Rice is Life

There is a large billboard in Monrovia showing a sprouted stalk of rice which reads, "Rice is Life." During a recent conversation with a local man who has seen his share of misery in this world, this man said, "Rice for us was also death, this war began and ended because of rice."

What a perfect beginning of a book, I thought. This man's statement will not leave my memory for a long time. How true it rang to the events that took place here, the rice riots sent the country into a tailspin and the end of the war or more exactly, wars, prominently figured rice once again as it was no longer a source of profit for the infamous Charles Taylor who made his millions by imposing private taxes on imports of this staple food.

The country stands now, battered and broken, its social fabric ripped apart, yet it is recovering slowly, as if it was a rice stalk trampled upon by army boots. The rain comes and the rice stalk comes to life.

The book of predictions says "We will know less and less what it means to be human." One look at the world confirms this prophecy. Yet regardless of where I go in the world I meet human beings who prove that the most grotesque inhumanity will never triumph over true kindness.

FGM

There is often a thin line between imposing one’s ideals on a society and promoting universally accepted norms. Harmful traditional practices have been recognized as by the international community as a violation of basic human rights, yet there is no clear definition of what constitutes a harmful practice. Female genital mutilation (FGM) remains a widely practiced ritual in many parts of the world. Liberia is no exception.

Annually, hundreds of girls go through an initiation process that is meant to introduce them to womanhood and teach them about being a mother and a wife. Many are pulled out of regular school to attend these bush education courses. Moreover, the leaders of these practices are influential within the community and often can modify political direction and attitudes. As such, the President of Liberia during her 2005 campaign withdrew the issue of Female Genital Mutilation. As of today, the Government of Liberia has not made these practices illegal and thus, there exists no legal framework to refer to when they occur. The victims have no recourse and there are reports of coercion of those who do not wish to participate in the ritual. The fees of this type of education are also quite dear. The leaders again are to receive payment in cash or kind from the families whose daughters are to attend bush schools.

How does one approach such a sensitive issue? Targeting community elders and raising awareness within the entire population would make a difference. Public information campaigns have made a difference for rape victims and have helped change public perceptions and practices in many areas. Of course, making FGM illegal would be the first step in changing these perceptions, the hard part is convincing the government that these practices are jeopardizing the country’s future.

Monkey Island

There is an island here in the middle of a river, about 1.5 hrs drive from the city. This island is inhabited by about 200 chimps who used to be lab animals at research insitututes. The pressure from advocacy groups to stop experiments on chimps, coupled with a lack of funding, has resulted in closings of such institutions and thus, in a need to find a home for all these primates who could not survive on their own in the wild given their instincts have been dulled a great deal or altogether lost as a consequence of being used to measure the effectiveness of the newest hepatitus vaccine and other fun activities. In any case, these lucky 200 got moved to this island to spend the rest of their lives in peace and quiet. They are fed every dady and you can take a boat out to supplement their diet by throwing bananas which they will greatfully accept and devour. Of course, one cannot actually disembark on the island of the island as the animals may get aggressive, but the boat will get fairly close to them without touching the shore. Apparently, the signs of aggression are a positive development as this means they're becoming more accustomed to living on their own and choosing an alpha male (I'm sure it was a very democratic process) to be their leader and look especially threatening if humans try to get too close. This rather large chimp comes forward and proceeds rocking from side to side, making loud noises and clapping his hands.

After the monkey island visit, we procceeded to a beautiful ocean beach where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and bbqing. I found a hermit crab who was strangely not amused by being picked up and used as a photo prop and who ended up puncturing my finger with his very sharp claws. Ouch. I guess I'll have to settle for people or nonhazardous fauna in capturing my memories on film.

I was trying to be a "stealthy" photojournalist this morning as I decided to walk to work and actually take some snapshots of the city.

Oh yes, that's me. My friend Aquila took me to a salon in town to get my hair done this weekend. I've always wanted to have braids and I knew that these things take a while but OH MY GOD, I sat there for 5.5 hours, and this is with 2 girls working on my hair!! It's a very painful experience and I really thought I wouldn't have any hair left in the end, but it turned out quite well, though it's taking me a bit to get used to sleeping with all this hair. Also, putting it up into any kind of ponytail is a 20-min ordeal and I have to use these gigantic-size hair ties to fit all of the hair in them. I'm sure washing it will be interesting since it will make the fake hair REALLY heavy and then I just might lose the poor little hairs that actually grow on my head and are currently being subjected to carrying around 10x their weight in fake hair :)

Nonetheless, I love the results and have been getting complimented by the locals everywhere. I think in every place, when "foreigners" embrace something from the local culture, it makes the host culture feel good, at least that's how I feel when someone wants to learn and adapt some of my country's culture and traditions.

