Why it’s Hard to Write about South Sudan

I got a new job a few months ago. I’m a foresight analyst now.

What’s that mean? It means that I use structured analytical techniques to build scenarios that are supposed to model and predict the path a country could take anywhere from six months to fifty years down the line.

No, I’m not an oracle. I’m just a guy who spends way too much of his time looking for trends in political and economic systems.

I’ve spent the last month working on a project for South Sudan. I traveled back to Juba and interviewed friends and former colleagues as well as in-country experts, local government officials, and average citizens to try to get a grasp on the extreme volatility that is South Sudan since independence. Not an easy task when the biggest question of the last two weeks has been a ‘will he, won’t he’ game of speculation around whether the former vice-president would return to the capital to take his place in a transitional government of national unity. 

The whole thing was a farce akin to a Beckett play, and “Waiting for Machar” became my hashtag on Twitter that absolutely no one found interesting (but amused me to no end). It was one of the few things keeping me sane while trying to write a report where one of the key uncertainties in the political situation was evolving right in front of me.

That struggle is only natural for Juba. Keeping my sanity was one of my most troublesome challenges for a year and a half in South Sudan. Now, looking back on two years of experience with the country, I’m surprised I managed it.

And that’s because South Sudan is an excruciating place to love and care about. It’s a place that builds up your love and respect for humanity’s resilience and ability to push through pain and tragedy before it tears you down when you witness the extreme brutality and violence that human beings are capable of raining down on their fellow men and women.

In May 2015, I wrote a brief for the Humanitarian Coordination Team, the top-level organizing body in the country, regarding the ongoing government offensive in Unity State. As a mobile protection actor, I had traveled the length and breadth of Unity State. I had spent weeks in Koch, Buaw, Mayom, Mankien, and Leer.

As a result of my work on both side of the front line, I knew exactly how and where a government offensive could take place due to troop positions and the geographical constraints of warfare in one of the biggest swamps in the world. I later drew a map from memory of the ongoing offensive and how it would unfold for donors and diplomats that looked exactly like an HSBA diagram that would be published months later.

As I wrote that one page brief for the HCT, I cried. I cried and I cried and I cried. Reports from the Bentiu Protection of Civilian site were sounding the alarm—old women and young children pouring into the camp, but no men or women between the ages of ten and thirty-five. No one could understand why they were missing this key demographic, one of the largest in the country and inexplicably absent from the influx.

I knew why. Exactly one year before, I’d been in Leer town, interviewing survivors of the violence that had engulfed the state as government and opposition fighters had stormed back and forth in pitched battles that destroyed anything in their path. The first woman I spoke to individually, a thin, cracked grandmother in her seventies, had been caught at a government check point with her seven grandchildren. The oldest boy, twenty, had been taken by the soldiers, his throat slit in front of her. The oldest girl, seventeen, was taken by the armed men. The old woman, the girl’s grandmother, hadn’t seen her since. She was allowed to continue with five small children, all under the age of ten.

Story after story continued like this, each one with the subtle differences that build credibility, and the core similarities that indicate a campaign of coordinated violence and the deliberate targeting of civilians. A year later, writing that brief through angry and grief-filled tears, I knew that history was repeating itself.

Numerous reports released over the next few months confirmed my fears and indicated that the violence was so much worse than I could ever have imagined.  Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the UN all described scenes of unimaginable brutality: homes looted and burnt, women abducted and raped, civilians of all ages tortured, mutilated, and murdered.

These crimes will likely never go to court; their perpetrators will never see justice. Despite the peace deal’s call for a hybrid court and transitional justice, reconciliation will be one of the first items on the chopping block as international actors and those responsible for violence negotiate an elite bargain as the best hope for a false peace.

That isn’t an opinion based off of foresight or analytical techniques; that’s an opinion based on history. It is a history of compromised promises, a lack of long-term planning, and false expectations generated by a theory of liberal peace.

I recently spent a few hours at Juba airport waiting for my flight back to Kampala. I sat and chatted to a prominent human rights actor who’d spent years working on the Sudans. I was struck, more than anything, by how tired she looked. She knew it as well. Everyone I’ve spoken to who looked like, felt that accumulated stress, knew that it showed.

