Unsettling Conversations

In the short time I have been in Liberia, I have found myself privy to conversations and divulgences unlike anything I have been exposed to in previous travels. My first night out in Monrovia, for instance, I found myself having drinks with a group of Lebanese guys, an Israeli, a Liberian-American woman, and a coworker. After a few beers and a couple hookahs, the conversation turned to conflict diamonds. “Who controls the trade in conflict diamonds?” the Israeli, who works for a mining company, asked the group. "The Israelis or the Lebanese?" What ensued was a more or less gentlemanly debate--with one side arguing that the Israelis were in control because most of the diamonds are sent there to be cut, and the other side arguing in favor of the Lebanese because they were on the ground and had more control over the actual mines. Where the hell am I, I wondered to myself, to be sitting amongst people who can discuss an issue like conflict diamonds (the profits from which fueled the recent wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia) as if they were discussing something benign like mangoes or cell phones? When I was a student in South Africa, I remember trying to conduct research on conflict diamonds for a paper; I was just a lowly student—not remotely threatening—and yet, absolutely no one I called to interview would speak to me, not even to deny their involvement. Now here I was, in Liberia less than a week, and people were chatting away.

A few weeks later, I was at a bar in my town, having a drink with some Liberian coworkers and my Kenyan housemate after work. The conversation turned to the question of development since the end of Liberia’s fourteen-year civil war. How was President Johnson-Sirleaf doing after five years of relative peace? My coworkers represented a variety of viewpoints, some believing the president was doing well and that Liberia was moving forward, and others frustrated with the slow pace of change and development in the country. The discussion naturally touched on the past as well as the present, and it was interesting to hear people’s different perceptions of Liberia’s recent history—what had caused the war and how it had affected the country. Though I don’t know my coworkers’ politics, I have always operated under the assumption that not all of them were on the same side during the conflict. All the same, I found myself taken aback to hear a coworker state that, in fact, the best president Liberia had ever had was Charles Taylor, arguing that he was the only Liberian leader to do anything for the people. I mean, sure, I arrived in Liberia well aware that many people in Liberia supported Taylor (he famously ran for president on the slogan, “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him”). But knowing this beforehand did not make it any less surreal to hear someone that I am actually friends with openly admit to supporting him.

The latest and perhaps most unsettling conversation took place at a recent dinner party held by a UN police officer working in Voinjama. The party was a mix of Pakistanis working for the UN and NGOs, a couple UN police from elsewhere in the world, two American friends and myself. As the conversation turned to the violence going on in Pakistan, one of the UN police made reference to employing something called “the third degree” in their work. As it turns out, “the third degree” refers to torture, which two of the Pakistani police officers at the party openly supported. Again, I found myself suddenly out of my element, wondering how I had ended up at a dinner party with men who admitted to having tortured detainees in their custody? They were all seemingly normal guys, courteous and friendly—the image jarred with that of interrogators willing to beat detainees, keep them awake for days on end, or question them while they lie on a bed of ice for eight hours (practices they mentioned when I asked what they meant by “torture”). And yet, no matter how they had seemed in our previous social interactions, they were admitting right before us to having employed just such measures. I did not know how to react. I didn’t want to smile and nod along with their statements as if I thought torture was no big deal, but I also wanted to hear what rationale they gave for their actions. Thousands of police and military personnel around the world engage in various forms of torture, but few people would open up about it with the candor of the Pakistanis sitting next to me. Moreover, in that context, I found myself incapable of really comprehending what they were telling me—the reality in front of me (nice, normal guys) seemed much more salient than the reality which they were describing (police commanders extracting confessions by force). Unsure how I should respond to their arguments, I kept relatively quiet, listening to what the men had to say about why they felt torture to be justified in their line of work, particularly given the threats and constraints they faced working in a country where the violence keeps getting worse and worse, and allowing my housemate Isabelle to take the lead in explaining why we nevertheless see torture as both immoral and ineffective. She didn’t succeed in changing their minds, and they certainly didn’t change ours, but it was a relatively honest conversation at least.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a neat and tidy way to wrap up this posting as I’m still sorting out my own feelings about each of these conversations. On the one hand, I feel uncomfortable socializing with people who have engaged in actions that I believe to be wrong; yet I also want to understand what pushes people to make these choices. For the time being, I think I’m just trying to listen to what people have to say and take things case by case, but I'm still pretty conflicted about the best way to react.

