The other weekend in Nyangbah (New Cess River)

Liberia in pictures

Glenna Gordon (friend and photojournalist) has a cool photo-essay on BBC's website about the Liberian love of teddy bears here, as well as gorgeous pics from our last Sunday expedition to Thinker's Beach here. The girls in #2 and #4 might look suspicious like Anais and I because they are. The pics below are snapshots from me and Anais, the same day.

And unrelated, an audio slide-show about the Liberian civil war featuring the photos of Tim Hetherington here.

And further unrelated, but because it the latest installment in the ongoing Liberian saga of Charles Taylor: he's changed his religion! Apparently he is now Jewish. Hm... (One of his) (wife's) testimony is here.

All else in Liberia, and with me is going fine. I haven't had much to say blog-wise lately. But plenty adventures have been had, and so... something soon.

New website

LEAD's new website (one of my projects) is up and running! at leadinliberia.net.

LEAD clients: The story of Mr. Kollie

Last Thursday I sat down at Daniel Weetol’s desk at the LEAD Bong County office, across from Anthony Kollie. Mr. Kollie is a LEAD client, and had come for an interview in order to participate in a new mentoring project being set up between LEAD and Partners Worldwide. Mr. Kollie owns and runs a medicine store (pharmacy) on the outskirts of Gbarnga.

I had stopped by his business that morning with Daniel, and there had been a backup of customers waiting not just for their prescriptions, but for the chance to talk briefly with Mr. Kollie, about their ailments and the best medicine and so forth. So we arranged that when Mr. Kollie’s wife arrived in the late afternoon, to relieve him from his shift, he would come by the office so I could sit and talk with him awhile.

Before we left the store, Daniel had walked me around to the back of the store. On the wall facing the main road “Determined Medical Store” had been painted in huge, dancing script, onto a white wall. It was surrounded by paintings of gigantic, colorful pills, floating around the words. Behind the small building, the foundation for the clinic had been laid, and the flattened land was punctuated by huge piles of grey cement blocks. This is the beginnings of a clinic, which is being built from the profits of the pharmacy.

What’s so special about Mr. Kollie is how he combines business and mission. Mr. Kollie is a real entrepreneur, seeing opportunities to expanding his business, employ more people and serve the community at the same time. He is quick to point to LEAD’s training as instrumental in allowing him to bring his business to the next level.

“When my wife and I heard that LEAD was in the business of helping business owners to become their own entrepreneurs, we became interested and joined LEAD and were trained for six months. And from that point on, through LEAD, we have grown so much more. Because the idea that I have now for my business, it was not there when I first started. Because it was business as usual… buy goods, sell them… that’s all. But now, I know how to analyze my own information. I’m able to know when to buy and how to buy, and when to establish what I want to do and all that. So the planning aspect has developed because LEAD trained me to do so.”

Mr. Kollie and his wife started their business from scratch, following the war. He and his wife and children had been displaced during the war, and were finally able to move back to Gbarnga, capital of Bong County, in 2005. At that time, Mr. Kollie and his wife dreamed of going into business because they owned land, and wanted to be self-employed. “The land we have now is truly ours. It is not something we are leasing or borrowing from someone. My parents acquired it, and they gave it to me, so that I could develop it… and the only dream I had was to put something there, to make them feel proud of me. So I chose a medicine store, because I’m a medical professional.”

Determined Medical Store officially opened for business on April 27, 2007, and eight months later Mr. Kollie and his wife joined LEAD. After completing the training, Mr. Kollie took a loan from LEAD. “And that loan, I promised to LEAD in my business plan, would be used towards our dream to not just continue as a medicine store. Because we envision helping other people to have work. And we want to expand our facility in a way that will be more useful to the community than just taking cash in exchange for goods. We wanted to put our profession to work. And this was all part of the decision to expand to a bigger level.”

As the clinic is being built, Mr. Kollie’s has been approval by the county medical director to operate a fully licensed clinic, and he has also contracted a doctor from Phebe Hospital – located just outside Gbarnga, where both Mr. Kollie and his wife were trained as nurses – to come and work in the clinic for the first year. After the clinic is operational, Mr. Kollie plans to go back to school himself, to become a physician’s assistant, or perhaps even a doctor.

* * *

As I have worked at LEAD the last five months, I have met hundreds of clients. I have been to graduations and loan disbursements and helped out with a number of the trainings. Most of my work has largely been based in the office, focusing on the February conference, getting LEAD’s new website up and running (which you can visit here), computer training with the staff and a bunch of other projects. But the stories of our clients, those are the heart and soul of the work. LEAD can have a tremendous impact on the businesses of our clients. When I have the privilege of spending an hour someone like Mr. Kollie, who has been able to take the opportunities around him and generate a profitable business which is impacting his family, his employees, and his community, it is a humbling and inspiring experience.

Every time I attend a LEAD graduation, which is about once a month or so, I am listed in the program under “Remarks.” I remember when Renita Reed gave me a headsup about this, my second day in Liberia and moments before the Grand Bassa County NEI graduation ceremony began… “Oh, just so you know, you’ll be expected to give remarks. Just say… whatever you are inspired to say.”

