TIME Magazine Interviews: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

President Johnson-Sirleaf talks to Time magazine in 2009. We will be talking to her November 17th, our last day in Liberia

From war to waves: Liberia's first surfer

A report on a surfer in Liberia, from AFP, so it is in French.

Blue Clay People

Liberia is the place where Pandora's Box was opened and all the plagues of the world spilled out to harass an already harassed people. At least that is how William Powers came to see it in his book "Blue Clay People." Powers set off to manage the Liberia program for Catholic Relief Services in 1997, in what turned out to be the middle of Liberia's civil war. William Powers now works at the World Policy Institute, focusing on humanitarian interventions following war, famine or other crisis.
Arriving for his new assignment, Powers has to cross a mountain of trash and human waste in the middle of Monrovia to get to his compound. Inside the walls of Carolina Farm are battalions of white shirted black men, swinging machetes to cut the grass to golf course. Outside the compound, war, disease and horrific poverty. Inside, a legion of fed and employed servants, waiting on the UN and other NGO personnel hand and foot. In that antebellum reality, he finds the rigid roots of a caste system that has kept Liberia one of the poorest countries in the world.
The Blue Clay People come from a West African creation story. God wanted to add a little spice to his human shaped clay forms before he gave them life, but he sneezed and a cloud of pepper coated the entire figures. As the storyteller, Momo, tells Powers over a beer at a Liberian nightclub, this accident "let loose a fire in their blood, making people destroy each other and all of nature."
Powers sees that fire burning across Liberia until the peace accords of 2003, leaving a slight glimmer of hope as he departs.

Now there is a new president and a peace maintained by UN forces. Many NGO's are still there and millions of dollars in aid have come into the country to rebuild. Powers meets many brave souls trying to do the impossible in Liberia. We will be looking for some progress amid the fires.

BBC E-mail: Nature talks end with 'weak' deal

Liberian Environment Minister argues the world should pay for their efforts to conserve the rain forest.

** Nature talks end with 'weak' deal **
An international biodiversity summit in Japan agrees a 10-year plan aimed at preserving nature, but conservation groups fear the deal is too weak.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/science-environment-11655925 >

NYT on Johnson-Sirleaf

As a follow up to the documentary, a profile of President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia and the challenges she tackles.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Preparing for the Liberia trip, watched this remarkable movie. The women of Liberia brought about peace through non-violence.

This war raged while Americans focused on the debate over whether to war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, women of Liberia, market women, Christian women joining with Muslim women, organized to push for peace after years of fighting that ravaged the population. Leymah Gbowee says she found her calling to leadership in a dream.
The women brought about the peace through their non-violent action on the streets of Monrovia, pushing the peace talks into formation in Ghana, finally forcing the delegates at the peace talks to come to an agreement.
Leymah Gbowee has said that these women, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sister's, many of them refugees from their own villages, believed they could succeed in bringing about the peace by not accepting a victim's role.
Leymah Gbowee has stayed involved, working for women's rights from Ghana. Among many international awards, she and the women of Liberia received the Profiles in Courage award. The women of Liberia have stayed involved as well, electing a president, Africa's first woman president. Ms. Gbowee wants to see the women maintaining their power in government beyond President Johnson-Sirleaf's terms.

The film has won awards at film festivals around the world. Abigail Disney has shown the film to women's groups in conflict situations around the world, where she says audiences see parallels to their situations, identify with Leymah Gwobee and end up with position statements that may lead to more changes.

Weekday In Liberia

Here is a short introduction to the podcasts that will be coming to you November 7-17th during my journalism fellowship to Liberia in West Africa

Liberia Introduction.mp3

Charles Taylor's Trial

Charles Taylor's trial is under way. We will be traveling to one of the areas where he held power, Gbarnga. How will those people be reacting to the ongoing trial? We will find out November 12th.

The Privilege of the developed world

Included along with the notification that I was accepted to the International Reporting Fellowship, was a list of vaccinations I should receive. Hepatitis A and B, Yellow Fever (with official certificate) Polio booster (because as an American child of the 50’s it is assumed I got the vaccine) Typhoid, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Rabies (Yikes!) and if needed Measles, Mumps and Rubella (it wasn’t. I already had that booster) In addition, I had my choice of Malaria medication, (Malarone. Last time I took Larium.I thought the world was collapsing in on me.) I get a prescription for an antibiotic in case of severe diarrhea along with recommendations to carry pepto as a prophylactic and Imodium if I get sick.
So off I go, fully insured member of the American middle class. I make an appointment at UW’s Hall Health Travel Clinic, where an expert travel nurse gives me the best information and advice. Then downstairs to get my shots from another highly trained professional who only has to assemble the list, open up a nearby refrigerator and pull them out. Then with state of the art syringes to ensure everyone who comes in contact with these sterile needles won’t be in danger, I get my shots, make my follow up appointments ( 2 more rabies shots) , get my prescriptions sent over to the local pharmacy and done. I am now as protected as possible.
And here in one vignette is the dichotomy of privilege and poverty in this world. This fellowship will take a look at the health system in this West African state since its battering by a brutal war and a history of long term poverty and exploitation. The capital, Monrovia, still is without municipal electricity, sewage or water. We are warned to carry along some extra food once we travel to countryside. Their health care system is reliant on outside aid groups. Malaria is endemic. Yellow Fever and Measles break out regularly. Liberia is one of the poorest countries in the world, people are struggling to stay alive, let alone get by.

I am privileged to be able to travel there, and do some reporting- parachute journalism though it is. I will be confronted by the inherent unfairness of my position.

And I can get my shots.

How is this for street media?

Alfred Sirleaf's "The Daily Talk"


Paul Bowers reported from Liberia with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times in 2009. Bowers won Kristof's Win-a-Trip Journalism contest. Kristof's goal is to shine a reporting spotlight on neglected areas.