Ever hear the saying, "Be careful what you wish for?" and think to yourself, "Whatever does that mean?"
If you're really wishing for something, it implies that you must really want it, right?
Must really need it in some deep metaphysical sense, correct?
Well, that saying would just about sum up my feelings about my most recent trip to Liberia a few weeks ago.
Liberia screwed with me in ways that I have yet to unpack.
Ways that I have been unable to write about it until now. And, even now, I don't think I can do it justice in one telling so I am breaking the story up into three of four installments...if only for my own sanity.
First, at little background on how I actually ended up going to Liberia in the first place.
(Oh,and quick history lesson. Liberia is a smallish country in West Africa that is often wrongly called America's "only colonial experience." We actually never colonized Liberia, in the sense that the Brits, French, Belgians, and Portuguese colonized other parts of Africa. We just sent a contingency of freed American slaves back there in the 1800s in a dumb-assed move to send black people back to Africa. Because all black people just have to be from Africa, right? Yeah, as I said, DUMB-ASSED MOVE. It would be like sending someone who has a Chinese last name but was born here and has relatives that have lived here for decades back to China and saying, "Yo, figure it out! Good luck with the language and all that!" In this case, in the 1820s a bunch of geniuses picked what they thought was a suitable piece of land in West Africa and started shipping freed black American slaves there thinking this was the perfect solution. Unfortunately, the current inhabitants of the lands declared, unilaterally, as the new homeland of the freed American slaves didn't think this was such a good idea at all. Neither did the freed slaves. But, who cares what they thought, right? HOWEVER, this did set up a dynamic in the minds of both Americo-Liberians--the settlers---and later Americans themselves about "who" Liberia actually belonged to and "who" is ultimately responsible which plays out today...but more on that shortly.)
Anyway, history lesson aside, this was not my first time to Liberia.
My first time was back in October of 2003 and I literally arrived there the day a ceasefire ending two decades of brutal civil war came into effect. Literally that very day.
And Liberia was truly my first look at how savage wars can be. Sure, I had spent time in the Balkans before that and had seen the initial aftermaths of some nasty wars but this conflict had a whole new dimension I was unfamiliar with completely.
And I was scared shitless. It was the first time I had ever seen drugged out child soldiers. The first time I had ever seen people, innocent people, who clearly had been tortured and mutilated---women and kids, too. The first time I had ever seen, up close, what a landmine does, after months in the jungle without being doctored. The first time I could look at someone and tell by their physical appearance that they had recently been raped, brutally. And the first time I actually feared for my life as kids, LITTLE KIDS, with guns and crazy, bloodshot eyes surrounded me on a sidewalk asking what "I had for them" as they waved rusty guns around in my direction with the safeties off.
Part of me wanted to run into the relative safekeeping of my scarcely functioning hotel and not emerge again until someone guaranteed me an armored convoy straight to the airport and back to the U.S...or at least a more "calm" African country...like Ghana where I had arrived from.
But I didn't do it.
Because I knew that if what I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life was really what I was going to end up doing, I could not run from this no matter how scared I was. I had to look at it. Look right at it.
And grow a pair pronto.
This was part of the reason that, nine years and several war zones later, I had to go back to Liberia. I had to see what nine years of aftermath looked like for both of us.
I also had to get back to Africa to erase the thought that the last time I had been there, albeit in Uganda, it had felt like I had left with my tail between my legs.
So when the colleague who ran the program abruptly quit in early March, I quickly lobbied to get my intern, Christine (written about in the previous blog "Mean Girl's Club) hired for the post. And then I just as quickly went on a campaign to get my boss to let me go with her to Liberia.
And, amazingly, after about 563 text messages, 75 emails, and three dozen late-night phone calls, my boss relented.
"Yes, yes, you can go...PLEASE GO...if it is that important to you, then you can certainly have the assignment. I hesitated because you have so much other stuff going on right now but since I am clearly never going to have another waking moment of peace in my lifetime unless you get to go, then go. With my BLESSING!" she added.
Yes, I can be insufferable when I want something. I don't necessarily like that part of myself, either.
So, three weeks later, all vaccinated and medicated against every disease known to mankind, Christine and I found ourselves at the airport in Atlanta on a non-stop flight to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.
The first thing that gave me pause for consideration was that there actually WAS a non-stop flight between the U.S. and Liberia.
Travel in most of West Africa, even between countries right next to each other, often entails traveling as far off the continent as Belgium to swing back to go what is the equivalent of 150 miles between two neighbors. I once flew to France to get between Sierra Leone and Senegal which are almost right next to each other. While France and Sierra Leone most certainly are not. And things haven't changed all that much since then.
