A snake, a rat, and a palawa...

My team and I are working to prepare the five fellows who are going to South Africa for the Man UP conference with culture shock /biculturalism training, information on the other countries the participants are coming from, etc. But we knew that they would also need some time to think about how best to represent their own history as well. With that in mind we decided to show Pray the Devil Back to Hell (a well-worth seeing documentary on the women's peace initiative and their actions in Liberia and Ghana) last night. Otherwise, civil war being such a heavy subject matter, I would have waited to show the movie until later on in the course - but they are going to see it at the conference in South Africa next week anyway, and as they are the contingent representing Liberia, we thought that it would be a good idea to show now.

It's an intense movie - along the lines of Constant Gardner, maybe not as intense as the Last King of Scotland. But watching it with the fellows, the other staff, and some members of the community that join us when we watch "shows" -- you could feel the tension mounting in the room, the veritable heckles rising. A loud "gong, gong, gong" outside on the metal stair railing caused Sis Essie to yell "Whooze dat na?" and Allieu to reply "dat snake-o".... Lo and behold, Jimmy had stepped on a smallish snake, coiled up on our welcome mat, and Allieu had killed it by whipping it against the stairs.

Interrupted for a few minutes as the excitement died down - we eventually finished the film. "Ayh man. Too sorrowful." We sat down to talk to some of the fellows who were particularly disturbed by the snake and the fear of sleeping in a house that could have one come in..... until Mercy pointed out, "there's a rat!" Oh boy. In Liberian English a rat might mean a mouse, but whatever the case, the chase was on. Emmanuel pursued it out of the linen closet, and Cori grabbed a mattress to blockade it into the front entryway - where Emmanuel and Allieu cornered it. Allieu grabbed it and threw it down, breaking it's neck. It was a rat alright, and it had bitten Allieu's finger - which he promptly stuck into a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

We turned to the mundane task of washing dishes when a 'palawa' - a heated discussion/fight - broke out between some of the fellows. We spent some time trying to debrief with them there.... and committed to work on it more when the day broke. Mostly I kept wondering to myself - was this just the wrong time to show this movie? Why was there so much intensity atmospherically beyond the content of the documentary itself?

Sometimes, when I'm walking through the towns, and I walk past a crowd of young men who are clearly (at least in my mind) ex-combatants: the glazed-over eyes, the hardened expressions, the controlled swagger..... I admit to myself that I haven't the slightest idea how to really bring about conflict resolution in a post-conflict setting. How does transformation come to a country, a community, a household, an individual? Slowly, I'm sure. I'm afraid of those guys, at least when they walk around in groups like that, and yet many of them are my age. I avert my eyes when I walk past them - wondering, what do I represent to them? What do they represent to the average citizen who lost family members to the "small smal boy soldiers with big guns" ?

Oh keep me from doing more harm than good - I hope that showing the documentary wasn't a bad idea...

Fruit, bugs, and thoughts on life...

Robertsport is a bit of a tropical paradise, in all honesty, a town where expatriates and the upper-class of Monrovia can escape for some beach side surfing or quiet get away; and looking out my window or front door it isn’t difficult to see why. The beach coves just in front of Strongheart house, and tall coconut palm trees mark the entry into town. Sure there are parts that are really swampy and somewhat smelly, and electricity exists briefly at night and only by generator – and most places don’t have running water yet.

Today, my greatest discovery was the ‘sour sour’ fruit. I was out on a walk around town where finding the post-office had been my primary purpose, when I saw what looked like a kumquat just before the log bridge. I picked it up and showed it to a passerby, “Morning-O. Excuse me now, but dyou know what dey calla dis fruit?” “Eheh, I’ll callit by the Pelle name, we can callit gbeh. And it’s the season for it now now.” Another conversation revealed that it was called a sour sour in Liberian English (would I call a kumquat sour, I wondered to myself?) “But it can be sweet-o!” the lady said, looking at my face. So I arranged for Edwin to buy me some from a tree inside the bush….

Edwin caught up with me when I was at the creek drawing water (thank God for wheelbarrows!) and handed me a small bag asking for 10 Liberian dollars (like a nickel). Eating one, I realized it was as if a kumquat shape had mixed with a mango fruit, although the pit inside was softer than a mango pit. Cori said it’s called a loquat in the States, who knew?!

My biggest problem so far has been coexistence. I have a next to zero tolerance policy with mosquitoes that I see – especially if they are anywhere near my body. When the ants decided they needed to scour my entire bag for several days because of a pack of gum, I fretted over that. When a large 2 inch cockroach decided to run at me during my bucket bath, I decided it had to die, although I made my house mate kill it after I was fully clothed. Now I know that I also share my bedroom with a large, furry brown spider which is okay because of my preference that mosquitoes die – but when I found one in my suitcase… I shuddered to think of little spider babies being born inside. I do not coexist very well with the insects of the tropics….

Early Robertsport reflections

Here in Robertsport we’ve had a torrential amount of water that has been falling from the heavens – although what exactly I expected, coming to a country whose primary environmental descriptor is ‘rainforest’ in the rainy season, I couldn’t tell you. I feel like I’m back in Bangladesh in the monsoon season in 2004 during which the flood waters adversely affected the lives and livelihoods of 36 million people. We in the Strongheart House end up chasing leaks in our roof with buckets, mopping water up from the walls and floors and throwing it back outside or watching the ocean come closer from our balcony. The haze of gray blends the ocean to the sky, blurring the horizon.

When we aren’t fighting the elements, life continues at a happy pace as the Fellows and Program Guides get settled into the program and become familiar with each other. As many of the Fellows have just arrived, and some others are still coming in the next few weeks, the program isn’t rigorous, it has plenty of time for playing games, singing songs, and (when it isn’t raining) kicking around a soccer ball or splashing around in the ocean.

I’m leading two learning circles – Global Studies and Conflict Resolution, although I think the first is going better than the latter as of yet.

Less than a week...

Of course in the larger, metaphysical sense, all of life is a journey - and the questions pulse right along with you. Why am I here? Where am I going? What should I do?

Now, for a few months, I'll have answers to some of those questions. I have a ticket and a visa to Liberia, a plan to stay there for two and a half months and be a learning circle guide to some of the coolest young people on Earth. There is a suspension of the questions and the injunction to invest, connect, plug in.

I plan on using this blog to share some of my explorations and thoughts along the way, and probably some pictures.