Chapter Three - Traction

Thursday, August 1 : We are in Jay’s office by 10:00, fueled courtesy Kaldi’s Coffee, medium Americano (no room) and spinach-warm quiche, breakfast of champs.

Kaldi’s (in the front of the Royal) is the place man. It seems to never fail that we run into Nya Gbaintor, Jay’s somewhat younger cousin, there. Nya -- always sharp, energetic and dressed sharp man -- is on his way to Capitol Hill to fight the budget fight. He’s a Malta-trained maritime lawyer, Deputy Minister for Administration, Liberian Maritime Ministry. He’s been in that position for at least five years by

my count, impressive in a cut-throat public sector. The issue this morning with parliament seems to be how they can route at least some portion of Maritime’s substantial revenue into the general fund. Maritime earmarks their fund for specific projects that are not everyone’s projects apparently. Nya is going to educate: no-can-do.

I am to destined to spend the rest of the day ensconced in the glass-enclosed office outside Jay’s door, laptop enabled by a rotating set of wi-fi options, one fails, then go to next one, fail, switch, fail. I rattle off fundraising emails – SPM, SPM, stay positive man – while I witness Jay’s new world. First day of the month is budget day, so he’s demanding his managers match the money to the expenses. Again, it’s non-stop body traffic in-and-out-and-in his office. One thing noteworthy for this crew. A lot of them like to close doors with sharply resounding conviction. Ka-BAANGG!! … creating impressive, echoing shock waves off the ubiquitous slick white tile floor, through the hallways, up and down the stairwells.

As the Save Liberia meetings fade toward the end of the afternoon, we have our planning session for tomorrow’s Vacation Bridge in the later afternoon, Jay, Calvin, Anthony Kimba and me. Certificates, order of presentation that sort of thing. Back circa 2006-08, we used to have these meetings over pizza and"Bitter Lemon" (nice, nice lemon-lime soda) in the restaurant behind the old Royal Hotel, a true Star Wars cantina, West African style: U.N. soldiers of all continents, missionaries, NGO-types, Lebanese management, local African staff and, of course, our 20-s/thing posse. Now, planning is in a spacious office looking out, second story, heavily blue-tinted glass with “chief,” aka Jay, sitting at his desk with feet up.

Friday, August 2: It’s the early one today, pulling away from RLJ and onto the road at 6:17 (am), Xaviera joining us for the commute. It takes hours to get downtown because there is but a single road in (and out), in some places two-lane, others four. We drop X at her UBC Bank headquarters at the near-top of Broad Street and make our way back to the Royal for protein and caffeine injection.

After an hour at Save Liberia command central, we are back past the U.N. Building, Foreign Ministry, the Capitol, Supreme Court and onto Camp Johnson Road and AME University.

Program is up three or flights to classroom, with all students, bright orange t-shirts, present and packing the room. The rain (which I won’t likely mention that much anymore, just presume it’s pretty much always raining) is creating a mild roar on the tin roof above.
Three AME administrators, starting with Kimba, congratulate the class and thank Applied Scholastics warmly. Jay is on now. The 44 or so students are with him, that’s for sure.

He distinguishes between getting top grades and meaningful action. “What is the AME motto?” “Pursuit of Excellence.” “So, is the motto ‘Pursuit of As’?!” “No!” (Laughter, recognition.)

Jay stresses the future is in their hands as in the story of the young man who thought he could out-smart the wise sage by asking him to pick in which hand the youth held the bird behind his back. It will be hard, many people commonly drop out, but they pledge to stick with it. There may well be mornings where you will want to sit it out but choose to dance. When others tell you it’s time to cave in, choose to dance.

The concluding shots, group and individual, reflect the joyous energy each one of these guys carry away with them. Pictures do proclaim

words by the thousands. Let’s hope it holds. Yes, some may fall short, but no doubt others will contribute profoundly.

And ... we are not done.

At 3:00, we walk into the office of Professor Ansu D. Sonii, Sr., Minister, Liberian Ministry of Education (MOE). The first really cool thing about this meeting is that we required no go-between to arrange it. Tuesday, Jay had his assistant call to relay that the “CD” (that’s Country Director) of Save the Children wanted an appointment. Confirmed, in about an hour, for this day and time.

Jay explains this is a courtesy call. He is the first Liberian to hold the CD Save Liberia post. Jay is looking to see how his organization might help the MOE. Dr. Sonii replies that the MOE has national service volunteers coming to work in various counties but with no

budget for accommodations, food. Save Liberia may be able to accommodate with suitable funds. They will talk.

Jay turns the conversation to Applied Scholastics. He introduces me as his colleague for many years, American lawyer, APS rep., etc. There ensues a lively near-30 minute exchange on Liberian history and the nation’s recovery from the last civil war, how Jay and I met, Youth for Human Rights initiatives 2006-2009, Ebola and now the African Literacy Campaign.

Dr. Sonii is not only tracking, he’s fully enjoying himself. I am stating the challenge of rote memorization passing as learning, that real education is a chicken and egg proposition (what comes first, high-Toned determination or the tools for learning?). The Minister interrupts, leans back in his chair, strokes his chin a bit and says: “You know, I’ve always wondered about that: chicken? … or egg?” Jay picks up on that in turn and they are off for several minutes playfully debating the “issue.” Finally, Prof. Sonii draws back and observes that we are now in the realm of actually in the realm of Creation Theory. Jay jokingly declines to go there, potentially too controversial.