Thinking about this with the flights, the words of my colleague and good friend, Nate, rang in my head from a week before.
Nate grew up in West Africa as the child of missionaries and has long harbored a deep and abiding love for the countries of the region and the culture. More than that, even, Nate loves the type of chaos and extreme deprivation that would make even Peace Corps volunteers swoon. He doesn't mind the corruption, the seediness, and the harshness and starkness of everyday life in some of the world's worst places. He thrives on the shit, actually.
And, he, this wonderfully amazing and strange person, said unto me:
"I fucking hate Liberia. Most corrupt, soul-draining, chaotic, confusing, annoying, shady place ever. I never, ever have any desire to go back there."
I had to admit I was shocked by this. Nate likes NIGERIA, for God's sake. I mean, I kind of did too but Nigeria is certainly "top of the pops" when it comes to corruption and chaos in West Africa.
Poor little Liberia, how could it be that bad?
"Americans have completely messed the place up," he told me.
"How?" I asked.
It was never really a colony in any sense and what could we have possibly done in nine years to make it worse than it was? I actually liked everyday Liberians back then despite the circumstances. They were actually some of the nicest people I had ever met. What, pray tell, did we have to do with this gross change?
"Wait," was all he said. Ominously.
So boarding the non-stop flight to Monrovia, I thought back about how strange it was that there would be such a flight if tons of Americans were not taking it.
And not just one non-stop, but two, per week. Yeah, OK, it stopped in Ghana for a refueling but we were not allowed to get off the plane. So it was, for all intents and purposes, a non-stop flight between Atlanta and Monrovia.
Boarding the plane, I went into my usual "airplane mode" meaning that I go into a zone somewhere between beatific meditation and a non-substance induced stupor and surrender for the next 14 hours.
I don't do this purposely but after so many years of travel and so many hundreds and hundreds of long-haul flights, I just sort of relax into it and really only something really shocking can jolt me out of it.
This is how I deal with long distance and long spells of time. This is how I deal with not having something I want immediately. This is how I deal with the guy next to me who keeps whispering queries about whether I have found Jesus or not. This is how I deal with turbulence. This is how I deal with someone who feels the need to slam his seat back into my knees every hour or so. This is how I deal with children whose parents think they are entirely too cute and allow them to crawl over the back of the seat in an attempt to do a face-plant in my dinner....
Well, you get it.
And, given that I was on a Delta flight and, as mentioned in previous blogs, traveling on an American carrier anywhere, anytime, is akin to being made to feel like you are merely an annoying mosquito to be smacked into quiet submission for such a transgression as requesting an extra water...well, best to zone out, I have learned.
So upon boarding, I quickly noted that the plane was a circa 1978 Boeing 747 due to the fact that there were still actual ashtrays in the arms of the seats. I noted that the crew seemed much younger and more...animated, I suppose...than most of the mean, hardened biddies on most American flights. I noted that our seats were the very last row, in the middle, at the end of the plane, with no windows. And next to the bathroom. I noted that the smell I had mistakenly identified as an overflowing toilet was actually going to be dinner...
And then I just shut down. Out with the Kindle, in with the headphones, and out with myself.
In another hour or two, the sewage smell was brought forth in form as our supper. Supposedly designed by some star chef who I had never heard of (and I am a foodie), it was your normal offering of shredded and dry beef blobs with some congealed brown gel floating over cardboard masquerading as vegetables with a side of wilted salad. I swear, hospital food is gourmet compared to U.S. airline food these days.
After poking around for a few minutes, I settled on the bread and butter as the most edible offering when coated with the packaged salad dressing. Then, after drinking the proffered thimble of free wine undoubtedly produced in some dirt farmer's bathtub in Idaho and marketed as "a vintage American varietal," I decided to try to sleep the rest of the way to our refueling stop in Ghana...some 12 hours in the future.
I was awakened by Christine jabbing me in the ribs a short time later and whispering, "They want to give us a drink! A free one!"
Certain that I was dreaming because WHO, WHO??!! gives a free drink to anyone on any American carrier anymore these days??? I pushed her off, muttering, "Yes, Alphonse, I shall see you in the ballroom for the cotillion dance, and please wear your waistcoat and nothing else!"
Then she tried the more direct route and smacked me, hard, on the cheek.
"Jesus, Christine! WHAT?" I asked, finally awake now.
She discreetly pointed upwards and I noted that two of the flight attendants; both young, handsome in an almost beautiful way, and smelling divine, were holding up a drinks menu to us.
"Cocktail?" the one drawled, and then broke into a fit of hilarity and secret shared winking with his flight attendant partner-in-crime.
