment in Liberians while I am here because I am always shopping at Lebanese supermarkets and going out to eat at Lebanese restaurants.

So I arrived at the embassy at 10am, two hours before my scheduled interview. I was planning on just sitting in the waiting room and reading, but I was told the ambassador could see me immediately. The ambassador came into the waiting room 3 minutes after I arrived and took me outside to the back of the embassy to show me around. He then took me back into his office, where his Liberian staff (hmm…) brought us coconut water in champagne glasses, Lebanese coffee in tiny espresso mugs, and apricot and coconut biscuits. We proceeded to talk about the Lebanese community in Liberia for over 3 hours, and at the end of the interview he offered me a follow-up interview for next week. I have lots of stories to tell about the interview, but unfortunately they probably shouldn’t get posted on a public blog. Suffice to say, the ambassador is quite diplomatic, very talkative, and a philosopher at heart. When I was about to leave he insisted that his driver bring me back to my convent in his personal black Mercedes. For ethical reasons, I definitely shouldn’t have accepted this, but everything happened so quickly, and he wouldn’t accept my refusals. Oh well.

This afternoon John came over to the convent and we talked about the interview. John is kind of like my debriefing buddy. I tell him everything that happens to me here, and he explains and interprets everything in the context of Liberia. It has been extremely helpful to have such a good friend who is a Liberian.

Later I went over the marines’ house at the US Embassy and watched a couple of movies with the marines. I came back from the Embassy around 1, and the generator had already been turned off. But my flashlight immediately noticed a maroon-colored cockroach in the bathroom. I successfully cupped it with the fruit can safe, slid a magazine underneath it, and dumped it in the hall outside. I was very proud of myself. Cockroaches are scary.

And as of today I’m sick. Ugh. It was pretty inevitable, though, given my bread, hummus, and bread diet here.

January 2, 2006

This morning one of my Lebanese friends took me to an amazing Lebanese restaurant across from the UN headquarters. Lebanese food is so good.

We then went to Silver Beach, which I recently learned is the only beach that the Swedish UNMIL peacekeepers are allowed to swim at. All of the other beaches are apparently too polluted. Silver Beach is probably polluted as well, but it looks clean! The water here is so warm. I swam for a few hours while my Lebanese friends surfed. When I got out of the water I saw lots of people I knew, including some people from the US Embassy, USAID, and the UN. It was absurd. Silver Beach is definitely the expat beach of choice.

As it got later, I began to notice some weird things. First, the beach next to Silver Beach was getting incredibly crowded, while Silver Beach was still relatively empty. (Beaches here are smaller than the public beaches you see in the US, and usually owned by a restaurant. Each beach will have a couple of tiki huts with tables and chairs.) I asked one of my friends to explain what was happening. Apparently the prices at Silver Beach are high enough to ward off most Liberians from coming to the beach. But it certainly is not that expensive by Western standards. So while there were hundreds of Liberians across the bamboo fence crowding the neighboring beach, our beach had maybe 60 or so people. Most of them Westerners.

A few hours later I heard some barking and looking down the shore. A man had a very large, scary, and aggressive dog on a leash, and was using the dog to scare Liberians who had drifted onto Silver Beach back onto their beach. I saw a few children scream and run back to the other beach. It was awful. I found out later the man with the dog was the owner of Silver Beach.

So around dusk we started to drive back into Monrovia. I was sitting shotgun, with my arm hanging out the window, while we listened to some Enrique Iglesias. I was people watching and enjoying the ride, when a jogger bolted in front of our car, and we hit him, going about 10 miles per hour. The jogger, who was probably my age, kept running. We were all speechless and in shock. All of the sudden my Lebanese friend who was driving told me to move my arm. “What?” I said. “Move your arm now,” he yelled. Confused, I brought my arm back inside the car and he shut my window. Right after the window closed, the jogger ran right past me. My Lebanese friend explained that it was all a ploy. The jogger had purposely hit our car to distract me. I had my purse on my lap, and he was planning on jogging around our car and then reaching in the window and grabbing my purse.

I think this incident speaks to two important trends. First, the poverty here is so bad that people are willing to get hit by cars for a few bucks. Second, the Lebanese community is very street smart. One of the reasons they have become so successful with their business endeavors in this country is because they know so much about Liberia. It only took my Lebanese friend a few seconds after he hit the jogger to realize that something wasn’t right.

Later I met a different Lebanese at the Mamba Point for dinner, had a security guard walk me home, and fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to get some water and saw a medium-sized cockroach on the wall. I pointed my flashlight at it, and it scurried up the wall. Reluctantly I picked up the fruit can safe. (Beatrice wasn’t under it! She must have escaped. Or decomposed to the point that she was invisible.) I tried unsuccessfully to cup the cockroach. I was so tired I quickly gave up, and miraculously fell asleep. I don’t even think I dreamt about the cockroach.

Food for the Holidays

2006-01-02T12:37:00.000-08:00

I have lots of funny stories from today, but no time to write about them now. I'll post again tomorrow or Wednesady.

January 1, 2006

This morning I conducted an interview with a Liberian, but it didn’t go very well. Not sure why.

I slept for most of the day and woke up starving. I have no food in my room, so I walked to the supermarket. It was closed. I called one of my Lebanese friends and was planning on asking him if he could bring me over some pita bread or something to eat, but we ended up going out to dinner at the Ocean View Hotel.

Over dinner I explained my situation and admitted that I had not eaten anything all day. My friend told me that supermarkets are closed tomorrow as well, but offered to have one his Lebanese friends open up the supermarket for me. That’s the Lebanese here! They are so hospitable.
Sorry, not a very exciting day…

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T03:55:00.000-08:00

This is a long post...I won't be offended if you don't want to read the whole thing!

