Yesterday, though, I had the chance to get out of the city. Out of the smell of garbage and the honking of horns and the crush of people and into a green and brown countryside that smelled like summer rain. We drove across the newly-graded roads to a construction site in the middle of the bush. Tenegar (or is it Tenegah?) is a cluster of villages the used to be home to a clinic. We sat in the heat of the Liberian sun as Losonne, the community chairman, informed us that the clinic was the only modern building from here to the middle of nowhere. His eyes were hidden behind sharply reflective sunglasses, but I think they were sad as he explained to us how the rebels came during the war and burned the two clinic buildings to the ground. We rebuilt it though, he told us with pride. But the rebels came again, during the second round of fighting, and they destroyed the place again.
Now Mercy Ships has come, and along with the people of the community, they’re rebuilding the clinic. The floors are shiny, the roofs gleaming metal. Losonne sat with his grandson, Momo, on his lap, grinning widely as he thanked us for what we are doing. As the others in my group wandered off towards the plantain farm across the road, Losonne picked Momo up and showed me the path to his house. He wanted me to meet his wife, a woman he referred to only as Oma. We found her out back, squatting in a low thatched cooking hut, bent over a pot of rice and potato greens. She carefully adjusted her lappa before posing solemnly next to her husband and grandson in front of one of their banana trees. And then she went back to her cooking.
Losonne pointed me towards another path, and I set off, my feet cushioned by the orange-brown dirt, all around me the humid air alive with smells of earth. It wasn’t long before I came upon the agriculture project. The ever-present swarm of kiddos cavorted and skipped through the waist and shoulder-high plantain trees as they led me to my friends, sitting under the shade of a little thatched hut. I wandered through the rows of carefully tended vegetables, marveling at just how green everything was. 
A little boy showed us his toy, a ball made from things he found in the bush (as he gestured vaguely over his left shoulder), that actually bounced better than some superballs I’ve come across. A man paused in his work, sewing together palm-frond shingles onto the roof of a newly-built chicken coop, to smile down at me. Drops of rain, not yet burned away by the sun, nestled in the crooks of leaves, and a little yellow butterfly dashed from plant to plant, between little shoots of herbs rising up in fragrance and spice.
We eventually made our way back to the building site at the clinic, where Oma was sitting with her pot of potato greens, ladling out portions for the workers. Another grandma sat next to her, a tiny fluffy-haired baby asleep on her back. I told her that the baby was fine and received in turn the information that she was named Angel. When she woke up, I jokingly told the grandma that she was too fine and that I would carry her in America when I go. Her response was the untie Angel from her back and hand her to me, lappa and all. I should back the baby? I asked them, trying with my bravado to mask my nervousness. It’s one thing to back a baby on the wards (strap them on using only a lappa and a prayer) with translators all around to help my fumbling fingers. It’s quite another matter out in the bush with the two most respected ladies in the community watching. My heart was pounding, I’ll admit it, but I managed to get Angel on my back with little ceremony. Her grandma took one look at us, nodded curtly, placed her pile of dishes on her head and walked off into the bush. Angel was apparently mine.However, I knew I had to give her back, so as my friends headed towards the car, I reluctantly unwound the cloth from around my chest. (Semi-pro baby backer that I am, I had opted for the more unstable twist rather than the unshakeable knot style, hoping to gain more points with the Oma’s.) I placed Angel back in the other Oma’s arms, and she looked up at me with huge, black eyes.
As I turned to go, her tiny face contorted and she started to cry, her tiny sobs wrenching at my heart. Which is how I’m going to feel when the ship leaves this port in December.
(The rest of the photos are here.)