Anyway, all is good, still dealing with the worms, since there are no testing facilities here, they specimen have to be sent to Ghana to determine the type of pesticide that needs to be used. The danger is that they will lay eggs that would hatch in the next season and then things will really be bad.

Had my first beach outing this weekend, there are so many gorgeous beaches in this area, I was invited to a birthday party of the Ukrainian contingent's commander. I was the only girl :) The party was great, there were sailors, pilots and army soldiers present, all very warm people and it made me proud to hear my people speak about their motivation to serve their country and through it, helping the world via an international body like the UN. We dined on freshly-caught calamari and barracuda :) I was promised to be invited on the next fishing trip though judging by my last deep-sea fishing experience, I may have to spend it inside the boat trying not to lose my breakfast.

OK, have to get back to work now, enjoy the photos, stay tuned.

Happy New Year!

Monday night, the Chinese contingent threw a huge party for the whole mission to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Ox. It was quite an event with lots of live performances, including a Kung-fu group who broke bottles with their heads. Ouch. At the end of the night, they lit a huge fire and danced around it holding hands. The funniest part was when they grabbed the SRSG (the head of the mission here) and pulled her into the circle. The expressions on the faces of her security detail were priceless, I highly doubt that there is a manual with instructions on how to proceed when your boss whose security is top priority is dancing around a giant fire :)

I got to visit a friend's place where they have some monkeys living outside. I got to feed one of them some tangerines and this was one of the funniest experiences of my life. Basically, he grabbed one tangerine and placed it underneath his foot for later. Then, he took two slices from me and put them in one hand, then took 2 more slices and put them in another hand and began biting off pieces from both sides and chewing as quickly as he could all the while looking at the rest of the tangerine in my hand as if he was trying to think of a way to take that part as well to make sure I didn't eat it :)

In the next couple of weeks we will be going to the school for deaf children to do a needs assessment there and see if we can provide some assistance. One girl who helps us cook lunches at the school for the blind, Aquila, has a small restaurant where I got lunch the other day which was delicious.

I've also been able to try some local fruit here. The pineapple is incredible, as well as the mangos. Probably the best mangos I've ever tasted, hands down. Ok, more to come soon, enjoy the pics.

Week 2

I've officially survived my first unaccompanied trip to the store in a car. I was able to find my way around and managed to avoid any accidents while doing so. It'll definitely take a while to get used to driving here. Friday night was spent in the company of my friend Jimmy (a USAID contractor I met on the plane coming here) who took me to a place called "Purple Rain." We had a great time having some drinks and dancing.

Driving around the city at night is very interesting. There are always lots of people out walking around. Also, many schoolkids sit outside of their homes doing homework by the light of a flashlight.

I spent this Saturday hanging out with my roommate to be and a bunch of his friends. I was basically with 4 Russian guys, all ex-military, who were thrilled to learn that my dad is also one of them. We grilled some delicious BBQ and Sergey (the guy leaving for Afghanistant) even made some homemade pickles!! Yum :)

Work has been very busy this week as we're dealing with a big infestation of caterpillars in one of the local counties. We need to figure out how to get hellicopters to conduct aerial spraying before all the crops are destroyed. I guess we could always release the lizards who would then be eaten by birds. But then we'd have to get gorillas and they definitely wouldn't freeze to death here :)

As in any broken economy, crime in Liberia is quite high. As of late, incidents of robberies of international UN staff have decreased while those against the local staff have been going up. Last week there was another armed robbery of a home of a local UN staff member where a dozen armed men broke into her home and took everything they could grab. At least she didn't get hurt.

We have a gym on base which is very convenient. A water pipe broke last week so we had to take showers from a bucket using a plastic cup :) I think I prefer those now because they're not as cold :)

1st Week in Monrovia

Well, here it is. I have now been here a bit over a week and oh, what a week it has been. I arrived in Monrovia at 4am last Monday after having travelled for over 24 hours. The flight from Casablanca was delayed and one of my bags was lost on arrival (which is not uncommon). Once I stepped off the plane in Monrovia, the hot Liberian air welcomed me along with an UNMIL staff member who would be taking me to the transit house designed to house new arrivals until they can found their own accommodation. I had so many things on my mind and was thrilled to be at my first field assignment, something I have wanted for so long.

