The Bulk Challenge Experience. I. Ezax Smith
the journey.
“How long,” was anybody’s guess. It could be for a day or two, a week or even longer, depending on the intensity of the fighting and the occupancy of the neighborhood by armed men. Which fighting force occupying an area is essential to the decision one made to return or remain out of that area. Our children were very young, and all they had known so far were sounds of guns, and running and hiding from stray bullets. I couldn’t imagine what was running through their young minds, but I figure they were quite aware that we were in some bad times, and bad people were moving about to hurt some good people. We had discussed with them earlier, regarding the war and the fact that we would have to move constantly in order to stay alive and protect them from harm. They understood that we loved them much, not to want anything harmful happening to them. Looking back, I think talking with our kids about the war and what to expect and do in difficult times helped them cooperate in the manner they did.
Our children, Lydia was 5 and Ismad, 4, when the war began in 1990. Lavie was born in the heat of the war, that same year when the curfew was set at 6pm to 6am daily. My wife was nine months pregnant and due to give birth any moment. Each day we would pray that she did not go into labor at night but rather during the daytime when we could move about and get to the nearest hospital. This was important because we had heard of people out in the street, being shot—regardless of why they were out. There was even a rumor that a pregnant woman was shot as she made her way to the hospital. True or false, we had seen much, heard much, and knew much that anything was possible, and there was no time to take chances.
Thankfully, one day my wife got into labor in broad daylight—at exactly 3:15pm in the afternoon, and we had ample time to get to the hospital and get back home before curfew. In Monrovia, our nation’s capital, we lived on 9th Street, Sinkor, at the time, down Coleman Avenue. Just a walking distance away from our home—two blocks away—at the corner of 9th Street and Russell Avenue, was the Subah Clinic. Mrs. Lusu Subah was a well know Midwife at the J. F. Kennedy Maternity Center, and had a private practice attached to her home. That was where we went, and what a joy it was to bring home a baby girl who did not ask to come in this world at the time, and who knew nothing whatsoever that was happening. We named her “Lavie”—from la vie, the French word meaning “life.” Her traditional Bassa name became “Tomah”— meaning, “War Woman or Woman of War.” Then just two weeks after her birth, our community was bombed and we were in the streets fleeing for our lives again.
Every time I think about that fateful day, I remember how stupid I was for earlier refusing to leave the community with my baby. I was so mad with the foolishness that I told my father and family to go and leave me in the house; that I was not taking my young two-week old baby in the open air with bullets flying about. But wisdom prevailed that day when my father asked me to leave. I obeyed him and left. With my baby girl in my arms, we walked to the main street and joined the multitude of movers who were going nowhere particular. We just wanted to get out of the community. No one knew what was going on; houses were hit by rockets, people were killed; and as I made my way from the house, I passed by a 9-year-old girl whose entire leg was severed by fragments from a rocket. She was lying in a pool of blood on the side of the street, and there was nothing we could do. A friend of ours was asleep in her room when her house was hit with fragments from a rocket; she was killed instantly.
We walked up to Tubman Boulevard and joined the crowd going toward Sinkor. It was later that we got to know what had happened. The rumor was that rebels had entered the community by way of the Duo River. The soldiers were instructed to fire rockets in the direction of the Duo River, but they had instead aimed them in the direction of the community. The soldier who fired one of the rockets was the son of the Jarbahs, a prominent family in our community. When he looked through the binoculars he had, he observed that the instrument was pointing in the direction of our community. According to him, he tried to convince the soldiers that he lived in that community and that no rebels were there, but they were not paying him any mind and insisted that he fired it anyhow. Because he was not a member of the ruling tribe (Krahn), he could not argue much or else he would have been charged or labeled an enemy of the Doe-led Government or one working against the effort of the army. As he aimed the barrels in the direction of the community, he tried to tilt it away but couldn’t get it far away enough without someone observing his move. So he fired it right into the community. “It would have been worse,” he said, had he not tilted it away, but the devastation was still agonizing.
So, here we were, walking away from danger, fleeing from the horror in the community, an action that was reported to President Doe that we were protesting in the streets. See how things can get twisted so easily under these circumstances? Well, without investigation, a battalion was sent out with the instruction to get rid of the protestors in the streets. It happened that Jackson Doe, a cousin of the President, was in route to the Executive Mansion when he met the crowd around 18th Street, Sinkor. He was one of the few respected government officials in the Doe-led government. He inquired about why we were in the streets in such mass number. “What is going on?” he asked. It was explained to him that we were just getting out of the area, fleeing from the rain of bullets and rockets on our community. He cautioned the group to get off the main street and be mindful as such mass movement could be misinterpreted. No sooner after he left the group, we learned he intercepted a battalion from the Executive Mansion. They recognized him and accorded him the necessary military courtesy before continuing with their mission. He asked about their mission and they explained that they were sent to get rid of the protestors in the streets. For clarity, get rid of meant to kill. In other words, the soldiers were sent to kill all the people in the streets because information had reached some military authorities that the people were protesting against the government. Those people in the streets included me and my family. But Jackson Doe saved our lives when he sent them back after clarifying that we were not in the streets to protest but rather fleeing for our lives. Had the soldiers come before he came by, it would have meant a massacre and this story would not have been told.
That was just one of those crazy episodes we experienced in the early days of the Liberia civil war. That was then. Several years had gone by now and although the war raged on, there were periods when the violence subsided and children were back in school, beginning to be normal again—doing children things. Our daughter was now five years old, approaching six, and all of a sudden April 6th was upon us, halting activities of daily living again, after we had struggled to reconstruct them. This was a vexing pattern that left the war-affected people feeling disheartened and hopeless.
Moving and running from place to place was a daunting experience, particularly for little children who were being robbed of the opportunity to be children—to grow and play in communities like children would. As the war dragged on, schools were disrupted so very often that many children lost the interest, motivation and passion for school. As a result, many families had to take on the responsibility to educate their children during periods of closures. In that way, if or whenever schools re-opened the children would be prepared to continue at their pre-war level.
“Where are we going Daddy?” asked our young daughter. How hard it was to explain to a six-year-old that we had to just leave so nobody got hurt! I am not sure she understood, but she went along. At least she was smart enough not to ask the “why,” “why,” “why” questions that children that age often ask.
So, on that April day in 1996, I grabbed what little I could: mainly food stuff and bits of changing clothes. “When the fighting stops, we will return home,” I reassured my family. We stepped out, and by this time, almost the entire community was heading toward the ELWA Red Light, a major intersection that leads either westward to the city center of Monrovia or eastward outside Paynesville toward Kakata, in Margibi County. We joined the crowd heading nowhere particular. There was no set place in mind to take my family. As we walked, I thought about all the possible places we could stop, to rest or stay at night. The names of close friends came to mind but I wasn’t sure if they would be home since we had not seen them in months. At this point, we just wanted to get out of the danger zone and into a safer area.
On my head was a half bag of rice (Liberia’s staple), and in my hands were two motley striped bags, which Liberians often refer to as 'refugee bags', stacked with clothes and other basic necessities. My wife had the 6-year-old