I knew it after a year and a half of conflict and violence. I knew I had to take a break, knew I had to leave it behind before it broke me.

There’s a certain type of ‘expert’ on Sudan and South Sudan who have followed the country for years from university lecture halls and think tank conference rooms in the US and Europe. I’m convinced their longevity concerning the Sudans is the privileged position of never seeing the day to day in the countries that they know so well. It’s one thing to cite a chart with month-to-month inflation of 200% or more. It’s another to watch the price of bread double and triple over a few short months, to see more and more women and children out begging on the streets, to drive past long lines of cars waiting for petrol, to know that generators in homes and hospitals aren’t running due to a lack of fuel.

Seeing this, you know it could have been different, and that’s what hurts.

What kills you in seeing all of this is the hope, often dashed. The hope that saw the exchange rate drop from 22SSP to the dollar before the peace deal was signed in August 2015 to 10:1 after, only to rise to 44:1 around Easter this year—all false hopes that buoyed a shallow black market.

What kills you is the opportunity, often wasted. The promise of new hospitals, new schools built with profits from the country’s oil revenue, funneled out of South Sudan by corrupt elites who build new houses and buy new cars in Kampala and Nairobi.

It’s the possibility of unity after the 2006 Juba Declaration broken along historic divisions between the SPLA and the SSDF. It’s the fact that, when you think about it, you should have seen it coming, and maybe you would have, if you’d been more cynical.

It’s the long durée, the constant retreat into violence and elite power struggles that makes it so difficult to love this country.

That’s why it’s so hard to write about South Sudan. 

Ebb/Flow

I was a smiley kid. All the time, I was walking around like it was a sunny day, with a big grin on my face. I must have looked like a complete dope.

Then one day, when I was in 7^th grade, some goth/punk burnout noticed the dopey grin on my face and asked me, in front of everyone, “Why are you smiling all the time? Did you just get done masturbating?”

Everyone who heard him laughed. And laughed. I didn’t know what masturbation was (I was a very innocent kid, which probably helped explain the dopey grin), but I could understand intrinsically that being labeled a chronic masturbator was something all the other kids would make fun of me for.

So I stopped smiling.

It’s not that it launched me into a deep depression or that I never laughed. It’s just that from that day forward, I never wore that dopey grin again. It’s come back from time to time, but it’s always been something I’ve kept hidden.

Two years ago, when I first came to South Sudan, I was excited about a new challenge, a new context, and finally achieving something I’d been working towards for years. I was mobile, which suited me well with my love of movement and rapidly changing contexts, learning on the fly, and adapting as best I could.

I naturally turned towards writing, and this blog, to pour that energy out into the world. Three posts in April, two in May, and then “Cowboys,” in June 2014.

Then it drops off. One post in August, and not another one until January 2015, another in April, and this is the first since.

What changed? I submitted “Cowboys” as a comms piece to the organization I worked for. We had a part-time comms officer who never did her job. I didn’t know I’d almost been hired as a full-time comms officer, so the fact that I’d published three pieces for the organization’s blog probably made it look like I was gunning for her position.

So she undercut me. Hard. She launched a campaign of sneering and mockery. A month or so after that piece was published, everyone was talking about it, and none of it was good.

People took to calling the mobile team the ‘cowboys,’ even though the article said that we weren’t doing the real work, the difficult work of helping communities knit themselves back together after a crisis. I could tell that I was quickly becoming an outsider in a place where you couldn’t afford to go it on your own.

So I stopped writing. 

I shut down the part of me that was outward facing. I kept my journal, but I couldn’t bring myself to really push my own boundaries anymore. 

And that was a shame because there were so many stories to tell. Not just mine, but the personal stories from a conflict that's raged now for over two years, displaced millions, and slowly ground down so many who hoped for so much more. 

I'm amazed that people still maintain hope. The Greek legend had it that when Pandora opened her box, she let out all the evils of the world - death, famine, plague, sadness, misery, poverty. She closed the door with one voice crying to be let free. That voice was hope. It always struck me that maybe hope was the worst of all, that hope helped people endure but that it also inured people to the suffering around them and prevented change. 

I don't know if I still believe that. As I get older and the thoughts in my head get more and more nuanced, I'm not sure what I believe anymore.

