Below are just a few of the expressions that form the pidgin language called Liberian English. If you have lived in Liberia, please add to this list.
1. Leave them, they will come to theysef- a form of what comes around goes around
2. The fish gets rotten at the head- implies that when there is a problem with a system or organization, look first to its leader
3. Never Mind yah- don’t worry
4. Borning- the process of giving birth
5. Man business or woman business- about love and dating
6. Baby mah-baby’s mother
7. Baby pa-baby’s father
8. Ole Ma- older woman
9. Ole Pa-older father
10. Small shop- small roadside shop, typically a zinc or zinc covered shack, where small items like bread, soda, razor blades, and cakes of wash soap are sold.
11. Dash- a kickback used more in Ghana
12. Cold water- same as a dash
13. Yah- yes
14. ‘O’- something that is said to emphasize a statement- she’s mad ‘O’ (she’s really mad!)
15. Abuse – (pronounce abuuz) As in how can you abuse me like that? - Means to cuss the person directly. The act of calling a person a Bitch or a Fucker is abusing the actual person, using the word without connecting it to the person is not abuse.
16. Americo-Liberian- a person descended from American slaves that relocated to Liberia
17. To beg – To beg is to humble yourself acknowledging that you are wrong and to show remorse. Asking for forgiveness is a common thing and people are not too proud to admit wrong doing. This can be a ploy to manipulate a person that is perceived in a class (Liberia, like America is very class orientated) above you. Often the begging is insincere. It is also important to note that begging a person’s forgiveness does not mean that the same offense will not be committed again; it just means you acknowledge that it was wrong, and you regret being caught. There are many things that people do for survival, not malice and begging acts to clear the conscience.
18. Congo people- slaves that were taken from the interior of African (the former Belgium Congo region) that became free in Liberia and never made the trip to the United States but are an amalgam of many tribes.
19. Coal pot – a coal pot is a utensil similar if function as a barbecue pit. See the Coal pot as a metaphor.
20. Na fo- a rhythmic children’s clapping game, similar to hambone that is popular in Liberia.
21. Civilized- having more modern, as opposed to traditional tribal, behaviors, mannerisms or lifestyle.
22. Bush school- (called also Sande Bush or Gola Bush) the traditional and secret system through which male and female initiates learn the ways of their tribe. It is said that young people learn marriage customs, tribal roles and responsibilities and how to accurately tell time without a clock, herbal cures and how to be a responsible member of the tribe. It is during this initiation that tribes that carry out the rite of circumcision.
23. As God so fixed it- means according to the will of God
24. Grunna boy or grunna girl- means a street child; literally a grownup girl or grown up boy.
25. What news? – What’s up and the response commonly given is, No bad news.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Children of God in War
When I left Liberia in August of 1990 some of my friend's children were upcountry in Bong County, unable to get back to Monrovia, unable to get out of Liberia.
I know that they faced severe hardships and it would encourage them to tell those stories to people who will listen quietly and not judge, to people who will offer them support. My children were fortunate that I was with them and able to, through the help of others, get them out of Liberia when I was guided by Spirit. It is really hard to stay and survive in a war when you don't have a side. All I wanted was for Liberians to make peace with one another so that it could go back to being Sweet Liberia. I wonder if anyone else wants to comment on Liberia during the war or on any other aspect of Liberia. From time to time I'm going to throw up a topic and hopefully get a response. If you know someone that was in Liberia and an Hebrew between the years of 1980 and 1991 please send them this blog address and ask them to contribute.
