This week, my brother Emailed me to say he was coming to Liberia.
Let me unpack that sentence for you.
1. I have a brother. We have the same mom. (Allegedly.) He's 38. He's a loner. He teaches himself to play instruments.
2. My brother and I have no idea what to say to each other in person so his recent acquisition of Email and FaceBook accounts has changed my life.
3. My brother hasn't been to Liberia since 1988. I was beside him on that flight: I puked all over my denim jacket. When he finally stopped laughing, he woke up Mom. (The snitch...)
4. My brother hasn't been on a plane since 1994. In the beginning, this was due to the usual early-twenties lack of funding. But then he was a cabbie in New York in September 2001 and that was the end of that. (Some time later, he got a tattoo on his neck of a Boeing. He won't tell anyone what that's about, either.)
So while my mother's not holding her breath that he'll come, I'm already thinking up things to show him. At the top of my list is Rita.
Rita is the coolest girl in Liberia. I could drop her into a party in the States in her mauve skinny jeans and no one would notice. She is 32, gorgeous, and single with no children; she lives alone. (Sometimes, I wonder if she's actually Liberian.) She bought property outside of town and carries her deed and bank book everywhere. During the war, she fled to Lebanon with the family she'd been working for; she lived there for ten years and learned to speak Arabic. She's sharp and funny and warm and doesn't take any shit from anyone. She's fantastic.
And Rita can't read.
This is one of those things about Liberia that is both beautiful and sad: you've got communities set up to help people get through life without ever becoming literate.
The most endearing thing about Rita is that she's not even secretive about the fact that she can't read. She says it confidently and casually, the way other people say things that just are.
I forgot that people fall through the cracks elsewhere, too, until I was squatting in arrivals a week ago, filling out immigration information for this traffic-stopping Gambian and her kid. "I don't write," she said, vaguely regal and annoyed, to the customs agent distributing the forms. The way she phrased it -- not "I can't write" but "I don't write" -- made it seem like a choice rather than an unlucky draw. But I looked into her passport -- born 1983 -- and I thought about her and the rest of her life.
I decided I'll ask Rita to let me teach her to read.
Then I'll ask her to let my brother take her out.
Then I'll tell my brother to suit up for his first date in a decade.
Then he'll give my mom some grandchildren and take the pressure off me.
(What, you thought this was philanthropic? Please.)
Let me unpack that sentence for you.
1. I have a brother. We have the same mom. (Allegedly.) He's 38. He's a loner. He teaches himself to play instruments.
2. My brother and I have no idea what to say to each other in person so his recent acquisition of Email and FaceBook accounts has changed my life.
3. My brother hasn't been to Liberia since 1988. I was beside him on that flight: I puked all over my denim jacket. When he finally stopped laughing, he woke up Mom. (The snitch...)
4. My brother hasn't been on a plane since 1994. In the beginning, this was due to the usual early-twenties lack of funding. But then he was a cabbie in New York in September 2001 and that was the end of that. (Some time later, he got a tattoo on his neck of a Boeing. He won't tell anyone what that's about, either.)
So while my mother's not holding her breath that he'll come, I'm already thinking up things to show him. At the top of my list is Rita.
Rita is the coolest girl in Liberia. I could drop her into a party in the States in her mauve skinny jeans and no one would notice. She is 32, gorgeous, and single with no children; she lives alone. (Sometimes, I wonder if she's actually Liberian.) She bought property outside of town and carries her deed and bank book everywhere. During the war, she fled to Lebanon with the family she'd been working for; she lived there for ten years and learned to speak Arabic. She's sharp and funny and warm and doesn't take any shit from anyone. She's fantastic.
And Rita can't read.
This is one of those things about Liberia that is both beautiful and sad: you've got communities set up to help people get through life without ever becoming literate.
The most endearing thing about Rita is that she's not even secretive about the fact that she can't read. She says it confidently and casually, the way other people say things that just are.
I forgot that people fall through the cracks elsewhere, too, until I was squatting in arrivals a week ago, filling out immigration information for this traffic-stopping Gambian and her kid. "I don't write," she said, vaguely regal and annoyed, to the customs agent distributing the forms. The way she phrased it -- not "I can't write" but "I don't write" -- made it seem like a choice rather than an unlucky draw. But I looked into her passport -- born 1983 -- and I thought about her and the rest of her life.
I decided I'll ask Rita to let me teach her to read.
Then I'll ask her to let my brother take her out.
Then I'll tell my brother to suit up for his first date in a decade.
Then he'll give my mom some grandchildren and take the pressure off me.
(What, you thought this was philanthropic? Please.)
4 comments:
Hi Av, thank you for sharing your thoughts in this blog.You are making me laugh and know my husband's country better...yes,husband is Liberian. :-)- LA
:) If I can make a stranger laugh, I figure I'm doing pretty alright, life-wise. (You are a fierce woman if you're married to a Liberian guy. I am proud.)
Avsies!!! You're nesting!
Who is nesting!? I have flown the coop.
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