By Christina Holder
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| Ganta's long-looted powerhouse is the residence of Mary Weyea, 37, and her daughter, Musu, 7. Mother and daughter moved into a room of the powerhouse and have lived there as squatters for four years. There is no central electricity in Ganta, Liberia's second largest city. Most residents rely on private generators, candles and kerosene laterns. |
GANTA, LIBERIA — Last year, Jeremiah Kuong and his younger brother Elijah bought a $12,000 generator on credit for their Prophet General Merchandise food supply store here in Liberia's second largest city.
Today, in the same spirit as the Biblical prophets for whom they are named, the Kuong brothers are helping their city rebuild. They are providing seven of their neighbors with needed electricity in a nation left dark by 14 years of civil war.
“We just want a better future, a brighter and better future,” the younger Mr. Kuong said.
The Kuong brothers charge shop owners connected to their generator only for the cost of fuel — one gallon per day for a one-light-bulb business and two gallons for any more bulbs than that.
They see their generosity as one way they can have an impact on their community and give other small business owners the chance to move forward in a nation where electricity, running water and roads mostly have been wiped out by war.
Liberia's 14-year civil war left most of this nation with historic ties to the United States in darkness. In recent years, power has been restored to pockets of the capital city of Monrovia, home to an estimated 3.5 million. But getting hooked up to the Liberia Electricity Corporation is slow and costly. Although streetlights line the main boulevard leading into Monrovia, only about 1,400 private customers have been connected through an electricity project started in 2006 between the Liberian government, USAID, the World Bank, the European Commission and the governments of Ghana and the United States. The threat of fraud — about 6,500 gallons of fuel went missing in September 2008 — makes sustaining light a difficult enterprise.
USAID also has conducted solar power pilot projects in poor Monrovian communities and is exploring using prepaid meters. Local business owners buy electricity from the Liberia Electricity Corporation and distribute it to community members for a sum. But many Liberians outside of Monrovia face a darker future. In Ganta, for example, Liberians rely on harmful kerosene lanterns, candles and if they can afford them, small generators.
The Kuong brothers are living in semi-darkness for now, determined to stick it out until all of the lights come back on in their homeland.
“There was total destruction,” the younger Kuong said. “Almost the (entire) town was completely destroyed. When we came back, we came to rebuild our lives here.”
Liberia was founded in 1822 when free-born black Americans sailed to West Africa. Years of oppression by the American settlers and tribal feuds led to a coup d'etat in 1980 and a war that began in 1989. Fighting didn't officially end until late 2003 when warlord and ex-president Charles Taylor finally fled. More than a decade of war left Liberia without electricity, running water and critical infrastructure. An estimated 200,000 people died during the war due to starvation and unthinkable acts of violence.
Today there is peace in the “Land of Liberty.” The 2005 election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first democratically-elected female president, and nearly 10,000 United Nations peace keepers are helping to retain peace.
But Liberians remain traumatized and restless. More than six years after war destroyed most everything in the country, they fight new wars every day — poverty, sickness, unemployment, life in a country of darkness.
Most Liberians living in Ganta cannot afford a generator like the Kuong brothers have. Instead, they use slim white candles and metal kerosene lanterns reminiscent of pioneer days. Kerosene can be toxic--filling poorly ventilated homes with harmful fumes.
To meet the demand for light, many children here have started traveling kerosene businesses. As the sun sets, they walk through communities on the outskirts of Ganta and sell a snap of kerosene — equivalent to about a can of Coke — for 20 Liberian dollars, or about 30 cents.
Before the war, Liberia had electricity and citizens received bills for the service. But at Ganta’s lone powerhouse, perched upon a green field on the outskirts of town, there is nothing left inside. The machines that rumbled to life and illuminated city streets were destroyed by rebel fighters long ago.
Today, the powerhouse is the residence of Mary Weyea, 37, and her daughter, Musu, 7. Mother and daughter moved into a room of the powerhouse and have lived there as squatters for four years.
Buying kerosene every day adds up. Musu lights a kerosene lantern to do her homework at night.
“I not happy. It too sorrowful. Every day kerosene, every day kerosene. I don't have kerosene money to buy every day,” her mother, Ms. Weyea, said.
A short walk across the green field and down the road from the powerhouse is James Beahn's phone charging booth. The booths are common sights dotting dirty, broken roads across Liberia. Most Liberians cannot afford a generator to charge appliances. Many Liberians drop off their phones at booths like Mr. Beahn's for a few hours of “current.”
Beahn spent five years as a refugee in neighboring Guinea, where he tried to make small money charging phones. The income helped to pay for his school entrance fees, which most schools in Liberia require. Last December, Beahn decided to build his business at home. A $100 generator powers the phones inside his small wooden booth embellished only with two light bulbs fastened on each side like a woman's earrings. He also plays free movies to attract customers.
It costs about $3 a day to pay for gas for the generator. At night, Beahn totes the small machine to his house. If he has fuel left over, he'll turn on the generator at home to study. Otherwise, he, too, lights a lantern.
Beahn struggles to make a way through the darkness that has become a metaphor for so many people here. The journey from desolation to hope — from war to peace — is a long, dark one.
A little more than five years after a war in which Mr. Beahn said he saw someone skinned alive, memories continue to haunt those who survived. He remembers trying to escape one day when someone beside him was hit by a stray bullet and fell to the ground. Beahn kept running. He didn't think he could carry the person and also survive.
“It was too bad,” he said. “I cannot just forget about it. I can still imagine.”
Today, Beahn is content that there is peace in Liberia, and that he can be part of putting Liberia back together.
He dreams that one day light will finally “come all over Liberia.”
Until then, Beahn will do his part to light a dark patch of his community. With every rumble of his generator and steady stream of light from the pair of bulbs on his booth, there is hope.
Samuel Targbe bought a solar panel in Monrovia about five years ago and attached it to the top of his house tucked along Ganta’s main thouroughfare. But rainy conditions made it difficult to get strong light. He finally bought a small generator and now is trying to sell the panel at his money-changing booth where he trades American dollars for Liberian ones.
“You just have to accept it,” he said. “That’s Liberia—without light. We have encountered a 14-year crisis. It takes time for things to come to reality. So we have to live according to the way the country is.”
Christina Holder is a freelance writer who recently returned from Liberia, West Africa, where she spent a year recording post-war stories following Liberia's brutal 14-year civil war. She published her stories in The Washington Times and USA TODAY. Read more stories, listen to audio and see photos on her Web site www.4theloveofliberty.com.
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