I know that they faced severe hardships and it would encourage them to tell those stories to people who will listen quietly and not judge, to people who will offer them support. My children were fortunate that I was with them and able to, through the help of others, get them out of Liberia when I was guided by Spirit. It is really hard to stay and survive in a war when you don't have a side. All I wanted was for Liberians to make peace with one another so that it could go back to being Sweet Liberia. I wonder if anyone else wants to comment on Liberia during the war or on any other aspect of Liberia. From time to time I'm going to throw up a topic and hopefully get a response. If you know someone that was in Liberia and an Hebrew between the years of 1980 and 1991 please send them this blog address and ask them to contribute.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
A Revelation
"I had a thought that I could change a thing that was not real. I shared with it my space and my time, but oh how sad it made me feel...."For years I have lamented having been spat out of Liberia, West Africa, a country that I had planned to make my home. I just couldn’t understand why we had been unable to live in Sweet Liberia, in peace and replant our generational seeds on African soil. It was a pain that I bore silently for eighteen years, the way one bears the burden of crushed dreams. I suffered in silence while I raised my five children into adulthood and rationalized that our flight from wartime Liberia had been best for them. They needed to be safe, to be educated, to be with our family here in America, no matter if I didn't feel they were totally free and equal citizens of the United States. Silently I felt cheated, felt that I had been denied my dream of leaving America with its bitter sting of racism and the limits it placed on the souls of myself and my ancestors.
(A Revelation by Doug and Jean Carne)"
In 1979, when I immigrated from the United States of America, I left behind a country where I could never hope to have my children ascend to the unrestricted heights that every parent wants to know are possible for their offspring. I left America with the hope that in Africa my children could be accepted at full value and be finally, really free. I prayed that their dreams could come true in Sweet Liberia. And yet the Liberian Civil War had changed all that, tainted my dreams in a terrible way and left me with a fractured heart. In August of 1990 when we returned to America, my new struggle was to teach my children how to survive in this ragged and racist culture and "it was, what it was."
And yet, somehow, somewhere, deeply planted inside my soul was the faint memory of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Dream. A dream that foretold that "One day a man would be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin."
The years passed quickly, my children became adults, and I vaguely recall watching a young man they called Barack Obama, deliver the Dr. Martin Luther King message at a downtown bank where I worked during the 80's. At the time I remember thinking, "Wow, he's kinda different, interesting, where did he come from?" In the coming years I watched this young, big-eared man rise slowly in stature; he rose quietly, undergirded by a substance and a groundswell that almost appeared mystical. I watched him become a Senator and I watched him wearing an awkward, overstarched black bandana, cheerfully squeezing mustard on hotdogs, laughing and serving attendees at a Chicago Father's Day celebration. I watched as he moved politically as an unblemished blur. And amidst rumors, I recall the day that he announced that he would run for the office of President of the United States. That's when I heard it. The voice, the still, small one. It said very clearly, "honey, when he runs, he's gonna win, support him!"
I recall the day that he announced that he would enter the presidential race and it struck me that there was a quality about him that said he was different from all other politicians, and again I heard the still small voice cry out absurdly, “support him, he is the one, he will win.”
And yet I have come to trust this voice, because it has never, ever, steered me wrong. It was the same voice that has foretold the sex of each of my children before their births. It was the same small voice that spoke to me and told me to flee Liberia a day before our area was overrun by rebel soldiers, it was the voice that told me on the 4th of July 1993 that I was going to win a brand new Ford Probe!
I said to anyone who would listen, “support him, he will win. Forget the polls, forget the trends. He is our next president!" At first even my closest friends, former Black Nationalists, civil righters, militants, were hesitant, but I just always knew.
My ultimate revelation would come on Tuesday, November 4th when Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States of America! Yet it took a few additional weeks before I had this revelation. Before it dawned on me that although my family had been forced to flee Liberia; forced to abandon my dream of setting down roots for future generations in Liberia, the Universe knew that my soul needed to be in America, sitting on my living room sofa with my grand daughter, when Americans of many ethnic backgrounds, rose up in consciousness and elected the first man of color, as the President of the United States.
Each day that I live, I am awed by the fact that as human beings we think we know so much. We think we can predict the outcome of situations with our logic and with numerical formulas, but in reality, we don’t know anything at all. Who could have predicted, except Dr. King, that the landscape of America could change so dramatically between 1979 and 2008 that it would be possible to have a man of color elected the leader of the free world.
My favorite symbol is GNAME, a Ghanian Adinkira Symbol that means "no one knows the beginning or ending of anything, except God." Indeed!