December 31, 2005

The U.S. Embassy marines invited me over to their house this morning and we played pool for an hour or so, and then went to the beach. I went in the water for the first time here and it was so warm! Not wanting to embarrass myself by attempting to surf, I boogie boarded while the marines surfed.

Dan (the visiting son of the Lebanese manager of the Mamba Point) had invited me to a party at the Mamba Point for New Years. That was quite an experience. There were lots of Lebanese there and I made lots of good connections for my research. Dan’s father, probably thinking that he had found his son a nice American girl, had the bartender open up a nice bottle of French red wine for me. The food was amazing. Vegan samosas, grape leaves, hummus, roasted potatoes, mmm… Later in the night we went upstairs to the casino where they had a South African band playing some eclectic music. It was a fun night, but this morning (Jan. 1) I got four calls between 7:30 and 7:50am from some of the security guards who I had reluctantly given my number. Arrrrr. I couldn’t fall back to sleep, so at 8:00am I had one of the Mamba Point security guards (approximate age: 40) walk me back to the convent. During this walk he professed his love for me. I pretended I couldn’t understand what he was saying and abruptly changed the subject.

December 30, 2005

Every Friday night the U.S. Embassy hosts a movie night. I never have anything to do at night, so I thought I would try it out. I went through lots of security and was sent behind the embassy to the house where the marines live. The lower level of the house had a full bar, and a pool table, and a small room with couches and a movie screen. I mingled for a bit, then went into the movie theatre. Three minutes later I decided I would hate myself if I missed such an easy networking opportunity, and I went back to the bar. Someone bought me a gin and tonic, I picked out a well-placed bar stool, and had a fabulous night. I met American military observers working with UNMIL, marines, people from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), UN Development Program (UNDP), a guy who was training the new Liberian military, State Department people, and some high-ranking Pakistanis with UNMIL. I mention that Pakistanis because I have been so impressed with them. The Pakistanis I have met, along with the Bangladeshis and Irish, are funny, professional, kind, and fascinating.

For this first time, I felt like people were interested in my research project. I got lots of business cards and promises to help me further with my research. The UNDP guy drove me back to the convent (This was quite a relief. I was more than a little worried about how I would get back so late at night).

This morning I conducted my third interview (slow but steady…) and then left for the Mamba Point, where I met Dan and we left for Firestone. On my walk to the Mamba Point two of the security guards I pass thought it would be completely appropriate to ask for my number. They are in there 40s. So much for friendliness. I have received six phone calls this afternoon from two unknown numbers. Hmm… Maybe I’ll find another way to get to the Mamba Point.

A little on Firestone. The Ohio-based Firestone Company arrived in Liberia in 1926, when the country was being governed by an inept oligarchy of Americo-Liberians. In the early 1920s Liberia was in significant debt, and French troops were eyeing Monrovia and the hinterland with the evident goal of adding the territory to its colonial possessions. Given these circumstances, the government was hungry for international investment and quickly agreed to a 99 year lease with Firestone for one million acres of land. The agreement also gave the Liberian government substantial royalties. This effectively strengthened the executive branch, as it no longer had to rely on the legislative branch to approve taxes for its revenue. Firestone has had an enormous political impact on Liberia. Lately, Firestone has been under the spotlight for its poor working conditions and low wages. In fact one of the prominent daily newspapers here recently ran a two-part series on working conditions at the rubber plants.

The drive to Firestone took about two hours. It was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn’t believe I was still in Liberia. Once you get outside of the city and its suburbs everything is green, dense, forests of palm trees and other trees that have names that are harder to remember than palm. The small two-lane road was paved and (gasp!) had a line down the middle of it! This was shocking. Just when I would think we were in the middle of nowhere, though, I would see a woman walking up the road with a huge basket full or clothes or food on her head. These women must have been walking for miles, as we hadn’t passed any stores or shacks in miles.

I was under the impression that we would be hiking through plantations and seeing the living quarters of the workers, so I wore sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, sunglasses, put my hair up etc. Dan had a different idea. We went to the Firestone Staff Club. Like the Anchor Club, this club was an attempt to be a country club. There was a large golf course, two run-down tennis courts, and a restaurant. We walked around the golf course for a while taking pictures of the rubber trees and the small pots collected rubber at their bases. At the third or fourth hole we saw an overweight American man playing golf by himself, with a Liberian caddy. This is exactly how I imagined a Firestone executive.

We ate lunch (which meant, for me, a cinnamon roll) and then, in our air-conditioned car, drove through the village surrounding the plantations. Most of the people in the village were Firestone employees. With few exceptions, the huts and shacks were in worse condition than those I see in Monrovia. There was a large crowded playground, probably built by Firestone, and a hospital, which is also probably operated by Firestone.

When we got back to the hotel I checked my email and the Lebanese Ambassador to Liberia had agreed to let me interview him! So excited. I’m glad I brought my suit.

December 29, 2005

My walk to the Mamba Point is always an adventure. Next time I’m going to bring my tape recorder and see if I can catch any of the good stuff. This morning a Honda with tinted windows slowed down as it drove up behind me. A guy rolled down the passenger window and started talking to me, although fortunately I couldn’t understand him. He drove behind me, at the same pace I was walking, for about 3 minutes. That was fun. Fortunately I have befriended a lot of people on my walk to the Mamba Point, including the security guard who guards the house of the chairman of the transitional government, Gyude Bryant, the security guards at The Carter Center’s office, the security guard for Mercy Corps, etc. I approached the Mercy Corps guard, starting talking, and the Honda drove away.

At the hotel I saw the son of the Lebanese businessman who I met the other day, I’ll call him Dan. Over lunch I mentioned that I was trying to get out of Monrovia (this is my new habit, tell everyone I want to get out of Monrovia and see if something sticks). So tomorrow Dan and I are going to the Firestone rubber plantations! Dan’s dad has a car (with a driver…more on this issue in a future posting) that we can take up to the plantations.

