Landmarks

Tomorrow will mark four weeks in Liberia. Things are finally starting to make sense to me.

But I can't shake the feeling that directions should include a cross street and a subway stop. 

"Hey. Where are we meeting?"

"Tides."

"Where is Tides?"

"Waterside."

"What?" 

"Just tell the driver to take you to Tides. The cab will be $5."

"But I'm coming from--"

"Doesn't matter. $5."

I don't like not knowing where I'm going. I don't like it at all. I'm a quick study if I can just walk around but my mom's sure I'll be kidnapped by the opposition. (She forgets I come equipped with the Perry family rage and a mouth like a sailor -- I'd be returned by noon.)  

I get sent to places that are "near Nineteenth Street" or "at ELWA Junction" or "behind City Hall"  since only major streets are named: everything else is a dirt road or an alleyway identified by its distance from the fish market or by which politician once lived there. 

Landmarks are my best friends here. But not everyone sees the same landmark, revealing a lot about the person giving directions. 

"Hello?"

"Hi, I need a taxi."

"OK. Where are you?"

"At the compound next to Palm Spring Casino."

"Next to what?"

"Palm Spring?"

"The compound with the red gate?"

"Yeah."

"The one across from Charles Taylor's place?"

"Across from WHAT???"

The New York Times

A warlord during [Liberia's] civil war in the 1990's, Mr. Taylor became president after the war ended. His forces [coerced] children into combat and made the hacking off of limbs their signature.

In 2007 Mr. Taylor became the first African head of state to be brought before an international court on war crimes allegations when his trial opened in The Hague. He is charged with instigating murder, mutilation, rape and sexual slavery during intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone that claimed more than 250,000 victims from 1989 to 2003.

Only someone who watched the war from 4500 miles away would give Palm Spring Casino as the nearest signpost. The locals know better; they share a nightmare that had a street address.

Critters

Election Day

My mother spent forty years in the U.S. without ever becoming a citizen. I guess she was never in the mood.

So on Tuesday, in Liberia, she voted for the very first time.

How cool is that?

I used to think of voting as this slightly inconvenient thing I got shamed into doing. Then I saw people standing serenely in the sun, in the rain, in puddles of mud for hours just to choose someone.

It blew my mind.

And I've been waiting 29 years for a bloody nose, a constellation of bruises -- some kind of street cred -- and Liberia cheated me out of this. There were no fights to break up, no attacks or riots, no reports of tampering or bullying: it was a nation of people on horse tranquilizers.

My sedative wore off at 7pm when I realized we'd be counting votes for the next five hours by flashlight. (Electricity is an amazing thing when you want but don't have it.)

Most of the country is hard to access so it could be a week or more before the votes are in. Stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Josie Stewart

Proximity

I like a three-foot radius of personal space.

I thought this was a byproduct of 11 years on subways, but other New Yorkers don't mind being touched. Then I heard my half-sister say, "After five minutes of spooning, he'd better get away from me," and thought "Hot damn! It's genetic." But my sister grew up sleeping four to a bed; she's got an excuse. So maybe it isn't genetic.

Maybe it's just me being awkward, ticking the seconds I'm in someone else's grasp. 

This quirk will be the death of me in Liberia. Here, I spent ten sweaty hours in a child's chair in a packed, one-room schoolhouse observing elections. Here, I let the elderly knead my arm for the length of a car ride when they learn I'm related to so-and-so. Here, I let people hold (and swing) my hand indefinitely. I suffer in silence. 

There is no personal space in Liberia. My uncle, his wife and their children share a room; he also comes by unannounced to do laundry. Male adolescents hold hands as casually as children. Women actually pat and evaluate each other's fleshiness. Strangers lean against you, squeeze your shoulder, use your knee to steady themselves, offer you food, touch your clothing, touch your hair.

Yet I've never seen Liberians kiss.

It's the strangest thing.

I caught expats snuggling on wicker at a bar on Saturday and my stomach didn't turn. That was new. It was actually kind of...sweet.

So if I get nothing else from my year here, I can now tolerate appropriate forms of intimacy. (Or, you know, at least six minutes of spooning.)

Photo of the Day

Waiting to Vote

Nancy Drew

Today feels like a good day to get punched in the face. It'd be worth it.

Three weeks ago, in a haze of jet lag, I agreed to be an Observer at the presidential elections. From 8am to midnight, my little notepad and I are in sleuth mode ensuring everything's "free, fair and transparent."

