Watering something that will grow

The rainy season is coming. Tonight, there was quite a display of lightning in the skies, but no rain. Rain in Monrovia is quite torrential. The rainy season will last from roughly May to October, so the bulk of the time I will be here will be spent in rain. In one month, it will rain for at least 90 per cent of the time. While the sun is still shining, we thought we’d take advantage of the good weather and hit the beach.

A good sign of a recovering economy is tourism. Here are Emelia (German), Ester (my roommate, Norwegian) and I at CeCe beach about 30 minutes drive from the ship. This is a popular place for various foreigners from different NGOs. It is lovely, relaxing, and the water is very warm.







Many of the crew rely on several trusted cabbies for rides around town. Otherwise, getting scammed, lost, or at worst, kidnapped, etc. is a risk. Taxi rides often go in one direction, and cabbies will try to fit in as much as 8 people in one cab. As they say, you have not really had a true Liberian cab experience until you’ve had a Liberian woman sitting on your lap with a baby sitting in hers. Here’s Alfred, one of our trusted cabbies.



He invited himself to join us and sat down. He is originally from Ghana and he is putting two teenagers through school in Ghana (where unlike Liberia, they have a school system). His wife left him after the war. He use to work as a seaman, but now he drives his small little Nissan cab, windows rolled down always, locks damaged, the seats’ sponge filling bursting out of its ripped upholstery.

‘Missy, during war, so terrible,’ he grieved. ‘You hungry, you stay inside. You want food, you eat small small. Never enough.’

We talked a lot about the world, traveling, and politics. Our ride wound through the busy markets of Duala, and then the quieter parts of the country before getting to CeCe, where UN troops from Pakistan guarded the beach.

Some photos of our ride there. (I'm sorry that they are all from the car. More and more, I am learning through Liberians and from experience that they do not like their photographs taken. Also, it is unsafe for me to take out a camera.)







Alfred drops us off at our port. I ask him how much we owe him. He’s embarrassed, but he says, ‘Fifteen dollars.’ This is very expensive, mind you. A cab ride rarely costs more than 40 Liberian Dollars (60 cents US). I semi-jokingly remind him that that’s too expensive and that I also bought him a Coke for $2USD, which is expensive even by American standards. He agrees, and then charges us $10 USD for 3 people.

I ponder this for a while. Was his conversation with me genuine? He told he he had many responsibilities, raising his two teens, supporting a small toddler of his daughter's (whose father had run out on them). I sensed sincerity in him, but all the while was he hoping to pawn me for more cash? I know he was being truthful, but I also know that he acknowledges that we have money. Perhaps, by American standards, he was just being an opportunist.

I encounter similar feelings the next morning. We had just finished a great morning at God's Children's Home Orphanage. Again, we sang songs together (and again, I had to fight back tears.) I hope I never get tired of those beautiful voices singing in harmony together. At the end of our time of music, the children sang a song in their indigenous language. When you hear it, you understand why Africans are characterized by a great sense of rhythm, passion and soul for music. Sovra recognized me from last week and stayed by my side. At one point, we had been separated into two different teams for a game. As soon as it was over, he came over and put his head on my lap to sleep. When he woke up, I smiled at him. He reached up and tucked my hair behind my ear.

When we were leaving, different children from the neighborhood came out to meet us. Several children had their arms outstretched, palms facing upward, all smiles - sweet,but with a tinge of mischief. I walked to the orphanage going there and on my way, I saw one child yell at me for my attention. He then jut his hand out, palms facing upward. Again, all sweet smiles. They're saying, 'Give me something.' It is a discouraging feeling. Though I am here to give, one always has grandiose notions about how they are received (that is, we hope that our recipients are grateful to tears! We're heroes! Etc!)

In my experience, and especially having worked with celebrities and Hollywood executives, I know the rich certainly feel entitled. But now I am realizing, the poor feel very entitled as well. Do we do any good to simply give? I have never believed in charity just for charity's sake. That is, here are poor people, let's give them ... stuff. Poor kids, let's give them candy (even though they have no dental hygiene and their teeth can rot). The answer is not just to give. The answer is to empower one's skills, talent, sense of worth. In a spin on the old adage, I always say, "Give a person a scarf, keep them warm for a winter. Teach them how to knit and they'll stay warm a lifetime ... and keep others warm too." And though sometimes it is just a matter of giving, the love behind it needs to exist. Otherwise, we are not empowering others to be self-sufficient. For lack of a better term, I don't care to teach others how to beg.

But there are those who are truly grateful, of course. This morning, I opted out of church. I was just too tired and the hot sun outside held no appeal. I found out, however, that there is a weekly service in Ward B for the patients. This was, to my absolute delight, one of the best experiences I have ever had at a church service.

When you live in a country and stem from a national heritage that has been riddled with rape, war, theft, broken families, physical destruction and death, the things you sing and preach about God are very different from say, when you're a starving artist living in Los Angeles hoping to fulfill a dream. The Liberians always sing songs about God, His greatness, His power, His might, that He is a victor, a 'Papa', that He is loving. There is little to no focus on the worshipper's own posture in life or circumstance. It is all about God and how He can bring you out of wartime troubles, how He heals, how He rescues our very lives.

Sitting across from me, legs crossed, is a man of about fifty, his eyes cast downwards towards the floor. His face and scalp is held together by about one hundred neatly placed metal stapes that snake from between his eyebrows, up his skull, behind his ear, around his jaw and towards his lip. Next to him, a woman with an amputated leg, claps joyfully, singing, 'We loove you, Papa!' The man with the staples claps, too. He is very happy.

When asked if the patients had anything to say, the gentleman with the staples shares. He is practically inaudible due to his disfiguration. He tells us that he has been afflicted for 17 years. When he first tried coming to us, he hoped that he would not pass the pre-screening, so that he could go home and not be so ashamed. But of course, now he is so thankful and he thanks God, because, 'Nothing can change the will of God.' He was suppose to have this surgery. The amputee shared her confidence in God, saying she never worried. She knew God would find a way. The joy, the praise, the unabashed proclamation of Jesus from all these patients was refreshing. I have never heard 'Hallelujah!' shouted so many times in succession!

At the end of the service, Andrew, a patient who is an albino, played a lively beat on the drums. We danced around the ward, shaking each others hands, greeting one another. I prayed for the man with the staples in his head and was overwhelmed by how lovely he was. Just lovely. We laughed, shared, smiled. The service ended. It was the only church service I've attended where they did not take an offering.

My good friend Bill mused at one point that perhaps cultures that have too much technology, too much material goods, too much dependence on self, are the very ones who don't believe in God. However, he observed, it seems that those who are exposed to life's natural hardships in forces of nature, for example, are the very ones that do believe in God. He says, for example, people in Africa. Well, Bill, I am in Africa and I can truly say, if it isn't the torrential rain that pounds them into believing in a Mighty Force, it is simply the suffering that will inevitably come in all our lives that test the core of who we are, and thus, the quality of our faith.

Amen.