Heaven, what the Hell is Heaven?

A view of Monrovia from the air - my home away from home

Beyond the rules of religion

The cloth of conviction

Above all the competition

Where fact and fiction meet

There's no color lines castes or classes

There's no fooling the masses

Whatever faith you practice

Whatever you believe

Oh, Heaven, Heaven

What the Hell is Heaven?

Throw away your misconceptions

There's no walls around Heaven

There's no codes you gotta know to get in

No minutemen no border patrol

You must lose your earthly possessions

Leave behind your weapons

You can't buy your salvation

And there is no pot of gold…

There are no guns on the street in Monrovia. This is simply mind blowing given the fact this country was torn apart by multiple civil wars over the last two decades. Instead, the weapons of choice are words. Angry words, loving words and words of salvation and redemption. The capital city Monrovia – named after President Monroe - has more churches than any place on the planet. Period. Everything is somehow inspired by, labeled with or branded through Biblical verse. More specifically Biblical verse straight out of the King James Version. Blessed anointed hairdresser. Shadrack Meshak and Abendigo grocers . Blessed Overcomer Auto Parts. Lo and verily office supplies. The list is endless. My favorite branding thoughts though are those found on the back of the ubiquitous yellow taxis. These Datsun like fossils are held together with duct tape, bailing wire and sometimes hundreds of those plastic zip ties police use for handcuffs. They carry up to 8 or 9 people crammed in for short or long distances. One hails these vehicles from the roadside with a wave at waist level that is a combination of a shaka, a quiet down hand signal and a throwing the dice motion. There are of course a million variations but elements of all of the above are in every one. The backs of these vehicles are painted with mostly Bible verses. Corinthians and Proverbs are especially popular. Some are more nebulous like "do not me" and “Boy Armah”.  Others are straight to the point "Shut Up!”  The most clever one by far though said "talk about me". I couldn't get it until I asked our driver and he smiled and just said, "see". There we were, we were talking about him. As we pulled up next to him as the traffic slowed I swear he looked over at us and smiled and knew his sign had worked. Even the trucks have their version of the Liberian bumper sticker. See the picture below. I think it says God is #1, Real Madrid Two is #2 and goes through to Ronaldo who is #7.

Looking for what?

Amidst all the traffic noise one can always pick out the sound of very inspired preaching any day of the week and anytime of day.  I grew up going to church twice on Sunday and even some Wednesday nights. Many Liberians go everyday and all day Sunday. When we first got here my colleague Brian a silver haired and distinguished Kiwi thought it might be proper to go and visit one of the African Methodist churches and show respect and learn some more about the community. They sat him up front in the middle and six or seven hours later he returned exhausted, well fed and hoarse from singing. What I wouldn't give to have a tape of Brian's New Zealand accent joining with the local choir at full volume. Church is serious business here. Every faith is represented although the majority are some type of Evangelical Protestant. Just along the 3-mile strip from the main base to the heliport that I drive nearly every day I counted some 63 churches. Wild. 

Speaking of wild, the pastor of one of these churches is rather infamous in the recent history of Liberia. During the Liberian civil wars he was known to all as General Butt Naked. I am not making this up. And yes, for those of you familiar with the play Book of Mormon this is the man who was the inspiration for the character General Butt Naked. Well, those of you familiar with the play will recall that’s not exactly the character’s name but given the fact my kids read this we’ll leave it at that. He is now an Evangelical minister known as Joshua Blahyi but in his former life was a feared warlord and admitted cannibal and war crime perpetrator extraodinaire. Raised as a Sarpo tribal priest he converted to Christianity when, he says, Jesus appeared to him during a human sacrifice and asked him to repent his sins. Today Joshua Blahyi devotes himself to running a ministry, making amends, and rehabilitating former child soldiers. In his former life he ran the Butt Naked Brigade, a militia aligned with Samuel Doe who ruled the country for a time during the wars. There were countless militias in those days, led by men who adopted noms de guerre such as General Bin Laden, General Mosquito, Colonel Fire in the House, Major Blood and Lt. Double Trouble. Butt Naked’s soldiers were particularly ruthless—killers and rapists who fought naked except for guns and shoes. Their nakedness was meant to instill fear and, they also thought, to protect them. By their own admission, before battle they often sacrificed young children, ate their hearts, and drank their blood. “The hearts were roasted,” Blahyi told a reporter, as if that were a mitigating detail. You can find pictures of the same on the web but they are just far too graphic and disturbing to post. In 2008, in front of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he claimed that he and his followers had killed more than 20,000 people.

Of all the African conflicts in late 20th century, the Liberian civil wars stand as among the most macabre, gruesome, and sensational. After his capture President Doe was videotaped being tortured. His ears were cut off and he was told to eat them. He finally bled to death on the floor as his captors sat around drinking Budweiser. Child soldiers, some as young as nine, ruled the streets. Taylor called his recruits the “Small Boys Units.” They were fueled by cocaine, alcohol, and marijuana, and would at times fight dressed as women or wearing wedding dresses, wigs, shower caps, and Halloween masks. Some fought naked, cutting off limbs and beheading people as they went. Cannibalism was not unusual. Some 300,000 people died in these wars, about 1 Liberian in 10. As horrific and recent as these memories are the Liberian people have moved on. Grace, forgiveness and redemption are not just words. They are truths they live out everyday. The fact that Pastor Blahyi lives among them is but a single example. There are thousands. Optimism is another overpowering fact of life here. Despite the grinding poverty, the challenges of daily life and the scourge of Ebola they never give up. I thought I was an optimist until I came here. Now I sometimes feel like Eeyore.

