Zwedru - Liberia

Years of working in conflict zones meant inevitably that you had to sit down and deal with some very questionable people.

Often it was just hustlers trying to scrape a living from whatever angle they were touting. Occasionally it was more serious when presented with the option to hire trucks or other equipment that had clearly been looted from their original owners. Peeled off letters from Agency landcruisers, tended to leave a clear outline on the vehicles paintwork.

Then once in a while you met someone who simply radiated bad news.  They could exude the charm of a self confidence backed up by their militia and a terrified local population; or they would just maintain  a brooding silence, their face hidden behind  a pair of dark sunglasses. Some had inflicted considerable suffering on the population amongst which they still continued to live

Zwedru located in the far south east of Liberia was identified as a centre for an agricultural rehabilitation programme. Access at that time was by helicopter, with ECOMOG maintaining a visible presence on the ground.





An assessment of the agricultural infrastructure 

With a Country Office already established in Monrovia,  it was time to identify a suitable base for a field office. Introductions were made and I found myself in the presence of a group who had clearly been actively involved in the fighting. 

Both sides had a vested interest. I needed a compound to rent and they were after hard currency.  Options were limited but in the end I walked away from the deal as actual ownership was unclear. The last thing needed was to find the place had a complex history or worse.

I still remember sitting down in that darkened room. eyes slowly adjusting after the glare of the sun. The militia standing around the room, backs  against the wall whilst  their leader and I weighed each other up across a table.  It was on reflection the right decision.

Liberia

For a country adjacent to Sierra Leone the difference is striking. From Graham Greene’s ‘Journey Without Maps’ and Barbara Greene's ' Too Late to Turn Back' , little appears to have changed outside of Monrovia. There are remote settlements frequently cut off in the rainy season and in the dense forests a real sense of  a more ancient Africa, a place where the spirit world is close and deep rooted secret societies hold sway.

The Poro and Sande societies exist across Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea as well, but here in remote forest clearings they feel all pervading, particularly when you see a fully enrobed 'devil' moving through a village as dusk falls.

Liberia has taken a battering from the civil war and the Elbola outbreak, but then with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to lead the country, the basis of relative political stability was established.

Liberia is noted for dangerous rip tides. Once in the water the shore was suddenly very far away.  Rip tides are narrow currents so swimming parallel to the shore is the quickest way to get out of  the flow.  

Security has improved greatly, but the  infrastructure is still limited in Monrovia and minimal elsewhere.  The hinterland of Liberia is a journey into an Africa that much of the continent lost a long time ago.