Africa, I Carry You Back

For everything that seems out of the ordinary or snaps a heart string they say, "This is Africa." It is both an explanation and an excuse.

Every Liberian or Lebanese* that I get a chance to interact with asks me to carry them back to America. They will hide in my bag, but preferably carry their own. They will come be my nanny so they can send money back to their families. They will send their young children to me to go to school for the first time. They lecture my children to behave so that I won't send them back to hell after coming to heaven. (As a side note, after this lecture I reassured my kids that I would never send them back to Liberia for their behavior!) They ask for my Facebook so they can find me in America and introduce them to a good woman they can marry to make them a citizen...they will be good husbands.

And so, this is my way of carrying you back, Liberia.

She sleeps on a bamboo mat under a lean-to with pieces of aluminum patchworked to the top. Nine children huddle against the wall as the rain comes down. Their father has abandoned them again or at least the father of three of them. She knows that this child she carries will not survive in this house were there is no food. She is ill, nearing 40, and has lost her job. She gives birth that night alone on a mat with nine children watching unsure what this new child will mean for them. Who will have to make room for it? Who will give up their rice for it? Who will take care of it? In the morning, new baby boy in hand she takes him to an orphanage and begs for them to take him in. With praise on her lips, she is relieved and hopeful for him when they take him in. The orphanage comes to her lean-to to establish that she really cannot care for him and they are sickened by what they see. The director buys her a new mat and brings the family rice. She leaves the mother with money to buy meat for the night. Neighbors start shouting, "Why are you selling your baby? You are evil! How can you sell your child?" They shun her. They harass her. But her child lives with food and an education. This is Africa.

He is here from South African working with the fishing industry to stop human trafficking and the stealing of oil. The Liberian Coast Guard is only allowed to patrol 25 miles from the coast but the large fishing boats can go many miles with their permits and so they go out 30 miles off the coast. These are the former child soldiers displaced after their role in the vicious coups and civil war with no skills but death and left with drug addictions they were forced to take in order to be the dramatic killers the coup leaders needed for their child army. They arm themselves with semi-automatics and they raid oil boats for oil and people or other fishing boats. Chose death by gun, drowning at sea or be pressed into slavery for sex, for fishing, for sale. This is Africa.

She was taken in by a neighbor couple. Her biological family history not revealed from shame or mystery, I don't know. She was the 20th child and the last. The neighbors loved her as their own, fed her, and sent her to school (not free in Liberia so many don't go). She grew to be a woman of hope. A woman who understood the value of being cared for and who understood the costs of being without a family. She got a job working with the displaced children during the civil war. They stopped paying her but she loved the children and continued to work for seven years with the children for no pay. Risking her life in streets of machine guns and ebola to walk to the kids an hour each way. And then one day her boss "ran away" to become a refugee in another country and God blessed her with the paid position he left behind. Today she lives a nice life with a stable salary, a good education, a reputable position in the community and the joy of Jesus in her heart. She has travelled abroad many times and loves her country and her children. This too is Africa.

We drove through a crowded marketplace and she saw a man she knew. She waved to him and asked what he was doing but did not want to stop. As we drove away she told me her story with dry eyes as if stating facts.  Many days she begged for food. And then she met a man who always kept rice in his room. On days when she could not find food, she would go to his apartment and he would feed her. Then the bombing of her neighborhood began and she was displaced and scared. She went to his house for food that night and he told her it was time she stayed to sleep with him. She began to cry and he berated her for being too childish. "I may not be a child but I have never been asked to sleep with a man before." Thereafter she slept with him for food and a room. One day they were in the market when the soldiers shot a woman in the face. She watched as the bullet entered her eye and somehow exited her mouth leaving the woman alive. All the people were distracted by this woman and she saw her chance to run away. She ran away as far as she could. Were she went and how she managed to survive the war she never said. But she was adamant that she never crossed into that part of the city again until the war was over. This was the first she had seen the man who she slept with to save her life. Now, though, she is a successful business woman who manages a front office. This is Africa.

He went to church every Sunday. Two hours of hot and sweaty praise. Pressed tightly against one another with his children quietly in his lap or dancing by his side. Dripping in sweat and shouting words of praise to the mighty God. Worried, every second, that the ebola virus was among them and spreading through the sweat and touch. But there nonetheless because this God is worth the risk. This is Africa.

I carry you back, Liberia. Your stories of fear and survival a testament to your hope and strength.


*The Lebanese have been in Liberia and Sierra Leone for a long time. They came here as refugees starting in the 1930's and 40's. I'm not sure how they did it, but they bought up a lot of beach type resorts, expensive hotels, supermarkets, etc... and they have continued to increase as the wars in Lebanon and surrounding area increase. They establish themselves, buy up more property and send for their families to come work them. Most Lebanese are wealthy but not all. But, this is still a poverty country and they would rather be in the US.