Week 7

Well last week wasn't really that busy but making a blog post did skip my mind so here you go:

I’m afraid there’s not too much to report from last week. Wednesday was Independence Day and then we had an all Carter Center staff meeting on Thursday so Monday and Friday were the only real work days. I did receive a new assignment for this week. On Wednesday they want me to do a grand rounds with some of their clinicians in training. My understanding of grand rounds is that you present your own patient or at least a patient that you’ve worked with. I’m not too sure what to expect but I’m supposed to get some more information today or tomorrow. I’m not too worried about it, it will all work out.

Eastern view of Successful Beach

                Independence Day was a bit of a muted affair. I took a long walk around my neighborhood and down to the market just to see what was going on but it wasn’t much. Most people I saw were either working like normal or just hanging out at the local bars. The grocery store near my house closed at two and most other businesses I walked by were closed but there wasn’t a big show or parade or anything. When I first got here, one of the staff members was talking to me about how Liberians don’t have any pride in their country. I kind of attributed the lack of Independence Day activities to that but I think the real reason is that most people can’t afford to take a full day off of work.

Western view of Successful Beach and the bridge we crossed to get there.

                The staff meeting was in a word, chaotic. There were probably 50-70 people in the meeting talking about a variety of topics. I say 50-70 because people were consistently coming in and leaving throughout the whole thing. Some of the topics were the election activities, each department gave a synopsis of their work and introduced any new staff members, and the new code of conduct. Oh man, the code of conduct. This code of conduct has been the major point of contention since I’ve been here. From what I understand, there was no code of conduct prior to this one that was introduced about 6 weeks ago. It’s a huge document, at least 20 pages. It also covers a lot of different things. It gives directions on how to get contract approvals, standards for salary advances, and where and when the Carter Center can be represented. It’s a less a code of conduct and more of an employee manual with some standard operating procedures thrown in.

View from Linda's House. That's La Lagune on the right.

                When you read it, you can tell that some lawyer in Atlanta probably wrote it. The thing is ironclad. And I don’t think anyone in Liberia agrees with it. As soon as it got brought up in the all staff meeting the room was thrown into pandemonium. Everyone had an opinion on it and everyone just had to voice it at the same time. People threatened to quit if they had to sign it. Needless to say, the issues were not resolved and the group decided to send all of their issues back to Atlanta and hopefully something happens with that.

                This past weekend the other interns and I went to La Lagune for lunch, then down to the beach and then to Linda's house for some beers. The beer selection isn't great, to be honest. The local beer is called Club. It's fine, it's just your standard light beer. Your other options are Tsingtao, a Chinese beer, Guinness, or Heineken. So the selection isn't great. I miss Ninkasi.

Helpful signage

                That's really it for this week, I'm afraid. Feel free to hit me up with an email at timdaniel25@gmail.com and/or heck out the instagram @tdaniel541 

Africa chillin'

Tim Travels Liberia

On the way to Kakata, it really is a big jungle outside of Monrovia

I promised you all a blog post and I’m nothing if not a promise keeper. Last week I had the great opportunity of traveling around to different areas of Liberia and checking in with some of the people I had trained in DBT a few weeks ago. It was great to get out of the office and see some of the country that I’ve been living in for the last month and a half.

On Monday I went out to Kakata. Kakata is about an hour East of Monrovia. It functions as a gateway into the interior of the country. It’s a quaint little town of a few thousand people. They have a huge open air market, a hospital, and a few schools. On the way out houses stood intermittently next to the road. Most were made from concrete blocks and aluminum roofs but some were made from mud bricks that were that orange brown color. I’d never seen a mud brick house before, so that was novel.

Cottonwood Health Center and Subie, the security guard our front

On Wednesday I went to Cottonwood which was out by the Firestone plantation. If you remember from a previous post the Firestone tire company has a big presence out here. I drove through the rubber plantation which was interesting. They tap the tree and hang a bucket under the tap and I assume the rubber constituents flows down into the bucket. So everywhere you looked you’d see rows of trees with little red buckets hanging on them. Cottonwood has an interesting history. When Firestone first came to the area the inhabitants of Cottonwood refused to sell their land so the little community exists on the plantation but is completely independent of it.