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Alone is a Lonely Sea
I believe that one of the most profound lessons I took away from my 11 years in Liberia, was how one can be affected by loneliness and cultural isolation. I'd love to hear from other expatriates or foreign workers, that lived in Liberia, or any other country, for a prolonged period of time, whether or not loneliness affected them. I could just be an odd bird…or not!
There is alone and then there is ALONE! There were times while I lived in Liberia that I experienced a soul-searing loneliness that I have not encountered before or since. Loneliness inspired me to write the poem, “Alone is a Lonely Sea,” at the end of this post. I began to really experience cultural isolation after I’d moved away from the Hebrew Israelite group that I'd come from Chicago to Liberia with initially. Now I was deeply embedded in the Liberian culture. Ninety-nine percent of my time was spent with Liberians; there were no African-Americans, in fact, no Americans in my life.
I'm very contemplative by nature, and I really crave time alone when I can become lost in my own thoughts. However being in a room alone, listening to your own philosophical musings, when you know there are people that care about you within “holla” distance, is a far, far cry from being alone in another country, another culture, among people who speak other languages and who understand and experience the world and their environment differently from you. And for all the amazing similarities we possess as humans and as people of African descent, there are many very important distinctions.
Kocava and her family were among my few African American friends. She was down-to-earth, creative and brilliant, my oasis in Liberia. Whenever we got together we would talk endlessly, drink cold Orange Fanta and listen to “our” music; flitting from Sun Ra and Coltrane back to Stevie Wonder and Sade, and then a quick trist with Smokey Robinson before floating on to “Lutha,” no explanations necessary! If we disagreed about any little thing, I felt free to cuss her out in that special way that sista’s can talk to one another, and she wouldn’t feel “abused.” We could be nostalgic about things that my Liberian friends didn’t even know existed.
And did I have issues to discuss! I was fed up with government bureaucracy in Liberia, tired of rogues trying to break into my room, sick of my neighbors leaving our communal bathroom a mess, and so on this hot Sunday afternoon I left my children with their older sister and hailed a taxi to Sinkor to visit Kocava. As I rode I felt pressed down by the unanticipated weight of making a living for me and my children, I felt beat down from teaching them to appreciate Liberian culture while struggling to distance them from the raw and violent behavior that was a part of living on Lynch Street. I was culturally desperate that Sunday.
Finally, I arrived at Kocava’s apartment, bounded quickly up the steps to the second floor, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door. A Mandingo woman on the porch next door, hearing my repeated knocking, glanced up and said “Hey Ma, da peepo gone to the beach ‘O’!"
Suddenly pain ripped through me and I crumpled onto the bench outside their door and wept shamelessly until I couldn’t cry anymore, until I could walk back down the steps and hail a taxi back to Lynch Street and my children.
***
The Lonely Sea
Aching alone
…to be apart of another’s breath and thoughts, longing for tenderness
Missing a warm smile and laughing eyes, the familiarity of friends
and family absent in happy and sad times
Alone is a lonely sea, passing through me.
Alone is feeling self-conscious because there is only my-self,
eating too fast, to avoid the fact that no one is sitting…
smiling and sharing this meal with me
Alone is a lonely sea, passing through me.
A new and chilling experience to struggle against and pass through.
The knowledge that loneliness can create shame
As urgency and need causes the unattractive to shimmer and sparkle in the dark
And the decadent to appear darling; as Saints too will sin,
Alone is a lonely sea passing through me
No more mother’s glowing aura to envelope sorrow or redirect pain
No father’s strength to steel away blue hours;
No brother’s laughter, nor sisterly advice.
Aunts and uncles vacant, grand-folks none,
I’m awful lonely with not a one
Alone is a lonely sea passing through me.
However long the sea will rage, the currents how torrential
and tortuously swift
I will master myself in this pain—at last
It cannot continue always, nothing does, or has or will, and so
I weep my tears and also wipe them—so that my soul will not see that
Alone is a sea, a lonely sea, passing through me
There is alone and then there is ALONE! There were times while I lived in Liberia that I experienced a soul-searing loneliness that I have not encountered before or since. Loneliness inspired me to write the poem, “Alone is a Lonely Sea,” at the end of this post. I began to really experience cultural isolation after I’d moved away from the Hebrew Israelite group that I'd come from Chicago to Liberia with initially. Now I was deeply embedded in the Liberian culture. Ninety-nine percent of my time was spent with Liberians; there were no African-Americans, in fact, no Americans in my life.