This evening I went out to dinner with an American family. We went to the Krystal Hotel, which is one of the nicer hotels in Monrovia. Despite a five-page menu, all I could eat was rice. But dinner was lots of fun. The parents are former Peace Corps volunteers from the 1970s and have worked for a variety of organizations in Liberia since then. They had lots of stories and insights into the Lebanese community. For example, they argued that one reason Liberia is in such a poor economic state is because of the culture of sharing. When one Liberian makes a salary, he is obliged to share this wealth with his extended family, until there is nothing left, rather than invest this money in a new business. Right now, however, there aren’t many other options, as this money is used for the immediate survival of the family. I thought this was an interesting perspective.

And a final random thought. I noticed today for the first time that on top of the cement wall surrounding my compound, there are hundreds of tiny pieces of glass. These pieces of glass are about 2 inches tall, and are glued vertically. I learned last night that during the 2003 war militias climbed the tops of wall of the compound and looted many of the nuns’ possessions. The glass is probably an effort to prevent this from happening again.

Priests and Nuns Rock

2005-12-29T03:18:00.000-08:00

December 28, 2005

I finally found a place to buy Liberian newspapers. Newspapers here aren’t sold in shops; rather men walk around selling them. So you kind of have to track these guys down. I bought a couple of papers and spent the morning reading them.

Later I went to the US Embassy to register my cell phone number, in case of emergency. I should have done this 8 days ago, but I kept forgetting. I was treated royally. I got the feeling that the embassy doesn’t get many American visitors. After passing through security I was ushered into a small room for American citizens. There was another woman, I’ll call her Lauren, who was already in the room. We started chatting. Lauren was an African American, probably in her 40s. I asked her what she was doing in Liberia. She told me she was visiting her aunt, the president-elect. My mouth must have dropped because she started laughing. So we talked for a while about politics and her aunt, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, while she was waiting to see someone named John. (Back to that later.)

An American woman working at the embassy came out and joined our conversation. I mentioned that I had met a guy, I’ll call him Tom, on my flight to Freetown/Monrovia who was coming to work at the US embassy. She jumped up from her seat and hurried back into the office screaming, “Hey guys, there’s an American girl here to see Tom!” I wanted to die. “Someone get Tom to consular services!” She came back into the room and said, “You just raised his reputation around here a lot.”

While all of this is happening, and my face is turning bright red, a well-dressed older man walked into our small waiting room. Then it hit me. John Blaney. He is the former U.S. Ambassador to Liberia.

So that was my embassy adventure. Walking back to the convent there was a brawl in front of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Ministry’s lone security guard was sitting on a chair with one of his legs extended, his arms stretched above his head, yawning. I walked quicker.

During my dinner with the priests a few days ago I got invited to a Christmas dinner that took place tonight. The dinner was for the Archdiocese of Liberia (is that the correct word?). It was essentially 40 priests and nuns, and me. I took a picture of this, but I left the cord that connects my camera to my computer at Emory. So I’ll post it when I get back to Atlanta. I met priests and nuns who were Liberian, Bangladeshi, Indian, Ghanaian, British, American, Sri Lankan (sp?), and Irish. I was introduced as an “American university student doing research.” I liked this vague title. People can think I’m a doctoral student writing a book.

The only food I could eat was the pound cake (sometimes I feel like I’m on a Julie Barry-esque all-bread diet here), but I had lots of fascinating conversations. I sat across from two Irish UNMIL chaplains working at Camp Clara with the Rapid Response units. An hour into the meal, and a glass of Sangria later, I mustered up the courage to ask the question I had been waiting all evening to ask. I prefaced it with about 10 different versions of “If this isn’t possible I completely understand.” Finally I said, “I would like to get out of Montserrado before I leave Liberia. Do you think I could join UNMIL on a mission to another county sometime over the next two weeks?” He said he thought it was a definite possibility and is going to look into it for me. (I’m so glad I made business cards. :) )

After dinner, I started talking with two women—one Scottish and one Dutch. The Scottish woman was hilarious. She is a doctor, working in Bong County, just north of Montserrado, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF). While we were talking, the Scottish woman asked if I would like to visit Bong sometime. My eyes widened and she told me she would work something out.

December 27, 2005

I conducted my first interview with a Liberian this morning. It went pretty well, although I have a couple of bad habits. First, I ask too many close-ended questions. I have to re-work these questions so that I can get respondents to talk longer and tell stories. Also, I tend to ask too much in one question. In an effort to make sure that my questions are clear, I tend to add two or three more questions onto it, bewildering the respondents.

The Mamba Point was empty this afternoon. I was settling into my favorite couch with my laptop and a cold bottle of water when a Lebanese man came over to me and invited me to lunch with his family. Of course I accepted. His son was visiting from Lebanon and was interested in applying to the Fletcher School, so we had lots to talk about. This lunch was characteristic of my experiences with both Lebanese and Liberians. They are generous without restraint.

While I was eating lunch I realized that I have not met a single Lebanese woman. I have a couple of suspicions as to why this has been the case, but I’m going to ask around before I come to any conclusions.

Tonight I met a nun who is attending the nursing school within my compound. She was fascinating and very articulate. Unlike many of the other students at the school, she plans on working in Liberia after graduating. Physicians for Human Rights wrote a great report a year or two ago on the “brain drain” of nurses from Africa to Western Europe and the U.S. If I remember, I’ll put up a link here. The nun said she had the opportunity to go to nursing school in Europe, but decided to stay in Liberia. I asked her why, and she told me that in Liberia nurses are essentially trained to be doctors because they often work alone. She is going to try to hook me up with her friend with UNMIL so that I get the chance to safely travel outside of Montserrado county.

And I’m now going to return to listening to a really bad BBC special on Las Vegas. If I’m feeling particularly courageous in a bit, I may look under the fruit can safe to see if Beatrice has died yet.

Boxing Day etc.