On Friday I went to Monrovia Central Prison which was interesting and avid followers of my life will note this is not my first time in prison. When I first walked in I was surprised to find myself directly in the prison yard. Which we then proceeded across to the complete opposite end of the compound where the clinic was. A lot of the men yelled at me, “Hey white boy” which was a little unnerving. I wasn’t around long but the conditions of the prison seemed a far cry from the prisons of the US. Most of the prisoners wore faded orange pants and a variety of different shirts. They appeared to be able to wander anywhere without much supervision. I saw a few guards wandering about but there didn’t seem to be much order imposed on the prisoners. Another intern told me that as part of his project he’s doing a survey of the prisoners and their living conditions. Apparently overcrowding is a serious issue in the prison. This same intern told me that most cells designed for two people are actually housing three. The trainee I met with also told me that there are approximately 1,000 prisoners in a prison designed for 600.

The gate for the only mental hospital in Liberia

Also on Friday I went to the only mental hospital in Liberia. It’s supposed to hold 60 people but Alex, one of the people I work with, told me that at times it houses up 90. I didn’t take any pictures except for the one of the front gate but the inside of the compound was taken up by a large grassy yard bounded on four sided by the long dormitory building, an open air eating area, a tall border wall, and some administrative buildings. In the yard, residents dried their washed clothes and sheets by spreading them out on the grass. The dormitory was just one long building with rows of beds for all the residents, there were no private rooms. But the overall feeling of the hospital was very therapeutic. The clinicians I talked to all seemed very sincere about their work. The buildings are dilapidated though, there's not a lot of funding for the hospital right now

Bonus picture of hanging out at "Linda's House" on Saturday

So that’s about it for last week. It was great to get out and see some more of Liberia instead of just the area surrounding my house. Hope you’re all doing well. Feel free to email me at timdaniel25@gmail.com and say hi!

DBT Training

Well, as it’s been all consuming for the last month I don’t think it would be very fair for me not to tell you about the Dialectical Behavior Training (DBT) training. The training was pretty straightforward, just me and a co facilitator, Metti, and 11 student clinicians. Metti was a great counterpart. She’d always interject when the class didn’t understand what I was saying which was great because I usually needed a break or I had no idea that they weren’t understanding me. The students were wonderful as well very interested and engaged, they were all trained nurses or physician’s assistants that had received six months of mental health counseling training from The Carter Center.

The training was at a place called La Lagune. I’ve been told that a Chinese person built it. It’s a nice place, it has a deck that they’ve built out over the water that functions as a restaurant area. They also have a pair of conference rooms, one of which we used for training. Of course only one of the two rooms had air conditioning and unfortunately that was not ours. In fact, the two conference rooms shared a wall that had windows that I faced while I was teaching. So the whole time that I was lecturing I could see the other group in their conference room and it looked great. But, c’est la vie, as they say.

Trainees hard at work

The training itself went well. I was pleasantly surprised the first morning that I arrived and was told there was breakfast prepared for the training. And, while we were scheduled to start at eight, breakfast wasn’t served until eight thirty and of course we couldn’t start until everyone had breakfast. So that pushed us back to about a nine thirty start time then we needed an hour and a half for lunch and we had to be done by four so everyone could avoid traffic. So I didn’t have quite as much time as I would have liked but it all worked out in the end.

Our training area

I’ve learned a few Liberian phrases since I’ve been here. “Small small” can mean “little by little”, for example, if someone asks you how well you’re understanding something, “small small” would be an appropriate response. However, if someone asks you how you’re doing and you replay “small small” then you’ve told them that there’s something small bothering you and they’ll be concerned.

“Don’t act like bell-ay” I wrote that last word phonetically but I believe it’s actually spelled “pbella”. Apparently a pbelle is an ignorant person and the phrase “don’t act like pbelle” means don’t act ignorant. For example if you were in a sketchy area someone might advise you, “don’t act like pbelle”. Although, when I arrived home and tried to act cool and throw out some phrases to the housekeeper and security I learned that Kpelle, which sounds very similar, is actually one of the sixteen tribes of Liberia and it’s a racist phrase to say “don’t act like Kpelle”. The housekeeper, Vicki, told me she is Kpelle and that the stereotype of Kpelle people is that they are ignorant. So now I don’t know what to think. I probably won’t use that phrase in mixed company.

