Early Monday morning the following week, I was about to start my journey back to Liberia after over one and a half decade. I met the Pastor Jean-Paul and thanked him for all what he had done for me since the day I came to Guinea.
‘You are a very determined man,’ he said.
‘May God bless you!’ He added with his usual friendly gestures.
‘Thank you!’ I expressed my gratitude to him.
‘You can stay in the church in Yomou tonight,’ he gave me a key.
‘There is one man called Oliver who lives near the church. Give him the key when you leave!’
After almost a day long trip, I reached the old church where I first served as a churchman. The old brick building which was half built remained the same as I saw it on the very first day despite some new cracks and floss on the walls.
Next morning by six I crossed the border and took a shared Yellow-machine to Monrovia. Passing Lofa where I was born; Gbarnga where I met Rev Maurice that changed my life, along the gravel roads, reached Monrovia in the late afternoon, but the city was not the same as when I crossed the river Du in 1990.
Along the Tubman Boulevard, there was nothing but the debris of buildings damaged by shelling and fire. Once lively street clubs and restaurants in Congo town were just ruined and the whole road was haunted. Many government buildings that remained high and prestigious had blackened and abundant. The paved roadways network and well-maintained street lighting system in Monrovia had already added to the history that Librarians boasted of before the other West African nations. Instead, well dressed and tidy Liberian outlook had changed into a culture where people wore anything irrespective of its purpose. Signs of extreme poverty, suffering and desperateness had conquered the pride and prestige of being a Liberian.
‘My man. A fresh thing for a hundred liberties. Come! First deal of day!’ As the taxi slowed down in the traffic at the Boulevard-junction in Congo town, one girl around 15 years, reached me through the shutter that was left open and said. I was shocked to see the transformation. No girl went on prostituting on the streets of Monrovia before the war. I thought of Kumba and her children.
At every single junction, there were young men who were on crutches and wheelchairs. I could not believe my eyes what had happened to our nation. Greed for power and corruption had brought nothing but misery and destruction to the land of Liberty where many other Africans used to come on vacations in the 1970s.
‘We stop here,’ the taxi driver grumbled. Everyone started jumping out just like the dogs that were unchained after a few days. I pulled my little bag in which I had my clothes, shoes and other necessities and got into another Yellow-machine that was going to Sinkor, Monrovia where Dr. Harris was living.
‘Bakers apartment complex, 9th street, land-side, Sinkor.’ I had written down the address on the other day, and it was not difficult for me to locate the building as Sinkor was relatively a less populated elite quarter of Monrovia. We stopped near a white colour high wall, and a generator was beating emitting a lot of noise and smoke. We used to have hydro power stations that provided continuous electricity to the nation, but today that was history.
‘Hello George. You are very punctual,’ Dr. Harris appeared greeting me.
‘How was the trip?’
‘I am ok Sir,’ I said.
‘You can stay here for a few days till you find a place and tomorrow on you can start work in our clinic in Douala-market area,’ he said during dinner. I felt that I was self- actualized yet I wanted Aminatta to be with me.
‘Sir. Aminatta was planning to come back to Liberia too,’
‘Oh really?’ Dr. Harris looked positively surprised.
‘I did not know that.’ He paused.
‘If I knew that I could taken her to work here,’ he added.
‘You have somebody working for you?’
‘A boy comes on and off.’ His reply gave me some hopes.
‘Shall I ask her to call you?’
‘For sure, I would rather go for her than anyone else as I know the quality of her work.’
I started my job right away from the following day. On the very first day, immediately after I reached the clinic, I made a call to Aminatta and told her that she could have the same job in Liberia with Dr. Harris which she did not believe.
‘You are lying,’
‘You will get a call from Dr. Harris this week,’ I said.
‘Are you sure?’ She was not convinced.
‘Stay in the office this week,’ I warned her.
Before Aminatta came, I rented a small room in a community house near Sinkor. It was easier for her to go to work though it was quite a distance for me to reach the office.
On a day in a rainy September, Aminatta came to Monrovia and started working at Dr. Harris`s place, and on and off, she was assigned to the clinic in Red Light market.
I used to go to the office with Dr. Harris because he was living in Sinkor and I was happy with my job as the head nurse that I believed as one of the most rewarding jobs that a human being could do.
Life had become routine again, and we had just started seeing the future in our dreams, and I had a great expectation that my country would recover from the devastating impact of the two civil wars that erupted one after the other, just like the volcanoes in the circum-Pacific belt.