Preparing for Liberia

As the start of my internship draws near, I’ve been reading more and more about Liberia. I’m pretty sure that it will impact me more than any other place I’ve ever been, and probably any other place I’ll ever go. A few Harvard professors from the Kennedy School visited last winter, and even they said they’d never seen anything like it. These are people who have spent a career studying development.

Liberia is, literally, one of the poorest countries on the planet - next to Malawi, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Burundi (according to Wolfram Alpha). It’s GDP jumped from $150 per capita in 2007 to $300 per capita in 2008 to almost $500 today. 85% of the population is unemployed. There are no markets, our professors reported; the only thing people buy is matches, salt, and kerosene. They quite literally live off the land.

There are the difficult to fathom infrastructure facts. No electricity. Next to no running water. Only 500 miles of paved road in the country. But it’s not just the lack of economic development that makes Liberia different from anywhere else I’ve ever known. This is a country with some serious scars.

I remember being in Cambodia several years ago and thinking to myself “everyone I see over 30 years old most likely has a horrible story to tell.” In Liberia, it will be every adult, every teenager. During the fifteen-year civil war, an estimated three out of every four women were raped. One of every three Liberians forced to flee their homes. One of every 17, killed. Perhaps saddest of all, tens of thousands of former child soldiers, some having been as young as seven or eight, who were given guns and drugged up, who raped and pillaged their way across the country, wielding guns as tall as they were.

It is upon this economic and psychological destruction that Liberia rebuilds. As much as I’d like to believe I’ll have some small positive impact on Liberia this summer, I have no doubt it will leave a much more profound mark on me.