2005-12-27T07:52:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2005

This evening I went out to dinner with four priests. One of the priests happened to be the acting Archbishop of Liberia. (The actual Archbishop is recovering from a stroke in Ireland.) Aside from the acting Archbishop, two of the other priests were Liberian, and the third was from Sierra Leone. The acting Archbishop picked me up at my convent and we went to the house of the Archbishop. Solar power, which was captured in a large battery in a shed in the yard, generated enough energy to run the lights and freezer and all other seemingly electronic devices in the house.

We then drove to Bushrod Island to pick up the other priests at the convent. At the convent I met a beautiful woman who was a nun in Sierra Leone. Since 1992 she has been living in a refugee camp in Liberia.

We drove a little farther to the Anchor Club for dinner. The Anchor Club is set about a mile back from the main road, off of narrow dirt roads with huge pot holes. For a while I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, but then there was an MSF clinic. MSF is everywhere! Anyways, the Anchor Club was an attempt at being a Liberian country club. It’s located on a very wide river that leads to the ocean, so it had a dock for boats. Within the club’s gates there was a “playground.” The playground had a swing set and two seesaws that were so rusty I would have been afraid to touch them. The seats of the seesaws were missing, so if I anyone had tried to use them they would have been forced to sit on a square, sharp, rusty frame. About six stray dogs slept underneath the swing set. Tetanus and Rabies. I couldn’t help think that this was a public health nightmare waiting to happen.

From the cars in the parking lot and the people at the restaurant I gathered that ordinary Liberians did not frequent this club. UN staff and Lebanese seemed to be the primary customers. We sat down for dinner on a floating dock-type contraption. Across the ocean we could see the outline of Hotel Africa, the large looted and abandoned hotel. Throughout dinner, periodically we heard a series of guns being shot. I relaxed somewhat after one of the priests explained that the UN Rapid Response units were just practicing.

Unfortunately the only thing I could eat on the menu was bread, but dinner was still very entertaining. The priests were hilarious. After I told them my interest was in nationality laws and the Lebanese community, they spent the rest of the evening telling me about the history of the Lebanese, stories about the Lebanese, and offering me more contacts within the Lebanese community.

We didn’t start driving back to the convent until around 10pm. The ride was a little shocking, as I had never been outside the convent this late before. People around my age were outside in huge numbers, crowding the streets. Some were drinking and then breaking the bottles of the ground. Huge crowds surrounded the entrances of clubs. Some were drinking on the backs of trucks watching cars drive over potholes. I saw a guy march quickly across the street right in front of our car. He grabbed a girl and pulled the back of her shirt violently. He then proceeded to haltingly shove her across the street in front of cars. She would stop walking and he would give her an aggressive push right below her neck and she would stumble forward. Two meters later I saw a sign that said, “Raped? Free Treatment Here.”

I feel compelled to admit that I am currently in the process of starving a spider to death. I found the spider, Beatrice, on the remote control for my air conditioner this morning. Beatrice is small, but chubby and frightening. My de facto reaction was to start spraying with Deet. I did this for a few seconds, but Beatrice was moving quickly. I knew I needed a new plan. I emptied the money from my safe that is meant to look like a container of canned fruit, and cupped Beatrice with the can. I am too afraid to relocated Beatrice outside, so I am just going to wait for her to die. I feel guilty about my actions, but my fear of chubby spiders like Beatrice overwhelms this guilt.

December 25, 2005

Today I had holiday brunch at the Mamba Point, and spend the rest of the afternoon at a beach north of Monrovia near the airport.

One of my Lebanese friends remained in Liberia during the 1990s and worked as a photographer, supplying pictures to major international news sources. I had the chance to look through some of his photos this afternoon, including lots of pictures that never would have been published in newspapers. Some descriptions of pictures I won’t forget:

A boy is lying on a street in Monrovia. I think he is dead. A guy is standing above the boy, holding something at the boy’s neck. At first I thought the guy was checking the boy’s pulse, but I was told he was holding a gun at the boy’s neck. Standing off to the side, a guy is dressed in a white wedding gown with a large gun slung over his shoulder.

A guy is sitting on a table. He is sitting straight up; his hands are grasping the edge of the table. The skin covering his face has been completely torn off so that the picture shows muscles etc. A few people are standing around looking panicked, but unable to figure out what to do.

A little boy, no more than 11 or 12 years old, is wearing a bright yellow shirt and a multi-colored skirt. He is wearing a woman’s wig. His left hand supports a gun that is resting on the ground. The gun is so tall for him that it comes up to the level of his ears.

A crowd of people are huddled around an injured guy. This picture is taken from far away, and the only thing that is clearly visible is the MSF logo on the back of a man’s t-shirt.

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah!

2005-12-25T01:44:00.000-08:00

December 24, 2005

I was sitting in my bed reading tonight when a cockroach resembling a bite-size Milky Way bar (but slightly longer) flew over my head. My headphones ripped out of my ears as I jumped out of bed and ran to the door. The door was locked. I located the cockroach on the ceiling, cautiously maneuvered my way to the key on my desk (picking up the 99.98% Deet on the way) and sprinted from the room. Once outside, I took a moment to compose myself. It rained this morning for a while, and there had been more bugs than usual out for the rest of the day. I took a deep breath and developed a plan of action. Slowly, I opened the door, armed with Deet. After locating the cockroach, who I will now refer to as Carl, I started spraying. Unfortunately, Carl seemed unperturbed. The spray bottle couldn’t spray far enough to reach him, and I wasn’t willing to get closer. Moving in slow motion, I gathered my 25% Deet spray bottle. I sprayed him for about 15 seconds. No result. I now noticed that Carl’s antennas were longer than his body. This scared me. If I didn’t get him before the generator was turned off, there was no way I would be going in my room for the rest of the night.