I'm very contemplative by nature, and I really crave time alone when I can become lost in my own thoughts. However being in a room alone, listening to your own philosophical musings, when you know there are people that care about you within “holla” distance, is a far, far cry from being alone in another country, another culture, among people who speak other languages and who understand and experience the world and their environment differently from you. And for all the amazing similarities we possess as humans and as people of African descent, there are many very important distinctions.
Kocava and her family were among my few African American friends. She was down-to-earth, creative and brilliant, my oasis in Liberia. Whenever we got together we would talk endlessly, drink cold Orange Fanta and listen to “our” music; flitting from Sun Ra and Coltrane back to Stevie Wonder and Sade, and then a quick trist with Smokey Robinson before floating on to “Lutha,” no explanations necessary! If we disagreed about any little thing, I felt free to cuss her out in that special way that sista’s can talk to one another, and she wouldn’t feel “abused.” We could be nostalgic about things that my Liberian friends didn’t even know existed.
And did I have issues to discuss! I was fed up with government bureaucracy in Liberia, tired of rogues trying to break into my room, sick of my neighbors leaving our communal bathroom a mess, and so on this hot Sunday afternoon I left my children with their older sister and hailed a taxi to Sinkor to visit Kocava. As I rode I felt pressed down by the unanticipated weight of making a living for me and my children, I felt beat down from teaching them to appreciate Liberian culture while struggling to distance them from the raw and violent behavior that was a part of living on Lynch Street. I was culturally desperate that Sunday.
Finally, I arrived at Kocava’s apartment, bounded quickly up the steps to the second floor, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door, and knocked on the door. A Mandingo woman on the porch next door, hearing my repeated knocking, glanced up and said “Hey Ma, da peepo gone to the beach ‘O’!"
Suddenly pain ripped through me and I crumpled onto the bench outside their door and wept shamelessly until I couldn’t cry anymore, until I could walk back down the steps and hail a taxi back to Lynch Street and my children.
***
The Lonely Sea
Aching alone
…to be apart of another’s breath and thoughts, longing for tenderness
Missing a warm smile and laughing eyes, the familiarity of friends
and family absent in happy and sad times
Alone is a lonely sea, passing through me.
Alone is feeling self-conscious because there is only my-self,
eating too fast, to avoid the fact that no one is sitting…
smiling and sharing this meal with me
Alone is a lonely sea, passing through me.
A new and chilling experience to struggle against and pass through.
The knowledge that loneliness can create shame
As urgency and need causes the unattractive to shimmer and sparkle in the dark
And the decadent to appear darling; as Saints too will sin,
Alone is a lonely sea passing through me
No more mother’s glowing aura to envelope sorrow or redirect pain
No father’s strength to steel away blue hours;
No brother’s laughter, nor sisterly advice.
Aunts and uncles vacant, grand-folks none,
I’m awful lonely with not a one
Alone is a lonely sea passing through me.
However long the sea will rage, the currents how torrential
and tortuously swift
I will master myself in this pain—at last
It cannot continue always, nothing does, or has or will, and so
I weep my tears and also wipe them—so that my soul will not see that
Alone is a sea, a lonely sea, passing through me
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Beginning of the End
When you see a thing beginning, you don't know it's the beginning of the end. That's how I feel about Christmas Day 1989. That was the beginning of the end of my life, my family's life in Liberia.
Christmas in Liberia was a sweet family day. There was no media hype, no commercials, no constant reminders that you needed to spend money to be happy. People planned to use their resources to make their family and friends happy and if they were Christians, they planned to be thankful, and to praise God. A sweet family day.
I remember that my gift to my children had been a small television set that I had scrapped up the money to buy so that we could watch television for a couple of hours several evenings a week, when there was electricity. I remember giving my business partner Esther a Christmas gift and buying some small things for my children. Mostly things they needed anyway, simple things.
