Firsts

My mom only vaguely grasps how much she lucked out with me: I was the teen least likely to get into trouble in Manhattan. (Caveat lector: this does not necessarily mean I was well-behaved.)

Imagine my shock when, for the first time in my life, I had a curfew.

It was city-wide.

I also went to sleep with a live duck in a burlap sac in the kitchen.

Yeah. It was a weird night for everyone in Monrovia.

Riot #2

Yesterday I did a really stupid thing, also known as "getting on a motorbike taxi in the middle of a riot."

It was awesome.

Do not tell my mother.

(Full article: http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/youth-riots-erupt-in-liberia-1.1203535)

December 22, 2011 - Monrovia - Hundreds of young people took to the streets in the Liberian capital Monrovia on Thursday, angry at the government's late payment of casual workers' wages.

Demonstrations began peacefully but descended into riots during the afternoon. Tires were burnt, rocks thrown and at least one government-owned vehicle was set on fire.

A student who worked as a street cleaner for several days in early December told reporters, "The government owes me 30 dollars. They promised us we would be paid today, but nothing happened. They can't keep treating the youth badly."

Photo of the Day

Tell me this isn't a tree-person from Lord of the Rings.

Robertsport, Liberia

Chucky

There's a business downtown with a mural of Chucky (http://tinyurl.com/4svgou) on its gates. It's, like, the opposite of a welcome mat.

It gets me thinking about Liberia's own "Chucky" Taylor (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2963086.stm).

I came home to find my roommate's housekeeper and driver discussing how Mr. Taylor would fare in a hypothetical election.

Both insisted that they'd vote for him. (Nevermind that he's, you know, on trial for war crimes.)

They also suspected he would win. 

Bear in mind that Mr. Taylor used to brag that you'd still vote for him if he'd killed both your parents (because in many cases, he had).

Surely, I asked, Taylor would win out of sheer fear?

"No," they said, "He would win fairly." 

This was one of the worst things I've ever heard before 9am. 

Why would you vote for a man held responsible for wars in not one but two countries, you ask?

Rice.

Or, rather, the price of rice.

From The Atlantic (full article: http://tinyurl.com/7kq5bb2):


In town, not far from a road sign that reads "The war is over," Rachel McCarthy, 28, leans against a wall nursing her baby son. Although Liberia is now at peace, McCarthy said she preferred the Taylor years -- in large part because staple foods, mainly rice, were less expensive. "Yes, there was war, but we had food. Today, although we're free now, and we have peace, it's not easy." 

I heard a Liberian say once that rice and footballs were all you needed to start a stampede. In retrospect, this was not a joke: rice is the life force in Liberia. Without it, my people believe that have not actually eaten anything.

I understand less and less about this country each day. 

Clubs

My friend was taken into custody for taking pictures near the American embassy. The cops were cool, though, and let the poor thing go with a warning. At the station, a question on the officer's report caught my friend off-guard.

Cop: Tribe?
F: What?
Cop: Your tribe?
F: I don't have a tribe.

The cop looked up, remembered he was speaking to an Austrian, and laughed.

There's something to be said about having a tribe.

The New York Times ran a story about the thousands of Native Americans being cast out of California tribes on a technicality (http://tinyurl.com/buosr9f).

They receive the news by mail.

Officially, I'm a member of three tribes. (Four, if you count New Yorker.) This is something I'd forget in the States and find myself constantly convincing other people of in Liberia. My middle name used to be something only long-term boyfriends earned the right to know. Here, it's a membership card, a secret password; it says, "Nevermind my accent: I'm one of you."

It also says, "Do not rip me off. I have people. And we will find you."

So to every Liberian I meet, I'm not Avril: I'm Massa. "Massa" rhymes with casa and broadcasts the tribe and county my dad was from. The listener always nods knowingly. Then I wait for the inevitable "Do you speak Vai?" which precedes the inevitable look of disappointment when I reply, "No. Not yet."

I am grateful there is no proper postal service lest they cast me out of my tribes by mail.

Tolstoy

The three of us sat in the front seat of an off-road vehicle to Cape Mount a few weeks ago. V manned the radio while I found myself happily feeding bites of flatbread to J as she drove in the dark. At one point, J mashed "chick" with "duckling" to describe how she felt.

