One a sunny balmy Monrovia Sunday morning, I took the crew out for filming. My cameraman, Zac Greaves said there was nothing going on, as government and businesses, except beach resorts, were closed to observe the age-old city ordinance of “no-work on Sunday.” I asked him if he knew the reason behind the law. “All the big shots go to church and they want everyone to go along.” According to Patrick Burroughs writing in his book about press freedom in Liberia, being Christian was part of the requisite of Liberian citizenship in the early days. That may explain why Mandingoes, although present in Liberia long before the peace treaty at Providence Island are still considered “foreigners.”

As we reached St. Peters Lutheran Church at the intersection of Tubman Boulevard and Fourteen Street, waves of parishioners made their way into the building where some 600 people, mostly women, children and elderly were killed in one night at the height of the civil war in 1990. The Church was holding a memorial service for the victims and the survivors. The Pastor did not grant us an interview but allowed us to film the service. I saw Paul Mulbah; he was an Elder in the Church. A few years ago, he served as Charles Taylor Police Director after following Alhaji Kromah as chief of Protocol. We hugged. The building looks new, repainted; the glass work reflects the brilliant colors of the angels and the music was festive. On week days, students fill the small yard to attend classes in the adjacent building. As we filmed, I noticed that the great majority of the congregation and most of the women wore African attires. I asked Zac to focus on the women in the front row, all wearing majestic and colorful African robes, with gigantic hair dresses à la Nigerian.

We drove to five other churches, capturing songs and dances, ending up in a small Church in Paynesville where Zac fell prey to his Pastor who had not seen him for six months. Everywhere, even at the very conservative Providence Baptist Church, the first church in Monrovia, women wore African clothes. Zac said he had never noticed it before. “We live here, we don’t notice these things.” Just two decades ago, attending Sunday service meant wearing the most expensive dress one could find, with wigs, white gloves and high heels. Men wore the latest fashion from Madison Avenue, hats, black leather shoes, ties and all. Africa meets God.

In several places in Monrovia, especially at the corners of Carey and Gurly and Mechlin Streets and up to Red Light in Paynesville, and across the Bridge, young Liberians assemble to discuss all matters of politics, sports and the economy in what has become known as “Hatai Club”. There are several of such gathering points serving as open forums on every possible issue. They started under the Taylor regime. People could not write freely but once they got into those forums, they could speak their minds. Just as it was once safe to speak under the Palaver Hut at the University of Liberia. While they debate national and international matters ranging from the price of rice to European football championship, the young men and women drink green tea, in small shot glasses. They called it “Hatai.” Hatai has long been a social drink in countries like Mali, Senegal, and Guinea. It originated in the Sahara where nomads serve it to quell their thirst on hot days. Instead of grouping in bars to drink “kutuku” our local and very potent gin made from sugar cane or palm vine, Club Beer or Guinness, young Liberians now socially drink green tea. In the streets of Monrovia, vendors of the beverage go around, with flasks containing different brews: sweet, bitter, milk or no milk. It is said to have powerful aphrodisiac effects.

In Grand Geddeh, we stopped in a village to buy palm wine on the roadside. We met a man who looked more like a city guy than a villager. We exchanged a few words and we learned that he was a new farmer. He beamed with smile as he took us around his farm where he produces five different crops, rice, sugar cane, potatoes, cassava and corn. He moved home about two years ago after being “downsized” at LPRC. “I could have stayed in Monrovia to find a new government job but I decided to come home and work on the soil. So far, nature has been good to me.” He spent twenty years at LPRC in a managerial position. “My father used to tell me that the land always pays back. I am back here and I can tell you, I am very happy. No amount of money would take me back to Monrovia.”

Our man in Grand Geddeh sounded like A. C. in Voinjama. We walked into her shop, just off the main road. There were at least ten women, pedaling frantically on sewing machines. New clothes hung on every wall of the store. “We all were refugees in Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. When we returned home, we found out many women sewed clothes and we fought for the few customers in town. W met and we set up a coop. We got new sewing machines from an NGO and now we all work together.” She distributes jobs that come to the person most qualified for it: man shirt, baby clothes, woman dress, wedding gowns and so on. They are looking forward to the contract for the new uniform for the local police.

At the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Sinkor, as we walked the floors, one after another, windowless, looted and in darkness, we saw a man standing with five big oxygen cylinders near the trauma center. “I came here to burry my mother, last year. I lived in the US for 17 years. I came to JFK and told them what I did in the US, which is work on trauma cases involving oxygen. They took me around the hospital. I saw these cylinders in a warehouse, all rusted.” The next day, he came back and started to work on the machines. A week later, they were all functioning, producing enough oxygen for the trauma center. “They offered me a job and I went back to the US to pack up and here I am… It is not easy but I am happy, very happy.”