But if anyone asks me why I return to places like South Sudan (where I am currently), I'm reminded of all the hardship, all the pain, the death, the disease, the loss of a child, a wife, a husband, a home, a family, a community, the loss of dignity, the loss of even the most basic rights - food, shelter, safety, and I see that life goes on. 

No matter how dark things get, there is hope. It's there in brief moments, but it's the only thing that keeps you from breaking, that keeps you committed to life and everything in it, for better or for worse. 

This war, which doesn't get as much coverage as it should and will probably never get as much coverage as it should, will eventually end. Life continues, with or without us.

That doesn't mean we have to like it. That doesn't mean that we have to inure ourselves to the pain and suffering around us. The news calls it a 'migrant crisis' rather than acknowledge the thousands of women and children who are fleeing war and desolation. 

I can't end a war. I certainly can't end this one. But I can work to try to ally myself in others' suffering, to stagger on together in an attempt to demand dignity from a hard world, made harder by people who have doubted themselves, been afraid, lashed out, and taken one step after another down a road that sees another human life as worth less, as lesser, as expendable and exploitable. 

At my worst, like all of us, I have lashed out, I have done wrong, but I must remember to turn inward, heal my own pain, and open myself again. 

South Sudan has taught me many things. It's given me at times an awfully black sense of humor. It has shown me things that I've heard only in news reports, an unimaginable world far away from my own. It's shown me courage, true courage, the ability to carry on when everything around you seems impossible. 

I gave a copy of the Tao Te Ching to a South Sudanese colleague. In a place where books are hard to come by, he's read those simple poems over and over and over again. He's found wisdom there. And even though he lives in a country at war, he can read about peace and about the ebb and flow of life. 

He and his wife had a child a few months ago, their first. It's not an easy thing to do, to bring life into so much suffering. And to know that in South Sudan that no child is safe until the age of five. Child mortality is one of the highest in the world alongside maternal mortality, but child and mother have both made it so far. 

Even in the midst of everything, life goes on. There remains hope. 

Generosity

Maybe it's just an illusion, but I have this image in my head of America before the turn of the 20th Century as a place that people traveled by horse and by ox-cart, a countryside where distances were so great that an hour on today's highway was equal to at least a full day's journey, where, if your neighbor visited and stayed late, they were welcome, nay required, to spend the night, and where strangers who knocked at the door were afforded a meal and at the very least a place to sleep out in the barn. There was an expectation then to treat everyone with generosity and hospitality, if, for no other reason, than because you one day might need the favor returned. That's just the image I have. I don't know how accurate it is, but it may inform this entry.

This is the positive story, as promised. It's an example of the best humanity has to offer and one of many reasons why I love people of all creeds, colors, and cultures.

I had a few days to kill before meeting up with a friend in Chefchaouan, so I decided I needed to spend some time away from the cities. I headed up to Al Hoceima National Park, which is situated in the north of Morocco and occupies about fifty square kilometers of protected Mediterranean coast, limestone mountains and cliffs, thuya forest, and an azure-blue sea. It's a beautiful place to visit, but is particularly rewarding if you have no time constraints and are entirely self-sufficient.

Unfortunately, the park hasn't yet been very well developed to take advantage of all the natural beauty that it offers. Most people in the city of Al Hoceima actually didn't seem to know that they lived less than five kilometers from this protected area. A typical conversation went something like this:

- I'm looking for the National Park.
- Park? Oh yeah, it's three blocks that way, you can't miss it.
- No, the National Park.
- What now?
- The National Park of Al Hoceima?
- I don't know what you're talking about.

You can imagine my frustration. So, after about four hours of asking around, I just took off into the park with one pathetic map and food enough for about two days. It wasn't quite like living in a bus in Alaska, but I'm pretty confident I was the only traveler hiking around the trails and villages of this beautiful, secluded reserve.