I went to my friend Joe’s room. Joe is a Sierra Leoneon who works with refugees through a European NGO called Caritas. He is staying at the convent while attending a peacekeeping workshop in Monrovia. Slightly embarrassed, I explained my situation, and Joe came over. He picked up a piece of wood from my room and in less than 60 seconds located and smashed Carl.

“Adventures with Carl” was the most exciting part of my day. My cough was really bad this morning and I reluctantly took some medicine that makes me tired and it knocked me out for about four hours. The generator ran out of fuel tonight and the lights didn’t come on until about 10:00 pm. The daughter of the owner of the convent is an adorable seven year-old, and we drew pictures together by candlelight for a few hours until the lights came on.

As I write this, I’m listening to the BBC World Service and my jazz professor was just interviewed for a segment on jazz holiday music. Yesterday, Yuri Dhizbladze, a human rights defender from Russia, talked on the BBC for a while about the proposed Russian law that would limit the work of NGOs in the country. Yuri came to The Carter Center this summer for the human rights defenders conference and I traveled to Washington DC with him. Three days ago, Suciwati, the widow of Indonesian human rights defender Munir who was poisoned on a plane going to Amsterdam, was on the BBC to comment on the conviction of a pilot over her husband’s murder. Suciwati was also at this summer’s conference and was part of the subsequent DC delegation. This is getting a little weird…

December 23, 2005

The gunshots I heard the other night might have been firecrackers. I learned today that firecrackers are popular during the holiday season. Every time I hear one I jump, but firecrackers are better than bullets.

My interviews for today were cancelled, so I went to the Mamba Point to munch on Lebanese bread and hummus and email myself some documents. I met a charismatic American businessman who has lived in Liberia for a while. I asked him where he was from.

“I’m from the country of Wyoming. We are going to put a fence around the border and declare Cheney our president. We have enough oil to make this a feasible plan.”

I smiled and nodded. He asked the question I was hoping he wouldn’t ask, but I answered honestly: “I’m from Massachusetts.” He started laughing, telling me that used to be “O’Neil Land.” (Yes, it took me a while to get that one too.)

A few minutes later I saw a Lebanese businessman who John had introduced me to a few days ago. We started talking and he asked if I wanted to go Christmas shopping with him, which of course I did. So we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. The rest of Monrovia also seemed to have decided that today would be a good day to go shopping. The streets and stores were packed.

Yesterday I thought it would be a nice gesture to buy a muffin for the security guard at the convent. I bought a half dozen at the supermarket so that I could have one for breakfast for the week as well. So upon returning from the supermarket, I gave the guard a muffin. There were several other men hanging out with him, and they all asked for a muffin. I handed out the rest of the muffins, and soon a group of men near the security guard post started walking quickly over to me to get a muffin. I sincerely apologized, holding up the empty bag, and walked up to my room. This type of scenario is common with children, but I had never experienced it with adult men. For me, this moment reinforced something I hadn’t completely realized earlier. Even those who have full-time jobs often can’t adequately feed themselves. From people I’ve talked to, I’ve gathered that the security guards get $1.40 (US) a day. Goods such as food are certainly cheaper here than in the US, but imagine trying to feed a large family, pay for housing, and pay school fees for children with $40 a month.

On a different note, I was reading a book on the porch of the convent this morning when a Liberian woman came up to me. She asked me if I was Catholic, and I told her I was Jewish. “Wow,” she said bluntly, just staring at my face, “You are the first Jew I have ever seen in real life.” Who would have thought a city the size of Monrovia could have less Jews than Reading?

Up until today, the 99.89% Deet spray bottle I bought from REI in Atlanta has rested comfortably, unused, on my desk. Its toxicity scares me. I would rather get malaria than Deet poisoning. (I’m also having trouble with my mosquito net. I can’t reach the ceiling to hang it up, so I end up wrapping it around my body before I go to sleep. I look like a fool, but it’s actually very comfortable. If I’m lucky, when I wake up the net is covering my feet. Usually it is has fallen onto the floor.) Anyways, today I saw a few ants in my room. I flipped out, sprayed them with the Deet, and they died quite rapidly. Now my room smells like Deet, so I’m going to go downstairs for a bit. Thanks for reading!

Interviews and Caffeine Withdrawal

2005-12-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

December 22, 2005

I conducted my first interview today! It was so much fun. I interviewed a prominent member of the Lebanese community. A couple of things surprised me. First, I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I would be asking certain questions. One of my questions is designed to figure out if Lebanese assets are transferable. If the Lebanese were expelled from Liberia, for example, would the Liberians acquire their wealth? Essentially, I am asking if the Lebanese keep most of their wealth abroad. My question, however, is not very well disguised. I’m going to have to figure out a new way of asking it. I’m also beginning to realize how difficult fact checking will be. Most of the factual information I am acquiring during interviews is not written down anywhere.

Today I also went to the Ministry of Immigration to register myself. The Ministry had few windows and was very dark. I gave a woman my passport and she ushered John and I upstairs to a small room. Both this room and the room downstairs were virtually empty. Each had a desk and a few chairs. There was nothing on the desks, no shelves, nothing else. The ministry had been looted several times during the war. Upstairs, a window illuminated bullet holes scattered on the wall. After charging me an arbitrary $25 (at least I think it was arbitrary, the State Department website said I would have to pay $100), I was told I could not get a receipt for this fee because I shouldn’t have been allowed to register in the first place. I was supposed to bring two passport-sized photographs, and some other paperwork. It was an odd experience.

Later John and I went to the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) Monrovia headquarters, where I met several staff. The staff I met worked on a project that involved meeting regularly with UNMIL troops to explain how the Geneva Conventions apply to their work in Liberia. The ICRC will be involved with the Liberian National Army after it is restructured. They also have a project designed to connect children orphaned by the war with their families. ICRC facilities were very nice, the staff were professional and friendly, and as far as I could tell the staff were Liberian. I was impressed.

