Lest We Forget by Kwan Kew Lai

Author:Kwan Kew Lai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Viva Editions
Published: 2018-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

III

RETURN HOME

IT IS AMAZING how in a span of six weeks, you begin to get attached to the people you work with, especially when the risk of any one of you contracting a deadly disease is frighteningly real. On my way through Cuttington in the IMC cruiser on my last morning, I heard someone call out, “Kwan Kew!” I did not catch a glimpse of the person, but I realized that I had been here long enough for the nationals to pronounce my name with confidence. That made me feel truly welcome, and sad to leave. Many asked whether I would be returning. Alas, I would not. Unlike other expats who were on an ongoing paid contract, I was not leaving for a ten-day R&R, but was heading for home.

On our way to Monrovia, we briefly visited the new Save the Children ETU in Kakata that I had seen a few days before with the ambulance crew. The opening ceremony with politicians and media coverage was scheduled for the next day, and the banana trees were in place. Inside the windowless tents, however, this ETU would still be an inferno.

Monrovia was as hot as Suakoko, but crowded. At a busy intersection, our cruiser was sideswiped by an expensive car driven by a woman in high fashion. The policeman directing traffic came over while my driver was calling the IMC office for instructions and the woman shoved an American twenty-dollar bill at him. Deeming this adequate for covering the repair, my driver tried to get back into his seat, but the police officer tried to get a cut of the payment, precipitating a brief but unpleasant shouting match.

As we drove on, my driver told me that corruption was rampant among police officers. Even teachers at the University of Liberia were known to take bribes in exchange for giving out passing or better grades for their students: their salaries were so low—and unreliably paid—that they were unable to survive otherwise. I am always disheartened when I hear of such practices in Africa.

As in other African cities I have seen, the infrastructure in Monrovia is in far from tip-top condition. I doubt that all the problems can be ascribed to the recent civil wars. The worst is an apparently permanent reliance of many African countries on foreign aid. Many seem to have no plan for being weaned off such assistance, and no one, including the humanitarian aid organizations, seems to have the right answer.

Having been in the habit of getting up early in Suakoko, I woke up the next morning before sunrise and decided to take a short run while the air was cleaner and cooler. I ended up at Brooklyn Beach (its actual name), which was surprisingly clean, with thatched huts at intervals along the beach. The waves were huge and threatening. A person—who I at first thought was hustling me—approached to say that normally he would have charged me a fee for entering the beach.

Later, I was driven to visit the ELWA3 (Eternal Love Winning Africa) Ebola treatment unit run by Doctors Without Borders.

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