Julia Smith - The Winding Road - June 15/10
Posted by Elizabeth Scott
A few weeks ago I travelled to Liberia. It's
taken me a while to write about it because it was the type of trip that
required some processing afterwards. While I'm still turning over much
of what I experienced in my mind, let me share a few notes with you.
Monrovia,
the capital city, is spread out along wide roads. It has the potential
to be beautiful, boasting white sandy beaches and lush green trees –
and perhaps it once was. But the scars of war are still very present.
As a tour I was taken to a five star hotel, or what had once been a
hotel; now it was an empty shell with soldiers camped out in the lobby
to prevent squatters. Street children played in the empty swimming pool
and parking lot. From the poolside I looked out all over Monrovia –
directly bellow me a massive slum pressed out on a peninsula of white
sandy beach.
I then was taken to a church, now repaired,
where I was told 200 people were massacred. The tour continued on such
themes: the jail where my colleague was imprisoned for political
protest; the beach where former government ministers faced Charles
Taylor's firing squads, and so on. The blue helmets and white land
rovers of UN peacekeepers were everywhere.
We
went to a rural village. On the bumpy 8 hour drive my travelling
companions told me about spending two weeks fleeing Taylor's rebels in
the juggle. They spoke of eating razor blades because the traditional
spiritual leaders told them it would make them bullet proof. They spoke
of refugee camps and long years in exile.
In
the village they describe how it once had been, pointing out the
businesses that had been but were no more. They told me the pile of
rocks I was standing on had been their grandmothers' house and pointed
out where her bedroom had been. It was like a tour of a ghost town –
every pile of rubble or new little shack shadowed by the greater
building that had once been there.
We
visited a school my colleagues were trying to assist. The eight
classrooms cannot accommodate the 500 children so they hope to build
more, plus buy text books (since there are almost none). When we
arrived many of the teachers were absent. They were required to travel
20 km to collect their pay of about $50 a month – the travel itself
cost them $5 and collection had to be done on a working day, so once a
month the children received no instruction.
When
I visit a place I always look for the good. I don't like presenting
depressing stories from African countries – there are so many of those
already. I found a glimmer of this good at the school. I saw seeds of
hope and in the plans the people I met were making for themselves and
their communities. I saw the potential for growth on the streets of
Monrovia. But in truth, despite my best efforts, I was overwhelmed by
destruction and suffering left in the wake of conflict.