The excitment for us was that we had invited a guest to share Christmas dinner! A friend that I had met in recently had come to Liberia to head up a diamond mining expedition. Ron Watkins was witty, and urbane and I found him interesting and attractive. I hadn't found a man interesting or attractive in a very, very long time and the notion of having a man posessing both those attributes in my home was a gift in itself! I typically had very little contact with Americans and while Liberian men made overtures, I kept to myself. I hadn't healed from the breakup with my children's father after 20 years and just making a living and keeping my children in school consumed all my waking energy.
But talking to Ron was easy conversation, like turning on a faucet and running water. There was nothing to translate, nothing to misunderstand.
He was probably in need of good company too because he agreed to have Christmas Dinner with a vegetarian and her five children. How brave is that?
I remember laboriously and lovingly preparing a savory, hot palm butter (sans meat) with my eldest daughter and making sure that the country rice was perfect. We also prepared potato greens, and there was soda for the children and a couple of icey bottles of Club Beer purchased for us.
After dinner Ron and I talked comfortably as the children played and kept a watchful eye on their mother, who after all hadn't had male company in quite awhile. And then, on television, or was it the radio? I can't say that I remember how we heard the news, that Charles Taylor had crossed Liberia's northern border with his rebels on December 24th, my eldest daughter's birthday.
The so-called rebel incursion wasn't something on everyone's lips. Everybody didn't have access to the information and truthfully most people on Chubor Road were tired of President Samuel Kanyon Doe and wanted him overthrown. In our experience, a coup removed the head of state, cabinet members and those closest to him. A coup wasn't a war and definitely wasn't a civil war.
As Ron and I sipped Club Beer and smiled at each other my children and their friends played oblivious to the life-altering changes that rode towards Liberia leaving a trail of blood. We just continued enjoying our sweet family day.
Christmas in Liberia was a sweet family day. There was no media hype, no commercials, no constant reminders that you needed to spend money to be happy. People planned to use their resources to make their family and friends happy and if they were Christians, they planned to be thankful, and to praise God. A sweet family day.
I remember that my gift to my children had been a small television set that I had scrapped up the money to buy so that we could watch television for a couple of hours several evenings a week, when there was electricity. I remember giving my business partner Esther a Christmas gift and buying some small things for my children. Mostly things they needed anyway, simple things.
The excitment for us was that we had invited a guest to share Christmas dinner! A friend that I had met in recently had come to Liberia to head up a diamond mining expedition. Ron Watkins was witty, and urbane and I found him interesting and attractive. I hadn't found a man interesting or attractive in a very, very long time and the notion of having a man posessing both those attributes in my home was a gift in itself! I typically had very little contact with Americans and while Liberian men made overtures, I kept to myself. I hadn't healed from the breakup with my children's father after 20 years and just making a living and keeping my children in school consumed all my waking energy.
But talking to Ron was easy conversation, like turning on a faucet and running water. There was nothing to translate, nothing to misunderstand.
He was probably in need of good company too because he agreed to have Christmas Dinner with a vegetarian and her five children. How brave is that?
I remember laboriously and lovingly preparing a savory, hot palm butter (sans meat) with my eldest daughter and making sure that the country rice was perfect. We also prepared potato greens, and there was soda for the children and a couple of icey bottles of Club Beer purchased for us.
After dinner Ron and I talked comfortably as the children played and kept a watchful eye on their mother, who after all hadn't had male company in quite awhile. And then, on television, or was it the radio? I can't say that I remember how we heard the news, that Charles Taylor had crossed Liberia's northern border with his rebels on December 24th, my eldest daughter's birthday.
The so-called rebel incursion wasn't something on everyone's lips. Everybody didn't have access to the information and truthfully most people on Chubor Road were tired of President Samuel Kanyon Doe and wanted him overthrown. In our experience, a coup removed the head of state, cabinet members and those closest to him. A coup wasn't a war and definitely wasn't a civil war.
As Ron and I sipped Club Beer and smiled at each other my children and their friends played oblivious to the life-altering changes that rode towards Liberia leaving a trail of blood. We just continued enjoying our sweet family day.