I decided to camp that night on the beach outside a small village, the name of which I can't now remember. Just to make sure it was cool, I wandered around until I found the café. You're guaranteed to find a large percentage of any village at the local café at any time of the day. There I met Mohammed, an old fisherman with an uncanny knack for throwing his voice, which I was both too tired and too gullible to uncover his trick for about ten minutes, despite the fact that we were sitting about three feet from one another. His friend, much younger, a teacher at the village primary school, told me it was fine to sleep on the beach, but that I should come sleep at his house, eat dinner with his family, take a shower, and drink tea. I told him his offer was far too generous, and I couldn't possibly accept it. We kept talking, and after about ten minutes, he again made the offer, and again I declined. I didn't want to impose. After a bit more conversation, he insisted that I come spend the night and meet his family, and I insisted just as firmly that I wanted to sleep outside so that I could see the stars and hear the sea. This is how Moroccans function: they will always ask three times and are incredibly generous in all they offer. As I had turned down his home, he then insisted that I at least eat dinner with his family. Knowing that Moroccans typically eat around 11 pm or later, I declined. Again he insisted. Again I declined; I was too tired, eventhough I knew I was being rude by declining his hospitality. After his third offer, I pointed to the bread I'd brought along, insisting that I would not go hungry.

And what do you think happened? Around midnight, I woke up to move my tent, afraid of the tide during a particularly strong wind storm, and who do I see walking the beach toward my campsite? My friend the teacher, carrying with him a can of tuna salad, a roll of cookies, an apple, six wedges of Laughing Cow cheese, and a carton of juice. Since I'd refused to eat with him, he'd brought dinner to me, special delivery nearly half a kilometer from his house, through the cold, nasty weather, to me, a guy he barely knew, who he will, in all likelihood, never see again.

That's not the end of the story though. A few days later after a trip all the way to Tangier, I met two sisters, Emily and Cecilia, Americans who were traveling together through Morocco. Emily was in the process of finishing up her time in the country studying Arabic, and Cecilia was visiting from America. Instantly recognizing two very interesting people, I agreed to meet up with them in Chefchaouan (which was about two hours back the way I'd come, my ability to change plans based on the cool people I meet again taking me away from my goal of Europe to a place I'd already been). But I wouldn't have taken back all the extra time I spent with them even if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me a lot, I'm getting rather poor these days). We went hiking around the area, met two more travelers, Simon and his mom Katerina, and the five of us took off together, back to Al Hoceima. Check it out on a map, that's like six hours in the direction I'd come from.

But this was one of the best memories I have of Morocco, and it was great to end my time there with such amazing people and such positive experiences. Remember in my last post that I mentioned that I sometimes gain a new perspective on my time in Africa through the pointed, insightful questions of other travelers? (You'd better not have skipped that one, or so help me...) Ya, they were some of these types. I literally made the decision to backtrack six hours along the coast with them, by flipping a coin. Honestly though, I probably would have gone anyway.

We had a few troubles, mainly fighting tooth and claw for every dirham we could save on taxis, but in the end, our drivers turned out to be great guys and really friendly once money matters disappeared. We lucked out finding the most amazing guesthouse in Northern Morocco. Let's just put it this way, when you and four friends have an entire house, including kitchen and bathrooms, to yourself on a hill overlooking a Berber village, limestone mountains, and the Mediterranean, it's good. When said house is surrounded by pomegranates, apricots, plums, almonds, and figs, all ripe for the picking, it's great. And when you get it all for just five euros a night, you start to think, "Maybe I could just stay here for the next month or so..." That was the situation we found ourselves in, and I'll keep the village name to myself, to keep it from being overrun by too many people (and because I can't remember it anyway).

And, best of all, we were welcomed by some of the nicest people I've ever met. We went looking for the trail to the village beach. Instead of just indicating the path, we got a ready-made guide in the form of Abdullah, who not only took off the entire afternoon to show us around, but also gave us insight into traditional Berber medicine, finding us some herbs for Cecilia, who was too sick to function. As we returned to the village, we realized we hadn't enough bread to last through the next day. We ran into our old man landlord, who was walking with a younger guy in a pink shirt. We asked where we could buy bread, not knowing that everyone in these tiny villages makes their own. No worries though, as old man Mohammed took us back to his house, introduced us to his family and gave us a loaf of bread about the size of a truck tire. As we were walking back, amazed at our luck, the younger guy in the pink shirt, who hadn't even spoken to us for more than thirty seconds, ran up to us and delivered us a second loaf, the same size as the first, just to make sure we had enough. He didn't say much, just smiled and offered us bread, almost shy at the gift he'd given. Food from their own tables to five people they barely knew. Pretty amazing.

