Succeeding, Part 6 of 10

This is the sixth part of a profile I wrote of my Liberian friend Jonathan Saah. Apologies for missing posts over the past few days; I had temporarily lost the document containing the profile. I will continue posting one section a day, through Saturday, June 13.

Jonathan, along with more than 7,000 other civilians, fled to Greystone, a compound belonging to the US Embassy. “We had a notion that the US had a protective device over Greystone that would divert rockets into the ocean,” Jonathan said, “but when the first rocket fell, then we realized it wasn’t protected.” Many misconceptions float around about the power of Americans, including the belief that the US Marines guarding the Embassy have superhuman abilities.

On his fourth day in Greystone, Jonathan was sitting just a few feet away from one of his good friends. A rocket flew over the compound wall, and hit his friend, killing him instantly. After that, Jonathan left Greystone and returned to Newport Street. No place was safe, so he might as well stay in his house, not a crowded refugee camp. Jonathan somehow survived here through “World War I, II, and III,” how Liberians refer to the three LURD attempts to capture Monrovia. LURD’s third try was successful, forcing Taylor to leave the country, ending the war, and bringing to power a transitional government.

Throughout the war, Jonathan never fought. He was approached by government soldiers once, but turned down their offer. “They would say ‘Fight! You can loot the house. You can take the UN car. Nothing is going to happen!’” Jonathan said. He resisted these pitches, and now looks upon former soldiers with a mixture of pity, caution, and fear. “People fought to loot cars and businesses, thinking that would make them richer,” Jonathan told me, “but because they were never educated they didn’t know how to maintain the things they looted, so now they are poor again.”

This comment is typical of Jonathan’s mindset; he approaches life from a business perspective and often expresses disbelief toward people who don’t. How this mindset survived the war is beyond my understanding. Survival strategies go against basic business principles in a peaceful society. During the war, Jonathan told me, storing food was difficult. “If you had excess food, you were in serious trouble because everybody would want a part of that food. If a friend knew you had a bag of rice it would finish that day because everyone would come asking you for a cup of rice. Even fighters would come and ask you for food, and if you said no, they would come at night.” The lesson is clear: not only is saving not useful, it is potentially dangerous.

When the war ended, though, Jonathan changed his way of thinking. He got $300 from his adopted mother and used it to purchase two wheelbarrows, the most popular way for Liberian small business owners to transport and showcase their wares. In the wheelbarrows he sold cosmetics. By eating only breakfast he was able to save about US$5 everyday. After a year he had saved close to $1,000. He sold his wheelbarrows and began running an electrical wire from a generator used by a Lebanese-owned restaurant to small booths on the street. The booths were small businesses, used to charge cell phones, for example. Jonathan paid the Lebanese owner $175/month for the electricity, and made $250/month from the booths, leaving a $125 monthly profit. After paying for a daily meal of rice, Jonathan was able to save the bulk of this profit until he had raised $2,000.