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Coal Pot as a Metaphor
The coal pot is both an icon and a metaphor for survival very much at the core of Liberian life and culture. When I reflect on my life in Liberia after a few minutes my thoughts inevitably return to the feelings of the warmth generated by the cooking and sharing a meal. Those wonderful simple, yet rich meals cooked on a coal pot.
The Coal pot is a device kinda like a charcoal barbecue grill however, rather than being just for grilling meat, the coal pot is the mainstay for cooking everything in Liberia. A segment of the populations before the 1989 civil war had a one or two burner electric hot plates, and the more affluent Liberians had an electric stove (whether it worked or not), but electricity was unreliable, and in now in post war Liberia, where I’m told electricity is rare, food was mainly cooked outdoors on the coal pot.
Every home in Liberia has at least one coal pot, we had three. Like multiple burners on an electric stove, multiple coal pots insure that the rice, the soup and hot water for dishwashing can all be prepared simultaneously. Even in homes where there is an electric stove there’s always a coal pot. There are just some traditional dishes, such as palm butter, a delicious full-bodied stew made from the laboriously obtained pulp of the palm nut tree, which tastes best when allowed to thicken over a coal pot fire.
Coal pots are made by local craftsmen. The coal pot can have a square or round (bowl-like) base and the cooking surface is generally from 12-24 inches around or square. Some coal pots are of lightweight tin and others made of cast iron and have legs and stand as high as a traditional barbecue pit. Coal pots of better design have a grate to secure the cooking vessel, but grate or not, the vessel is often set directly on the hot coals to speed the cooking process.
In the city mainly charcoal is used, but wood and dry branches are often used if it’s available. The charcoal burned in coal pots is made locally in charcoal pits where wood is cut and burned in a measured way to dry it out; then it’s bagged and sold in the market. Once the charcoal is placed in the bowl of the coal pot the coals are ignited by lighting wood slithers, plastic bags or even using cooking oil as an accelerant. For the 11 years I lived in Liberia, I never saw any commercial accelerant used to light a coal pot. I doubt if any was even sold.
While here in America ‘firing up the grill’ is seen as something of an art, lighting the coal pot is a task often relegated to the children in a family, or in some instances the house boy or girl, while the real cooks prep the meal.
As I have catapulted into middle age and battled, somewhat unsuccessfully, the spreading of my girth, I’ve had to come to grips with the reality that much of my life has spun around food. I have been in denial because most of my life I’ve had a pretty robust metabolism and an extremely high activity level that allowed me to eat like a stream- of-consciousness while still maintaining a size eight pant size. But no more!
Menopause has forced me to face the verity that many women have faced decades earlier. Food has filled all the empty spaces in my life, it comforts and supports me and when I am lonely food is my friend!
I remember that my mom always prepared a hot breakfast for my sister Yvonne and me. She wasn’t very demonstrative but I understood that her rising to prepare whatever we wanted for breakfast was her way of saying, “I love you” every morning. The love and warmth that is generated in the selection, preparation, the serving and sharing of food sustains our families in the physical, and most importantly, in the spiritual sense.
The smells and intrinsic warmth emanating from her kitchen is etched upon my heart. My mother, well into her 80’s, rarely cooks except when her grandchildren request her peach cobbler or her very special cornbread dressing at family events.
And so in Liberia, I witnessed again and again how people of color appreciate each other’s humanity, how we show that we care through the preparation, and more importantly, the sharing of food. And so I had found another reference point to reconnect to my roots in Africa – the coal pot.
The coal pot is an icon that symbolizes a tradition of resilience and strength that has endured like the people of Liberia, through their joys and sorrow and through their rise and fall and will persist until the eventual redemption of Liberia.
The Coal pot is a device kinda like a charcoal barbecue grill however, rather than being just for grilling meat, the coal pot is the mainstay for cooking everything in Liberia. A segment of the populations before the 1989 civil war had a one or two burner electric hot plates, and the more affluent Liberians had an electric stove (whether it worked or not), but electricity was unreliable, and in now in post war Liberia, where I’m told electricity is rare, food was mainly cooked outdoors on the coal pot.
