Some Liberian characters I have met

Some Liberian characters I have met

12^th August 2006
I met a lot of characters in the Philippines. Ditto for Little Liberia.

Here are some of my favorites.

Push
Push is a young kid on camp. He is a lovable rogue. Not dissimilar to Oliver, or Gavroche from Les Miserable, or Nobby from the Discworld series. Okay, maybe not Nobby...

Push is ten, going on thirty-five. He is forever scheming on how to make money, usually at the expense of the volunteers. Here are a couple of examples.

We had a soccer ball that we often lent out to the kids. One day we lent it out to Push. It never came back. We asked him and asked him about the missing soccer ball, but he just kept on denying any knowledge of it.

We later learnt that he had in fact kept the ball and was hiring it out to other kids. I guess he saw more profit in hiring it, than selling it.

One volunteer decided to organise a market day where the kids could sell their handmade bracelets. To keep things organised, it was decided that each kid could sell a maximum of two bracelets to the volunteers. The bracelets cost 4,000 cedi ($NZ 0.69) each.

Now Push is a business man above all else and he knows how to work a system. He made a crap load of bracelets, organised a bunch of kids to sell them for him and ended up offloading something like twenty bracelets. Some of the other kids cottoned on to what Push was doing and were pulling similar tricks. At one stage a kid was holding up a baby claiming that we hadn't bought the babies handmade bracelets. Hmmm... By this time though Push had thoroughly worked the system and made much more money than anyone else. Cheeky bugger.

Dixon
I got shuffled around between classes more times than I care to think about at the CBW Primary School. This made it hard to form any sort or meaningful relationships with the kids, which was a real shame.

The teacher I spent the most time with was Dixon. He was one of the few Liberian friends that I made.

Dixon is a micromanager. He likes to organise things to the n^thdegree. He organised a cultural cook for his class and wanted Nick and I to supply the drinks, which we were happy to do. Nick and I are grown men and are more than capable of organising drinks for thirty or so kids. Dixon doesn't understand this and insisted on calling meetings and going over things time and time again.

Dixon, like a lot of Liberians, is a passionate born-again Christian. Whenever I had a slight sniffle or too many mosquito bites or was about to head off on a trip, he said he would pray for me. I'm sure he did to. I attended his church one particular Sunday. The church service was very cool. Lots of dancing, singing and praising of God. My personal highlight was the tithe conga line. Dixon was always in the thick of things with a beaming smile, closed eyes and hands stretched to the heavens.

Dixon is also a born-again matchmaker. He tried time and time again to fix me up with his sister. Dixon is a hard man to say "No" to and he managed to convince me that I should go around to his sister's house one afternoon for lunch. Dixon was present also. I'm sure his sister is a pleasant girl, but I could barely understand a word she was saying. One volunteer learnt that the thing she desired most in the world was a white husband.

Nicholas was also on Dixon's hit list. At one stage Dixon was trying to fix Nicholas up with a sixteen year old girl. Nicholas is thirty years old and was a tad uncomfortable to say the least.

Above all though, Dixon is a great guy. His enthusiasm and zeal for life is a sight to behold.

Princess
Princesses are as common on camp as Emmas were when I was growing up. They are just everywhere. There were four of them (!) in one of the classes I taught.

This particular Princess is incredibly cute. Her dinky little dreadlocks and cheeky grin will surely break hearts when she is older. She looks like an angel.

An angel she is not. She is a vicious little thug. She will attack anybody and anything she considers unworthy. I once saw her wrestling with three boys (and winning!).

Princess is in Grade One and is probably about seven years old. Most kids in Grade One can do simple addition. Three plus four. Six plus two. That sort of thing. I often ask Princess simple addition problems when I bumped into her on the street.

I'd say something like, "Princess, what's three plus four?"

Her brow would wrinkle, she would count her pudgy little fingers, look up at the sky and eventually spurt out something really random like three. I'd ask her to try again and she'd come up with something equally odd like two.

I have no idea how she get her answers. I'd usually end up getting her to count out three fingers on one of my hands and four on the other. When she counted out the fingers on both hands she would usually get the right answer.

Prince
There is also an oversupply of Princes on camp.

This particular Prince is a regular Door Kid.