Yesterday, I had another chickling encounter as I stood on Tubman Blvd, looking for a gap in traffic. Tubman is a 4-6 lane free-for-all with neither an an island nor traffic lights. It's a beast and crossing it is like playing Frogger. It scares me thoroughly.

I am 29.

So I'm sweating on the corner of Tubman and a little person appears beside me. It's a tiny girl. She's not even 7. She's in her uniform and she's looking up at me with huge, hopeful eyes. I'm a terrible person so I assume she wants to sell me something but she doesn't say a word. I step off the curb and forget all about her until I'm standing on the double yellow line in the middle of the road. Then I notice she's still standing next to me. And I realize she just wanted someone to cross with. She's got her that look on her face again so I wrap my fluffy wing around her and flip off drivers and we cross the rest of the way.

She forgets all about me when we reach the sidewalk and I watch her go.

Later, watching Into The Wild, I thought of my chicklings everywhere as the narrator quoted Tolstoy:

I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. 

A quiet secluded life in the country, 

with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good.

Photos of the Day

Spending two hours broken down here...

...on your way here...

...can be kind of fantastic.

BFF

Evidence suggests that adulthood is just high school, over and over again.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that we never leave kindergarten.

A friend got into a shared cab in which this happened.

Stranger: Hello.
Friend: Hi.
Stranger: Do you want to be my best friend?
Friend: Well, we've only just met. But we can get to know each other.
Stranger: So, you don't want to be my best friend.
Friend: We should probably hang out first.

Stranger flips out, muttering something about stingy foreigners.

On Friday, I was caught off-guard on a beach by a pack of 'tweens.

Pack Leader: We want to talk with you.
Me: OK. What do you want talk about?
Pack Leader: We want to make friends.
Me: Fine. We're friends.
Pack Leader: No, we want to be best friends.
Me: Oh. Well, that takes time.
Pack Leader: No, we can arrange it now.
Me: How?
Pack Leader: Well, we want to eat.
Me: And I see your associate has a basket of donuts beside her.
Pack Leader: Yes. Those are to sell.
Me: But you could just eat some, no?
Pack Leader: No. We want to sell to you.
Me: But I already ate.
Pack Leader: It is not for you to eat.
Me: Who is it for?
Pack Leader: For us.
Me: You want me to buy your donut and then give it to you so you can eat it?
Pack Leader: Not 'give.' Offer.
Me: But what kind of business is this?
Pack Leader: Not business. Friendship.
Me: I don't buy friendship.

The pack exchanged confused looks and backed away slowly.

It's exhausting to be asked for things all day. I'm going to be the worst parent.

Feist

Walking around Monrovia makes me hum this lyric all the time:

So much past inside my present

One of the coolest things about Liberians is their ability to refer to The War as though, in retrospect, it were just some ridiculous blip. The people are so strong: reminders of the death of a tenth of the population are everywhere.

I'm walking past a building I've passed countless times to and from my friend's house. Friend points it out one day.

J: See that church?
Me: Yeah.
J: Once, there were hundreds of bodies piled inside.
Me: What!?
J: It just became easier not to move them elsewhere.
Me: Wait - was it a church then?
J: Yep.
Me: And it's a church now?
J: Yeah.
Me: A church people use?
J: Definitely.
Me: So, it's not a monument?
J: No.
Me: Did they tear it down and rebuild it?
J: No!
Me: How could someone worship in there!?
J: Your people are very practical. 

Photo of the Day

Evidently, I camp

Buchanan, Grand Bassa, Liberia

Six More Years

Someone reminded me that I totally flaked re: election coverage.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the run-off with 90% of the vote. But between the boycott, the riot, the shootout and police chief's resignation, it was a bittersweet win.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory)

Meanwhile, my mother and Madam Sirleaf are off to Oslo next month for the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.

I...am not.

Bjork

I've got a song on repeat today that goes:

If you ever get close to a human

And human behavior

Be ready, be ready to get confused

Observe.

The bottled drink you order in a bar or restaurant here will, without fail, come with a Kleenex.

The odds are that the cap will still be firmly in place.

The waiter, who is inevitably exasperated that you've asked him for...anything...will wait until you're watching and ask "OK?" before opening the damn thing. 