I’ve got my graduation remarks a little more organized now than they were on that day... And what I end up saying is, first of all, that I want to offer encouragement to each of them, our clients, as they develop their businesses. The work they are doing is very important, not just for their own families and their employees, but also for Liberia, for the economy of their country as it continues to recover from the war.

And then I get to bring them greetings from North America, and tell them how many folks back home are on their team, rooting for them... from the staff and donor network of Partners Worldwide, to LEAD North American, a partner of LEAD since it was founded in 2005, and finally all the friends, family and communities who have supported LEAD through supporting me.

LEAD currently has about 800 clients in 3 of Liberia’s 15 counties, with a 4th county being added next month. We have two training programs, and a third program being launched this year, focusing on agriculture. There are plenty of challenges as LEAD is growing so quickly, and tries to keep up with the tremendous need for entrepreneurship training and microfinance. But everytime I sit down with a client, to hear their story about the struggles behind them, their current joys and challenges, and their vision for the future of their business, I am reminded how important this work is, what a difference it can make.

We are in the business of empowering people like Mr. Kollie who have the vision, determination, persistence, and leadership to build up businesses that will be profitable and sustainable. It is inspiring to see that unfold, and LEAD gets to be the one walking alongside, watching it happen, cheering our clients on.

Gbarnga, chickens and how I don’t know how to wait

So… why did the chicken cross the road? Turns out, this is actually a really thoughtful, enigmatic question. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if a Japanese zen poet had written a koan or two on the subject.

Chickens crossing roads is not something I’d contemplated much before last week. On Thursday afternoon, in Bong County where I was working for the week, I found myself traipsing along a typically orange dirt road, in Mimi the land cruiser, dodging chickens. In the car with me were Daniel, Octavius & Helena (the LEAD staff who operate our Bong County office) and their families. In all we were: 6 adults and 5 kids. And we were en route to the Kpatawee waterfalls, which are about an hour outside of Gbarnga, the capital of Bong County where LEAD’s regional office is located. We drove through scattered villages, landmarked by NGO development projects; through acres of palm farms, which produce palm oil, one of Liberia’s main exports and a local commodity consumed in every Liberian home; past hills and valleys of lush, green jungle; and finally through a gigantic World Bank rice field, just outside the waterfalls, which was shockingly and ravishingly lime green.

It seemed that every village we passed through had suicidal chickens. They would wait till we were too close to brake completely and then catapult themselves suddenly from that side of the road where they’d been pecking away in seeming contentment, towards the irresistable Other side of the road. My response was, every time, to brake as much as possible, and holler “Chickenchickenchicken!!!!” through the windshield, which never failed to produce gales of laughter from my passengers. At the end of the day, I believe the Kpatawee chicken population remained undiminished by our passing, but only by a feather.

Oh yes, and the waterfalls were beautiful. Our 2 two-year-olds (Octavius’ daughter Octina, and Daniel's daughter Ellen) sat themselves down on the path overlooking the falls and immersed themselves in a tremendous conversation. Thus excluded, the rest of us walked through the water and over the ledge to climb, barefoot, up and down and all over the rocks which sloped down from top of the falls to bottom. All in all, the women pulled off a fine fine showing, as far as being the most adventurous and indomitable, particularly Daniel’s wife Sharon who climbed all the way to the top and didn’t let gallons of water gushing over her feet intimidate her. I was intimidated on her behalf, but she was fine.

I had arrived in Bong County last Monday, taking the 4-hour trek from Monrovia alone. This was the first road trip my staff has allowed me to take solo. We (myself and I) thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and arrived in Gbarnga safe and sound. During the week, I focused on computer trainings with the staff, and on client interviews for Partners Worldwide. For the latter, the focus was on both story-gathering in general, and ongoing profile development for a mentoring project. We had a very productive week, and it was wonderful to spend more quality time with our regional staff there than I'd so far been able to.

The journey home to Monrovia was ever-so-slightly more interesting than the journey there. I was slightly less than “alone with my thoughts” because I carried two gentlemen, a woman and her two children. And her bag of chickens. (English 101: every good story comes full circle, and includes a couple of chickens.)

In Liberia, it seems to be an unavoidable evil that I find myself quite often driving Mimi-the-behemoth-Land-Cruiser by myself. The travesty in this is the amount of struggle that the average Liberians faces in the realm of transportation. There is little transportation infrastructure, and this means that – particularly commuting to and from work in downtown Monrovia, Liberians line up at the side of the road by the hundreds and thousands, waiting for buses, for cabs, for motorcycles… to carry them into the city in the morning, and carry them home in the evening. It is very Waiting, Waiting, Waiting for Godot. I am awed at the patience and resignation with which Liberians face this reality. I do not mean to romanticize it by saying that, nor to minimize the very real frustration and daily setbacks that this can mean for any working professional. I am reminded that I am such a New Yorker every time I have to wait an hour or two for an event to begin. And then I remind myself that James, our Education Coordinator, sometimes has to commute three hours to work in the morning, to reach our office downtown. Three hours one way. I don’t know anything about waiting.

