Thoughts on leaving Liberia

An excerpt from my journal written on the plane on the overnight flight back from Monrovia - I don't want to forget what I've seen and heard.

I've tried to imprint Liberia in my mind. The lush, tropical vegetation, the wooden market stalls, the bustle, the crazy signs. the bullet holes and broken buildings that are evidence of the violence in recent times. The people who talk at you through vehicle windows selling gum, or "Cold Water!" or dodgy frozen yoghurt. How you want to love them yet can't give "things" and yet are in danger of being too calloused. How the rubbish is in piles, biodegrading underfoot in the streets. The pot holes, the driving. The bizarreness of Christianity everywhere - in mis-spelled taxi slogans, in 30-strong churches called "Evangel World Outreach Ministries Inc.". Hand-painted signs - little wooden stalls selling phonecards or changing money - all with crazy names. "Musu's business centre", "Executive choice finance" And people pushing wheelbarrows playing loud African pop music at a level higher than the speakers can cope with. The extravagant Western adverts for Cable TV and mobile phones, the plethora of UN vehicles. The rain which brings out the UNHCR tarps in the market. The stalls selling clothes that were donated for "the poor people in Africa" and which get snapped up by cash-strapped missionaries. How people think you are hilarious for walking among them - especially if you dress African - but how it obviously honours them. How they joke with you. How the children break your heart. The checkpoints with the razor wire and pale blue painted machine gun emplacements with a guard holding a "stop-go" sign, where a Mercy Ships ID will go a long way. The NGOs back-to-back all the way through Sinkor district. The taxis full of people. The big momma trucks. The people who live in squalor by the river with the animals on the rubbish dump and the people in the Mercedes with tinted windows. The stalls selling Coke and Fanta from red crates. The filling stations. How the taxis are falling apart and you think nothing of riding in one with a shattered windscreen and mouldy seats. How there are no traffic laws and yet it seems to work with only the odd hairy moment. How the women carry fruit on their heads, or Igloos full of plastic bags of water. How the people just throng around you. How it smells - of sewage or of fish or of spices or of acrid fumes as the water truck goes by. How the sweat runs down between your legs. How your skin makes you a ticket for a better future for a Liberian man, and how a pastor might thank you "for leaving your mansion and your millions to come to Africa". How they want to touch your hand and tell you "welcome" or "Be my friend". How the children coyly smile and then beam when you wave. The hand-shake with the click - how grown men do elaborate hand-shake routines familiar from primary school. How they face terrible hardships with realism and say "Thank God" when you ask "how are you?" How you find yourself dropping consonants and speaking faster to be understood. How the market sells canned foods and sauces and cheap toiletries and flour and sugar in sacks. How they know you can never understand real suffering - if you make a trite comment they know it's trite, but how they value your "sacrifice" and hold out hope nonetheless. How your feet get black after a walk outside wearing sandals. How the Liberian National Police stand around looking important but not so reassuring. How a Liberian will try to rip you off - yet you can laugh together when you tell him it's absurd and that you know the score. Who can blame him for trying? How your attempts to hail a taxi and negotiate a fare are everybody's business - and how all change is communal in the face of the white woman with the $20 note. I cannot explain it. It has tried my patience, sapped my energy and won my heart!... Read more!