View from the window

Speaking of the sixteen tribes I learned something else pretty amazing. Apparently most people in Liberia are at least bilingual. Something none of the books mentioned was that every tribe has its own language that survives today. And, most people know at least one tribal language in addition to English. Vicki apparently knows Kpelle and another tribal language. Jack, the security guard, knows English, French and Crown which is a tribe from Sierra Leone. That little bit of trivia has totally amazed me. I barely speak English and here I am surrounded by bi and tri lingual people.

Another interesting fact that Vicki told me is that during the Civil Wars in Liberia there were some racial divisions and genocides committed because of those divisions. So, in order to avoid the violence, Vicki learned to speak a second tribal language so she could pass as a member of that tribe if questioned about it.

Well that’s about it for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on email at timdaniel25@gmail.com, it’s nice to hear from people I don’t get the chance to talk to often.

A Brief History of Liberia

So before we get started today, a little housekeeping. I'm trying to make posts at the end of the week but I unfortunately was not able to this last week so here it is. I'll try harder to make that happen. This post is kind of long but I think the history of Liberia is very interesting so here is the short version.

The History of Liberia

Something I definitely was not aware of before I came to Liberia was its history. I’ve mentioned before that their Civil War only ended in 2003 but there’s a lot of history that came before that.

In the early 1800s the future president James Monroe advocated and worked for a state for freed slaves from the US. That state ended up being Liberia, and one of the US’s only attempts at colonization. This connection between the US and Liberia is also reflected in the Liberian flag. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very similar it has the same red and striped pattern and a blue upper left corner filled with a single white star. So, James Monroe sent a ship with freed slaves and a few white men to Liberia.

That ship first landed in what would end up being Sierra Leone. The voyagers tried to negotiate with the British colonists for a plot of land to start their own country. The British refused and the freed slaves sailed further up the coast where they made contact with an indigenous tribe in the area that would be Liberia. Again, they tried to negotiate with the indigenous people to buy some land but the indigenous people refused. The future Liberians then took the tribal leader of the indigenous people hostage and forced him to negotiate with them.

Establishing this foothold in Africa that opened the way for more freed slaves. As the former slaves immigrated to Liberia they formed their own government and townships. This required them to acquire more land and that, in turn, lead to them pushing the indigenous people further inland and the enslavement of the indigenous people by the Liberians.

One of the most famous uses of the indigenous slaves in Liberia was at the Firestone plant in the early 1900s. The advent of the motor vehicle increased the demand for rubber and Liberia had the perfect climate for rubber trees. I also heard, from my professor's husband Lorenzo, who is Liberian, that the Firestone plant signed a lease with Liberia for the rubber tree plantation that fixed the price of a bucket of rubber at 25 cents for 100 years. I don’t really know the going rate for rubber but the way that Lorenzo acted when he shared this information makes me think that 25 cents is low. Apparently, some car manufacturers had some qualms about the rubber for their cars coming from slave labor. The enslavement of the indigenous peoples divided the country and would set up decades of conflict further down the road.

The president in the early 70s was a man named Tolbert. Tolbert was what they call an Americo-Liberian. He was descended from the freed slaves that came over from the US. His heritage meant that most indigenous people didn’t appreciate him as a leader. His government also oppressed the indigenous people by denying them access to education and infrastructure development. Tolbert stated that the reasoning behind this was the majority of indigenous people lived in the interior of the country where it was difficult to build roads, water pipelines, and power plants. Tolbert’s government was also rife with corruption and the many people felt powerless to do anything about it.

Enter Charles Taylor. Charles Taylor was a teacher in Liberia. He had both black and indigenous roots and he was accepted into a government program that would send people to the US to be trained to work in the Liberian government. He lived in the US for several years and earned his degree in economics. While he was there he became part of a Liberians in America group that wanted a change in the Liberian government. He became an officer in one of these groups and lead protests and rallies. Some of these protests were against the US government that was providing humanitarian aid to Liberia which, because of the corrupt government, was prone to ending up in the pockets of government employees.

