If you are a history lover, news junkie, or student of political science, government, international studies, international relations, international law, diplomacy, public policy, etc. then this is a blog that will catch your eye!
“The contribution you have made in inspiring Liberian women, imparting in them the spirit of professionalism and encouraging them to join operations that protect the nation; for that we will always be grateful,” Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told the peacekeepers before they left the country.
It’s a hot Saturday afternoon in Robertsport, a sleepy fishing town a few hours’ drive up the coast from Monrovia, Liberia, and a group of boys are watching their peers compete in the town’s annual surfing championship. About 50 locals have shown up to watch the show. When the surfer finally finds a wave he likes and rides it along the coastline, the crowd cheers and throws sand in the air.
It’s a far cry from a year ago, when the Ebola crisis brought the country to a near standstill. By last January, Ebola cases in Monrovia had begun to fall, but the area around Robertsport had become the site of a renewed outbreak. The surfing competition was canceled for the first time in five years.
One Moore Bookstore, a small shopfront on a busy street in downtown Monrovia, represents many firsts. Though there are stores here that sell text books, this is the first selling books purely for reading pleasure. And its owners publish some of the only books aimed at Liberian children. The bookstore is a rare place where kids might hear a story read to them just for fun.
In this poor West African nation wracked by war, poverty and most recently Ebola, reading is not something people generally do for pleasure. Kids read when required in school, but Liberia still has one of the world’s highest rates of illiteracy.
That will all change if the owner of One Moore Bookstore has her way. Wayétu Moore, 30, is a Brooklyn-based author who fled Liberia with her family when she was 5. She opened this book store here last year. And she’s been publishing books for Liberian children since 2011.
She was one of the five finalists in an American Idol-style competition. But she did not have to sing. This was Integrity Idol 2015 in Liberia. The candidates all worked for the government and had a record of integrity. The public voted by phone and by the Internet.
The winner, announced earlier this month, was Jugbeh Tarpleh Kekula. She’s a registered nurse who works nights in the emergency room at the Liberia Government Hospital in Buchanan, the third-largest city in the country, and also educates people about family planning through Planned Parenthood of Liberia. She is married and the mother of five — “three biological children, two foster children.”
Sometimes as a Foreign Service Officer, you have to apologize on behalf of your country or just yourself for making a faux pas. At the link, there are both serious and funny stories about apologies that FSOs have had to make.