Driving in Monrovia is chaotic. Remember that there is no electricity, so traffic lights don’t work. There are no stop signs. No respected right-of-way rules. Frequently cars break down. Because few can afford tow trucks (I haven’t seen one yet, although they do exist), the driver often pays some boys to help him push the car to a mechanic. This creates an enormous amount of traffic, sometimes blocking off an entire street. The roads are fairly small, and the vehicles are generally large UN or NGO SUVs, trucks, and jeeps. Pedestrians cross the road at will, but, as far as I have been able to tell, cars have right of way. I saw a woman come so close to getting hit by a car this afternoon. Large potholes are omnipresent. Cars slow down to about 5 miles per hour to go over this holes, which means that downtown traffic rarely goes over 20 miles per hour. Exhaust fumes bring the temperature higher than I even thought possible.

On a separate note, I haven’t had a single cup of coffee since I’ve been here. I am suffering from major caffeine withdrawal.

December 21, 2005

This morning George Weah conceded defeat. He has dropped his case that had charged that voter fraud altered the run-off election results. This is very good news.

Today I walked to the grocery store alone. It was an experience I do not wish to repeat. The walk takes about a minute or two, but it was not fun. At one point a teenage boy started following me, and I almost tripped over a kid who was playing with an imaginary gun screaming “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG” while pointing his fingers at another kid. But in general, I’m white, and I don’t wear Liberian clothes, so people stare.

I also went to the US embassy, so that I would know where it was. Although I don’t think I will remember how to get there. The US embassy occupies the equivalent of two city blocks of road. And the road is blocked off for cars. The embassy itself occupies one side of the road, and the embassy information office occupies the other side. Embassy employees live within the compound, which is one reason it is so big. But I can’t really understand why they need so much space. While I was walking by, a security guard motioned for me to come over with his index finger—kind of like the Grinch. He introduced himself to me and we chatted for a bit.

This afternoon I went to the Mamba Point Hotel to use the Internet. The hotel restaurant reminds me of the Turkish hookah (sp?) bars from Prague. It was pretty empty, but the customers were all expats or Lebanese. The restaurant has free wireless, so I sat down on a couch, ordered a drink, and enjoyed fairly high speed Internet access for a few hours.

I had a security guard from the hotel escort me back to the convent. The convent that I am staying at is part of a large compound. There are thick cement walls, about 10 or 15 feet high, topped with loops of barbed wire surrounding the perimeter of the compound. As I understand it, my convent houses the nuns who teach at the schools within the compound, along with visitors like me. The day security guard for the compound walked me around today. There is an elementary school, a junior high school, and a nursing school. The schools are out for the holiday break right now, so I walked into a couple of classrooms. On a blackboard in one classroom there were lessons on climate change and waste management. The security guard explained that these schools, like most others in Liberia, charged tuition fees. He has to send his children to a different school down the road that charges less expensive tuition fees. I got permission to sit in on a class when school comes back into session after the New Year.

Electricity came on in the late afternoon, so I joined a woman who was watching a movie upstairs in a common room. It was an old Nicole Kidman film, and it was pretty good, but the generator was shut off during the last half hour. From around 5:30pm it gets dark outside and the generator doesn’t come back on until 7:30. So I read for a few hours with my flashlight. I have a feeling this is going to be my least favorite part of the day. I don’t want to be outside the compound after dark, but there isn’t really much to do inside without electricity.

John picked me up a little later and we went to the Golden Beach for dinner. The Golden Beach, which is located right next to the UN headquarters (they share a fence), is located literally on the beach. Our table and chairs were in the sand. Liberian beaches are known for being good for surfing, and the waves here were huge. While we were eating it started lightening, but it never rained. So I watched the sky above the ocean turn completely white these massive waves crashed a few yards down.

I’m going to start interviews tomorrow. I promise.

Day 3/4

2005-12-21T07:03:00.000-08:00

(sorry in advance for the poor formatting)

December 20, 2005

IDP Camp

This afternoon John drove me to an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp outside of Monrovia. The camp, which was run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), was still in Montserrado County, but about 40 minutes from my housing. Exiting Monrovia, we passed the old Executive Mansion of Charles Taylor, which is now half destroyed. It is abandoned and whole walls are missing, although it still faintly resembles a church. We drove over one of the two bridges that had been at the center of the fight for Monrovia in 2003. Once we got outside of the city, the view was gorgeous. The coast is lined with palm trees and colorful marshes are ubiquitous.

The IDP camp was right on the coast. We drove through a UNMIL checkpoint that guarded the camp. (The fact that an IDP camp needs to be guarded by peacekeepers says something.) When we arrived, UNHCR was distributing blankets and clothes. People were lined up orderly and patiently, which was quite different than a scene I would see an hour later. John and I got out of the car and talked with some of the kids for a little. Some children pointed out which shacks belonged to their respective family. Several shacks were lines with the material that had been used to enclose jars of palm oil that had been distributed by the World Food Program (WFP). As a result, these homes had hundreds of small white and blue tiles that said things like “WFP: A Gift from Norway” or from Italy, the UK, or the European Commission. What struck me most about the camp was the idleness. Sure, some people had small businesses selling candy from a rack. But almost everyone was sitting around watching our car drive by or the coast. As we left, John explained that the camp was comparatively empty. A year ago it was packed. John also noted that several of the children we talked to had probably known nothing other than this camp. The camp was created about four years ago. I fear that because free and fair elections were held, Westerners will now assume that all is well in Liberia. The camp that we visited was only one of 26 throughout the country—and that’s not including refugee camps outside the country. For lack of resources, fear, or any other reason, clearly many Liberians have not been able to return to their homes.

Driving out of the camp we passed a WFP site. Food was being distributed from a window of a small building and women had crowded in front of the window. They were screaming and waving their bowls above their heads to get some of the food. For me, this was the most depressing scene of the day. I can’t imagine fighting for food. Exiting the WFP site I saw a girl, probably about 2 years old, sitting on the dirt and playing with an old empty palm oil bottle.

