Budumburum Refugee Camp
1st June 2006
Well, I finally made it the Budumburum Refugee Camp.
Hooray!
The camp holds 42,000 souls who have fled from Liberia to the
relatively peaceful Ghana.
It's hard to know just what make of the camp at this early
stage. I'm hoping that the stories I gather and articles I write
will go a long was towards describing the camp and its people.
When I think "Refugee Camp", I think of starving children
with bulging bellies and living in tents. Budumburum is not like
that.
Budumburum Refugee Camp has existed for sixteen years, so the
refugees have had plenty of time to establish a community. There
is a main street and many shops selling all
manner of goods. I've bought things like a clothes hamper, a
multi-point plug and a coke! Other volunteers have been buying
cloth and getting clothes custom made for them. I plan to do this
in the near future.
The U.N. has a heavy presence here. One of the many projects
they have done is setting up a public health clinic.
The U.N. is trying to send 12,000 refugees back to Liberia this
year. Word of the street is that they will be lucky to get
2,000. Some won't return for safety reasons and some won't return
because they have nothing to go back to. Why would you go back to
Liberia when you have no property and no job when you have both here in
Ghana?
People on the camp are encouraged to speak English, and not their own
tribal languages. One of the many divisions in Liberia is along
tribal lines. Having people speak in English helps diffuse any
inter-tribal animosity.
Another Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) is running groups called
Peace Cells. These provide a forum for people to air their
differences and have constructive talks about moving towards a peaceful
Liberia. A fellow volunteer attended a peace cell and related the
story of an elderly Liberian women. The Liberian women - who was
described as "Mama Africa" - watched her ten children and
husband being murdered in front of her. She somehow managed to
escape into the forest and made her way to Ghana. Her wails in the
Peace Cell meeting must of been truly heart wrenching.
I want to attend a Peace Cell meeting so that I can better tell the
story of Liberia.
Questions? Comments? Try contacting
me.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you
want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.
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