I have been collecting explanations for this for some time. The Kleenex is there to wipe the rim of the bottle, which apparently rusts over with reuse. Fine. But the whole "May I open this?" charade ensures that when someone roofies or, you know, straight up poisons you, it's entirely your fault. I'm all for going the extra mile to protect your customers, but I've also seen raw meat sit uncovered at high noon by the side of the road.

Speaking of roadside shenanigans, men pee shamelessly in plain sight despite murals crying "NO PEPE HERE." There is also a guy who wanders unchecked through traffic, shouting and shooting at phantom soldiers with his man-parts out.

Yet a cop pulled my friend over for indecent exposure -- he was riding shirtless on the back of a motorbike. At midnight. 

Help.

Photo of the Day

Hugo!

Front door, Monrovia, Liberia

(See http://truelifeliberia.blogspot.com/2011/11/expectations.html)

The Change

(No, this is not a post about menopause. Keep reading.)

There are weird moments when something shifts and, if you're lucky, you actually feel it happening. The second summer becomes fall where you are. Or when you realize you're not "just hanging out with" someone anymore. Or the first time your parents ask you for advice.

Everything slows just long enough for you to take notice.

Today, at 3:06pm, I really started living in Liberia.

There is Liberian Liberia, Lebanese Liberia and White Liberia. These groups can exist quite separately if they want to, interacting only out of necessity. In fact, it's possible to live in Liberia without really touching Liberia at all.

You can wake up in your 3K/month flat, go for a swim and be out the door before the cleaning lady arrives for the third consecutive day. You can honk to tell the security guard (whose name and face you won't learn) to open the compound gate. You can work eight hours and run back to your air-conditioned car and head to Stop & Shop for grapes and apples (which are, like, the only two things grown nowhere in West Africa). You can hit the squash club before dinner and drinks at one of the spots that mimics home. Payments for rent, groceries, car repairs, gadgets and nightlife nearly always go to a Lebanese owner. You can exist without ever patronizing a Liberian-run business. You can forget all about West Point, the 75,000-person tin-roof slum slowly falling into the ocean.

I'd like to give a shout-out to Heineken (though, really, I should have been drinking Club, which is Liberian). Heineken led me to say "Yes" to the French girl who asked if I wanted to trek through real Liberia on a Tuesday afternoon. For the first time in my life I was the foreigner who doesn't attract stares because, apparently, white people do not go where we went. And I proceeded to do half the things my mom lays awake at night hoping I won't do here. We walked across the old bridge to the flea market and drank water from a plastic sac. We played Chicken (http://tinyurl.com/4pyzck) with cocky motorbikers. We talked to street kids. We bought peeled, roasted plantain from a street vendor and ate it out of newspaper. We haggled over cloth and hunted for cocoa beans in alleyways. We contemplated unidentifiable meats and produce we'd never seen before. We walked for hours. We smiled at people who, eventually, smiled back. We thanked shopkeepers on our way out. We didn't look scared or appalled by bits of trash or the heat or poverty or proximity. We were just people among more people. A vendor asked for my empty water bottle and filled it with oil and sold it seconds later. Someone who had nothing to gain kindly told me my zipper was open. (Standard.)

And at one point I got tired of switching my bag to whichever shoulder was further from traffic and thought, "You know what? If someone swipes my bag, they can have it. I still have money in my coin pocket and shouldn't have brought my netbook anyway." It was at that exact second that, I kid you not, everything around me went Matrix and got realllly slowww; the wind blew past me and my shoulder blades fell and I actually became part of the world here.

Best. Heineken. Ever.

11.21.11

Today is my dad's birthday, a date I always need to be reminded of. I was especially thorough in my forgetfulness this year until my half-sister wrote to say:

Leave it to Dad to go out with a bang on his own birthday. Today marks twenty years.

This is going to be an irritating day.

Luckily, there are weekends. And weekends entail Occupy Wall Street dance parties that flood 14th Street with hippies and suits; learning Empire of the Sun is not, in fact, a prequel to Planet of the Apes; getting 100 points in the first play in Scrabble; realizing Top Ramen is the best imaginable Sunday morning food when you haven't eaten since Friday; secret beaches you wade through warm, waist-high lagoons to get to.

#winning

Photos of the Day

I stand corrected. This is what a date looks like here. 

