Chapter Seven - Invisible, with Liberty, plus Justice

Friday, August 9: Back in Mother Liberia, with the “usual” commute from hotel to the Save ... Liberia offices, I have received Calvin’s draft speech by email. He’s keynote speaker this morning at the Mac Foundation High School. Time stamp on the email is something crazy, like 6:00 a.m. Has he been up most of the night writing it after arriving back from Freetown? Yep, probably, because the text shows hours of work and needs very little editing, darn good.

Theme is familiar. He will challenge the grads on knowledge and responsibility, innovation, creativity, courage to see and to disagree. He will credit APS and intro Study Tech as a tool to competence, describing our recent AMEU exercise of having the students correctly define all the words in the Liberian Pledge of Allegiance. I suggest that he illustrate this specifically, likely to get a laugh when the crowd hears that some our students even thought that “Liberia, one nation, indivisible …” means the country cannot be seen. Can you imagine?!

Calvin picks me up at Save around 10:00-ish and we drive through town, over New Bridge, past Vai Town, and hang a right into Clara Town. We travel this poverty-challenged neighborhood end-to-end and out to Somalia Drive on the fine new road President Weah had constructed here, his home community, after gaining Power last year.

We pull up to the Mac Foundation auditorium at maybe 10:45. Event is supposed to begin 10:00 a.m., but of course show ain’t going nowhere without our own Calvin Benedict Sanvee (CBS), star attraction. My concern that school heads might be peeved at our lateness disintegrates when it’s obvious no-one is yet ready to roll with the festivities.

Liberian graduations are in August, after the mid-summer published results of the West African Examinations Council’s (WEAC) West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). You pass, you’re in (or out, depending on view), in any event a graduate.

CBS and I sit up-front and off to the side, with the principal and a well-dressed lady to whom everyone is differential. I cannot be more specific ID’ing her here (probably proprietor’s wife) as the din in the auditorium – band pumping out highlight-lively tunes, mics turned up

to the max for the speeches – prevents our coherently introducing ourselves even with mouth up to ear.

It’s a three-plus hour outpouring, the 30 or so grads and the packed house audience successively taking synchronized shoulder-rhythm victory laps around the room to the band’s pulsations. When the valedictorian gets up to do his thing, all the grad’s are doing theirs, many ignoring the guy’s platitudes while talking, checking Facebook.

Now, it’s CBS’s turn. Fortunately, there is more attention paid from the gowned teenagers. He’s introduced at length, now at 28 or thereabouts Policy Analyst, Ministry of Commerce Liberia.

CBS is rolling, now reaching the Pledge “indivisible” part. He asks the grads for a definition. Class No. One stands and announces it means “can’t be seen.” It was to be some humor in there, but different kind

of a joke here.

CBS persists.

The Pledge declares “… with liberty …,” the freedom to choose, freedom to rise, freedom to take responsibility to help; “… and justice …,” fairness, lack of corruption, deserved results for one’s actions; “… for all,” not just the privileged few.

CBS is thanked with warm applause. Some clap for having grabbed chunk of his message, others likely happy that part’s over … onto the next part.

The post-ceremony courtyard is swelling with the grads, families, smiles, group shots, hugs that could be anywhere. The young woman circulating with her head-balanced tray of bananas confirms

this could only be Africa.

It’s 3:00 or so on my last Friday in Liberia, this time around. Set the course for AMEU. En route, Calvin receives text that the U's next prospective trainees at Spanish Lake, Iseclia T. and Anthony K., cannot get their Embassy interviews until mid-October. Plan B-mode, no U.S. August – September study as planned. More like November-ish

We meet with AMEU VP Romelle H. (back from her UK and US travels) and Anthony. The conversation shifts from the recent Vacation Bridge success and Spanish Lake timing to the Big Picture, as covered with Dr. Sonii last Friday at the MOE: AMEU’s role in helping to train every teacher nationwide. This is Romelle’s passion (former Director for Instruction, MOE). She has Precious Dennis, Dean, College of Education. We hit it off and the talk is gaining

momentum, future creation.

Fellow U VP Tim K. is now able to join us. With Dr. Isaac’s abrupt departure last month, the U is in transition. It’s great to plan, but truth told, the only thing constant here is change. So, while this remains a work/collaboration in progress, broad strokes only for now. The land of Plan B … and C.

Hotel return journey features Jay, Xaviera and their weekly grocery run at Stop & Shop, Congo Town. The place is packed to the brim with everything at the impressive prices its Lebanese managers can obviously command (those corn flakes are still $10 per

We depart with the heavy bags, about $200 lighter, and complete the commute to Paynesville with J and X playing traffic tag (separate cars), this Monrovian extremes-as-normal “nothing is halfway” world (whether better-off or staggeringly poor) passing by in the rising darkness.

Tomorrow is another (Satur)day.