"My titty is for me"

November 25th through December 10th marked the international ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence’ devoted to raising awareness about violence against women around the world. Though such campaigns tend to go by unnoticed by those of us back in America, they are usually a big deal for NGOs in the developing world, who often use the time to launch advocacy and community involvement campaigns.

This is certainly the case in Liberia, and I was happy to get back from my trip home to the U.S. in time to attend the last day’s events, including a parade around my town organized by IRC’s Gender-Based Violence program. Having no idea what to expect for the day, I was nevertheless excited for something new—particularly something that would get me out of the office. The morning of the parade, I donned my “complet” that I had made for Siya’s wedding (my friend calls this my “African lady outfit”) and set out for the town square. There, I met up with my coworkers and the forty or so community members that had come out for the parade. Everyone received bandanas inscribed with IRC’s logo and “16 days of activism,” which most of the girls wore as kerchiefs over their hair, and I naturally followed suit.

After about an hour of waiting for everyone to arrive and get organized, my coworkers let us know that we were finally ready to begin. Two teenage girls with megaphones then started to lead a song about not beating your wife, and the parade started to move. After only a few minutes of the first song, however, the parade leaders decided to switch to something much more upbeat. As we moved in two single-file lines, everyone started dancing as they marched. I couldn’t quite make out the words at first, so I tried to listen harder. After some momentary disbelief, I burst out laughing. The words to the chant were as follows:

My titty, my titty is for me – Don’t touch it!
My tumba (aka butt), my tumba is for me – Don’t touch it!

After a dozen or so rounds of these lines, the chant leaders added something along the lines of “If you see my titty, it is not for you, you must pass by it,” and then “If you see my titty, and you want it, you must ask for it.”

Needless to say, this was pretty much the most entertaining song I have ever heard in my life. It was also obviously the crowd’s favorite, most of whom not only chanted along but also enthusiastically shook or gestured to the body part referenced in each line, quickly followed by a finger wagging to passersby as we came to the “Don’t touch it” line.

In addition to laughing at the song’s hilarious lyrics, I could not help but feel a personal connection with the words. This was because I was recently the victim of a “titty grab-and-go” of just the sort referenced in the song! While innocently chatting with friends at a recent party hosted by the UN in my town, a Pakistani peacekeeper came up behind me, reached under my arm, and to my great surprise, grabbed one of my breasts. He then quickly continued on his way across the room, in an apparent attempt to pretend it wasn’t him. Since I was not exactly expecting to have some random guy grab my breast out of nowhere, it took me a second to digest what had just taken place, and I stood there for a moment with a rather puzzled look on my face. Unsure whether I should smack the guy or whether I should just let it go, I ultimately decided the situation merited the former. Yet since I was not entirely sure that I wanted to risk a scene, what resulted was a very halfhearted and thus awkward slap that turned out more like a love pat than an angry, this’ll-teach-you-to-grab-my-breast-you-asshole slap. So much for being a bad ass I guess.

Looking back, I am more inclined to laugh at the incident than get upset by it (particularly since the guy wasn’t remotely threatening and actually was pretty pitiful-looking), but since I was not the first woman to suffer a fly by groping by an errant and under-sexed peacekeeper, the UN human rights officer made the commander of the Pakistani battalion have a talk with his men about what constitutes appropriate versus inappropriate behavior around Western women. Now that I have heard the titty song, however, I cannot help but grieve that the captain was not able to use the song’s words of wisdom to get his message across: My titty is for me—Don’t touch it!