Ducor Palace Hotel, Monrovia

Arrive at abandoned hotel.

Climb four flights.

Climb four more flights.

Reward self with cider on roof.

 Watch sunset.

Get cooked for.

Photo of the Day

So...this is what a date looks like here. Hate away.

Mamba Point, Monrovia

Photo of the Day

Alley Outside the Polls

Clara Town, Bushrod Island

Steinbeck

California in the '40s wasn't so different from Liberia today.

His name was Francis Almones and he had a sad life, for he always made just a fraction less than he needed to live. No matter how hard Francis worked or how careful he was, his money grew less until he just dried up and blew away. 

Expectations

There's this little frog that tends to hang out by the hinges of my screen door in the evening. I open the screen and it hops onto the tile, waiting for me to unlock the front door. I never let it in and I don't know what it's doing there but I don't mind since this is as close as I've gotten to having a puppy awaiting my return. I look forward to seeing it there.

There are a number of weirdnesses I now expect in Liberia.

If I go to a party, I expect it to be held around a pool, which will inevitably be filled with clothed Westerners come 3am. 

If I'm in a hurry, I expect there to to be five people slowly pushing a jalopy down the one road that goes anywhere.

If I go to a bar, I expect it to have a 180 degree view of the ocean (and, possibly, a stampede of Liberians sprinting to save someone from the vicious current of the aforementioned ocean).

If I go to a restaurant, I expect WiFi, Greek salad and to be able to sit there uninterrupted for six hours whether I order water or lobster. 

If I leave my mother's house on foot, I expect her guards to ask me for a treat I'm never going to return with.

And if I visit friends, I expect their guards to grill me but let the blondes and brunettes skip through. (I must be the only hooker in Liberia in Converse and knee-length shorts.)

Run-Off

I found myself stranded on one side of Monrovia Tuesday night due to tension near opposition headquarters.

I awoke on a sofa to an exchange between my friend and friend's housekeeper.

C: Did you vote?

Housekeeper: Yes. 

C: Where is the ink?

Housekeeper: I took it off.

This exchange is fascinating if you know a few things. 

1. The opposition bullied Liberians into boycotting Tuesday's run-off election, so

2. Turnout was distressingly low (out of fear or out of allegiance). Furthermore,

3. Your index finger is stained when you vote and

4. The ink lingers for a month, so 

5. To thoroughly remove it in a day requires scrubbing with bleach for hours

6. And being scared enough to subject your skin to that

7. And voting anyway.

Sometimes I could cry at the tiny, wonderful things. I feel like the guy filming a plastic bag in American Beauty (though, ideally, I'm slightly less creepy). 

Photo of the Day

The opposition gathers around empty teargas canisters after Monday's riot

(Photo Credit: Josie Stewart)

Hmm.

So, this is may or may not happening on my street:

At least three people have been killed in an exchange of gunfire between Liberian police and protesters as a mass opposition rally in Monrovia, the capital, turned violent on the eve of a presidential election runoff vote. 

What should have been a leisurely 10-minute ride was a panicked 90-minute roundabout race to get home and hide our Government of Liberia vehicle.

I'm on Mom-mandated lock-down.

Welcome to Liberia.

Fun, fun, fun, fun.

Bond

Long before I became myself, I was just some shy kid watching the world. And my foster sister, Edith, was the best person to watch. She had sixteen years on me and, in my eyes, was a goddess in leggings. Once, she saw me studying her as she dressed for a party and said, “Someday, Vee, your friends will disappear, one by one, until you're left with two who actually understand you."

I looked at her incredulously and left to play Duck Hunt.

But the girl was spot-on.

So when I moved to Liberia, I didn't expect to make friends. Acquaintances, sure, but not friends. Imagine my surprise when I met a girl I dread being away from. What an effing coup.

Then, another realization: I understand outsiders in a way I'll never get my family. People ask me what it's like to meet relatives in Liberia. My response is always "Cool" but what I mean to say is "Quiet." If my growing up in the States built a wall between the family and me, the war here added barbed wire and a moat. Our lives have neither overlapped nor run parallel; the teens are as unknowable as the elders. I so want memories with them but can't get past stare, smile, glance at clock.

I wish Edith had also told me that someday, my family would appear, one by one, and we'd have nothing to say to one another.