And I have to wonder if this kind of generosity may be seen anymore in the developed world. In an age of personal transport, interstate hotels, and alarmist media, who trusts a stranger anymore, let alone goes so far out of their way to help one? I don't know if this giving spirit is particularly Moroccan, or if those in the countryside just look out for everyone equally. But this charitable energy is the image I have of all rural Americans living before the age of interstate highways and Best Westerns. Like I said, I don't know if it's an accurate image or just a fantasy, but I'd like to believe that it's something the developed world has lost and is slowly getting back. Communities like couchsurfing and facebook allow us to invite those we know and those we don't into our homes, show them around our communities, and share in a better, more positive world, where we learn from one another directly and don't rely on xenophobia or mistrust to tear us down. I like the changes I'm seeing, and I'm glad to have hospitality where I can find it.

Leaving West Africa

So, I fully admit: that last post was a bit crap. I apologize for the confusing, piecemeal nature of it. What I should have written is as follows, and I hope it can help explain the confusion and general anxious strain I've been feeling for the past few days in Senegal.

Today is my last day in Senegal, and looking at it more and more, my last day in West Africa. Mauritania marks my transition from the African world I've known so long to the Arab world I'll be discovering soon enough. Technically, it's still West Africa, but from everything I've heard, Mauritania is really a mix of Arab, Berber, and African all in one enormous expanse of desert. Leaving this place is kind of a hard transition. For almost two and a half years, I haven't known anything other than West Africa, one of the poorest, hardest, grittiest places on earth. And it's difficult to put this leaving into words: what it represents, how it feels, who I'm leaving behind, and when I'll be back.

First, what does leaving Africa represent for me? In that regard, what does West Africa, my Peace Corps experience, and my travels represent? Many things, I guess. I feel as if I'm closing an amazing chapter of my life. I thought I was closing that chapter when I left Niger, and in many ways I was. However, in just a few ways, I think this trip has added a few footnotes to my time there. Peace Corps was a unique experience that I don't think I would have otherwise had. I've grown so much in the past two and a half years that I don't even recognize the person I once was. I joined Peace Corps less than a year after graduating college, which is pretty overwhelmingly true for many other Volunteers in West Africa. At that time, I was lost. I didn't know what I was doing with my life, so hell, why not join Peace Corps? This, I've found, is a common thought amongst those of us who have no idea where life is taking them but who want to do some bit of good in this world.

I think most people end important chapters of their life with a "Now what?" mentality. It's far too easy to encounter the first thing that comes drifting along, attach yourself to it, and hold on tight. It's a way of sleeping through life, and it's a pretty awful way to waste precious time on this earth. But I can't judge. This is exactly how I wound up in Peace Corps. But the difference is that Peace Corps has an expiration date. Two years and you know things are going to end. You'll say goodbye and move on, with clearly-defined memories of challenges and triumphs, failures and rewards. Some people spend their entire lives attached to the first thing that drifted along after college and never experience anything else.

And the key memories in my and several other peoples' service are those challenges. Whether projects, people, or day-to-day life in another culture, we need those challenges to reaffirm our place in the world or to knock us on our ass so we can have the chance to get back up again. We succeed or fail, but I think we often learn more in our failures, and they often make success that much sweeter. I'm thankful that I've had this opportunity to challenge myself so thoroughly. Like iron after it's been through the forge I think I'm stronger, more resilient, and ready to take on more weight, more responsibilities. More importantly, I feel as if the time for drift is over. I may not have a much better idea of what I want to do, but I have to strike out on a path. I can't abide staying in one place, growing old, and losing that edge. Along the way, I've met several others, in all walks of life, who are in the same category, and it feels nice to know that you're not alone. The road is full of those looking for some kind of existential sign.