Tolbert actually made a visit to the US which was protested by Taylor’s group. Tolbert was there to negotiate humanitarian aid with the US and Taylor went so far as to push Tolbert out of the way as he entered the building and proclaim that Taylor, not Tolbert, was there to negotiate on behalf of Liberia. Taylor was arrested but never charged.

Tolbert then invited Taylor and some of the members of his group to Liberia to see what was really going on for themselves. A few days after they arrived, one of Tolbert’s generals, a man named Doe, initiated a coup against Tolbert. Tolbert was ousted and executed as well as prominent members of his government. Taylor elected to stay and soon found himself a place in Doe’s government in the Ministry of Finance.

Taylor worked hard but the Liberian government, despite changing leaders, continued to misappropriate humanitarian aid funds. At first Taylor tried to change things for the better but soon he found himself under investigation and eventually charged with embezzlement. At the time, he was in the US so instead of going back to Liberia to face the charges there he stayed in the US. He evaded the authorities for a while but was eventually arrested.

While this was going on, Doe’s government began to use its power to disenfranchise black people in Liberia. Doe installed an almost entirely indigenous cabinet and his government began to validate the indiscriminate killing of black people in Liberia. This lead to a huge public outcry by people, Liberian expats and otherwise, in the US.

The outcry became so immense that the US had to do something. According to Taylor, the guards at Taylor’s prison allowed him to just walk out. From there he traveled on his own passport to Africa where he traveled around the continent rallying forces to his cause of overthrowing Doe’s government. Taylor insinuated that the US government funded him to travel Africa and even paid for him to train as a guerilla fighter in Syria under Muamar Gaddafi who also provided a lot of the funding to Taylor's group the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Taylor and his forces crossed over into Liberia from Sierra Leone and began to fight their way up to Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Adding to the evidence that the US was aiding Taylor was his testimony that stated the US had given him a satellite phone that he used to call into the heads of the American military to report on his progress. The US Government also admitted that Taylor was working for them but refused to say in what capacity. 

Eventually Taylor invaded Monrovia and deposed Tolbert, and Taylor installed himself as the de facto president in 1989. Infighting in his group split them and the war continued on with a racial tint in which many racially motivated genocides occurred. In 1996, after the fighting had abated, Taylor held an election in which he strongly intimated that if he was not elected as president he would continue to inflict violence on the country. He was elected president but a plethora of rebel groups rose up against him in 1999 and the violence continued. Another interesting thing was that the current president, Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, was a big proponent of Taylor at this time, praising what he was doing. However, after he came to power she subsequently denounced him and his regime.

In the early 2000s the UN got involved and indicted Taylor on funding a rebel movement in Sierra Leone and personally ordering human rights violations also in Sierra Leone. When Taylor was indicted he refused to step down as president but the indictment fueled the rebel groups and the public called for him to leave office. The UN offered him safe passage out of the country to Nigeria which he eventually was forced to accept.

He remained in Nigeria while the UN collected evidence against him. Once the UN had their case they asked for Nigeria to deliver Taylor to Paris where the trial would take place. The Prime Minister of Nigeria refused and stated that they would no longer continue to hold Taylor. Taylor was released and remained missing for two days. During those two days the Prime Minister of Nigeria was supposed to go to the US and meet President George W. Bush. When Taylor was released Bush stated that perhaps the visit should be cancelled. When the Nigerian Prime Minister heard this Taylor was suddenly found trying to cross the border and delivered to Paris.

In Paris the UN proceeded with their trial against Taylor. They actually pardoned some members of the rebel group Taylor had funded in return for the member’s testimony against Taylor. The trial lasted two years and Taylor was sentenced to 40 years at The Hague for war crimes.

The first Civil War when Doe took over from Tolbert the death toll was estimated to be 500,000. When Taylor took over from Doe the death toll was 250,000. Between the two wars over a million people were displaced.

So that's the history of Liberia in a nutshell. I found it very interesting and I hope you did to. Hopefully I'll have another post for you at the end of this week.