The drive to the transit house took about 45 minutes. It was a surprisingly smooth ride as there has been a lot of road restoration work done since the recovery process began after the war. Once we arrived at the house, we had a couple of hours to change so that we could go into the office to begin the check-in process. Seeing the city in the daytime was a bit of a shock as I had no idea what it would look like. It is one thing to know there was a war and it is another to see its footprint everywhere you go. Burned buildings, destroyed storefronts, schools turned into rubbish. Still, Liberia today has made remarkable progress since the war. Speaking to many old-timers, when the mission was first deployed, the streets of Monrovia were filled with dead bodies, rebels running all over the city, guns, violence and people living in constant fear, locals afraid to step out of their homes.

Today, it is quite different. The streets are full of people and life is slowly returning to some degree of stability. Yes, poverty is rampant, illiteracy rates are staggering, but progress is being made, however uneven the process is, and this is why we're here. I can see how changes are taking place now. The main road in Monrovia has just been finished and they painted the crosswalk lines on it. Already people are starting to cross on the crosswalks whereas before the lines were there, they'd cross at any point.

The transit house is much nicer than I expected. Though there is no hot water, and electricity is only on during the night, the place is clean and we even have a TV :) Due to security regulations all UN staff is subject to a curfew every night and our movement is somewhat restricted as we're not supposed to walk alone during non-curfew hours. We have to keep a radio in the house in case of emergency to be able to contact security. All UN-cleared compounds have 24-hour security on site. Due to having to pass specific UN clearance, the rent is sky-high. I thought New York was expensive, I will be paying $850/mo to share an apartment with one other person. It is a nice apartment though, and we get 24-hour electricity :) A huge luxury considering there is no electricity in Liberia other than on UN premises and the major government ministries.

My first weekend in Monrovia was a lot of fun. I met a very nice man on the way here who owns 2 companies in the city and he had me and another friend of his over for dinner at his place. It was an amazing compound with luxury some NYC condos have never even dreamed of. The place has its own gym, a tennis court, and the view of the ocean is breathtaking. This man has his own fisherman who calls him every day to let him know what the catch of the day is. We had lobsters and swordfish that day which was fantastic. The highlight of my evening was my first hot shower of the week. I was elated!!

The UNMIL HQ is a huge building with tons of offices, it is very nice. We also have another location called Star Base which is the engineering, mechanical, and supply sector which also has the military contingent housing located there. The largest contingent is Nigerian military (3,000+). There are lots of Philippino soldiers as well, Ghana and Bangladesh have a strong presence. I have met quite a few Jordanians and a couple of Ukrainians. It is still a fairly large mission though we're in our drawdown phase which means we're consolidating operations and pulling out military personnel. Having a mission come to a drawdown phase is a good thing in terms of having achieved an acceptable level of security, however, the danger can be the humanitarian presence gap once the civilian staff leave if the government is not ready to take over governance.

Every Sunday a group of volunteers here goes to the school for the blind to cook them a hot lunch. I joined them last Sunday and got to meet the school's principal and several of the kids. There are about 36 kids ranging between 8 and 28 years old, as the education system virtually did not function during the 14-year civil war. There is a school for the deaf right next to the one we went to, however, there are no funds available to do the same thing for them. Essentially, we need about $80 every Sunday to make lunch for them as well. From talking to the principal, I gathered that many of these kids' parents have simply abandoned them, in fact, the newest arrival, a boy of about 9, was found wandering the streets last week.

As for the country itself, it is quite a vibrant place, despite the destruction suffered by its people for so many years. It takes a bit of getting used to, especially the language. It is English, but it is Liberian English, which is almost completely incomprehensible if you're a listening to a conversation by the locals. The nature is quite beautiful here, and I'm even getting used to seeing spiders and other bugs every day. Still a little freaked out by the giant roaches, but so far I've only seen one in close proximity.

Grocery shopping is a bit challenging as most of the food is imported so it is VERY expensive. The UN shop is less expensive than the local supermarkets, and even here I have to shell out about $4 for a can of tuna. Essentially, everything is about three times the price it is in New York and the selection is very limited. Nonetheless, it is totally liveable, and this is by far one of the most abundant missions of the UN so I'm not complaining. Also, from the accounts of others who have been here longer, a small watermelon used to cost $21 right after the war so the situation has improved quite a bit today.

Life at the office is very busy for me, as I am responsible for preparing all the relevant materials for my boss's meetings which are mostly high-level meetings with government officials. I have to prepare Talking Points and speeches for these meetings as well as closely monitor the political developments in the country and the surrounding area and update him on a regular basis. The issues we deal with are anything from the current caterpillar invasion in one of the counties to the training programmes for government officials. My boss is a very nice man who has been here since 2004 so he knows the mission inside and out. My other colleagues have also been very helpful and knowledgeable. I have a beautiful view of the ocean from my office.

I will try to update this regularly, so stay tuned. Many thanks to everyone for all your support, I love hearing from you via FB and email :)