May 12, 2008...9:45 am
The Guns Are Silent, But The Basic Needs Are Not Met.
The bar owner put two large bottles of Club beer on the rickety table in front of us. Immediately big drops of dew formed on the bottles and ran down on the plastic table. It was five in the afternoon, and the heat and humidity of the Liberian day had nor relented even a bit. The last days before the start of the rainy season always were the hottest. My brown army T-shirt was soaking with sweat. I lifted the bottle and drank thirstily. My counterpart wiped the foam of his small moustache. A small man in a blue second hand shirt, and second hand trousers, once collected by some well-meaning charity in the United States, shipped over to Liberia as gifts, and then sold and resold untold times until they finally ended up in this small coastal town. He was very proud of these clothes. He also owned a Chinese-made motorbike with equal pride, even though the lights did not work. ” The battery”, he had explained to me the night before, when he had been driving me back to my quarters, using the horn to alert other people on the road.
We were the only guests in the bar, the generator was still off, and no loud music disturbed us. On the other side of the road an AG 100 motorbike was parked in front of a house of rusting zinc plates. The owner of the bar came back from the counter and sat down with us. I knew him well, since he was also the government employee in charge of all state assets in town. As a good barkeeper he stuck to a Coke. “It is all a problem of money”, said the small man in blue. “No public servant can survive on his governmental salary.” I nodded. ” Take Matthew here”, he continued, ” do you think he could make ends meet if he would not have this bar?” Matthew shook his head. ” For Monrovia, we do not exist”, he concurred. “They give us nothing. We do not have a motorbike, no bicycle, no desk and not even any paper or pens”. I knew Matthew was right. On every visit to the provinces I had heard the same complaint and seen the same problems. Police stations without light because they had no generator or no fuel. Clinics without any power because they could not afford the necessary repair of their generator. Towns and villages without safe water because the government had never delivered even the most basic amenities. A whole nation with a illiteracy rate of nearly 70% because the state had never considered education a priority, and was quite happy with the rudimentary education the missionary agencies provided.
And a totally dysfunctional civil service, which managed to be bloated and overly expensive, but at the same time could not provide its employees with a living wage. “I could not do without the bar”, said Matthew, “the tables here and five rooms in the back”. “I get by”.
The small man took another swig of cold beer. ” I am a full-time teacher at the High School” he said.” Do you know what my pay is ?”. I shook my head. “I will tell you, it is 50 USD per Month”. At going rates this was roughly equivalent to 3000 Liberian Dollars. “I was never able to survive on this”, he continued, “but the recent jump in prices makes it even more an illusion.”
“I have a family of five, and a 50 kg sack of rice will feed us for 3 weeks.”. “But that bag is now 2400 Liberia Dollars”. “A gallon of gas for m motorbike is 370 Liberian”.
I drank from my beer, which had warmed considerably in the meantime. “So you see”, he said, “One bag of rice and two gallons of gas that is what my government salary pays me”. “How can you afford to be honest under these conditions?”. “If someone comes and offers you 100 USD for passing his son, how can you refuse it ?”
“Would you ?”
We drank silently. But he was not finished yet. “There is actually no employment in town. Whenever an international NGO comes here, we all flock to it, trying to get a job”. ” If you get a contract, maybe three month, maybe six month, you are lucky. You can do something, build a house, or buy a motorbike” ” But without that, it is hopeless”.
What I had seen of the town during the last two days only confirmed his analysis. The water tower stood forlorn and wasted in the middle of the town. A tree grew out of the top of it. The power plant had been plundered to pieces. Nothing but a few mast remained of the electric grid. The small deepwater port, once build by a German company had fallen in total disuse. Nothing but empty ruins. A large freighter lay on her side on the beach like a stranded rusty whale. The only ship traffic consisted of a UN-vessel, supplying the local UNMIL contingent, since the roads linking the city with the rest of Liberia were virtually impassable.
Once the town had had two gas stations, a Shell and a Texaco. Now, only their signs remained, rusty, riddled with bullets, swinging and squeaking in the wind. But worse was that there was no sign of improvement. I had to admit that he was right. Whenever I had seen activity, it had been the work of some foreign NGO. Even the renovation of the municipal administration building was carried out by a US based NGO. There was no sign of original activity of either the Liberian Government or any Liberian Industry.
Matthew got up to attend to an early customer. The small man finished his beer. ” The guns are silent”, he said, ” but the basic needs are not met”.
Leave a Reply