Hotel Africa

We took a small detour to take a look at Hotel Africa. Hotel Africa is surrounded by the Rapid Response UN forces. This force is comprised of Irish and Swedish peacekeepers. Hotel Africa used to be an Intercontinental Hotel. It is massive, probably only a little smaller than a typical Intercontinental, and it was easily the largest building I have seen in Liberia. Hotel Africa, however, is completely abandoned. Over years of fighting it has undergone many rounds of looting. The hotel is completely run down, doors are missing, and scaffolding had been peeled off (is scaffolding the right word?). I turned around in the car while we were driving away from the hotel and noticed that signs directing people to Hotel Africa remained serenely in tact.

Around dusk we drove to the beach. I sat down on the sand and watched as fishermen stood on canoes in the distance, catching fish. Suddenly a guy came running down the beach screaming and jumping up and down. Children and the older men and some women came running down to the beach, screaming and jumping, staring at the men on the canoes. At first I thought this was some version of a tsunami warning. The men on the canoes had begun to paddle quickly back to shore and one guy was screaming “Paddle! Paddle!” I looked at John, who smiled but offered me no clue as to what was happening. I asked a boy next to me what was going on, and he explained that they had big catch, and needed villagers to help pull it in. About 20 boys, some who could not have been older than 6, started lining up on the rope pulling in the fish. We stayed at the beach until after the sun had set and the fish had all been pulled in.

John and I went to dinner at the Bamboo Bar on top of the Palm Hotel, where I had a fabulous (Lebanese) hummus dish. During dinner I heard at least four gunshots outside. That was more than a little scary, but John said, “It’s almost Christmas.” To be honest, I’m not quite sure what that meant. Do people fire their guns in celebration of the holiday season?

Development Organizations

Before I left with John this afternoon, the kid who hangs around my hotel walked me around Monrovia to help me buy a cell phone. I have never seen so many development organizations in such a small area. In a half-mile of walking we passed the offices for Doctors Without Borders, Carter Centre UK/ERIS (European Commission), Oxfam, World Food Program, World Vision, and others. Oxfam and World Food Program practically shared a wall. Obviously I’m biased, but the Carter Centre UK/ERIS building was easily the prettiest.

Liberian Radio

Jet lag has not been kind to me, but I would argue that I have benefited greatly from abnormal sleep patterns. I spent about four hours lying in bed last night, trying to fall asleep, listening to the radio. I wish someone had seen my face the moment I discovered that I could get reception to the BBC World Service. The BBC is my comfort food.

Unfortunately, around 12:30, the BBC gets shut off (or whatever the technical term for that is). The only station that broadcasts 24 hours a day is UNMIL Radio. When I first found UNMIL Radio, I thought for a split second that I had found Delilah in Liberia. After all, if Delilah has managed to get broadcasted on a radio station in virtually every state in the US, I saw no reason why she shouldn’t be able to get access to the Liberian market. I soon realized, however, that this was not Delilah. But I wouldn’t be surprised if UNMIL and Delilah share a play list. UNMIL plays soft rock mostly, and some Mariah Carey stuff. Instead of advertisements, though, they have “messages” which advocate peace, abstinence, and family planning, pretty much in that order. “Without peace, Liberia will not have development and you will not be able to go to school,” one message said. “You are not a woman because you have a child and a man. You are a woman when you have the financial ability to support a family and decide exactly how many children you will be able to support.” My favorite message was this: “Welcome to UNMIL Radio. You are entering a stress-free zone. Relax and disarm yourselves.” At 1:00am, UNMIL Radio began an “Back to the 60s and 70s” hour. This was called “Back to the Good Ol’ Days.” Perhaps I read too much into this, but I do not think it is a coincidence that the 1960s and 1970s were generally peaceful times for Liberia. In 1980 a guy named Samuel Doe gruesomely assassinated the president, William Tolbert. Although this ended decades of Americo-Liberian rule, it also ended a time of general law and order.

I'm in Liberia!

2005-12-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

December 19, 2005

I made it to Monrovia! So many things came very close to going wrong, but they didn’t, and now I have amusing stories to tell. This blog is going to double as a diary for me, so the entries are pretty long. I won’t take offense if you don’t want to read the whole thing! I will try to divide the entries into sections so that you can pick the parts that interest you. Atlanta Saturday morning Janice dropped me off at the airport. (Thanks Janice!) I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t be allowed to check in electronically, as it was an international flight, and I certainly hadn’t given myself enough time to wait in line. After an hour in the line, I was informed that I would not make my flight unless I somehow compressed my luggage so that I would not have to check bags. Somehow I did this, and made my flight with a few minutes to spare.

Newark/Brussels

From Atlanta I flew into Newark, and from Newark I flew to Brussels. In my mind, on my flight to Brussels I would sit next to a European Union member of parliament. We would have long, deep conversations about European-African relations, and at the end of the flight, the member of parliament would offer me a job working at some development branch of the EU. Not surprisingly, this didn’t happen. I sat next to a Flemmish woman who responded to my two attempts at starting a conversation with nods of the head, and then returned to reading “De Da Vinci Code.” Fortunately, I watched several consecutive episodes of “House” on my seat’s TV and was served a fabulous vegan Indian dinner. Continental Airlines, you’re awesome.

Brussels

Brussels International Airport was chaotic. Signage was virtually non-existent. I befriended an Israeli professor who teaches at Rutgers who was confused as me, and somehow we made it to our respective gates. At the gate, I met a guy who was going to Liberia to work as a security officer at the US embassy. We talked for a few hours while waiting for our flight. A guy traveling to Budapest sitting across from us soon joined our conversation, and told us he thought we were crazy, in not so many words. It was entertaining to people-watch at our gate. The people waiting for our flight tended to be African, Lebanese, or Indian, and they all seemed incredibly wealthy. I saw more Louis Vouitton (sp?) bags that I see on an average day at Emory.