So how does it feel? Leaving again? Well, after all that I've just written, better, but still kind of horrible. It's hard to transition any chapter of life, and being young, an experience like this takes up a greater proportion of my life. I'll apologize now if this gets overly romantic or dreamy. Just bear with me. I've given myself to this place for a long time, and it's returned my investment tenfold. But, there's no denying that there are some things you can't get back. I once wrote about taking a hammer to my sanity, throwing the pieces to the wind, and collecting them at a later date. Those pieces that I found were all I needed in life, and the important ones would, obviously, be the easiest ones to pick back up. It was a pretty mentally challenging part of my service, which may go a way to explaining the violence of the imagery. Well, I did that. Metaphorically. I did not take a hammer to my head; I just smacked it a few thousand times because I never quite realized the extent of my own height. I went a little crazy, learned what was important, and have pieced myself back together pretty thoroughly. However, now I feel as if I've left a piece behind in Africa, and it's important. It feels as if this is an integral piece. And it's not coming back. It's taken up residence here, and I can't lay hands on it to collect it again. The problem seems to stem from the realization that this piece is everywhere and nowhere all at once. I can't relive my life and pinpoint the place where I left that small piece of myself, but I can catch glimpses of it: in the photos I've taken, the lines I've written, and the people I've met. It's there in every memory, like the creepy guy at a bar.

But it's not as if I have some hole within myself where this piece is missing. Instead, I have an assorted conglomeration of friends and images that have taken its place. That's why that piece of me is so impossible to reclaim. It's because it has also been smashed into ever smaller pieces which are now distributed all throughout this chunk of the continent: in my fields, my house, my favorite overlook on the mesa, in Dogon Country, in Monrovia, in the Fouta Djalon, in all the PCV friends I've made in Niger, Burkina, Mali, and Senegal, in Emilie and Charles, Knut and Bianca, John and Karen, Sangeetha and Becca, the Inter-Aide crew, in Annarita, in all my village friends, and even in Pip, who should have worked his way up to King of the Bush Cats by now, Insha'Allah. Hats off to one of the cutest cats ever. He probably won them over with his charm.

And when will I be back? That really depends on when God wills it, but I know that one day I will return to West Africa. And I will probably realize that I never really left. Because until then, there are pieces of me bouncing all around this part of the world, and I'll always be able to catch a bit of Africa's sun whenever I see old friends from these two years. Part of me will never leave. I'll always feel the absence of a place I love, but this loss will hopefully be tempered by new places to love, new adventures that await. It won't be too long before that happens either, because as soon as I've left West Africa, I have Morocco and North Africa, a whole new world of which I know nothing. After that, who knows? I will eventually go home (much to the relief of my aggrieved parents), but I doubt I'll be there long (sorry Mom and Dad). There's just too much of the world that I want to see. Too many people to meet and an infinite amount of adventures just waiting outside the door. Life's too short to experience them all, so we might as well try to find as many as we can.

And that's exactly what I do tomorrow, when I cross the border to Mauritania, en route to Morocco and another stretch of road. Until next time, kala han fo West Africa. I will miss you terribly.

Reflections

It's been about one week since I left Sierra Leone. More than any other country so far, I've gotta say, that place has everything. It's the only country I've been to that combines jungle, beaches, mountains, and savannah in equally beautiful measures. Hell, even the mountains combine jungle and savannah, and Freetown Peninsula has lush green hills for hiking if you want to escape from the beach for a while. The country's a tourist gold mine just waiting for people to come back and discover it. Sierra Leone is safe now. The war is over. Valentine Strasser spends most of his time in the Stop Press cafe, sitting in a corner by himself, remembering his former glory as the youngest world leader of his generation. (Look him up; it's good for you.)

However, even with all that the country has to offer, I ended three weeks with the uncontrollable urge to get out. Why? Chalk it up to some pretty minor setbacks worsened by an existential mid-trip crisis. I tried to hike Mount Bintumani, one of West Africa's highest mountains, and failed for reasons so stupid I won't bother to mention them here. Nevertheless, the failure was palpable, and I've now sworn to return to Sierra Leone some day and rectify my mistake. Vengeance will be mine (channeling Skeletor there).