It's a Blog Post

Transportation

The transportation system in Liberia has a unique paradigm. If you want to get somewhere you stand on the side of the road and hold your hand out. Taxis that are accepting passengers will also honk inquisitively at people walking down the road to inform you they are currently looking for passengers. In Liberia taxi means a car, usually yellow, that stops and picks up passengers and generally as many as possible. There are also designated spots on the road, usually at a major intersection, where taxis will stop and you can also walk to one of these and wait for a car to stop. These areas can be chaotic because if a lot of people are waiting for a ride they will literally swarm the car like a school of sharks on insert something clever here. It’s transportation Darwinism at its finest, only the fittest get a ride.

Most vehicles double as a small, mobile church because when you ride in one it’s usually an exercise in finding religion. Mentally, I’m screaming a prayer to sweet baby Jesus as we speed down the street narrowly missing pedestrians and other vehicles. But you do have to admire that the drivers here seem to share some sort of neural network in which they know exactly what everyone else is going to do and consistently miss each other by inches because of it. To get out of my work compound and get to my home compound you have to turn left out onto the street. The left hand path has always been scary but Liberia takes it to the nth degree. First, people coming from the left will never stop on their own for you. You have to edge the car out ever so slowly until you’re entirely blocking both lanes of traffic. Then you have to hope that someone in the far lane will let you in. If Liberians are anything, they are possessive over their roads. At times, it seems like they would rather hit the person in front of them by following them too closely than let a car turn left in front of them. It’s harrowing to say the least to see a Mack truck barreling down the road at you while the car in the far lane is doing its best conjoined twin impression with the bumper of the vehicle in front of them.

They also use motorcycles as taxis here, which is not something I saw in Guyana. I don’t think I’d use one unless it really was a last resort. Some of my readers are aware that I am a bit of a motorcycle enthusiast, I rode one around for the year between graduating Oregon State and joining the Peace Corps. What really strikes me as interesting, and I noticed this in Guyana as well, is the skill of the riders here. Back home, on flat roads with predictable traffic, I had a 500cc (that’s the engine size) bike that I loved. Riding with a passenger was terrible though. It removed all maneuverability and fun from the bike. Essentially, a bigger engine size obviously means the bike is more powerful which means it should be able to carry more weight more easily. Now if my 500cc bike has issues with carrying two people I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the taxi guys here who I’ve seen take two or three people at a time on their little 125cc or 250cc bikes. That has to be absolutely no fun at all.

Regular Life Stuff

In the last week I’ve been feverishly working on this DBT training, it starts next Monday. I just killed a bunch of trees to print everything for it so my little Oregon heart is hurting. Everything else seems to be going well. I learned where to buy groceries and how to put credit on my phone so everything is coming up roses. This is the end of the third week in my eight week journey so I’m glad I actually get to do some real work starting next week.

Drop me a line at timdaniel25@gmail.com if you need something to do. I enjoy hearing from people I don’t hear from usually.

2 Weeks In

Sup y’all?

Well, we’re about two weeks in and things are going well. My big project begins next week and I’m looking forward to it. Basically, The Carter Center has asked me to put on a training for some Physician Assistants and Nurses that they’ve already trained in mental health. They asked me to do a training on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).

Now, I know some about DBT. I used it when I worked at the Children’s Farm Home in Corvallis, Oregon after undergrad. I’ve also studied a little in my grad program and given a few presentations on it as well. I’m fairly familiar with the mechanics of it so I feel confident presenting the information. That being said, presenting it and teaching people how to use it can be entirely different things.

Luckily, after conversing with some of my professors, I was able to figure out that the best way to approach this is to present it then work with the trainees to figure out how to adapt it to a Liberian context. Easier said than done but still more in my wheelhouse. If Marsha Linehan ever reads this, this is not a training it is a study group.

(Usually I take a few days to write these and the above situation has just changed, the DBT Study Group will be taking place week after next starting July 3^rd)

That takes care of the work update for now. The personal side of things is a bit quieter I’m afraid. Every day after work I come home and mostly just chill or take a short walk around the neighborhood which has been an interesting experience.

