Election fiasco

We were at a little coffee house in Sinkor on the main road today, , when we heard a lot of noise in the street. We went to see what was happening. There was a car with one of the political candidates with her head through the top of the car. Around her were lots of young people, rallying for her and her political party. A Libarian woman who we were having coffee with, came out of the shop and starting getting quite worked up.

She told us that the young people only join in with the rally because they get T shirts and at the end of the rally they all meet and have food. So while it all looks good on the outside, it is not quite as it seems. She told us about a group of young people who came and asked her to stand for the elections. "Mama" they said " we want you to stand, we are happy to sell you our votes" because that is how it is here, the young people are not even interested any more in who gets in, but what it means in real hard terms for themselves.

Water !!!

Its been incredibly hot here, but it 's the rainy season and so there is rain most evenings. Today there is a light very welcome rain outside and large grey cloud cover. Its such a relief. Of course it makes travelling down the road a bit of a hit and miss too - negotiating large water-logged pot-holes turns the journey into a ride similar to a camel with three legs!

Water is a real issue, as is plumbing. So finding hot water running in the morning is hit and miss, so I was grateful to get up today and have a warm trickly shower, and be able to wash my hair. I borrowed a small hair dryer from Fiona next door, and have only been able to do my hair twice. Most days it does it 's own thing. Fiona asked me yesterday if I had a perm, so you can imagine how it is! When I was in Zanzibar it did the same thing, and I just pulled it back with a band.

Going to the loo is another thing altogether... ezpecially at the venue. There is a bucket of water outside the loo and after you have done what you need to do, you go next door and fill the bucket and flush the business down. On the way to the loo, a lot of water is spilled by various people, so the floor of the loo has a light film of water on it most days and the journey back and forth can be a bit precarious, balancing the water very carefully while negotiating the floor!

I am sure this is not the only place where this is the situation, but I am becoming more and more aware of how fortunate I am, and appreciating where I live!

on Being White

Sometimes i find that being a mad Mlungu (white South African) follows me around like a really bad smell. My heart is to take the mind/body/spirit tools to wherever I can, to make a difference to an aching world. I find myself being "called" to places in Soweto, the youth, pre-school teachers for instance. I have been going into places like Orlando east for years - to give what I have from my heart. Sitting on plastic chairs designed for children, low and near to the ground, without any training equipment to speak of, I have run many courses there. These times bring back very fond memories. I remember fondly being sung "Im gonna let my little light shine" after one of the trainings, tears still sting my eyes when I think of it!

There have been times in my life when being white was an issue which affected me really badly, l remember being told I was a "Round peg in a square hole" after I had started a Social Entrepreneurship organisation for the Prince of Wales Youth Business Trust called the Nation's Trust. I didn't let them get away with it of course, and they paid dearly for making the horrible mistake of sending a Carribean-Brit - a very large and intimidating black woman to do the dirty deed. She almost fainted at the hearing when the Arbitrator ruled in my favour.

It didn't strike me t before coming to Liberia but here it is again...... before the training today Anu was speaking to Cerue, a very powerful Liberian woman who has mobilised the women here to great action. She came to me afterwards and said that the group was surprised to see that Anu had not brought a black person with her - but me a whitey.

Ah will it ever leave me......this sense sometimes that i dont fit in? for now, I am choosing to keep stepping forward, being myself, loving, kind, generous, a person after transformation.
With wobbly warrior knees i will keep stepping and keep stepping forward.

Grateful for the skills and knowledge that I carry with me, and which enables and empowers me to bring what I have with love.

Team players

I am noticing more and more that what I say i need is delivered in an amazingly rapid space of time. Its almost like I have a hot line to a Life Force that is so for me that I don't even realise how much.

Anu, my partner in this training in Liberia, chatted a little bit about how nice it would be if we had a "team" of people to support us in this training. you know, people to take notes, audio people, people to help us get the stuff up the stairs and into the training room ... and so on. Its something we are used to as a way of training in the More to Life programme, but at the time seemed very much like a Wildly Improbable Goal to have!

So, when Anu and I arrived yesterday at the training at the YMCA in Broad Street, and started to unpack the car, I didnt really think about the young men who ran to help us, or the ones who helped us set the chairs and the room up, and the people at the back with a printer and computers at the ready to take notes. Only when I was handed a mike by the audio people did I turn to Anu and say... " we've got audio" and we realised that in fact we have much more than that.. we have a team who run and get us things, hang the information on the wall when we need it and bring us tea and our lunch.

The point is this; we sometimes dont even notice when what we want is right in front of us, on a platter, because we have it set to look like something we have come to know.