"Non-violent" falls into the "Nice to Have, But Not Required" category.

Ihwiho!

Liberian slang for "American accent" is "series." I think.

No one knows how to spell the word because no one's ever written it down. And no one ever knows what I'm saying because I'm never saying it right.

American English Rule	U.S.	Liberia
Pronounce “h” after “t”	Thought	Taut
Roll medial “t” into a “d”	Wadder	Watah
Pronounce terminal "y"	Happy	Happeh
An “r” sounds like “r”	Our	Owa
Conjugate the past tense	Seemed	Seem

I have three versions of everything I say since my first two attempts are always met with confusion. And Liberians do not use contractions, so....

Words I Can No Longer Use

I'm

You'd

She's

It'll

We're

They've

Get a Liberian teen to text you -- it'll age you ten years. (Did you know "d" means "the"?) 

The title of today's post is the president's battle cry. It took me two damn weeks to decipher: It Will Hold.

Sometimes I wonder if Liberians have united just to mess with me. Then I remember they have more important things to address: an entire generation missed going to school and more than half the population is considered illiterate. But this is a country in which only two of the 20 dialects are written -- Liberians were bound to do fascinating things with spoken word.

I hope they don't mind me butchering it a bit.

Pax

On Tuesday, Liberians will choose one of sixteen (what?!) candidates to take care of business for the next six years. This is a huge deal for a country that was still at war in '03.

There are only two parties worth putting money on:

• UP, powered by women and the elite
• CDC, powered by young, marginalized men

I drew the following parallel in traffic tonight. (Yeah. I'm a nerd. It's totally fine.)

President	VP	2005/2008	2011/2012
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (UP)	Joe Boakai	Deified after groundbreaking win. Harvard grad. Inherited a mess from predecessor. Nobel laureate.	Second term in doubt.  Vilified domestically over broken promises.
Barack Obama (Democrat)	Joe  Biden

vs.

Candidate	VP	The Gist	Notes
Winston Tubman (CDC)	George Weah (Soccer Star)	Repeat candidate. Appeals to an older generation. Connects with combatants.	Upstaged by younger, lightweight,  random running mate with  a fanatical  following
John McCain (Republican)	Sarah Palin (Alaskan)

Here's hoping it's a peaceful election. I like it here. 

Thank You

Three weeks after my first post, I'm at 999 page views.

I realize that most of these are from a handful of you (Aaron), but thank you to anyone who has ever read my rambling and thought, however briefly, "Cool."

Humor

One time, at Salesforce, Lydia told a joke.

Lydia: What do you get when you pour hot water on bunnies?
Me: I dunno. Bunny stew?
Lauren: Dead bunnies?

(The correct answer, friends, is "Hot cross bunnies.")

My mother says I'm macabre. (Clearly, she hasn't met Lauren.)

"When did you get so wry, Vee?" she carps.

Let me clue you in on Liberian humor.

Mom: Pierre, I hope you bought gas for the stove or else what'll we eat?
Pierre: There's plenty of food in the bush.
Mom: I think you guys ate it all during the war.
Pierre: There is still some left.

Neither misses a beat or cracks a smile; I'm in the backseat, hysterical.

So let's be honest: a sunny disposition was never in the cards for me.

The Insider II

What did I tell you?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15211861

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded jointly to three women - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen. (4 minutes ago)

The Insider

My mother was one of those kids who probably never believed in Santa. Maybe she had some secret source. Maybe she was playing the odds, just in case.

But at dawn, she pounced on my bed like bloody Christmas morning. Today, as usual, she knew something no one else knew. 

My mom is the president's speechwriter and the Communications Director of Liberia. She is 65 and, allegedly, retired. Scrabble stops and dinners congeal when she gets a call from a private number: she grabs a pen, clears her throat and answers, "Good evening, Madame President."

Madame President is her secret source. 

(My mom's a lot cooler than I am.) 

Have you ever played Telephone? In this version, the Nobel Committee tells the president she's strongly favored, the president tells my mom and my mom, who has something to say about everything, has no words. She throws away breakfast and runs to work half-dressed to start on a speech. 

Just in case. 

State of the Union

Elections are five days away.

I wanted to sum up the situation in Liberia. Then this crossed my path (courtesy of Josh) and said exactly what I wanted to.

Diplomacy

Our fridge has all of two things on it. One is a photo of me at five. The other is a magnet that says LIBYA. 

