Buchanan
Last week I had the opportunity to take a 2-day trip down to Buchanan. We had some folks in from Washington, D.C. to help us evaluate whether we should assist the Government of Liberia in its efforts to decentralize government services and authority and, if so, what might that programming look like. Buchanan is not that far away (3+ hours on a good day) so we drove down in the morning and had a full afternoon of meetings with local government officials. Stuck in meetings all day, I really didn’t have any opportunities to take photographs.
Our last meeting of the day was at Grand Basa Community College. The Assistant Dean invited us to go over to the new campus that they’re building and we, of course said yes. The new campus is located a bit out of town. We hadn’t realized exactly how far out it was. Now, part of the road was rather nice - it passed by a very lovely lake.
But since we had just experienced a pretty good thunder storm, the road conditions were, well . . . typical of Africa.
You can see why Toyota Land Cruisers (the real ones) are the vehicle of choice over here.
Still, we got there and back, and it’s going to be a lovely campus. They’re just going to have to improve the road for students to get there.
That first day we made it to our hotel just in time to check in and run out to get a sunset shot just down the street.
And just after my colleague and I got our shots, a nice young man came over and said, “You shouldn’t be here. You better put your cameras away and get out of here. You want someone to rob you?” I thanked him and headed back to the hotel. My colleague asked me if what he said was true, and I replied that this week’s mission management notes mentioned a crime wave in Buchanan, so yes, I believed the guy. So we retired to the hotel for a discussion of politics over dinner.
The next morning was quite beautiful and I got a couple of shots of downtown Buchanan. The oldest part of town has paved streets and solidly built buildings. And Church Street is Church Street - we counted 9 churches in a 4 block stretch. In this shot you can see the one to the right, but the building off to my left was also a church.
On the second day we met a wider variety of people. In addition to local government folks, we met with a local women’s CSO (civil society organization - the term used overseas for NGOs) as well as with the County’s Council of Governors. To meet them, we had to drive into a residential neighborhood.
Liberia has a complex system of leaders and persons of authority. You have the formal government system, which includes national-level government (the President, Legislature, Courts, Ministries), and County-Level Government (Superintendents, etc.), further broken down into Districts (with not much real authority at that level - some folks who report to the Superintendent of the County). However, there’s also a customary or traditional governing system. Liberia has 16 recognized Clans (the term Tribes is not preferred, although there is the Tribal Council . . .). Clans have paramount chiefs and chiefs, and their authority is geographic based largely on the area the clan has historically controlled. Then you have the Governors. Each County has a Council of Governors. The Council of Governors has a member from each of the national clans that resides in that County. At first I didn’t understand why you would have both systems (chiefs and governors) in place, but I found out that the Governors act largely in a peacekeeping role. Let’s say I am a Lofan (from the Lofa Clan) originally from Voinjama in Lofa County (see my previous post), and I move to Buchanan. Now, my Chief and Paramount Chief will be Basan (thus Grand Basa County). If I get in a dispute with my neighbor, likely to also be a Basan, I may not trust the Chief to give me a fair shake in resolving the dispute. In which case, I’d take my complaint to the Council of Governors, namely the Lofan Governor, who takes it to the Basan Governor and the Council for the group to decide. As one of my colleagues said, if you move to a new area, the first thing you do is notify your Governor that you’re there so you know her/him and they know you. Makes sense to me.
Well, after our meeting with the Governors, we headed back through town on our way out. Like most towns (Buchanan is one of the 10 biggest “cities” in Liberia, but it’s a town) in Liberia, it has a main commercial street, so I grabbed a shot.
Of course there’s the ubiquitous motor bike carrying a passenger, someone hawking goods from a wheelbarrow and the tin roofs that look like they’re about to collapse.
Buchanan is a coastal city that is largely surrounded by swamps and we passed one on the way out.
Liberia has started a major project to pave the road between Firestone (by the main airport) and Buchanan. A lot of work has been done on it, but much was left to do. I somehow suspect that the rains we had on the way there and back weren’t helping the conditions of the road much. I think this portion of the road will need to be re-graded.
Traveling in Liberia is interesting. It’s always great to get out of town. But, even if it’s the very next day, it’s really great to get back home. Things don’t seem quite as bad in Monrovia after a trip in the field.