Liberia is difficult to describe. I’m not sure where to start really. The people are very interesting. When I first arrived I honestly felt a cold welcome from most of the people I met. Not that they were antagonistic or cruel but they were very withdrawn, sharing a few words at a time of very little substance. It’s still ongoing, when I meet new people, they are similarly withdrawn. I don’t know if that’s a function of Liberian society or if it should be attributed more to my foreignness.

The other interns and I were talking about it and we think it could possibly be because of the recent events in Liberia’s history. They had an Ebola crisis just three years ago and the Civil War ended in 2003. So Liberia has had a lot of stuff going on and it seems reasonable that these past events have made them more withdrawn and reticent to engage with foreigners or people in general. But this is definitely all amateurish conjecture.

In general most days are pretty formulaic. During the week I wake up around 6, go to work at 8ish then come home at 4. There’s a restaurant right next door that I eat lunch at about twice a week, the other days I bring my own lunch. On the weekends I go on long walks, usually either the maid or the security guy wants to come with me. I’m the only person staying at Eagle’s Landing right now so I think they get a little bit bored during the day. I’ve heard there’s a golf course not too far away so I’ll probably go check that out at some point and I think I’m going to see Ashley and Bianca who are doing their internship in Harper which is a rural community only accessible by plane. So that is what is going on everybody, I hope all of you are doing okay. If you’d like you can find me on Facebook, Instagram at tdaniel541 or shoot me an email at timdaniel25@gmail.com.

First Day of Work

Before we get started, I wanted to mention that I don't post a lot of pictures on this blog to start with. However, I do post more on Instagram because I like the platform more and I find it's easier to use with less of an internet connection. So if you want to see more pictures, Instagram is the spot you can find me at tdaniel541.

The ride in went well. It turns out my new home, Eagle's Landing, is only about a five minute drive to the office.

Once I got to the office I met a bunch of people, including the two interns that I am here with. They're both students at Emory. It's a good school but not as good as DU or Oregon State.

Julian is from California and he's working on a project surveying prisoners at the prison. Apparently his job is to get an idea of the conditions in the prison which seems like a slightly scary proposition.

Chris is from Washington and is also and RPCV (Honduras '10-'12). He's working on surveying religious leaders about what types of mental health services they provide.

And that's about how the first half of my day went, just chilling in our little work space. The three of us share an office in the back. I think, secretly, that it might be the worst office because the air conditioner doesn't seem to work properly. I think it's actually sucking in hot air from the outside so maybe it's a ploy to get us to go outside? More on this conspiracy later.

Everyone seems really nice at the office. It's a bit of a different vibe than my time in the Peace Corps. Being in an office solely focused on one thing feels a little weird. Normally during the work day in the Peace Corps your with other teachers in the school or nurses in the health center. And while all of them are very competent professionals there's a different air here that seems to insinuate everyone is working towards the same goal. It's a good feeling for the most part, despite it's alienness? alienosity? Alieniferousness? Alieniferousness.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with Janice, Dyonah, and Alex. Janice is head honcho around here, she runs literally everything. Dyonah is in charge of the training program. The Carter Center has a training program that trains nurses and PAs in mental health for six months. Alex is sort of the liaison to the people that have been trained after they leave. Everyone is very nice and seems very committed to the goals of the Carter Center.

Anyways, for those of you who want to know what I'll be doing here's the rundown. The Carter Center is trying to implement a new mental health program in elementary school. I can't quite remember the name but I know it starts with the words Eastern Mediterranean and the full acronym is EMROH. Janice asked if I'd be the point person in making sure it gets through whatever hurdles come up for the next eight weeks. That's one thing. Every month the mental health clinicians that have been trained all get together to talk about exceptionally difficult cases or the Carter Center puts on a presentation about something the clinicians want to hear about. Dyonah asked for my help with that. And Alex wants to give the people they've trained a refresher course in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and so now him and I are supposed to have a training curriculum done by this Friday and have a five day training starting next Monday the 18th.

Well, that's the majority of what happened on my first day. There's a few more piddling details but I don't think I have the time to give you anything but the broad strokes as you can see I have a lot of work to do. In fact I'll probably have to stop writing in the middle of the next sentence and get back to work.

See y'all nex