A Liberian Wedding

A few weeks ago, I made a friend named Siah. The encounter went as follows:
Random woman on the road: Hello!
Me: Hello. How are you?
Random woman: Not bad oh. You my friend, right?
Me: Yes, we’re friends.
Woman: What’s your name?
Me: Aminata. What’s yours?
Woman: I’m Siya. (Brief pause.) You know, I’m getting married.
Me: Oh wow. Congratulations.
Woman: You’ll come to my wedding, right?
Me: Sure.

The entire conversation lasted less than five minutes, but nevertheless, Siya showed up at the IRC compound a few days later with wedding invitations, and I assured her that I would be there. The whole experience is pretty indicative of Liberian culture. Though we Americans feel that friendships require time to develop, here in Liberia, it is perfectly normal for someone to greet you on the street, ask for your phone number, and then call you repeatedly just to say hi. All of which is very convenient when you’re a lonely foreigner like myself, wandering around in the hopes that someone will take you in and befriend you.

In preparation for Siah’s wedding, my new housemate Isabelle and I decided to have African outfits made. We bought cloth and chose out designs for my friend Aissata’s husband to sew for us. The morning of the wedding, we donned our new clothes and set out for Mount Camel Baptist Church, unsure exactly what to expect. We arrived to find the church decorated with streamers and balloons, with the added bonus of an altar wrapped in toilet tissue. While waiting for the ceremony to start, Isabelle and I chatted with various guests and also vied for the perfect photo of a toddler with “I [heart] Jesus” barrettes. Then all of a sudden, a large group of women began to congregate outside the church, singing and dancing in celebration of the wedding. For each song, one woman would start out singing, and then after about a minute, the rest of the women would join in. As they sang, everyone danced, and the whole thing lasted at least half an hour, making this certainly the most pre-wedding ceremony fun that I have had.

The wedding itself followed the structure of a typical American wedding, but with a few uniquely Liberian aspects. For one, each of the bridesmaids did a sort of slow dance-walk down the aisle. When the bridesmaid would reach the halfway point, one of the groomsmen would join her (everyone would start cheering at this point), and they would then continue to dance-walk together the rest of the way. A second unique aspect was that more than half of the ceremony was singing. And not the solemn singing of hymns that I have always associated with attending church. These were a sort of ‘boogie hymns’ that had the whole congregation getting down in their pews. Also entertaining was when the groom’s cell phone started to ring in his suit pocket while he and Siah stood at the altar. He then passed the phone to a friend, who then proceeded to hold the cell phone up to the bride and groom’s mouths as they said their vows, presumably so that whoever had called could hear. The ceremony ended with the bride and groom’s kiss, which took place to the wild cheers of the guests. Unfortunately, the first kiss apparently left something to be desired, so the ushers quickly made slight adjustments to the bride’s veil and train, and then the couple kissed a second time, apparently to the satisfaction of the guests and photographers because no third try was deemed necessary.

The wedding was followed by a reception at a nearby banquet hall. The reception was only able to begin, however, once the bride and groom had driven around town in a car decorated with balloons and toilet tissue (nothing out of the ordinary by American standards), followed by the rest of the bridal party zooming around on a pack of motorbikes (slightly less common). The reception itself was far more lavish than either Isabelle or me had expected. Despite there being well over one hundred guests at the wedding, each of us received dinner. Comprised of fried chicken, potato salad, fried rice, and wedding cake, this dinner was pretty amazing if you ask me. We also listened to a series of speeches thanking various guests for their contribution to the wedding. This was all well and good until the groom excitedly told the crowd: “And we also have two white women celebrating with us today!” (As if we didn’t already stick out.) He then invited me and Isabelle up on the stage to tell the story of how Siah and I had met and become friends, which was all very awkward because the only other person deemed important enough to be called on stage was the groom’s mother. All in all, however, the event was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to any future weddings I get to attend while I’m here.

