Anniversary

When I'm going about my business here in Liberia (waiting for the Peace Corps car in the morning, greeting everyone I walk past on a weekend afternoon walk, joking with Zayzay our training manager, doing laundry with my brother Delwin and teaching him to swing dance) I don't think about the civil crisis that ravaged this country. There isn't much about the daily life of Liberians that indicates how recent the conflict was, and for all that this is a 'hardship post' for Peace Corps volunteers, it really doesn't feel like it. Maybe that will change when I get to my eventual site, who knows? But I have another month of training left. And if the last three weeks are any indication, that month will both drag and fly by while my brain struggles to process so much new information and so many new experiences.

The conflict that ended ten years ago next month started on Christmas Eve, 1989 when Charles Taylor crossed into Liberia from Cote d'Ivoire with about a hundred geurilla troops. He capitalized on the pre-existing tensions between tribes, the weakness of President Samuel Doe, and the desperation of the general populace to build his army. Over seven years he gained control of 90% of the country, made and broke a dozen peace treaties, and created a 'small boys' army of 8-15 year old boys on drugs with guns. He then 'won' an election and while a sitting president worked to destabilize his neighbors and dominate the blood diamond trade. And when the lives of his people were at stake and he was being indicted for war crimes, he refused to step down from power until forced to by ECOWAS and the UN.

After an interim government held power, Liberia elected Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the first female president in Africa. She faced greater challenges than maybe any other head of state taking power: a country barely emerged from 14 years of violence, no functioning infrastructure whatsoever, $370 billion in debt to IMF, World Bank, and various countries, and a history of working for or with some of the leaders responsible for the mess. It took tireless effort, shrewd negotiation, and an O-Ma's touch to bring any order at all to the chaos and hurt of civil war. And there is still much work to be done.

The international community is looking to the August anniversary as a benchmark, an indication of how far Liberia has come. The UNMIL mission here is scaling back from its original 15,000 troops and support personnel to not quite 3,000 by next year. Rule of law is slowly replacing mob violence as the arbiter of justice. And while the education system is seriously flawed, it has improved tremendously and will continue to do so. But when I talk to my host father, he says that he isn't celebrating the upcoming historic day. It marks the end of the war, yes, but it also marks the point at which Liberians could not help themselves and required outside forces to intervene. It is an international occasion of celebration but for some people here it is something they would move forward from without looking back rather than a victory to be celebrated and discussed.

But Liberia is coming up on the tenth anniversary of the end of their civil crisis, and since we have been reading and thinking and talking about that period of Liberian history (can it be history if it was within the lifetimes of most people I've met?) it is in the forefront of my mind. Walking down Old Main Road (road is such a generous word, actually...) I can find evidence of the conflict and the time elapsed in fallen-down abandoned buildings from which are growing jungles of grasses, palms, and paw-paw (papaya) trees. I told my host family last night that I think Liberians have some of the greatest potential of any country in the world because they have been able to move through hell on earth and find reconciliation  rebirth, and recovery. The paw-paws will be ripe in just a few months, and boys will go out with long sticks to poke them down from their clusters and eat them or sell them. From the shell of a ruined house, something new, different, fresh, and nurturing is growing. And I think that is one of the most beautiful, joyful things I have seen.

I can not imagine a more perfect place for me to be than right where I am right now...