Every home in Liberia has at least one coal pot, we had three. Like multiple burners on an electric stove, multiple coal pots insure that the rice, the soup and hot water for dishwashing can all be prepared simultaneously. Even in homes where there is an electric stove there’s always a coal pot. There are just some traditional dishes, such as palm butter, a delicious full-bodied stew made from the laboriously obtained pulp of the palm nut tree, which tastes best when allowed to thicken over a coal pot fire.
Coal pots are made by local craftsmen. The coal pot can have a square or round (bowl-like) base and the cooking surface is generally from 12-24 inches around or square. Some coal pots are of lightweight tin and others made of cast iron and have legs and stand as high as a traditional barbecue pit. Coal pots of better design have a grate to secure the cooking vessel, but grate or not, the vessel is often set directly on the hot coals to speed the cooking process.
In the city mainly charcoal is used, but wood and dry branches are often used if it’s available. The charcoal burned in coal pots is made locally in charcoal pits where wood is cut and burned in a measured way to dry it out; then it’s bagged and sold in the market. Once the charcoal is placed in the bowl of the coal pot the coals are ignited by lighting wood slithers, plastic bags or even using cooking oil as an accelerant. For the 11 years I lived in Liberia, I never saw any commercial accelerant used to light a coal pot. I doubt if any was even sold.
While here in America ‘firing up the grill’ is seen as something of an art, lighting the coal pot is a task often relegated to the children in a family, or in some instances the house boy or girl, while the real cooks prep the meal.
As I have catapulted into middle age and battled, somewhat unsuccessfully, the spreading of my girth, I’ve had to come to grips with the reality that much of my life has spun around food. I have been in denial because most of my life I’ve had a pretty robust metabolism and an extremely high activity level that allowed me to eat like a stream- of-consciousness while still maintaining a size eight pant size. But no more!
Menopause has forced me to face the verity that many women have faced decades earlier. Food has filled all the empty spaces in my life, it comforts and supports me and when I am lonely food is my friend!
I remember that my mom always prepared a hot breakfast for my sister Yvonne and me. She wasn’t very demonstrative but I understood that her rising to prepare whatever we wanted for breakfast was her way of saying, “I love you” every morning. The love and warmth that is generated in the selection, preparation, the serving and sharing of food sustains our families in the physical, and most importantly, in the spiritual sense.
The smells and intrinsic warmth emanating from her kitchen is etched upon my heart. My mother, well into her 80’s, rarely cooks except when her grandchildren request her peach cobbler or her very special cornbread dressing at family events.
And so in Liberia, I witnessed again and again how people of color appreciate each other’s humanity, how we show that we care through the preparation, and more importantly, the sharing of food. And so I had found another reference point to reconnect to my roots in Africa – the coal pot.
The coal pot is an icon that symbolizes a tradition of resilience and strength that has endured like the people of Liberia, through their joys and sorrow and through their rise and fall and will persist until the eventual redemption of Liberia.
Friday, December 7, 2007
How I Got To Africa
In 1978, when I was about 29, my former mate and several of our friends joined the Original Hebrew Israelite Foundation of Liberia. The Original Hebrew Israelites (often called the Black Hebrews) focused on the fact that the original Hebrews of the Old Testament were people of African Ancestry. The group wanted to return our people to that land to live peacefully and return to the life of our biblical ancestors. One point they emphasized was that the division between Africa and Israel was man made,the Suez Canal, and that Israel was actually a part of North East Africa. This supported the notion that the man called Jesus, the son of Joseph was of African Ancestry.
The idea that Jesus wasn't white was very appealing to me. I had begun ditching St. James Methodist Sunday School at the ripe old age of 12 when I just couldn't relate to the blue-eyed, blond portrayed as my savior. I was destined to be a rebel from the beginning.
At any rate the Hebrews were on a recruitment drive spearheaded by Prince Asiel Ben Israel, the handsome, charismatic International Ambassador of the Hebrews. His goal was to recruit among the Black Nationalist groups. At the time it was very difficult to get Blacks from America into Israel. The Israelis frowned on the immigration of African Americans to Israel and most Black Hebrews that resided in Israel were illegal aliens. Setting up settlements with Black Nationalists made sense because the nationalists had an affinity for Africa and could hit the ground running in the settlements that the Hebrews, who will henceforth be called the Nation, had in Liberia and Ghana, West Africa.