Two years ago, I couldn't find my mom for the life of me. She surfaces a week later to say she'd been flown to the desert to talk shop over camel milk with Gaddafi. (Note: this is not even the strangest thing this woman has ever said.)

It helps to know that Libya was a major benefactor of Liberia. As you can imagine, this became...tricky.

We're driving through Monrovia, for example, and Pierre says, "That's Gaddafi's building." I look up: it's U.N. headquarters.

Liberia severed relations with Libya this year. Unfinished projects (rice paddies, rubber farms) dot our country; the saddest and least-practical of these is the five-star hotel that was also, later, a homeless shelter.

Once, I asked a family friend what she was still doing with her husband. Not one of her reasons was entirely satisfactory. I must have gotten her thinking because a year later she left him.

I guess being friends with Gaddafi was a lot like that.

Venn Diagram

Age

So I'm reading a Nigerian tabloid this morning (it's best to just ignore all the weirdness in that sentence...) and settle on an interview with some actress.

Question: At 30, one should be thinking of settling down in marriage; is that on your priorities list?

Answer: {Irrelevant}

Question: But don't you think you're running out of time as far as marriage is concerned?

Hmm.

On the next page is a completely different interview. The interviewee is 28.

Question: Don't you think a time will come when men will be scared of you?

So now I know: it's a full-on conspiracy.

In the States, I never thought anything about turning 29. But in Africa, I'm...well, I'm starting to understand this scene:

Carrie: Hey, what the hell was going on in there?

Miranda: We were standing in a group of married or engaged women. We were the only single people in there.

Carrie: Miranda, we’re the only single people anywhere.

Miranda: Are you telling me that you didn’t see all those "Don´t worry, you’ll find someone" looks?

Carrie: You know what? Sometimes I think people and couples look at us and wish they had our lives.

Miranda: Nope, we make them uncomfortable and they don’t know what to say.

Personally, I don't worry about men or children. But Liberians do. And nearly everyone my age has a kid who can divide 144 by 12.

So I worry them.

"No fiancé back home?"

"Nope."

"Then you'll start looking when you go back?"

"Not really."

"How so? In Liberia, we don't rest until we're married."

"Oh. No I'm good, thanks."

Percentage of Population Under Age 14

Liberia: 44% 

U.S.A.: 20% 

That is a ton of Liberian children. It's also not uncommon to have kids early and get married 5-15 years later. I heard a radio show attack the lack of family values in Liberia; my mother countered that when your life is cut in two by war, you create stability however you can -- getting a ring was the least of a girl's worries.

Until now, apparently.

I hope my people don't mind if I sit this one out. I'll watch silently from the bleachers.

Ten-Four

I’ve been asked to post a picture of myself, which I had no intention of ever doing.

Not sure why I'm getting social media requests from someone who won’t join FaceBook (Janna) but today is my birthday and I’m in good spirits.

Photo of the Day

Campaign Rally in Sinkor

Entitlement

On Saturday, my mother’s phone rang. I heard her say, “OK” and hang up. Three minutes later I heard “Pohk-Pohk!” at the back gate: our security guard was awaiting the breakfast we had, evidently, promised her.

My mom’s beau, Pierre, keeps a mess of Liberian dollars in the glove compartment. I saw him dip into this stash three times that afternoon without actually purchasing anything.

Incident #1 involved the same security guard who, when asked how she was, replied, “OK, but nahting here,” which means, “I didn’t bring anything for lunch, which has somehow become your problem.” Pierre handed her 100 Liberian dollars and pulled out of the gate.

Incident #2 was a payment of 10 Liberian dollars to each of 10 rapscallions who had sacrificed a sandal apiece to watch (with joy) as our Jeep rolled over their shoes. Mom jested that they’d earned remuneration. Pierre took her seriously and, like a shopping mall Santa, had the boys line up for face-time and treats.

Incident #3 was the strangest by far. We’d pulled over to admire a carpenter’s handiwork when a cop reached his unsolicited hand into the passenger window and across my mother to shake Pierre’s hand; Pierre obliged. I’m still not sure they’d ever met but it doesn’t matter because the cop said to Pierre, “Saturday dry, oh.” This means, “I’m out of cash and my wife expects me to return with groceries.” Pierre sighed and tossed him a bill.

Some in the Liberian upper-class kvetch that this is a nation of dependents, of people who expect a salary for doing nothing and kickbacks for doing their jobs. But perhaps the accusation could be lobbed at the upper-class, too.