Today the former General Butt Naked lives in a rundown suburb of Monrovia called Chocolate City, as in the P-Funk album. George Clinton, like President Monroe, is on the Liberian map. Amazing Grace indeed. Heaven, what the Hell is Heaven.

General "Butt Naked" Blahyi today

Note: The lyrics to Heaven are by Brett Dennen 
and Natalie Merchant. Much of the information on General Butt Naked comes from a Vanity Fair article by Tom Freston

A little slice of my Heaven...

I Hate Snakes

I hate snakes. I really really really hate snakes. They are everywhere here. The mambas even come in three varieties – black, green and Jameson’s. Liberia has one of the highest concentrations of snakes in Africa. Of the 10 deadliest species in Africa 7 are found right here in Liberia in higher numbers than anywhere else. Wonderful.

Let me tell you more about the black mamba specifically. It is far and away the most feared snake here for reasons that will become very apparent as you read along. The black mamba (picture below) is not really black. It’s more of a dark gray. The name comes from the intense purple black color of the inside of the mouth. They are the fastest land snakes in the world. They can reach speeds of 10-12 miles per hour in short bursts. You cannot outrun them. The average human can maybe sprint faster but good luck getting up to speed faster than a pissed off black mamba can. Being pissed off is a big part of the problem actually. Black mambas are very aggressive snakes and very territorial. They can grow up to 15 feet long and tend to race along with the front third of the body off the ground.  When striking they throw their head upwards from the ground to about two-fifths their total length. Do the math. Two fifths of 15 feet is 6 feet. Easily head high for most people and a number of black mamba bites are indeed inflicted about the head and neck. What!! They are also great tree climbers and often hang from branches further contributing to the number of bites on the head.

The bite of the black mamba is deadly. The venom is neurotoxic and cardiotoxic. If not treated the symptoms include tightening of the chest muscles, shortness of breath, coughing, blurred vision, mental confusion, and an overall feeling of great discomfort. Sounds so much like falling in love. Except rather than getting married, having kids, raising a family and living out your golden years these feelings are followed by death in about 4 hours. Prior to antivenin a bite was always fatal. And I know exactly the question many of you are now asking. Do we have access to antivenin? Yes. We do. Oh yeah, as deadly as their bite is you’d think they would be satisfied just biting you once but no. The black mamba tends to inflict multiple bites in rapid succession. Let’s review. The black mamba is huge, very aggressive, can outrun you, bites multiple times about the head and shoulders and its bite is uniformly fatal if untreated. We killed five over the past two weeks at one of the remote sites. Next time I’m out there I am going to pee in a jar at night rather than venture out of the tent.

There are other crazy bad snakes here too as mentioned. There is the lovely Gaboon Viper famous for its two-inch long fangs, the black spitting cobra capable of accurately shooting neurotoxic venom into victims eyes up to twenty feet away and the black (what is it with black snakes?) tree cobra which is even more ill-tempered than the black mamba by some reports. Liberians hate snakes even more than I do. For a snake bites dog story – don’t fret, it ends well – take a look at this story.

http://turningleftatyesterday.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/cant-do-nothin/

There are lots of other things that bite here. Seems at times most every critter has a fang, a spike, a stinger or a spray. Darwin rules. There are countless species of spiders, bees and even a beautifully colored ladybug like thing – it looks like a ladybug – that sprays a burning chemical on your skin if you disturb it. I have a spot on my right elbow that still itches after two weeks. I mistakenly tried to flick it off and you can hear an audible hiss as it sprays whatever it sprays. It burns like acid and then itches for hours. I can’t find what the bug is. The kids put them on each other and disturb them to make them spray. Fun. Of all the biting creatures though, the deadliest by far is the smallest – the mosquito. Malaria is everywhere. We’ve had a number of cases amongst the team already. Thank goodness for Coartem. Most everyone is on anti-malarials but it still happens. Some of you may remember the US Marine deployment to Liberia back in 2003 during the civil war. A quarter of the troops were hospitalized with malaria. I now take malarone for my prophylaxis. Taking a daily pill is hard though. I have to admit, I just realized while writing this that I forgot today’s dose. See. I switched from doxycycline a few weeks ago. It was tearing up my stomach. I had used doxy for years without a problem but not this time. Must be getting old or something.

It wouldn’t be fair to speak of only the biting things here. Liberia is blessed with all the beauty the West African rain forest has to offer. There are chimpanzees, pygmy hippos, a bazillion beautiful birds and some 800 species of butterflies. There are even orchids but Hawaii still wins that contest. Speaking of Hawaii, love to all my friends and family there. I miss you all dearly of course. So many of you have made a special effort to support Jess and the girls. They’re strong and well practiced at dealing with my absence but your caring still helps so much. Mahalo. And did you know Hawaii has NO snakes.

Ebola still continues to dominate every aspect of life in Liberia. Mine certainly.  There was a bump in cases over the holiday period. The epidemic remains but the numbers do look a bit better. I’m at  meetings all morning tomorrow and should hear the latest. Sierra Leone is a different case unfortunately and my colleagues there are in the thick of it. I’ll write about them sometime soon. I head back to the bush later this week but will plan to put out another update before I go. I’m planning on writing about life in Monrovia. The café society – kidding – and what daily life is like here. I will do the same for life in an ETU soon as well. We are opening more in the next 10 days or so. Time flies when you’re busy. Not fast enough though. Aloha. Did I mention I hate snakes?

Black Mamba

Where he gets his name...

Saved the best for last!