My mate and I were Black Nationalists and living in Africa was definitely appealing to us. Black Nationalists claimed "Africa for Africans at home and abroad." When as a little girl, I had seen Kwame Nkrumah, first president of modern day Ghana, in his ceremonial Kente robes, I knew that someday I would set foot on African soil. The Hebrews helped me realize that dream.
Since returning from Liberia I've been asked a number of times if I considered the seven years that I spent as a member of the Hebrew Israelites cult membership. Honestly, it's always been a difficult question for me and one which I have answered differently on at least a few occasions.
Today, as I reflect over my life I would say no, I was not a cult member; I didn't have a cult mentality. I always thought my own thoughts, I questioned policies that were implemented and made as many decisions for myself as possible. Like every person in a "system," you pick your battles but I think when people are in a cult they have a slavish mentality and do what they are told because they feel there are no other options.
I was with the Hebrews seven years and in Liberia on my own for four years. I always had a job and typically another source of income on the side. In fact my salary was one that was shared communally to benefit other members of the community. I do remember that the structure of living communally, conforming to decisions I didn’t personally make and accepting those consequences, had the effect of crippling my personal decision making capacity, once I left the Nation. I am reminded of a friend whose husband was a Chief in the US Navy and upon his retirement he found the decisions and requirements of civilian life very stressful. He'd had much less requirement to make personal decisions in the Navy. So would we declare the US Navy a cult? I'd say no, and in my opinion the Hebrew Israelite Foundation is also not a cult.
The idea that Jesus wasn't white was very appealing to me. I had begun ditching St. James Methodist Sunday School at the ripe old age of 12 when I just couldn't relate to the blue-eyed, blond portrayed as my savior. I was destined to be a rebel from the beginning.
At any rate the Hebrews were on a recruitment drive spearheaded by Prince Asiel Ben Israel, the handsome, charismatic International Ambassador of the Hebrews. His goal was to recruit among the Black Nationalist groups. At the time it was very difficult to get Blacks from America into Israel. The Israelis frowned on the immigration of African Americans to Israel and most Black Hebrews that resided in Israel were illegal aliens. Setting up settlements with Black Nationalists made sense because the nationalists had an affinity for Africa and could hit the ground running in the settlements that the Hebrews, who will henceforth be called the Nation, had in Liberia and Ghana, West Africa.
My mate and I were Black Nationalists and living in Africa was definitely appealing to us. Black Nationalists claimed "Africa for Africans at home and abroad." When as a little girl, I had seen Kwame Nkrumah, first president of modern day Ghana, in his ceremonial Kente robes, I knew that someday I would set foot on African soil. The Hebrews helped me realize that dream.
Since returning from Liberia I've been asked a number of times if I considered the seven years that I spent as a member of the Hebrew Israelites cult membership. Honestly, it's always been a difficult question for me and one which I have answered differently on at least a few occasions.
Today, as I reflect over my life I would say no, I was not a cult member; I didn't have a cult mentality. I always thought my own thoughts, I questioned policies that were implemented and made as many decisions for myself as possible. Like every person in a "system," you pick your battles but I think when people are in a cult they have a slavish mentality and do what they are told because they feel there are no other options.
I was with the Hebrews seven years and in Liberia on my own for four years. I always had a job and typically another source of income on the side. In fact my salary was one that was shared communally to benefit other members of the community. I do remember that the structure of living communally, conforming to decisions I didn’t personally make and accepting those consequences, had the effect of crippling my personal decision making capacity, once I left the Nation. I am reminded of a friend whose husband was a Chief in the US Navy and upon his retirement he found the decisions and requirements of civilian life very stressful. He'd had much less requirement to make personal decisions in the Navy. So would we declare the US Navy a cult? I'd say no, and in my opinion the Hebrew Israelite Foundation is also not a cult.
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