Do You Feel What I Feel?
It’s idiotic, but this is the question I think as I look at the hundreds of refugees streaming from the Ivory Coast into Liberia through the border town of Beoyoolah. The migration is not like the movies. No people pushing at gates. No colored line separating two nations. No custom’s agent stamping passports. The Ivoirians walk almost casually along the rusty undulating dirt road expanding in both directions: West if they are just arriving, East back into town if they have just obtained goods from the Norwegian Refugee Committee (NRC) organized under the auspices of the United Nations Human Refugee Committee (UNHRC), which could be better organized.
The people I see walking are actually a mix of Liberian and Ivorian. The Ivoirians stand out because they are carrying all of their belongings on their heads—pots, pans, one women an oil barrel, another a 10 foot curved tree branch. The children contribute by carrying lighter objects-- blankets, clothing, mats and empty plastic jugs for water. A tiny girl is having some difficulty balancing her pile. She resembles the character in Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham only this is the real deal, so I reach out and lift her head pile into my arms and start heading up the hill where I am also going. At first, the girl looks as if I have just stolen the only remaining things she has left in the world, but the girl is Ivorian and I speak French! “Puis je tu aider? “ I ask
“Oui, mercie,” she says. And at least for the five minute walk until our path’s fork, we are friends.
It’s so cool speaking French but the situation is not really cool. Laurent Mbagbo, Ivory Coast’s corrupt President has refused to give up power despite losing the Presidential election last November. Mbagbo has done this before, but unlike his previous competitors, this competitor Ouatarrra has a significant following and willl not give up a win. In fact, Mbagbo and Ouatarra's men are now battling in the streets of the capital and Ouatarra soldiers are marching south into Mbagbo territory, which means over forty thousand at last count are fleeing into Liberia where the International Rescue Committee (IRC) supports a substantial portion of the healthcare infrastructure. This is why I am here: to assess and personalize what more IRC we can and must do. One man with whom I talked spoke of armed men in the street, harassment and killing. “They are just looking for an excuse to take our things,” he tells me. “We are not political.”
Borders indeed are manmade, because the Liberians and Ivoirians in Beoyoolah share a common dialect and many of the new arrivals have relatives in the area but certainly not all. One Liberian woman told me with a simultaneous smile and shake of her head that her house was now full with 12 people. A 14-year old boy told me that for three weeks, his family has been sleeping in the woods. Last night it rained a torrent for at least 1 hour despite it not being the rainy season. Down in Sannequelle where I am staying, I found the rain force and volume awesome. Now I think I could have done without the show if this meant the little boy and his family would have stayed dry.
It’s weird the relative passage of time. I in Sannequelle think little of a rainstorm as I dose gently out and into sleep, while 40,000 refugees not more than 25 miles away get drenched and sleep little. Those that get soaked if they could be transported to a different time scale, say of a little boy in Oakland, California playing basketball with his father, who just returned home from a long business trip, would soon find that the rain has given way to a bright 10 o’clock morning sun and dry clothes. Sometimes when I think I can’t stand a situation any longer-- traveler’s diarrhea on a 4 hour bus, seeing patient after patient in a hospital where people otherwise die, forcing myself to do aerobic exercise in the hot, I disassociate and place myself in a kind of DM Zone for pain where emotions get emulsified not unlike blobs in a lava lamp. It's like placing emotions in a dream sequence and simply observing as opposed to feeling them. Add a little imaginary Motown and the effect is palliative. One eventually wakes up but by this time, the thing that was scary or uncomfortable in the first place is now over, and one is left with the satisfaction of accomplishment if not some peace.
My thought mojo probably has little relevance in a humanitarian context. I am thinking that it curdles in a five-hour line for 3 biscuit packages and an empty pot at the UN distribution site. It may only work two days of a three day walk from terror with 4 children and wayward goat in tow. All I know is that it took 6 hours to travel 45 kilometers by jeep to this border town and I can no longer feel my right butt cheek. It is 90 degrees, I haven't eaten and my water supply is low. The Ivoirians we meet are uniformly gracious. They are patient in telling their stories, their children laugh easily and they open themselves up to assistance. We tell them that we are operating a mobile clinic, which certainly prompts an occasional thrusting of a pus-ee limb, presentation of a whistling heart or extension of a worm-filled belly but in general, people are asking for food, water and shelter which we are not providing on this day. To this the Ivoirians say thank you then leave to tend to the business of survival. It makes me think: How do you do this? Who am I?
There's a lot to be done. We are being asked by the UNHRC to provide health care to an estimated 150,000 refugees who will likely enter our care region in Northern Nimba County in the next 3 months. Proposals will be written, money will flow, but the Liberian Health System is kind of a mess with few resources including health professionals on which to build. We are challenged to provide quality health care to those already in the country, let alone to a whole new vulnerable cohort. Health care is only one variable in a multivariate equation. There is need for creativity, partnership, hard work and even a little prayer during this time.