And so, inevitably, as I drive Mimi to work and out and about in the counties, I am often the sole passenger... just me and my very guilty conscience. When I have LEAD staff with me, we will pick up passengers, with a particular preference for women and students, or anybody we recognize or who might be related to someone who is related to someone who is someone’s friend (etc, etc, etc). But when I’m alone, there is a general policy of “don’t pick folks up.” However…

Friday afternoon I was scheduled to drive back to Monrovia, and Friday morning I drove in the opposite direction – to Ganta, the capital of Nimba County. I was doing a school visit there on behalf of Active Kids, a role I inherited from Renita Reed. Active Kids is a Canadian-based organization which builds up the resources of schools in Liberia, among other countries. And so I was fortunate enough to be traveling to Ganta as a representative of Active Kids, which had received a library and other support from the organization.

I headed for Ganta early, so as to maximize my limited four-hour workday back in Gbarnga with the LEAD staff. I drove up into the highlands of Nimba County, on orange roads though mists and jungle that was broken by open vistas of hills and valleys and coconut trees bending over the road… it was magical. It was Gerard Manly Hopkins, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God / it will flame out, like shining from shook foil…” It was like driving and praying, becoming the same thing.

I arrived in Ganta, met up with Rev. Wehyee and visited Trumpet Baptist School, where I attended a program at which the kids’ singing – as usual – stole the show and made you grin so hard your face hurt. And en route back to Gbarnga, I managed to acquire a carload of passengers.

I was stopped at a checkpoint by the LNP/National Police of Liberia – which sometimes can mean a lengthy negotiation with a policeman, who may or may not be hoping for some “cold water” (being a euphemism for $). However my skepticism was shown up, as it so often is, by the request that I carry his two friends to Gbarnga, as they had been stranded in Ganta trying to collect their salaries from their employer and had met with no success (a common labor woe of Liberia’s workers). I made a spontaneous exception to my own rule, and as William and Albert and myself drove along, getting acquainted, we were flagged down by another would-be passenger. I am accustomed to the flagging and usually continue on past, because I feel like I have to, but for absolutely no reason beyond that I had already donned the taxi-driver hat for the day, we slowed, reversed, and backed-up. Before you knew it, we had acquired Victoria, her 6-year-old daughter Sarah, and her two-month-old, breastfeeding baby. Oh yes, and a gimungo UNICEF bag full of I don’t know what and a number of burlap sacks. One of which was making some very suspicious sounds in the family of “Cheepcheepcheep.” But it is Lent... and chickies means Easter is coming. (Even though chickies in Liberia are year-round, since we have no spring here. But I digress...) The burlap bags were laid gently in the back seat.

I don’t feel the darkness of Lent here, the way you feel the cold and the dark and waiting of it, back home in Brooklyn. But there’s always a heaviness around, if you stop to be with it. James told me this morning, in the office, that he was headed to Grand Bassa later this week for a funeral of a close family member. My colleague Helena was telling me last week about her long, interrupted education - how she'd been relocated so many times during the war that she'd only just been able to finish her high school graduation two years ago, at age 28. My 8-year-old at home, Anais, knocked on my door and crawled into bed with me Sunday morning, to tell me that Sis Hawah’s niece had died during the night, and so we’d be going to a different church for morning service. There are sad things and struggles everywhere, mixed into all the warmth and generosity of Liberia.

By the time we had arrived in Gbarnga, it was 11am, and as all of my passengers were ultimately Monrovia-bound, we arranged that I would pick them up – three adults, two kids & the chickies – at 3pm. So they sat and waited for me. Would you sit and wait four hours for a ride to Monrovia? Granted it was a free ride. Granted, I am generally nice to my passengers. Granted, Mimi is a pretty comfortable vehicle to travel in. But… still. Liberians teach me that I don’t know how to wait.

So eventually, I picked up my passengers, and after 20 minutes of chatting, they all fell asleep for the duration of the journey. With the exception of Sarah, our 6-year-old, who starred out the window and occasionally at the crazy bango driver (bango = Pele for "Bright one" ie. white person).

“Sarah, honey, how you doin’ back there?”

(Nodding head, with a shy smile). Okay. We’re doing okay.

* * *

The world is charged with the grandeur of God

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil, crushed

Why do men, then, now, not wreck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod.

And all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil

And wears man’s smudge, and shares man’s smell

The soil is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness, deep down things.

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning at the brown brink eastward springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent world broods

With warm breast, and with ah! bright wings.

- Gerard Manly Hopkins

"Why Foreign Aid is Hurting Africa" by Dambisa Moyo

This is a really thought-provoking article, published in the Wall Street Journal on March 21. Dambisa Moyo is a former economist at Goldman Sachs, and the author of "Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa."

"Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades...

A constant stream of "free" money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power. As aid flows in, there is nothing more for the government to do -- it doesn't need to raise taxes, and as long as it pays the army, it doesn't have to take account of its disgruntled citizens. No matter that its citizens are disenfranchised (as with no taxation there can be no representation). All the government really needs to do is to court and cater to its foreign donors to stay in power."

Read the whole article here.

The beach in Sinkor