REFUGEE(Somalia)! My help (UG)
Created | Updated Nov 14, 2008
Internet communication links people across the world with an immediacy and a personal touch that I haven't found in any other media. Reading this entry, REFUGEE (Somalia)! My help, written by Rukahs, the text of which is given below, was like opening a window and leaning out into the heat and dust of a Liberian street. 'Entry', such a dry word for a piece of writing straight from the heart, showing me how small a part of the world my taken-for-granted world is.
It's part of the piece's charm and effectiveness that its uses of English, turns of phrase and expression are unfamiliar too. If you edit them to something conventional the immediacy of this other world is lost. You make the piece conform to your own norms. I know because I tried it. You can't get into another person's head and live their experience by making theirs conform to yours first. Take "triangular discipline" for instance. Very hard to translate into normal UK English with the same originality, but an excellent description of that sudden zigzagging veer off and back onto course that people do to avoid something on a crowded street.
A window onto the noise and dirt of Monrovia's streets:1 Rukahs's
REFUGEE (Somalia)! My help
Me! Oh God knows how I felt when I first saw a Somalian refugee woman and her dying kid. At that moment I deduced that she was suffering from malnutrition. The both of them were deadly in need of help in Monrovia yesterday, (March 12, 2007), begging for life in Liberian dollar.
It reminds me of my time in exile as a refugee (Danane, Cote'de Ivior, Buduburam refugee camp, Ghana). With all these times in exile God was doing what He had to do. My life didn't appear vividly in such a dehumanizing way the Somalian woman was. As my Dad was always receiving the salaries we needed from God daily, so at time the war was seem to me like one of those movies of the American actors Chuck Norris, Rambo, Arnold, Samuel Jackson etc.
It appear to me one time that the war in Liberia was a war of completing the prophecies of Mother Dukuly and of old. A gorgeous Somalia woman whom I saw millions of Somalian through her begging eyes left me to believe that the world and Life are VANITY!
We were full of life in Liberia, the 'Normal Days' as we say in Liberia these days. I strongly believe with my spiritual insight, it gives me points and illustrations that this woman and her kid (before the kid was born) had had a good life just like me. But today here she is before a crowd of Liberians and people of different origins and backgrounds of this world witnessing her as she is reduced to nothing before their naked eyes.
My attraction to her came from different directions. I have just passed a gray Cherokee jeep and few taxi cabs across the road, some putting passengers down at about afternoon time, around 1:25pm. When I approach the crowd, the sight was not a surprise, some Liberians have gone through similar situations in other countries. The length of her neck and that of her kid draw me to her. With all the test of time in her life and her Country, I could tell that is still beautiful, her eyes didn't allow her to deny that from me. Her smiles return when I was curious to know about her from the countless human beings that made a triangular discipline around her. Life was in those smiles away from the guns' sound in Somalia. She was happy on Randall Street in Monrovia, asking and sometime receiving and at time left with shame.
She was an African like me and lives on a continent that is housing me. And we breathe the same air in Liberia and Africa at large. I learned about the Somalia war on TV in the 80s, in Liberia growing up as a child. To see one was a dream come true for me! Her complexion was no different from the Ethiopian UNMIL troops (United Nations Mission in Liberia) and bright like the moor from Libya (not part of the mission) or the Berber of Morocco (not part of the mission) but she carried their complexion. She was not black in complexion like me, but like my President, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; the first Female president in Africa.
Her hair was extremely amazing! A curly black and long hair, with a small mouth and a lip of Queens...so...so beautiful. Her presence made me understand the vast diversity of African beauties across the continent. It was this beauty I believe that pleases the heart and thinking of Dr.Kwame Nkrumah, an idea that moved his country Ghana, through him, to gain back her long lost status from a cruel generation of mankind.
As she was sitting on the bare floor of the side walk while her innocent kid was awaking by my share of her daily needs that God has provided in me that day. Monday on March 12, 2007 was fast moving, and some of the people were confuse when I render her my assistance, with a one litre orange juice and $20.00 Liberian dollars. I targeted my gifts for the kid at first and later the mother.
In her eyes she wanted me picture her sorrows and the risk she's taking to educate her child to a life that will not benefit her neither her country (a beggar educations) But when she look into my eyes, she saw hope for the future, a people of conscience, she knew immediately I was once a refugee before, and today I remember my days through her eyes.
As she was begging at my door to let her in as a representative of her people, my heart was touched deep down in my soul! And that part that was touched was so voiceless to the world at this time. An answer to her royal question that was easy for the world to understand lies in here today to be acted upon.
I heard myself saying to a fellow 'Liberia wants to help; Will they accept us like others did for us?'