"Really?" I asked, eyeing the bright pink and very complicated cocktail that he was pointing to on the menu that listed off some liquors that I didn't think legal to be put together.
"Yes, really!" he purred. "Marco and I are bored and we have perfected this cocktail so would you like one?"
I was about to ask more questions, still confused and sure this would cost a fortune, when Christine said, "Yes, we would each like one!"
Ah, the young, so trusting.
But, alas, two fantastically pink and very sweet cocktails appeared before us post haste. And gratis.
Since I don't drink most liquor, I was shocked to find myself enjoying it. It was so sweet, and so....pink...I couldn't taste any alcohol. I finished it with relish, half convinced there was no alcohol in there to begin with, when another turned up in its place seconds later.
By round four, the flight attendants were perched on the arms of our seats and we were all laughing, joking and poking each other after uttering blithely stupid remarks that just seemed so damn hilarious. It was like a big, drunken sleepover party 3,000 miles above the Atlantic Ocean.
They kept remarking that they had to welcome the "newbies" properly and somehow, somewhere, this echoed in a corner of my mind that made me want to ask WHY we were newbies and how come we were getting all these free drinks when no one else was... but I decided to stop questioning it.
Maybe we were just THAT fabulous, I considered, hazily.
I think we passed out somewhere about six hours into the journey. Or at least I did.
The next thing I knew I felt the plane making the slow descent that wakes your stomach up before your head.
Coming rapidly back to my senses, I realized two things right away: I was still slightly drunk and that the plane was banking and coasting at a very strange angle.
I looked over at Christine for a second and realized she was clutching the arms of her seat and was white-faced. Also, an eerie calm pervaded the formally chatty and loud cabin.
And then I had the strong premonition that I was going to die.
Which is kind of odd for me. I can count on one hand the times I truly felt like my dance card was up and only once else was it ever on a plane, despite all those flights.
Another time, of course, was with those child soldiers in Liberia.
How fitting.
But that morning, I felt it wash over me in a wave as the plane started tipping back and forth in the air in an attempt to right itself. I wanted to look at Christine or at least grab her hand but felt tremendous guilt that I was the one who might have put her on a plane to die.
And that was about all the thought space I had before the place tipped forward violently and its front wheels met the runway. Propelled by this opposite-of-normal landing, it immediately catapulted backwards onto its rear wheels before slamming down unceremoniously onto the runway again.
"Americans!" I remember thinking, "These are fucking Americans doing this piloting...this crash landing...they can't even blame this shit on untrained African pilots..."
Then my thoughts were cut off again as the plane began shimmying to and fro down the remainder of the runway at what seemed to be a much-too-fast speed.
I looked forward to see that entire panels of the inside of the plane had come loose on the second slam-down and passengers were literally holding them aloft over their heads. Luggage threatened to spill into the aisles as other cabins popped open.
A creaking and dragging noise on the outside of the plane portended similiar damage to the exterior.
Still, we slided to and fro for another 90 seconds before coming to an abupt, screeching halt a few feet from the terminal in Ghana.
Right before we did I heard one of our wonderful flight attendants who had gotten us so amazingly drunk ponder, "Jesus, I hope we don't have to bring out the truck this time!"
TRUCK?! TRUCK?!!
Like a fire engine? A truck to break the impact between the plane and the terminal? A hearse?
Who needs a truck to stop a plane?
I tried to look back at them to ask what was going on when I realized I had whiplash or whatever the equivalent is of one's head going backwards and forwards in space way too quickly.
I looked over at Christine, asking if she was OK.
She considered this stoically for a few moments before nodding, "Yeah, guess I am. Not dead, am I?"
Needless to say, our one hour stop-over in Ghana became three as they DUCT-TAPED the interior of the plane back together.
I promise, I am NOT kidding here.
Christine was staring out the window watching what they were doing to the exterior of the plane.
"What's up?" I asked her.
"You don't want to know."
And, she was right. I did not want to know.
And our wonderful flight attendants? They finally made an appearance again just as we were getting ready to take off for Liberia although they were getting off in Ghana....crew change.
"How you doing, lovely?" the one asked me.
Well...other than the fact that I almost just fucking DIED I am fine....
He giggled at me before giving me a perfumed hug and bidding us farewell.
Then I realized what all those drinks were about. What the "newbie" statement was about.
This obviously happened regularly.
We took off for Liberia----in the SAME PLANE---shortly thereafter.
(Part II of this story will explore such fascinating topics as how one can subsist on fish heads and red palm oil in the jungle for a week with no functioning toilets in sight....stay tuned).
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