Last week, I arrived in Liberia to start a 10-week internship with the Kaizen Company working on a project called Mitigating Local Disputes in Liberia (MLDL). The MLDL program works to "build the institutional and human capacity of local government officials and citizens to manage disputes and security concerns by focusing on developing and expanding County Security Councils (CSCs), District Security Councils (DSCs) and Community Forums (CFs). [These] structures [are supported] at multiple levels in Liberian society to give citizens the ability to bring disputes to authority figures as easily as possible with the aim of preventing minor disputes from becoming large scale conflicts. In this way, the project is working to foster peace by applying alternative dispute resolution and mediation techniques to supplant violence" (Kaizen website). Because this project deals with matters of security, for the purposes of this blog any information that I give about it will remain at a high level.
Across the last several months, I’ve received some interesting reactions from people when I told them that I would be interning in Liberia this summer – mainly characterized as cautious excitement. Liberia is one of the poorest countries in Africa and is still recovering from a brutal civil war that ended in 2003. However, the post-conflict reconstruction process has been moving along for several years, and I am excited to meet with and learn from actors on the ground who are working to build a peaceful and reconciled Liberia.
The airport in Monrovia can be a bit of a shock for travelers who are used to passing through Western airports, though I was able to manage my way through the Ebola screening and out the front door with relative ease. Thankfully, my co-worker and MLDL driver had already arrived and were waiting for me, because it was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain. Late May through October is the rainy season in Liberia, with Monrovia receiving well over an inch of rain per day in June and July. Fortunately for me, I will most of my summer in Ganta in the north of the country, where the rainy season is much less severe.
The airport in Monrovia can be a bit of a shock for travelers who are used to passing through Western airports, though I was able to manage my way through the Ebola screening and out the front door with relative ease. Thankfully, my co-worker and MLDL driver had already arrived and were waiting for me, because it was raining about as hard as I’ve ever seen it rain. Late May through October is the rainy season in Liberia, with Monrovia receiving well over an inch of rain per day in June and July. Fortunately for me, I will most of my summer in Ganta in the north of the country, where the rainy season is much less severe.
During my first full day in
Liberia, I was afforded the opportunity to rest and get acclimated. I had a
chance to get down to the beach and enjoyed dinner at one of Monrovia’s finest
Western restaurants. Monrovia is an intriguing city with a large expatriate community
of IO and NGO workers as well as Lebanese businesspeople. My time in Monrovia
was brief, as the next morning our team traveled to the countryside to help
conduct a multi-day training.
The drive to this town was felt long, particularly because much of it was on a dirt road, but the scenery made it well worth it. When I arrived, I found that most of the luxuries that I enjoyed in Monrovia quickly went away. My guesthouse had no running water, or even a light switch to turn off the light (at least I did have electricity - a major plus).
Here, I also tried my first Liberian food. Meals in Liberia are typically a combination of rice and what they call "soup" - though the soup is not liquidy like we think of it in the States. The soups usually involve a plant base with spices and either fish or chicken added in. I'm not really good at describing food, so I'll take a picture of my food later and add it to this blog.
During this time, I was able to talk with project staff about where they saw the post-conflict peacebuilding and reconstruction process in Liberia. There is a general sense of cautious optimism and positivity, but there is recognition that much work is still to be done.
The drive to this town was felt long, particularly because much of it was on a dirt road, but the scenery made it well worth it. When I arrived, I found that most of the luxuries that I enjoyed in Monrovia quickly went away. My guesthouse had no running water, or even a light switch to turn off the light (at least I did have electricity - a major plus). Here, I also tried my first Liberian food. Meals in Liberia are typically a combination of rice and what they call "soup" - though the soup is not liquidy like we think of it in the States. The soups usually involve a plant base with spices and either fish or chicken added in. I'm not really good at describing food, so I'll take a picture of my food later and add it to this blog.
During this time, I was able to talk with project staff about where they saw the post-conflict peacebuilding and reconstruction process in Liberia. There is a general sense of cautious optimism and positivity, but there is recognition that much work is still to be done.
No comments:
Post a Comment