Failure's always a bit of a bitch, but it has the uncanny ability to teach you things about yourself. For me, the failure of Bintumani was aggravated by an inability to cross into Guinea. For three days I tried to arrange something, but all my attempts kept falling through from Kabala, Sierra Leone to Faranah, Guinea. Eventually, I went back to Kamakwie, where I'd met some awesome French NGO workers who put me up for the night and sent me on my way the next morning. But I couldn't shake this sense of defeat. That is, until I got to Guinea, found a night bush taxi (which I ordinarily avoid like the speed-freak death-traps they are), which raced through the darkness from Kindia to Mamou at about 100 km/hr on the roller coaster roads of the Fouta Djalon. Sometimes you just need to run, and this was one of those times. It didn't hurt that I had Rage Against the Machine blasting in my ears, steadily by my side the whole way.

But back to this malaisem, this existential crisis. What caused it? I think I have to blame the amount of amazing people I met in Sierra Leone and Liberia. That sounds absurd, but hear me out. After 12 weeks on the road, and more than two years in Africa, I felt like I'd lost all sense of self. I have not been home since I left Indiana on January 7, 2008. In my time in Niger, I had no neighbors, which allowed me to really claim my village and my region as my own. However, I left that on September 7, 2009 and only had one week back to say goodbye. That was a pretty traumatic experience already well documented on this blog, so I'll save you any further trauma reliving it.

In Burkina and Mali, where there's a strong Peace Corps presence, I couldn't feel this loss as acutely as I did later, specifically in the last few weeks. In Liberia, I began to meet and spend long periods of time with new and interesting people. NGO workers, ex-pats, Peace Corps Response Volunteers. After being solitary for so long (throughout most of Côté d'Ivoire), it was nice to be able to share stories and build new relationships. However, the life of a traveler is transitory, and after a few days, I move on, unsure if I will ever see this or that person ever again. Of course, you exchange email addresses and hopes, but the reality is you never know.

So it was with Liberia, so it was with Sierra Leone, so it will be with everywhere I go. I met some awesome people, but slowly, they had to leave, and I had to move on. I think all of this meeting and parting came to a head my final week in Sierra Leone, when fatigue and several setbacks all seemed to jump me at once. I realized that I've been away from home a very long time. I haven't seen anyone from my past life in America in over two years. That was alright as long as I could build a new life in Niger, find new supports. However, I left that behind over three months ago, and now, now I'm doubly removed from any kind of past life. It's difficult to determine where you are without anyone who knows you. And when all your new relationships have to, by nature, end, it's difficult to find continuity.

Sometimes though, all you need is a light heart and some Rage (Against the Machine). I threw off my doubts and my losses with the realization that I'm doing something amazing. That's not to boast or appear proud. I'm just continually confronted by new cultures, new landscapes, awesome people, and challenging situations. And I realized I was complaining about that! It's difficult to continually meet and leave people and places that you're falling in love with, but we always carry these experiences with us, and if we leave parts of ourselves with others, it only means we have more reason to carry us back.

I don't really know the point of this blog. Only that it needed to be written to demonstrate that it's not all candy and rainbows on the road in West Africa. I've been very lucky so far (Ivory Coast excluded), and running through the cool, Guinean night with the Bulls on Parade, I realized how amazing life is, and how much living there is left to do.

Invest West Africa

I've been in Monrovia, Liberia for about a week now, and I've done almost nothing. Oh true, I did spend four days milling about the Sierra Leone embassy trying to get a visa (it's amazing how quickly they'll process the paperwork after you fall asleep on the consul's couch waiting for a freakin' signature) and wrestling with ATMs (when only one bank controls all the cash machines in the city, the inefficiencies of West Africa become very apparent). I probably walked five miles a day trying to find a working machine while on a treasure hunt for the legendary Leonean visa.

Basically, Monrovia has been one big pit stop after eight weeks on the road. Now most would stop here and say, "Really Sterling? You chose a city that less than a decade ago was only somewhat controlled by Charles Taylor and a cavalcade of competing warlords?" Well, it's true. Monrovia has seen better days. At one point in time, Liberia was one of Africa's brightest stars. It was stable, with a strong, commodities-based economy, and an educated elite. However, that educated elite, almost all descended from American slaves repatriated to Africa, controlled all facets of life in the country. The great majority of indigenous people lived in grinding poverty. However, that all changed when one plucky young army officer named Samuel Doe decided to speak up for indigenous rights...by slaughtering most of the landed elites in government and installing himself as President. Gotta love the underdog.