Brussels/Freetown As we began to board, I noticed that a sign said our flight was stopping at Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. My ticket said the flight was non-stop to Monrovia. Oh well. The flight to Monrovia would have been long and dull, but I sat next to a Dutch-Liberian guy who was traveling to Liberia for the first time in over two decades for his father’s funeral. We had great conversations, and he was hilarious and kept me thoroughly entertained. Flying into Freetown was beautiful, and then disconcerting. First we saw huge forests, and the coast, and there was a small circle of lights, probably generators from a few buildings, and then two strips of lights for the runway. A three-story dilapidated building had a sign that said “Freetown International Airport.” A few UN helicopters and a UN plane were scattered across the runway. (Didn’t the UN left Sierra Leone last week? I guess not.) We stayed on the plane for a few hours in Freetown, as half the people on the flight disembarked, and people from Freetown boarded. Oddly, there seemed to be a lot of Westerners on the flight from Freetown to Monrovia. I’m not sure why.

Liberia Arrival

Upon arriving in Liberia, passengers started applauding. Sometimes this happens on my flights into Atlanta, but this time people were seriously cheering and screaming in joy, and the applause lasted a few minutes. I was expecting the “hairdryer in your face” effect as I walked off the plane and onto the tarmac, but it actually wasn’t that hot, probably because I arrived so late at night. At the bottom of the steps, a man was calling out my name and he hurried me into the terminal. I have been in a few airports in developing countries, but I have never experienced anything like Roberts International Airport. Hundreds of people were squishing their way into a room the size of a small classroom. The guy who was helping me knew some security guards, so I was ushered into the line for “ECOWAS citizens only.” (ECOWAS is the Economic Community of West African States.) My passport was stamped, and I was ushered into the next room to collect my suitcase.

Roberts International Airport

Again, there were hundreds of people in an incredibly small place. I managed a position by the luggage and searched for my bag. Two guys got in a fight next to me that had to be broken up. A few seconds later someone tried to get their luggage and I was shoved backwards. A British missionary caught me, and said “Don’t worry, this is the worst part.” After a half hour of searching for my bag, the heat was becoming unbearable. It was probably 100 degrees in this room and my face was sweating so much at one point I thought there were mosquitoes all over head. How’s that for an image? The guy helping me finally found my bag, and we went into a third room for customs. We met up with a guy who works for The Carter Center who I had been in contact with from Atlanta. “She’s Carter Center” he started yelling, and I was taken right past customs! “Carter Center” some people started yelling with big grins on their face. That was quite an experience. Drive into MonroviaI was relieved to exit the airport. I had held onto my belongings like they were my children, so fortunately nothing was stolen.

The airport parking lot was full with NGO cars and trucks. In my three minutes in the parking lot I saw cars from Doctors Without Borders, World Food Program, the European Commission, and Catholic Relief Services. The Carter Center guy, I’ll call him John from now on, drove me to my lodging, about an hour away. On the way into Monrovia, John pointed out several buildings. Liberia has no electricity grid (although they still have lamp posts up from 1990, when there was still electricity) so it was difficult to see the buildings. We passed the ECOWAS headquarters, the Chinese and Nigerian embassies, and Charles Taylor’s former home (which is now guarded, but empty). We also passed George Weah’s CDC party headquarters. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s house was only two down from Weah’s headquarters! We saw Capital Hill, which consists of the Executive Mansion, the parliament, and the judicial branch of government. A little further on, John pointed on the Liberian army barracks that are currently being renovated for the restructured Liberian national army. Along the road to Monrovia, the phrase “disenchanted youth” kept coming into my mind. There were kids of all ages just sitting on the road watching cars drive by. As we got closer to the city we went through two UNMIL (UN Mission in Liberia) checkpoints. Nigerian guards with large guns waved us through fairly quickly and professionally. Housing28 hours of traveling later, I arrived at my housing. I am very happy with my housing. I have my own room and bathroom, and the generator is turned on at night, so I have lights to read and write and air conditioning to help me fall asleep. I wake up to the sound of roosters, which is wonderful, but a little odd given that I am in the middle of a city. Outside my window I can see run-down buildings and the ocean, which is about a half-mile away.

Heat/Food

If I can have the right to complain about one thing, it would be the humidity and heat. I was so thirsty Monday morning that I broke a major health rule: I drank the water. A little later a kid who hangs around my housing walked me to a Lebanese-run supermarket, which has bottled water and lots of food I think I can eat. (Including Lebanese bread, which is kind of like naan, mmm…) Although the supermarket is only a three-minute walk away, I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable walking outside alone. Incredibly high rates of unemployment means that there are a lot of idle people hanging around the streets. I have only been here a few days, but the poverty is unlike anything I have ever seen. I’ll talk about that more in my next entry.

Interviews

With the help of John, I am going to start setting up interviews tomorrow. The language issue might be a bit more of a problem than I expected, but when people speak slowly I can usually get most of what they are saying. I hope finals are going well or that everyone’s break if off to a good start! Even though it will make me homesick, I would love to hear what Reading and Atlanta people are up to, so send me emails!

2005-12-10T12:51:00.000-08:00

Above is a picture of goldfish Batty, along with my suitemate's dog Abby. No, this picture has absolutely nothing to do with Liberia.

If you're interested, an abstract of my thesis is available here as a Word document (if it asks for a username and password, just press cancel).

2005-12-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

In lieu of the mass-email, I have decided to create a blog for my trip to Liberia. I have no idea how frequently I will be posting, but apparently wireless Internet is available in some of the "classier" hotels. If there are no postings for a week, that probably means my laptop has been stolen. :)

So I'll be in Monrovia from December 18 to January 16. Soon I will upload an abstract of my thesis and some more information about my research project, for those who are interested.