Me with Aissata and her family

Market Mob

This past week, I received a new roommate at the IRC guest house named Isabelle and also made friends with a few other recently arrived expats in Voinjama. Since they all arrived after me, I decided to invite them to meet Aissata, the Peulh woman I befriended, and walk around town. Since Aissata’s husband is a tailor, we decided to go shopping for lapas (aka pagnes or sarongs). After wandering around the market for an hour or so, Aissata and I noticed a small crowd around our friend Yoko, a Japanese girl who just started working for the UN here in Voinjama. We walked up to find a man demanding to see Yoko’s identification documents, which she had forgotten in her house. Though the man had an ID card saying he worked for Liberian immigration, he was in plain clothes and extremely belligerent. Thinking he was just a crazy guy, Aissata and I told Yoko just to ignore him and keep walking. Yet the man kept blocking our way, getting angrier and angrier with each moment. Before we knew it, there was a crowd of twenty and then perhaps fifty people around us (most of them women sellers from the market), yelling at the man to leave us alone and trying to help us get away from him. As I slowly pulled Aissata along, he tried to hold her back, eventually shoving her out of the way (she was carrying her four month old daughter on her back at the time). This made me lose my temper, and I started yelling at him to leave my friend alone. In response, he started lashing out incoherently and calling all the women around us “a bunch of African bitches.” All the while, the crowd kept getting larger, with half the people yelling at the man and the other half trying to calm him down so that we could resolve the situation.

In the end, the crowd was able to help us get to Yoko’s car, blocking the man from following us. At this same moment, the UN and Liberian police showed up. They ended up having to give the man who was harassing us safe haven in the police car in order to prevent the mob from beating him. Luckily, we were able to drive away, and the crowd dispersed with the arrival of the police.

Looking back on the afternoon’s events, on the one hand, it was unsettling to see how quickly the mob formed and the situation escalated. On the other hand, however, what struck me most about the incident was how the men and women in the market immediately came to Yoko’s defense and tried their best to help her escape the man’s harassment. Throughout my travels, I have found this willingness to protect and help out strangers characteristic of West African culture, and it is one of the things I appreciate most about living here.

Mission Make Friends: Accomplished

The first week or two in Voinjama were pretty lonely. I was living by myself in the IRC guesthouse, which is in the same compound as our office. Since most days it would start raining in the late afternoon or early evening, this meant that I would not be able to go into town or walk around anywhere when work ended at 5pm. Instead, all I could do was just walk the ten feet to my room, at which point I would be forced to occupy myself for the next several hours, the sound of the rain magnified by the tin roof in the background, until I could justify going to bed (I decided 8:30pm was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances). Needless to say, when the weekend arrived, I decided to embark upon a mission to salvage my sanity: Mission Make Friends.

My M.O. for this mission was to walk around town greeting people and hoping that someone would invite me to hang out. Though this would never work as a way to meet friends in most parts of America, it works quite well in West Africa since the culture here is very welcoming to outsiders, not to mention that people enjoy the novelty of having a white person for a friend. So naturally it was not too long before I started meeting people and getting invited to sit down and chat.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a Peulh woman with two small children, and based on the fact that 1) she was Peulh, 2) she had a baby, and 3) she seemed slightly broussey (aka she acted like she was from a village rather than a town), I decided pretty much instantaneously that I would make her my friend. (For those of you who don’t know, the Peulhs are the ethnic group I lived with in Mali, although Peulhs from Guinea are pretty different culturally from those in Mali.) Luckily for me, I was successful in my endeavor, so now I hang out with my new friend Aissata Diallo each weekend. Granted, since we speak different Peulh dialects, we only understand about half of what each other are saying most of the time, but the friendship seems to be working out nonetheless.

Mud, mud, and more mud

On Friday I took my first trip out into the field. My supervisor, a Congolese man named Raphael, needed to meet with someone in the town of Foya, less than 50 miles away. Despite many of the staff members cautioning me that the roads were very bad since the rains, I was excited to be seeing more of the region.

