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Day’s Journal
It seems that early May is a
good time weather-wise to visit Liberia.
Other than Monday night, which was very hot, the weather has been
mild by Liberia standards. I’d say
it feels like about the mid 80’s in Tennessee and the humidity has not been
bad. That will change as the rainy
season is approaching. This is,
after all, a rain forest area.
At breakfast this morning I
was introduced to a man named Joshua.
He was about my age (it’s very hard to judge the age of Liberians as
they tend to look younger than they are).
He and Christine were talking about some ex-combatants that Joshua
was working with to teach the peace and love of Jesus Christ. It seemed like a normal conversation
around the Norman house as Christine is always encouraging one young person
or another to get an education, work hard, serve Christ, etc. I chatted along and, after breakfast,
Christine asked me to pray for Joshua.
Using what I had learned during the earlier conversation I prayed
that Joshua would be guided by God in his work with these ex-combatants,
that he would seek wise counsel from other Christians in the struggles he
faced, that his wife would agree to remain in the area for the time it took
him to get these young men placed into jobs and living quarters, etc. After we finished Christine asked if I had
read Joshua’s book. It was a book that
was clearly printed at low cost and poorly bound. But I was impressed that he had written a
book and taken the initiative to have it published. The title was “Trading Priesthood for
Royal Priesthood”. Still nothing
stood out to me. He left the book
with me to read and give back to him tomorrow at breakfast. After he left I flipped open the cover
and found that Joshua Milton-Blahyi was actually
the, arguably, best known and bloodiest rebel fighter of the Liberian civil
war. His name back then was General
Butt-Naked. So named because he lead
his men into battle stripped down to only his shoes. He was fearless and a murderer by any
man’s standards. He also, as the
book’s title hints at, was a priest of an evil god and sacrificed many
infants and small children to this god.
The more I read of the book (his actual words) the more
uncomfortable I became. I’ve never
known anyone as horrible as Joshua.
Yet I had just spent the breakfast hour visiting amiably with him
and being impressed by his devotion to Jesus Christ and to those who were
under bondage to the atrocities they had committed during the war. I think I understand why Simon didn’t
want to go and heal Saul of his blindness.
The weirdest part was that everyone was completely casual and relaxed. I may, or may not, write more about this
man but you can find out a good amount by Googling
“General Butt-Naked” on the internet.
About 10:30am we left for Bensonville to look over the start of the land clean
up. Some may not know that we
partnered with REAP to pay for the surveying and legal transfer of the
property. It will be used to educate
young people in job skills that will allow them to earn a living for
themselves and their families. It’s
a big project. There are 5 buildings
on the property, one the size of a gymnasium, and
the only thing to them is the walls and floors. The roof materials, fixtures, floor tiles
and everything else that could be carried away were taken during the war
years. So the renovations for the
total site will be at least $300,000.
But the benefits to the lives of those who receive training there
should be multiplied much beyond that.
Leaving Bensonville
we stopped back in Monrovia at P.A.’s BBQ.
Unlike the name, it was quite a nice restaurant. Christine was looking forward to a bowl
of goat soup but they didn’t have any prepared when we arrived. Oh well.
I had barbecued ribs, French fries and baked beans. Laurence joined us for lunch and had the
ribs as well. Christine, much to my
surprise, had rice and cassava. I
guess it’s not different than when I go out to
eat in the U.S. and order fried chicken.
The proprietor was there and her name was Precious. ( the name brings back a memory from my father’s
funeral). She was sharp
intellectually and I plied her for all the business information that she
could provide. How she stored her
refrigerated meats, what her prices were for storage, etc. She had a soft-serve ice cream machine
and couldn’t keep enough made so she’s in the process of buying
another. She caters, has 9 dogs (not
sure what that has to do with business) and she’s training her daughter to
run the restaurant. Some of the
brightest minds I’ve found in Liberia have been women. And as Christine told me today riding
down the road, “the women here work harder than the men”. I know that is true. Also, as I was talking with her she
mentioned that the ship was in the port and she was waiting for some food
from it. So that confirmed the rumor
that we had heard and I called Robert to tell him to get our broker, Ben
Amos, on the job of getting the container out. I know that part of the job drives Robert
crazy, it has to.
We left the restaurant and
went to Edgail, Inc. It’s the Clark Iron & Metal of
Liberia only about 1/10th the size. Yet it’s the largest scrap metal
operation in the country. They had
scrap steel and aluminum cans for the most part. Their can
compactor could make a bale about the size of a computer monitor box. They picked the bales up by hand and
moved them around by hand. They
exclusively load scrap into shipping containers and deal with a broker in
London, England. The containers go
all over the world (even some to the U.S. of all things). It was interesting that the high scrap
metal prices are causing similar problems to those experienced in the
U.S. People are stealing anything
metal that they can lay their hands on and trying to sell it. Earlier this week someone dug up a metal
culvert across one of the main roads in town and brought it in to
sell. They also occasionally come in
with manhole covers. The funniest
story that Mr. Urey, the owner, told will take a little setup to be
meaningful to you. In Liberia 99% of
the food is cooked outside over coal.
In town the majority of food eaten by people out and about is from
vendors on the street who set up a little coal fired cooking contraption
and cook right there on the sidewalk.
Mr. Urey said that one day a guy came up with an aluminum pot to
sell. He said it still had oil and
cassava greens in it… and it was still hot.
Sure enough, about 5 minutes later a woman came in saying that
someone had stolen the pot off of her cook stove just down the street. Different country, same type problems. One other thing that will send shivers
down the back of Chuck Clark. They
take car batteries and strip the plastic off and grind it for recycling and
he’s putting in a furnace to melt the lead into ingots. I didn’t ask but I’m pretty sure the acid
mixture goes straight into the ground.
There are more than a few prospective super fund sites in Monrovia.
Christine, being the daughter
of an ex-president, has a number of contacts, many of which are family
members. So today we stopped and
meet her father’s youngest brother, Daniel Tolbert. He was an older man with a kind
demeanor. He was gracious and easy
to be around. He had been in
business in Liberia until the civil war and had returned to go back into
business later. Currently he does
mostly real estate type projects.
He’s considering going into agriculture in the Bensonville
area. That area, which we visited
today, is starting to show a good bit of farming. Today I saw a very large field of sugar
cane and also the largest field of cassava I’ve ever seen.
Finally we stopped by the
Isaac David school. This is a very
nice school having K – 9 currently but expanding to 10th grade
this year and then 11th & 12 in the following 2 years. Christine has been involved here as a
teacher and supporter since the schools founding and her children attended
here. She has a huge passion for the
school and it was evident as she gave me the tour.
As I was writing this, Keith
Chapman called to confirm our dinner date at his place on Wednesday evening
at 5:30pm. I’m putting this here so
someone can remind me of this on Wednesday.
Without access to Outlook at all times I’m prone to miss
appointments.
Oh, one more thing. Tomorrow I have an appointment with the
Minister of the National Investment Commission, Richard Tolbert, and the
assistant minister, Pete Norman. To
those familiar with Liberian politics, the last names will be well known.
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