Prince is a secretive little chap. Nobody knew where he lived or anything about his family. He must of had some sort of support though as he attends the 150,000 cedi ($NZ 25.86) a year CBW Primary School.

Every kid on camp smells. Soap and water are expensive items and often money cannot be wasted on something as trivial as personal hygiene.

You get used to the smell.

I did not get used to Prince's smell. It was really bad. I suspect it was a combination of teenage-boy-smell and refugee-kid smell. It is what Foul Ol' Ron^* would smell like.

Prince also like his jewels. "Jewel" means "Girlfriend" in Liberian English. Prince would choose one of the newly arrived female volunteers and designate them as his jewel. Annie and Kalie were the designated jewels when I was there.

Prince would also obsess over his jewels, which I imagine got a little uncomfortable for the ladies. Matty was walking Kalie home one night and Prince got very upset. At one stage he said he was going to beat Matty. Matty got justifiably angry with Prince and put him in his place.

Prince is also a strong young lad. Once him and the aforementioned Push got into a nasty fight. I tried to break it up but wasn't physically able to do so. I had to call in Nicholas to help me out.

The Preacher
Every morning the town crier wanders around camp, sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m. He has a megaphone and will make the announcements for the day. Public meetings. Changes in camp policy. That sort of thing.

When the town crier had finished, The Preacher takes over.

Now, I might get a little irreverent to Christian things from time to time, but some of the people I most admire in the world are Christian. I know a married couple who are doing great work in the slums of Cambodia. They have a strong heart for the Lord and a practicality that comes from living in such a place. They regularly hand out condoms, for example^**. They lead an exemplary lifestyle and win many souls as a result. This is evangelism that works.

I suspect The Preacher (I don't know his actual name) thinks of himself as an evangelist trying to win souls for the Lord. But all he does is piss people off. Zero souls have been won as a result of having sermons blasted at them through a megaphone at six in the morning.

He gets down right demonic at times. Someone once said that the church make two mistakes in regard to Satan. They give him too much time, or too little. The Preacher gives Satan too much time. The phrase "Hellfire and Brimstone" was created for people like The Preacher. His sermons often deteriorate into meaningless babble with words like "Satan", "Sinner" and "Wicked" liberally sprinkled throughout them.

I think the guy actually has some serious mental health issues. Nobody can rant and rave like that and not have issues.

M.D.
GVN (Global Volunteer Network) is associated with two NGOs on camp. CBW (Children Better Way - the one I work for) is one of them and PCO (Peace and Caring Organisation) is the other.

PCO runs the only free school on camp and organises peace cells where the Average Joe Liberian can talk about how Liberia can move forward.

I've attended some of these peace cells. They can be harrowing at times. At one peace cell a lady was starting to explain her story. One gentleman interrupted her and said, "Look lady, we've heard these sort of stories before. We don't need to hear another one." She fixed him in the eye and said, "No. I have my story to tell and you will listen."

She went on to tell the story of how she watched her ten children and her husband being murdered in front of her eyes. She managed to escape into the bush somehow and made it to Buduburum Refugee Camp.

Peace cells are not just about harrowing stories though. They also try to address practical ways that Liberia can move forward. You hear people talking about things like "forgiveness" and "education" and "moving forward together in unity". These are noble ideals, but they lack a little practical spark.

This is where M.D. comes in. M.D. works for PCO. M.D. is an intelligent man and has many great ideas on how to move Liberia forward. He knows that throwing money at the problem will not help anyone. He has many great ideas to get Liberia back on her feet.

M.D. is also starting up his own NGO. It is an NGO dedicated to helping the Liberian farmer to become self dependant. He wants farmers to learn how to grown sustainable crops and be their own master. I like the idea behind his NGO. Anything that helps Liberians and is sustainable (there's that word again) has got to be a good thing.

Semeh Roberts
Semeh Roberts is a character on camp. I said what I wanted to say to Semeh over here.

^* Foul Ol' Ron is a beggar in Terry Pratchet's Discworld novels. Foul Ol' Ron's smell was so bad that it became it's own entity and would often wander the streets by itself.

Foul Ol' Ron would often receive anti-wedding invitations and an appropriately sized tip. Nothing ruins a wedding like watching your wedding cake slowly dissolve next to Foul Ol' Ron.

Buggrit. Millennium hand and shrimp.

^**Waves to Cameron.

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