About twenty minutes into our trip, I began to appreciate a bit more my colleagues’ statements about the road conditions. About every half mile or so, the dirt road turned into giant mud trenches. Though luckily we did not get stuck anywhere along our way, the trip took us over four hours. In the dry season, it takes only one.

If the way to Foya was difficult, the way back was far more challenging. Around 5pm, we arrived in the town of Kolahun, the half-way point between Foya and Voinjama. We stopped at the IRC-run hospital to pick up a patient with a ruptured intestine. Since the Kolahun hospital does not have an operating room, we needed to transport the patient with her daughter and a nurse to the larger hospital in Voinjama. We placed a mattress in the back of our land cruiser, and Martina lay down for the ride. While I had cringed at many of the constant bumps and jerks on the way to Foya, the ride felt a million times worse knowing that we had Martina in the back. To be honest, I really do not know how to describe just how bad these roads were and how painful it must have been for Martina, with her intestines already ruptured. I tried to take photos of the mud (I posted a few below), but they really do not do the situation justice at all. At one point, I tried to calculate the longest stretch of flat road, and I couldn’t ever get past twenty seconds. Martina’s daughter was so bumped around and nauseous from the road and car fumes that she threw up intermittently for most of the trip.

In addition to being jerked around as our vehicle navigated through potholes and ditches, eventually we got stuck in the mud. We were only able to get the car out by having half a dozen Liberians rock the car back and forth with all their strength until the front wheel could get enough traction to pull out of the ditch. This took countless tries over a half hour period, and all the while Martina was lying there in the back seat with only her daughter and the nurse able to steady her as the car jerked to and fro. The saga didn’t end here, however. Instead, once we finally got going again, the sky opened up and started to pour, turning the road into a giant muddy soup. Luckily, we did not get stuck again, but the trip back still took several more hours.

As we bobbed along the road, I could not help but wonder about a lot of things. First, as the rain poured down, I wondered how it must have been for people during the war, having fled their homes and villages, to survive in the jungle with no escape from the rain and mud—not to mention all the diseases that came with them. Never having experienced a war myself, I have no idea if it was silly of me to wonder about the rain and to feel like it must have just made everything worse. Maybe the rain was the least of everyone’s problems. But watching it pour down so relentlessly, I couldn’t help but wonder. Second, as I stared at Martina, lying there in the back of the car, surely in terrible pain, I wondered what other horrible experiences she had been through? Did getting jerked around for hours in the back of a land cruiser with her intestines ruptured seem like a minor form of suffering in comparison? Or did she wonder what trick God was playing on her to allow her to survive so much only to have her die in the back of a car because of something so seemingly insignificant as mud? Third, I thought about Mali and the different challenges faced by individuals trying to access health care there and here. In Mali, Malado died for many reasons, but the final cause was the lack of available and affordable transport to get her to a hospital. Though the health district has an ambulance, patients have to pay, and it would have cost about $100. This was an unthinkable amount of money for Malado’s family and well beyond even my means while I was in Senossa (I only had about $30 and there are no ATMs). In contrast, here in Liberia, IRC provides free health care and transport to patients throughout the county. But what good is free transport when the roads are completely impassable? It was horrible sitting for hours in that car knowing that even with all IRC’s funding and four-wheel drive-equipped vehicles, we might not be able to get this woman to an operating table in time to save her life.

In the end, we arrived safely in Voinjama and were able to drop Martina off at the hospital. The doctors intended to operate on that night or in the morning, but I haven't heard yet if she survived. Another patient died in the car on the way to the hospital yesterday because of the roads.

When I was in Monrovia and expats complained about the Liberian government’s priorities, wishing they would “just pave the damn roads already,” I was unmoved; investments in health care and education should come first. But progress in many key areas relies on people and programs being able to get from one place to the other in the country. Although I still don’t think that the roads should be the government’s first priority, I will not be so indifferent the next time someone laments their poor condition or warns me of a long, bumpy day when I am next headed out to the field.