Finally, I had to ask, “Why are we giving away money?”

Mom said, “Because we have it.”

“And?”

“Because now we're entitled to a favor.”

The whole thing gnaws at me.

Beirut: Part II

I had the illest hummus at brunch yesterday, which got me thinking about a lot of things (but mostly: hummus). And as far as I can tell, Lebanon runs this town. (See http://tinyurl.com/6bqamdf).

It's a really interesting interaction because North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa have some beef I don't understand.

Though there is intermingling here, there doesn't seem to be intermarriage. This so perplexed me that I started asking around. This just about sums it up:

Me: Do you know anyone Lebanese married to a Liberian?
Mom: Well, the women return to Lebanon at a certain age.
Me: Do you know any Lebanese men married to Liberians?
Mom: No.
Me: No?
Mom: Well, there's one.
Me: So, there's one.
Mom: Yeah but the woman is half-Lebanese.
Me: So, no.
Mom: No.

My buddy recounted a story about "getting Leb'd" at dinner for seven one night. What in the hell, you ask? This is when a group goes out to eat (or drink or dance) and the well-to-do Lebanese in the posse up and pays for everybody.

Honestly, I hope to be baller enough to not only cover dinner for seven but do so so consistently that the act bears my name.

That is all. As you were.

Beirut: Part I

Have you been to a frat party in Liberia? It's exactly like the ones in the States except that....no, it's exactly the same.

Friday found me in a palaver hut (read: gazebo) with my mouth hanging open while twenty Beck's-wielding non-Africans stood mesmerized by beer pong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_pong).

Adding insult to injury, the game took place on an official beer pong table. 

I want to know the thought process behind not just purchasing but transporting this thing to Africa.

Lictionary II

Small-small (idiom):
Little by little

So-so (adj.)
A lot of

Hallahalla (n.):
A ruckus

Hellbag (n.):
Any massive, heavy sac used to transport whatever to wherever

Dash (n.)
That little extra you request when buying in bulk or for being a regular, which the shopkeeper concedes to because (s)he's always already overcharging you anyway. (May also be used as a verb.)

Photo of the Day

Mischief in Snapper Hill

Débutante

My mother has taken it upon herself to make my year in Liberia some sort of coming-out extravaganza (Southern belle style, rather than un-closeted). I’m not sure she realizes I’m:

1. Not 15
2. Voluntarily single, and
3. A Yank

but I’ll let her have her fun. And everywhere that Shirley went, I was sure to go. (Think Mary’s little lamb hiding deadpan delivery.)

From 9 to 9, I’m never rumpled. My dresses graze the floor. I smell the way Sookie does to Bill. I am charming and always, always beaming. I go to dinners at the Chinese Embassy and lower my gaze and say, “Hello, Mr. Vice President. The country sings your praises. What an honor to meet you.”

At 9:01pm, I put on American Apparel and blast something dirty.

I don’t know where the template is but I’m certain there is one. “Hello [Title] [Last Name]. This is my daughter. She has moved home from the States. Her father was the Austin Perry of Cape Mount. She’s a wonderful writer.” And the person invariably responds, “Of course she’s a Perry: look at her face. I knew her pa.” And I show 32 teeth and shake hands and say something I heard in a movie.   

I allow all of this because, in her intros, I learn answers to things I would never ask my mom, like:

Do you want to leave Liberia?

and

Do you miss my dad?

and

Do you like my writing?

I imagine the answer to the last one is “Yes” until she finds my blog. (Hi Mom!)

Dictation

So yesterday, I’m reading aloud to a girl I am, evidently, mentoring. It...did not go well.

Me: "The seller stated that when he must go to town with the orders…"

J: {Typing} THE SAILOR STATED THAT. WIN HE MUST! GO TO TOWN WITH THE OTHERS.

Me: Sorry – I meant "seller." S-E-L-L-E-R.

J: It ends in "i"?

Me: No, "r". {Points to "r" on the keyboard} Which letter is this?

J: “Ara.”

Me. Hmm. Let’s try another one. "In March, the troops…"

J: {Typing} AND MUSH THEM THROUGH…

Me: No, "March."

J: Right. {Points to “MUSH” onscreen}

Me: Wait. How do you say the third month of the year?

J: Wha munt?

Me: The one after February.

J: Oh! Deh terd munt?

Me: Yes! What’s that called?

J: "Mosh."

Me: Why don’t we both just read quietly for a while.