Not Saint Nicholas

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Who's counting down to Christmas?  

I mean, seriously, what is there not to love about a jolly old guy with a sleigh and eight reindeer?  And with unlimited funds, the guy travels the globe giving presents to all good little boys and girls.  Somehow he manages to do it every year.  Yep, call him a right jolly old elf or Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas.  Whatever you call him, everyone loves him.

But, shhhhh!  We know he isn't real.

I, however, know someone who is the closest thing to a saint that I'll ever meet.  He's the best friend I made while I was in the Peace Corps.  So, if I had a sleigh with eight flying reindeer, I'd go visit Daniel in Liberia as often as I could.  And, if I had unlimited funds like the guy at the North Pole, this friend is the first person on my "nice list" that I'd help.

Now, you may remember that I once blogged about Daniel when I located him after so many years of separation.  But, this guy deserves an update.  I don't remember all the details, but when Daniel fled Liberia during its civil war, he didn't just sit around in the Ivory Coast moaning, "Woe is me!  Woe is me!"  And, to be very honest, I might have done that after the police in that country beat me and robbed me on multiple occasions.  But, that is not Daniel.  He helped aid projects with United Nations who came to support the Liberian refugees in the Ivory Coast.  During that time, many Liberians qualified to immigrate to the United States as refugees.  Daniel could have, and should have, been one of them.  However, resettlement opportunities for refugees were not yet available to Liberians in the location where Daniel had fled.  Before this was possible, the situation in the Ivory Coast became too difficult.  Daniel had to flee back to Liberia for safety and his opportunity to immigrate disappeared.  He returned to the village of his birthplace, Tugbaken, in southeast Liberia.  

Tugbaken remains his home.  And, I can testify that it is so very beautiful.  It's like walking in the pages of a National Geographic.  But, when you sit in the comfort of your living room reading that magazine, you cannot possibly imagine what it is like to live without electricity, running water, air-conditioning, refrigeration, television, internet and the rest of the things that most of us just expect out of life.  There are no shops in the village.  The closest ones require a walk of at least and hour and a half.  In Liberia, the average annual income is around four hundred dollars.  If that is the average, there are a lot of people in rural Liberia living with much less than that average.  They survive on subsistence farming, mostly rice.

Life in Tugbaken, and most of rural Liberia, is as it has been for generations.  It's a hard life.  A few modern conveniences have slipped in since my Peace Corps days.  Fortunately, there is a community well that is sealed and clean.  Everyone in the village, including visiting Americans, can safely drink from that well.  That is life changing!  There are also solar powered lights.  Yep, even in Tugbaken, little solar panels can be spotted on top of thatched-roof dwellings.  When I lived in Liberia, I had a kerosene lamp.  It lulled me to sleep.  When the sun when down at seven, I was soon in bed.  So, yes, I was very well rested in my Peace Corps days.  Solar lighting would have rocked my time in Liberia.

Also in Tugbaken, these days everyone has access to cell phones.  And, there was even one home in the village where everyone could get their batteries charged.  I'm guessing it was solar-generated as well, but I could be wrong about that.  However, it really wasn't easy to get telephone reception so far in the bush.  For the best luck with your call, you had to walk outside the village and up a small hill.  Then, it was possible to call friends in Zwedru, Monrovia and beyond.  Communicatin with Daniel remains difficult in a country without good telephone service and no postal deliveries.  That's right.  It is impossible to send him a letter.  So, it probably comes as no surprise that I've never gotten a phone call from Tugbaken either.  But, we have been able to communicate by way of his daughter's Facebook account.  His daughter lives in Harper, a rural capital city, with Internet access. 

But, times they are a changing.

You may remember that in recent months I finally took the plunge, kicking and screaming, and bought a smart phone.  That's right.  I'm slowly learning about apps, "Hey, Google", and the rest of things that have so addicted most of the rest of the world's population and caused so many auto accidents.  And, one of those apps is WhatsApp.  Low and behold, I can make and receive phone calls from friends all over the world now.   That does not include Tugbaken.  But, when Daniel comes to visit his daughter in Harper, he can use her telephone, Internet service and one very special app.

So, Christmas came early this year when Daniel called me on WhatsApp.  I couldn't have asked for a better present.  I must confess, I've rarely ever heard so much joy in another person's voice upon hearing me on the other end of a phone conversation.  I don't know how often Daniel will visit Harper.  But, I do know one thing that he will do from now on, every visit.  And, I can hardly wait.

I got a little update on Daniel's life that confirms my sainthood theory.  First of all, he's still a teacher and the principal at his local school.  Need I say more?  But, there is more to say.  It is a building constructed by the teachers in the community.  I've never heard of that anywhere else in the world.  It's an entire school taught by saints in my mind.  At one point, the school was supposed to be replaced by a facility built by the government.  However, the contractor took the money and ran.  Ran where?  Nobody knows, but he had the money to finance his run.  And, the villages of Tugbaken and Parken still share a school built by their teachers.

I've already told you about the average income for Liberians.  It's my guess that the three paid teachers at this school make less than the national average.  But, that means a few of the teachers work for free.  Who does that?  Nobody that I know at any school anywhere else.  More reasons for sainthood in my mind.  And, Daniel told me at one point, one of the teachers was sick, the other teachers were missing, and he alone ran the school.  The school has five or six classrooms.  He had to rotate around the school and teach each group of students.  How anyone can do that and maintain their sanity is beyond my comprehension.  When the other teacher recovered and came back to work, Daniel had to take some time off for his own recovery.  Who could blame the guy?

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Daniel also explained that many of the children in the community can no longer afford to go to school.  Education used to be free, but the government now requires that students pay an annual fee of 5000 Liberian dollars.  For many families it is just too much to afford.  I checked a currency converter to find that it equals a little over twenty-five dollars.  So, five cups of coffee could pay the education fees for a child in Liberia for an entire year.  That puts a lot of things into a whole new perspective.

I'm still looking forward to Christmas.  But I don't need any presents.  I seriously wish that I had funds to support my personal friend and nominee for sainthood.  I wish Saint Nicholas could help fix up the school in this village and give Daniel and his teachers a real Christmas surprise.  And, I know there are plenty of children in this community, actually about 500, who would be on Santa's nice list.  I would love to give them some Christmas cheer and pay for their school fees, every year.