While the three of us are riffing, the Minister’s two deputies – Alexander Duopu (instruction) and Latim DeThong (administration) – are quietly sitting heavy-lidded on the side couch. Jay later reassures me that they are doers relied-upon supporters of the Minister. Cool. For Latim (who we know, he knows us from several years of crossing paths), his drowsiness might have been the pain medication from the hand surgery he had yesterday. We shall see.

Meanwhile, Jay is keeping Dr. Sonii fully engaged with Study Tech examples from the AME U Vacation Bridge delivery just concluded, third summer running. He illustrates the effect of misunderstood words by the story of the nursing student who was cautioned to not hit any nerves. Since her definition of nerves was “agitation” or “stress,” she’s not only unaware of her craft, she’s a danger to maiming a patient with an injection.

We mention the APS mission of teacher training and our ongoing relation with AME U, two more of their staff to come to Spanish Lake later this month. When Dr. Sonni wonders out-loud how we might work together (with his nose deep into the new press pack), Jay suggests that the MOE send two of their head office people to train. When we indicate a 10-day to possible six week program, with MOE paying the transport while APS covers room, board and tuition, the Minister is VERY interested. We will be following-up with the follow-up with follow-up speed.

Still, we are not done. X joins us at Save Liberia and we hit the Hub, the newest hangout with supermarket adjoining. Heineken and chicken wings please. Jay looks behind me and beckons. Over comes the current Miss Liberia, with straight hair down to her calves (that cannot be real, correct? … correct) to give Jay a little beauty pageant hug (“ohhhh … Jayyy” [or are you his twin, Steve?]). We get pictures. Day complete.

Saturday, August 3: We set out for Kakata today but, as it turns out, we will never make it. Instead, it’s a circle through Firestone. To answer a European monopoly. the company started here in the 1920s, leasing 1,000,000 acres for 99 years at 6 cents/acre ($60,000/year).

While recent litigation in the U.S. has alleged the company’s operations amount to virtual slavery, Firestone’s website advises:

“Since 1926, Firestone Natural Rubber Company has worked with the people of Liberia to create a thriving natural rubber industry and to provide critical — and, in many cases, otherwise unavailable — social services to its Liberian teammates and their families. After almost 100 years of investment, the Firestone Natural Rubber Company location — covering almost 200 square miles — is the largest single natural rubber operation in the world.”

One of the American lawsuits contended Firestone’s workers were slaves for making $2.50/day. Firestone replied that pay ain’t bad, over the average $1.70/day paid to Liberians off the plantation. So far as I know, these suits continue.

One thing is clear: this million-plus territory is essentially a nation in itself.

We enter the gates at Harbel, literally across the street from the Roberts International entrance. It takes us about two hours to transverse the property, by neat-rowed trees tapped for their latex and alternately encroaching jungle, past processing plants, towns, schools, Liberians with head loads, umbrellaed motorcycles, more locals carrying 20-foot lengths of bamboo, kids in clearings, a crew cutting timber with the biggest-ass chain saws (Stihl, German engineering) I have ever seen (four-foot bar, impressive), and just for good contrast, the meandering road leading to the golf course.

Road is mixed paved, sort-of-paved, long-ago-paved, ferget-abow-tit paved, and red dirt/rain mud. Our time-lapse recording covered most of the trip in a notable ten minutes or so. We emerge at 15 Gate, Paynesville – Kakata road.

Kakata will have to wait for another day. No one – local colleague Francis, the peeps at the Kakata Rural Teachers Training Institute (KRTTI) -- answered our communications (and there’s pre-Sierra Leone preparations to boot back at the office), so we turn south back to town.

Jay’s approach to Liberian driving is strict-mix between hard rock guitar and violin virtuoso. When the occasion suits, he claims the ongoing traffic lane, not so much to pass the slow-pokes going our way as to create his own proclaimed space. Please, my friends, do not try this at home.

The rain descends without mercy over three heavily loaded trucks as we pass them, each likely from Guinea. Each features ten or more guys on top of the bundles, stoic against the water assaulting them. This too shall pass.

I am looking forward to driving through Red Light, the mouth-dropping human hive/marketplace at this edge of greater Monrovia, with our new-fangled camera aimed inconspicuously forward over the hood. Yet, the Fates will not allow. Traffic freezes about a mile out and stays in place for nearly 20 minutes.

So, we are left, off on a “side road,” a narrow twisting dirt track, with a Liberian-style taxi (dinky sedan, vintage 1980s) mired deep in the muck toward the end of the bypass. Save the Children to the rescue, Jay pulls the guy out onto solid ground.

We drive to the office, do office stuff and then make our way back to Paynesville and home in the darkening, past Sat. night business as usual, many strictly in poverty in the makeshift store fronts and living shelters, sandwiched between the Lebanese-dominated big building businesses. Then, there is the massive new Chinese-built ministry building in Congo Town (constructed to replace the evil-concrete ruin that was the Taylor-era defense ministry), not open for a few more weeks, then destined to create new levels of vehicle paralysis.

Carry on Liberians. I don’t know how most you do it, but carry on.