Wednesday June 20, 2012
Africa: Day 10
We met the
University of Ghana van in front of the pagoda today to begin our first trip to
the Budumbarum camp. It’s about a thirty
minute drive outside of town, but there is always so much going on in the
streets to keep the travel interesting. The United States has a lot to
learn about drive-through service. Here
you don’t even have to leave the freeway, and you are definitely not limited to
buying burgers and tacos from a window.
Whenever traffic stops (which is pretty constant because of the traffic
and “creative” driving practices here), people come right up to your window
selling peanuts, bags of water, warm bread, apples, grapes, dried plantains,
cell phone minutes, windshield blades, blankets, Scrabble, toilet seats, and toilet paper to name a
few. It’s pretty much like shopping at
Target, only a lot more convenient and much faster service. You sometimes have only seconds to exchange
your money for a warm bag of sweet corn flour donuts before the cars start
moving again.
As I got out of the van, I tried to
get a feel for what life was like for the Liberian refugees here at the
camp. It really didn’t look too much
different from other poor neighborhoods we have seen. They had little stalls selling clothes and
food, chickens and goats roaming the dirt roads, and people moving here and there
performing their daily responsibilities.
Then certain things made me realize
that this was very different from any place we had seen. We entered through a security gate which
wasn’t anything more than a metal pole with a large rock tied to one end that
allowed the pole to swing up when a car needed to go through. There were rows of little cement dwellings
with corrugated aluminum roofs. There
were UNHCR (the UN division that works with refugee populations) signs on
almost every building. There were
posters plastered on these same buildings encouraging people to return to
Liberia, and others telling the residents that they must decide their future
plans by June 30th. There
were also foreboding red Xs painted on various houses and market stalls. Soon I began to not only visually understand
what life in the camp was like, but I started to sense the stress and
uncertainty that constantly weighs on the minds of the refugees. I learn that the Xs were made by local chiefs
who claim that the land really belongs to them, and tell the people living and
working in these huts that they better be out by June 30th or there
might be problems. I find out that on
June 30th, that the tens of thousands of residents will have their
status of refugee revoked. They have
been given a choice to return to Liberia or integrate into Ghana.
This choice is far from
simple. Those that choose to return can
only bring 30 kilos of personal belongings to take with them back to
Liberia. UNHCR has been taking
plane-fuls of people over the past few months.
Many have lived in the camp since 1990 when the conflict in Liberia
began. There are people who have lived
most, if not their entire lives in the camp, and have absolutely no connection
with Liberia. After 22 years being away,
they don’t feel like they belong there anymore.
A Liberian refugee who works with our NGO explained that at least as
of a few years ago, Liberia’s unemployment rate was 85%. Even if people do return, it’s very unlikely
that they will be able to find jobs and support their families there. Many are also concerned for their
safety. This same man explained that his
parents were killed in Liberia during the conflict. His brother returned a few months ago, and
within a month he got news that this brother was also killed. He doesn’t have any idea who or why someone
would have murdered his brother, but he speculates that many of the former
Liberian rebels are afraid of retaliation or would be recognized for what they
did during the war, so they will kill anyone who may be able to tie them to
these atrocities. That may have been
what happened to his brother. For
obvious reasons he doesn’t feel it is safe to take his wife, daughters,
and sons (who he took into his own house after the boys were abandoned)
back to Liberia.
Those that choose to stay in Ghana
do not have a great likelihood of getting a job here either, and the transition
from 22 years of camp life to being out on their own is an overwhelming
prospect for many.
The other complication is that
there are tens of thousands of residents who were not granted ID cards by the
UN that allows them to be registered as an official refugee. One man in this situation explained that he
arrived a few years after the camp was started, and since then he has been told
that his paperwork has never been processed.
The great amount of people just like him are facing even more uncertainty
because they are not able to choose the option of having UNHCR help them fly
back to Liberia, and they don’t know if Ghana will grant them any rights to
stay within that country. In 10 days
they will be stranded.
One of the most interesting conversations
was when we all met with a Ghanaian camp official. When a question about any violence in the
camp came up, our refugee counterpart and this camp official got into a 30 minute argument over an incident
that happened in February. From what I
understand, there was some kind of protest happening in the camp. The Ghanaian police showed up, and somehow a
Ghanaian woman who happened to be in the camp at the time was shot and
killed. The camp official quoted the
official police report that states the woman was not shot by the police. Our NGO counterpart argued back that Liberians in the camp
don’t even have weapons, and that there were more deaths than the one that got
reported. It was clear that there was
much more to this interaction between the Ghanaian official and the Liberian
refugee than the words that were being said.
We sat and listened to the tension that obviously exists between the two
groups come to a head in this little office.
It got very heated, and our friend never quite seemed his happy self for the
rest of the day. It also was a perfect
representation of the high level of stress and anxiety that every member of the
camp is facing right now.
Technically we are supposed to be
helping the NGO run various psychosocial and psychoeducational groups. Our refugee counterpart pointed out, though, that right now it
is hard to get people to want to come meet to talk about domestic violence or
healthy coping skills when they have much more on their minds – like where they
will be living next week, or if they can find enough food to feed their
families tonight.
We walked and rode in the van down
the narrow dirt paths (places where a van really shouldn’t have tried to
drive) throughout the camp. At one point
it started raining, and we took shelter in a small building that serves as a
vocational school that teaches women cooking and beauty skills so they have a
way to make a living. The woman in
charge also kept going back to the stressful time that is happening now, and
the frightening feeling of waking up with a big red X on the outside of your
house.
It will be very interesting to
watch how this plays out, and if we are able to continue to work there once the
refugee status has been taken away from the residents. I don’t see there being any big changes come
July 1st, but there is a possibility of conflicts breaking out
between the residents and those that are threatening to come claim their land
(which is questionable if it is even theirs to begin with).
I also spotted a couple of Mormon
missionaries riding their bikes through the camp. It made me feel good to know
that the amazing people here have the opportunity to find peace through the
gospel when everything else in their lives is in complete chaos.
Tomorrow we are back at the camp to help with a psychosocial group. It will be interesting to see how that goes.
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