I am bowled over at the generous,warmth that I am experiencing from the Liberians we are working with. The group is so open and willing and they make the training a pleasure. I am just loving it.

Part of the team are the two caterers assistants at the back who were so interested in the training that they have joined in. They started by writing on a peice of paper the notes that we made on the flipchart, and when we noticed them doing it, we asked them to join in from the back.

The next Wildly Improbable Goal I have is that one day we will work with young men so that they will not perpetuate the cycle of abuse of their fathers and grandfathers. We have started with Joshua and James ... and I certainly wait for the opportunity to do more!

Food in New Georgia

On Sunday last week, we went for lunch at Ceru's place. She is a powerful leader of the NGO we are working with here in Liberia. It was a long drive there, to a place called New Georgia Estate. New Georgia because Liberia was the place which was colonised by the slaves leaving America after the abolition of slavery. On the way we passed the White House convenience Store! There are other places here referring to those southern parts of North America, Maryland and New Georgia are just two. The way they speak is very similar in fact to the long slow drawl of those southern states.

A lot of the names of the food are reflective of that are a too.

Ceru made traditional Potato Greens (sauce made with potato plant leaves and palm oil), with fried plantains and corn bread. In the main dish was the sauce of potatoe greens over a mixture of a dish of all kinds of pieces of fish and meat which to look at is quite unidentifiable, in the dark green sauce. Its like minced spinach with palm oil, and it is thick with the pieces of meat and fish in it. I am always nervous of eating it...... not sure what it is; toungue, heart, pieces of brain... and every now and then a small "craw fish" (prawn/shrimp) finds its way through the dark green sauce and shows its orange skin to me....and I sigh. Delightedly I gobble the whole thing up!

The food is also really hot, very small peppers are added. On wednesday it felt like my lips were all blown up -like I had just had botox!!!

We have been eating this kind of dish with variations all week. I'm getting quite used to it, but that is the reason for the longing for a big bowl of veggies, hot steamy orange and green veggies!
Today we went to a Lebonese coffee house and I had some houmos, olives, cucumber and pita... a welcome relief.

Although my heart is sad to leave, I think my diet has suffered, and I cant wait to get home and eat properly. It just has not been possible.

Liberia -the dogs of war

So at last I am here in Liberia. Anu and I have spoken about being here for more than a year now, in various conversations. In preparation for being here, I spent a lot of time with Anu, listening to desciptions of her experiences, reading the reports she wrote and immersing myself in the stories of the women with whom we would be working. At one point I was so distressed and sad ... but still determined to come.

NOTHING could have prepared me for the assault on my senses of things I have seen, heard, and felt since being here. The people are incredibly warm and welcoming, smiling and friendly. even though sometimes as we drive through the crowded, bustling towns some people still look at us curiously, some with a frown. There are masses of people on the roads always, coming and going, and it seems almost everyone when they stop, is selling something. I have seen Ardvarks for sale (dead of course), giant lizzards, and lumps of meat amongst other things.

We arrived on an incredibly hot day; as we came out of the arrivals hall and into the street, the heat bashed itself onto our skin and up our noses. My hair curled up welcoming the humidity and doing that weird wriggle it does when it feels the damp. Anu was stung by a bee. We were commandeered by a tall thin man who kept asking us what kind of car was coming so he could look out for it. It was an arrival in Africa which I expected and least expected at the same time.

As we drove from the airport, I was really tired and tried to sleep in the back of the bumpy car, but afraid of missing out I sat up and looked around. To my horror I saw a dog lying in the road, his back legs had been hit and so he couldn't get himself up. No-one stopped and I cried out in distress. I have been on the look our for new information that will change that story going around in my head. Look I know that in an impoverished country which has been through war anything is game and during the war, the people ate not only dogs but cats, and the forest animals such as Legauvans and Ant Eaters Stories of dogs abound, and I am constantly on the look out for something that will re-inform the story I have going around in my head. I have heard horrible stories about dogs here, stories of dogs kept to be eaten, bashed to death in a sack, tied up and starved. However, whenever I see dogs, most of them are not starving, and some look like they are part of the family, so it has been really confusing for me to think about whether these family pets will end up in the same pot as the chicken and the goat.

Across the road there is a small family with a dog, The dog sits close to the woman as she makes the evening meal. He is part of that family...... so I look and keep looking. However, today on our way back from lunch with Cerue in New Georgia (nog), I saw a man on the side of the road with a gorgeous well-cared for Pekinese dog, who not only was freshly washed, but had a little collar and tag on, and my mind sighed. At last the peice of information which will let me rest on this one... even if it is just for a while!!!