The only problem with getting rid of everyone who knows how to run a country is...well...there's no one left to run the country! Doe tried to steer the ship of state for a while, not too effectively, and, before long, the country descended into a brutal 14-year civil war. Talk about landing on the rocks. And thus, Liberia became known to the rest of the world as "that jungle place in Africa where they're all killing eachother." Congo? "No, not that one." Angola? "No..." Libya? "Ya, something like that."

But the civil war ended over five years ago. Charles Taylor is being tried for war crimes in the Hague. One of the largest UN contingents ever deployed still has boots on the ground; the country's safe, secure, full of happy smiling people! Actually, dark humor aside, Liberia is probably one of the most refreshing countries I've visited in West Africa. Sure, Monrovia is in ruins, but they're rebuilding. There's a massive UN presence all throughout the country. There are more Bangladeshis and Nigerians here than in some parts of Nigeria and Bangladesh (especially in the unpopulated parts of those countries). Every car on the street seems to be driven by an aid or development organization. The major influx of capital in the form of volunteers, development workers, drivers, cars, and money has pushed prices sky-high for foreigners, as most of the secure hotels and restaurants cater exclusively to outsiders and wealthy Liberians. Americo-Liberians who fled during the conflict, however, are returning and bringing a lot of their own wealth back with them.

One can only hope that with the influx of services catering to a wealthier clientele (you wouldn't think development and UN personnel would rank among the wealthiest people in a country would you? Try coming to Africa sometime) that basic services will return to average Liberians. The money doesn't look like it stands much chance of trickling down, but promising signs can be seen in new roads and renovations to buildings that are nothing more than a burnt out shell after 14 years of fighting.

Walking through Monrovia, it's impossible not to notice these hulking monstrosities all over the city: collapsed cement housing, broken high-rises, and once elegant, beach-side homes torn by bullet-holes and neglect. The most impressive of these former glories is the old Ducor Hotel. At it's height in the 70s, it was a five-star hotel, catering to dignitaries both famous and infamous, including Sekou Toure and Idi Amin. From it's perch on Mamba Point, it overlooks the Atlantic on three sides with a view encompassing all of Monrovia on the fourth. It was, in its hey-day, the shining achievement of unadulterated excess and one of Africa's best hotels. But then the war came. So it goes. When it ended and the new owners (a Libyan conglomerate which has bought up and renovated some of the best hotels in West Africa) cleared the building, they threw out over 350 families who were squatting in the ravaged wreck. I don't know where those families went, but it's most likely they took up residence in some other abandoned building in Monrovia (there are plenty to choose from) or moved down into the slums along the beach. As opposed to the rest of the world, beach front property in Monrovia is a poor man's domain. The wealthy tend to stay at home behind their ten foot-high concrete walls and concertina wire.

One would think that the poverty, inequalities, and wreckage would overwhelm the population, but I've found Liberians to be the most hopeful people I've yet encountered in West Africa. They elected Africa's first woman president four years ago, and most still stand behind her. The legacy of corruption and graft in the country is hard to overcome, but she's trying. The refrain among all the people I've met is that they were just tired of fighting. After 14 years, there were many who knew nothing other than violence. They just wanted it to end. Even now, with all the problems, the average Liberian seems reticent to complain, the ghosts of the past still too near. As a result, they're remarkably hopeful. Whereas many in Niger didn't have much faith in the democratic process, here they're looking to America and putting their faith in the ability to overcome their own history.

One of the other remarks I've heard again and again is that I'm the only independent traveler anyone has met in Liberia. Everyone asks what my "mission" here is. Am I a Volunteer? Aid worker? Development professional? UN worker? Liberians and expats, the Lebanese community and every other white person I've met: all are amazed that I decided to come here and see this country. Why do you travel? To see new places, meet new people, and then take back those experiences to the US. And then, when you get back, you'll write a book about our country. Well maybe, but that's too far in the future to tell. For right now, I'm just keeping a blog.

And then the most important, most vital thought I've heard from more than one Liberian on more than one occasion: And you'll be able to tell people that they should come back to Liberia. That we need them. We're a safe country now. We're stable. We're trying to recover and we need people to visit. We need people to see us as more than a war, as more than refugees and amputees. We need people to see us as human again.

I only hope this helps.