In Preparation

I am going to Liberia in less than a week! There's been so much to do to prepare for not only my first trip out of the Continental US, but my first trip back home since I left in May 1990. I was almost 16 when my father packed my sister and I up, one suitcase each, to go for the summer only, until things cooled down in Liberia after the fighting started in December 1989. Nineteen years and one nine-year-old son later, I am finally going to the L.I.B!

It doesn't seem real, but all the vaccinations, the malaria medicine, and searching for a suitable suitcase makes it more real the closer I get to my date of departure. I spent my last day, today, with my son (it is his ninth birthday) and plan to sleep anxiously, awaiting my flight.

I am going to Liberia to volunteer for the International Women's Colloquium on Women's Empowerment, Leadership Development, Peace and Security, hosted by Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia) and Tarja Halonen (Finland). My good friend, Maya Padmore, is the event planner and I've worked with her for months getting press releases out, writing for the website, etc etc. Now it is time to be on the ground and help. There couldn't have been a better set of circumstances under which to return home.

Liberia is on a precipice. After 14 years of civil war, the only pictures I see of Liberia show no familiarity to me. I have always planned to return home someday, not just to visit, but also to live. I am nervous about feeling as if my country will welcome me back in the way that I hoped she would. For 19 years, I've dreamed (literally) about Liberia. And as the years passed, my dreams would become more unfamiliar--my mind's eye struggled to recall places I knew well and my subconscious pulled images from a mix of opaqued memory and flighty fantasy. It is time now to put a 'face' to the voice that has been haunting me all these years and I'm more than ready to roll!


Spending my last day with my son on his birthday.