The story of people at JFK is heartwarming in more than one way. The General Administrator started her carrier there as a new doctor from the University of Liberia Medical School. In the 1980s, she left for graduate school in the US and returned to work there. Like many, she ran away from the war. In 1991, she left her US job and returned home, to work at JFK. She lived in rat-infested Ducor Hotel with IGNU government. She left again when the warlords took over the nation in the mid 1990s. In 2006, after the election of Mrs. Sirleaf, she packed up again to return home. She and many others keep JFK running, under the most challenging conditions. Dr. Wvannie Scott-McDonald sees JFK as the best place to be on earth. “Because the very little I do everyday makes so much a difference in the life of our people, and as a doctor, I cannot ask for a better challenge and better professional fulfillment.”

The Deputy Minister of Public Works, Toga Nangana was a happy man when we met at the Terra Cotta restaurant on 14th street on the first floor of the Urban Renaissance Hotel. Zoë Baker and her husband started the Terra Cotta two years ago with two hundred dollars, when they returned from a 15 -year exile in Nigeria. Now it is the “Happy Hour” hangout for professionals and expatriates and it serves the best Liberian home cook meals throughout the day. Toga just returned from the dedication ceremony of the Jallahtown road that the President had inaugurated. As I started my lunch, he offered me a Club and went on to talk about the project. “This is the kind of things I have always wanted to do in my life. This project is the kind that will change this country. Imagine, we built the entire road using local material, from the same neighborhood, with some cement from Cemenco. You are talking about 7 inches of solid concrete and all from right there. This road will be there for the next 100 years! And the best part is that we used local labor from the neighborhood by recruiting more than 500 youth who worked day and night! Now the road belongs to them. I hope we can carry this experience around the country, so that people can start owning their roads.” Amen, I said.

John Morlu, our Auditor General did something that belongs in this story. It was refreshing to see the same young man, dedicated, patriotic, and filled with revolutionary zeal. Sometimes, he does go overboard. He and President Sirleaf have a lot in common. He wants to make changes where many believe such is not possible. He is impatient because he sees the possibilities for a new system while most of his colleagues seem contend with the status quo. The difference between him and President Sirleaf is that with age and the necessary political accommodation that comes with the presidency, she has learned to slow down and make compromises, something Morlu does not have to deal with. Well, not yet.

GSA gave Morlu an office in a building, a private property, like many of those occupied by the government, with astronomical rent. Rather than move into a rental three-floor building on Gurly Street, John Morlu he decided to take his staff into the old Executive Mansion. He renovated a space, though not enough to accommodate his staff, in the building. The rest of the building looks like a war zone. There is something surreal about walking into the GA office. And there is something surreal about having a guy like John Morlu as AG in Liberia.

One day, while walking on Broadstreet, I ran into Chris Neyor, the presidential advisor on Energy. I told him that he was the first government official I ever saw walking in the streets of Monrovia. He laughed and said he always walks. Looking at the officials moving around the city, one wonders how long it would take to instill a sense of confidence and security between government and the people. They ride mostly dark-tainted window SUVs. They live in homes surrounded by high walls surmounted by barbwires. They drive into their yards and drive out, rarely stopping in between, as if afraid of catching the old disease of poverty. A friend recently said that President Sirleaf was probably the most accessible person in the Liberian government. She seems to be the only one comfortable walking the streets and speaking the Waterside English.

Last week President Sirleaf stopped by the Hatai Club on Carey Street to talk about the high price of commodity and blamed it on officials of her government who go beg for “weekends” from merchants. That is the reality of corruption in Liberia: President Sirleaf, with the exception of a handful of people who joined her after elections, runs a state controlled by the same bureaucrats who perfected inefficiency and corruption and who survived from William R. Tolbert through Samuel Doe, Amos Sawyer, David Kpomakpor, Wilton Sankawollo, Ruth Perry, Charles and Gyude Bryant. She may fire and prosecute a few people to set examples, but the corruption and inefficiency will survive until a new system of governance takes place, with safeguard and incentives.

There was a huge poster of Charles Taylor on Tubman Boulevard, erected by his followers with the caption “Taylor is Innocent.” One morning, as we drove by, we saw a crowd looking at the poster. Somebody had covered it with black paint. After two weeks, the same board and the defaced poster were still there. One more person had given up on Taylor.

Finally, looking into the Crystal Ball, the Chinese will complete that road from Freeport to Buchanan. John Morlu will return to Monrovia to conduct audits in 2008 and … Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will again run for president, competing against the same crowd. Mittal Steel will recruit 6, 000 workers in the next two years. Will Freeport change its ways? Well, we hope so.

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© 2008 by The Perspective
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