Fishing, Family & Liberian Lizards

"You plan and you plan and you plan. And then you surrender to the emergent reality.” I have been on what feels like a long journey towards Liberia, and I am finally here. Thank you to everyone in my community – in Brooklyn and beyond – who has been part of the journey.

I’ve been here now for almost two weeks, but it feels like much longer, thanks to a thousand new experiences. I live in Sinkor, a neighborhood in Monrovia (capital of Liberia, 1.5 million) best known for housing UNMIL – the UN Mission to Liberia. UNMIL is a huge presence here, in terms of security, troops, vehicles. At the time of its deployment, UNMIL was the largest UN peace-keeping force in history, though it is allegedly much smaller than even last year, and continues to downsize the mission here in Liberia. (Photo: home, from my doorway.)

I live with Hawah Gol-Kotchi and her family. Sis Hawah worked until recently for the Ministry of Education, and now works for at a new commission for good governance. She is a passionate educator at heart, and an advocate for Liberia’s (re)development. I feel like I’ve been absorbed right into the family, and Sis Hawah is quickly educating me in all things Liberian.

I had been told Sis Hawah had a daughter, who turns out to be Anais, age 7. Anais is adorable, the apple of her mamma’s eye and already highly skilled at helping her mamma run the house. In addition to Sis Hawah and Anais, living in our compound are Lazo, Kemah and Bobby. And Gerlah is here daily to cook and clean. And Zinnah and Joseph are cousins/nephews from Sis Hawah’s village (up in Bomi County, to the north) who come and go. So it seems we constantly have a full house. Not to mention the chickens, dogs and goat and a thousand lizards out in the yard. It is lizard mating season, and the mating rituals strikes me as riotously funny – male lizards trying to impress female lizards by stretching their necks high to appear big, and then bobbing them furiously up and down. So far I’m pretty such I’m the only person who stops to lizard-watch. It probably looks like “crazy white woman staring at a wall.”

Lazo is 40 and also has a government job, at the ministry of education. Between Lazo and Sis Hawah, all my questions about the logistics of living are answered, and many interesting discussions about Liberia begin. In addition, Lazo walks me almost everywhere I need to go, in the name of safety and chivalry. This includes my “solitary” walks down to the ocean – which, granted, usually turn into walking in the surf, and longer than I intend. I have Bobby, our security guy, to thank for that. Bobby opens the gate every time we come or go, and he tips off Lazo if I’m going out alone. So I always have a personal escort. Bobby is 22 and has been working for Sis Hawah for a couple months. He is quickly working his way through the books I brought with me, and so far likes Graham Greene the most.

Kemah is thirteen, and we have neighbor-bedrooms and share a bathroom. She came to live with Sis Hawah at the very end of the war (’02) – I’m not sure the exact story with her family, but she is part of our family now. Kemah is in grade 6 at school, and also helps Gerlah with all the cooking and cleaning around the house. And she also occasionally serves in the additional capacity of saving me from arachnids, which have already caused me to lose my dignity several times. I am trying to be tough, but so far, Kemah just laughed at my efforts.

So that’s my Liberian family. I love it. I feel really taken care of, and am getting more integrated into Liberia every day, thanks to their efforts and care.

The ocean is very close, which is a great gift. A short walk continuing down our street from the main road, and you are on a sandy beach with crashing waves and horizon that stretches to (Brooklyn, of course). Looking to the north you see the UNMIL building, blue and white concrete and dominating the horizon. I’m told that Liberians tend to be afraid of the water and use the ocean for bathing, fishing and little else. There is a very strong undertow, and numbers of Liberians drown each year, bathing or swimming.

Last Saturday I headed down to the beach around noon, and Zinnah and Lazo joined me. We stopped to watch a fishing net get pulled in, which led to a case study in microeconomics. It must have taken over an hour for what seemed like a village of people. We started watching one line of men, pulling in a rope from the water – yard by yard, under the hot sun. Eventually we can finally tell which boat they are connected to, and I realize the other side of the net is being pulled in further down the beach and is on its way to us. Half an hour after that, the net has finally been pulled onto the sand, thanks to about 30 men pulling in the ropes, some of whom jumped into the water, to control the drift of the net in the breaking waves. Lazo told me these men would each get a wage from the fisherman, who owns the net and the boat. (Photo: pulling in the nets, with Lazo on the right.)

By the time the net has been pulled in, a stream of women with buckets have emerged from the shantytown bordering this part of the beach. They have come to bargain for the fish, which they will resell at the market. The scene of the net on the shore, flopping fish all over the place, women and men shouting urgently against the sound of the crashing waves… a spontaneous marketplace of fish, bought and sold on the spot. I’m not sure what I expected to be in that net, and I don’t know anything about fishing yields, so I have no scale by which to compare, but I was amazed by how little they had pulled in… it seemed hardly enough to support the amount of effort being expended by so many people.

Lazo said he though fishing in the US probably looked pretty different, and I told him I wasn’t sure, but you would never have so many people working for so little fish. And you would have much more sophisticated equipment, with maybe only a couple of guys operating it. Lazo said “Sure… but what about the community?”

Monrovia feels wonderfully small to me. A short drive from Sinkor and you drive past University of Liberia and The Mansion (the executive mansion of President Ellen) and the Capital Building and the Judiciary and then you’re downtown. And probably not too far from Providence Baptist Church, on Ashmun, Broad and Center Streets, where LEAD has its offices. (Photo: Monrovia from Providence Baptist Church, looking west.)

I thought I was hardened by Manhattan driving, but Monrovia is a whole new can of lizards. First off… there are no stoplights. NPL (National Police of Liberia) work the busiest intersections during the busiest hours, but for the most part you are on your own. Liberian drivers turn left by inching into oncoming traffic slowly but surely. Eventually you stop enough traffic that you can turn into your lane (which is hopefully empty). Liberians mostly get around via a yellow cab/yellow van informal taxi system. But be warned you don’t get to have your own car and driver. Everyone packs in till you have people half out the window. It seems to work pretty well except for rush hours, when the crowds of people waiting in the hot sun makes you feel very guilty about your vehicle.

I thought NYC drivers honked a lot, but that was nothing. All of the following are great occasions to honk in Liberia, plus a couple dozen more I’m still learning.

1. Hey, get out of my way
2. Hey, move over into your own lane
3. Hey, passing you on the right (or the left). Just letting you know
4. Hey, go faster, you're slowing me down
5. Hey, how are you, my friend!
6. Hey, check out the white woman. Hey white woman! (Actually sounds more like "Haaaaaya WHY-womah!")

The other item of note regarding driving is that one is constantly dodging enormous potholes. Since we are at the end of the rainy season (May-October), the potholes are at their worst. On top of that, many of the roads have not been repaired and repaved since they were destroyed in the last year of fighting during the war. It seems to be Liberian normal that drivers will slowly move down a street swerving radically around and past the biggest potholes. This was definitely true in our trip to Buchanen last week – three hours south of Monrovia in Grand Bassa County. I think we spent as much time on the left side of the road as on the right.

Work at LEAD has been going smoothly. I’m getting to know the staff and organization much better, and I’m so impressed at their effectiveness, especially given their modest resources. I went out to visit clients last week with Andrew Davis, our loan officer – both micro-level clients (ie. individual women vendors at a rural marketplace) and medium-sized business-owners (ie. businessman who owns a cement-block business and a furniture-making business, employing about 8 workers). It was really interesting to meet each of them, see their businesses and hear their stories. More on this later, as I continue to build relationships and adapt to Liberian English.

I promise to post shorter in the future. Much love to everyone back home! XO Karen