Christmas Fair

Pretty much every community in the US has some type of Christmas or Holiday Fair.  You know, that place where different craftsmen get together between Thanksgiving and Christmas to sell stuff to people, who give the stuff to other people.  Heck, Eugene has two of them, side by side.  One is full of frilly Christmas-themed stuff, the other is more oriented towards crafted wares, usually not Christmas oriented (but not entirely), and populated by the hippie crowd.  Most people I know in the Eugene area go to either one, or the other - it’s a mighty strange soul who enjoys both.  Ann and I usually go to neither - it all smacks too much of consumerism - but let’s just say I’ve got friends who sell things on the hippie side of the convention center.  I digress.

As I’ve mentioned before, embassies form a sort of community.  So like communities all across the US, embassy communities have their own Christmas fairs to bring in local artists for us to satisfy our Christmas shopping urges (as if Amazon.com isn’t bad enough!).  Yesterday Embassy Monrovia had ours.

Unlike most holiday fairs, ours was outside.  In this case, the parking lot of the embassy.  They had tents, just in case it rained or had blazing sun, and fortunately we had neither (at least while I was around - the sun peeked out later and folks said it got hot fast!).  The event was publicized in advance, so there were a lot of folks there, not just embassy folks and not just Americans.  It was good to see a lot of the people we usually see in business attire walking around in shorts instead (I was not one of them, you don’t want to look at my legs).

I’m tossing in a bunch of photographs because this is about the only opportunity I have to take pictures around this area so I thought you might also appreciate the greater setting as well.  Off to the left is the wall surrounding the NEC or New Embassy Compound.  There is yet another wall around this parking area, and you can see some metal fencing through the tent canopy - it’s all in the name of Post-911 security.

Anyway, there were lots of goods to be seen, though a lot of it is imported, generally from Guinea and Mali.  Still, a lot was from Liberia and, importantly, made by groups USAID and the US Government have supported (primarily women and youth groups) to help them recover from the war.

Stuff ranged in size from the pocketable to the giant Malian doors you can see off to the left leaning against the compound walls.

As you can see, there was lots of wood work, paintings, clothing and jewelry.  

The building on the upper right is the Embassy.

I guess having an outdoor Christmas fair and folks in shorts isn’t so unusual in the US; I’m sure Florida, California and other areas are still warm enough for people to want to be outside.  But this is tropical Africa and with any kind of festivity, you get drumming.

And with drumming, you get dancing and singing.

It’s like with the CODEL I wrote about, not many major events happen in Liberia without the dancers being around.

I look at this picture and wonder what the girl drinking the soda is thinking . . . .

And as with all festive occasions, there’s the beer tent.

Well, in this instance, the beer canopies.  This is my friend Joe shlepping not one, but two backpacks, which is what you do when you have 4 boys (one in diapers) you need to keep entertained for an entire day.  He’s laughing because he just confirmed that they were only selling beers - 5 at a time!  Which will lead to a story I’ll write about later . . . .

If you look to the upper right corner, you see the famous Bat Trees!  The small 2 to the very right are the ones they first start populating, but as the bat . . . whatever you call a tribe of bats . . . population grows, they’ll occupy the two taller trees adjacent to the left .

And if you look at that building by the radio tower, just left of center, you’ll notice that it’s empty.  There’s a lot of those - partially constructed or damaged buildings from the war that are still unused and unoccupied throughout the country.  Mamba Point is the high ground around Monrovia, and that building was the most prominent feature on Mamba Point, which means it was the target for a lot of mortar rounds.  During the conflicts, the US Embassy area was a refugee camp.  At one point the camp had a population of over 200,000 (with only one well as a water source).  And it was an easy target.  As one Liberian colleague who was in the camp for a period of time told me, they would aim the first round at the building, tweak things to the left for the second round, and by the third and fourth rounds they were hitting inside the camp.  It’s strange to be in an environment where, you’re thinking of Christmas presents for folks, you’re having a good time with friends, and you look up to have a symbol of the harsh recent history confront you.

After awhile the drummers and dancers came back for Act 2.

It really was fun listening to them and watching them dance.

They seemed to enjoy what they were doing and they would interact with folks in the audience.

I’m sure all the dances had stories, and this one involved scooping water and drinking it, but I have no clue what it was all about.

Just as the dance stories were a reminder that the music and dances were part of a vibrant culture, I noticed signs of a side of Liberian culture that doesn’t get a lot of exposure.  If you notice on the base of the back of the girl to the right, there she has pattern scarring - several rows of downward pointing chevrons, or if looked at differently, small palm plants.

Liberia is a land full of different societies along a broad spectrum of types.  In addition to clan affiliations, communities in the rural areas have secret societies for men (Poro) and women (Sande).  Much is unknown publicly about these societies, but they are influential and some people (such as President Sirleaf) have insisted that some of their practices must stop for human rights reasons.  Another very influential, yet mysterious power base in the country are the Masons.  And there are others.  As one colleague brought up yesterday, “This is a society where nobody tells you everything.” It’s also a society where it’s hard to tell who is really influencing what actions.

Still, despite the occasional wondering about the history, present and future of Liberia, it was easy to fall back into enjoying the festivities.

Overall, it was a very energetic and engaging way to go Christmas shopping!