Radriffa slept sideways on the bed beneath barred windows, the morning light filling the room to wake him gently. His father, Peter Toby, sat beside him listening to the crackle of a handheld radio, taking in the day"s headlines. It was quiet that morning in Monrovia, and I stood in the corner of Toby"s one-room household processing that awkward feeling that comes when you peer into someone"s intimate moments. As a twenty-five year old grad student from the U.S. I felt more than out of … [Read more...]
A Lesson in Patience and Reverence
“You’re an uncle!” I heard my mom shout through the tiny earpiece of my cellphone. “Yukiko had Emmalyn early this morning.” I had to plug my other ear in order to hear her correctly as I stared out from behind metal bars into a chaotic sea of concrete, tarps, and corrugated steel as a pair of roosters looked right back at me chuckling to themselves. I will always remember the date, August 9th, 2011, when I became an uncle, standing in the printing press room at the New Democrat as a … [Read more...]
Bridging Past and Present
It"s haunting. Echoes of war all around, but life moves at such a blurring speed it would be easy to not notice. Yesterday I crossed a bridge where a photograph was made by Chris Hondros during the war. I instantly knew the place because that image had become an icon of the conflict in Liberia. Later it was a Pulitzer finalist. The photographer, Hondros, was killed in Libya in April documenting the conflict there. The image from the bridge, taken in 2003, of a Liberian militia commander … [Read more...]
The Radio is Coming to You
During our sojourn to the seaside town of Cestos, capital of Rivercess County, we launched the Soundbooth, an audio documentary project modeled on NPR"s StoryCorps. The idea is to have two people very familiar with each other - a mother and a daughter, a teacher and a student, a pair of friends - interview each other on a story or topic relevant to their lives. StoryCorps has been doing this for a while, and has a great archive of American stories, told in conversational, intimate style. We"re … [Read more...]
Local radio is key to Liberians’ stories
We began this week by spending two nights in Cestos, the capital of Rivercess County. One of the aims of the Together Liberia project is to give greater voice to people in communities outside of Monrovia. The print media here in particular seems to concentrate mostly on big-city politics. I have yet to see a single story on life outside of the nation’s capital. It might just be that I am not reading widely enough, but I don’t think so. I am trying to talk to as many journalists as I can, and … [Read more...]
To the media, the answer is “yes”
I continue to be amazed at the uncommon access we get here while working on our stories. Bureaucrats, as well as everyday people, haven’t caught on to what’s become the default answer to the media in America: “No.” Instead, here we ask — and our sources say “yes.” They are happy to have their stories told. Earlier this week, to start off on a set of stories about education, we walked the campus of the local high school in Cestos, south of Monrovia, without escort. And we stumbled on exactly … [Read more...]
Suppression Inna We Nation, It Makes the Poor People Weep
Corruption bringing poverty And poverty putting my sisters on the street... They abuse us many days And misuse us so many ways - Nasseman, 'Bonkey' We were first introduced to Rabbie Nassrallah, aka Nasseman, last Wednesday night, by Sayeed, the manager of our guesthouse. We didn't realize at the time that we were meeting Liberia's premier reggae star, nor just how quickly he would become a significant part of our project. Rabbie has been living in Monrovia his entire life, … [Read more...]
The Paradox That Is Liberia
A teenage boy lives with his family on the third floor of an abandoned office building on Broad Street in Downtown Monrovia, Liberia. Teenaged school children mingle during a break between classes at Cestos High School. The school district in Rivercess County offer one Primary elementary and one high school for the entire county. Often children walk several hours to attend or get a ride on small motorcycles to get them to school. A young girl sells fruit to residents and tourist … [Read more...]
Images From Training
It"s been a great week. We completed our first series of training sessions yesterday. Through lectures and exercises, we guided the students through lessons on story development, interviewing techniques, audio storytelling, writing, photographic storytelling and key principles, such as ethics. Next week, we head out to the countryside to put those lessons into practice as we start producing election-related stories. … [Read more...]
More Politics Over Lunch
William Morris by William Morris, of online casino the Liberty Party, shares his thoughts about the role of a free press in the upcoming elections. We approached Morris and friends at their lunch table. … [Read more...]
Together Liberia on Truth FM, The Leading Lady
Together Liberia on Truth FM, The Leading Lady by Together Liberia Believe in yourself. Don’t be bitter. Don’t be negative. You can do it. From 10:15 to 11 every Friday night from a studio in downtown Monrovia, “The Leading Lady” on Truth FM 96.1 talks Liberians into believing in themselves — and, she hopes, out of their feelings of despair. Matenneh-Rose Dunbar may not be a psychologist, but she sounds like one on the air. All of Liberia is her therapist’s couch. Her … [Read more...]
Class Is In Session!
Our first class of students showed up Wednesday, and they put in a full morning and afternoon of work. We’ll be working with them at our headquarters in Monrovia all of this week; next week we plan to travel out into one of Liberia’s 15 counties to find stories to tell there. The idea is for our training and outing to serve as a template for two more rounds just like this one. We hope to equip our trainees with the skills (as well as some equipment) to continue this kind of work long after we … [Read more...]
More Political Talk Over Lunch
Long before Election Day, politics makes great table talk. This is the second installment from a best online casino political conversation we stumbled upon at the Krystal Oceanside hotel — a take on the media and Liberian politics by Amos Swaray, press and public relations director of the Congress for Democratic Change. … [Read more...]
Media that matters
As the Together Liberia team sets out on this project to empower Liberians to tell stories to their fellow citizens and the world, I"ve been inspired with confidence that media tools have the potential to transform lives and, potentially, the way the country operates. We"ve already seen that Liberians have taken steps to tell their own stories through the media and enable other Liberians to do the same. The Together Liberia team visited the headquarters of the Liberia Media Initiative for … [Read more...]
Day 1: Get hauled off by Liberian police for taking photos
David Trotman-Wilkins, (center/back row), still can smile after being forced by Liberian police to erase two photographs he took of the new U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. Over my career, soldiers and police have confiscated my film and digital images in Cuba, Honduras, Armenia, Malawi and Uganda. But this last time when we arrived here, it was David Trotman-Wilkins who inadvertently broke the law. His transgression? Taking two photos of the currently under construction U.S. Embassy. Here"s what … [Read more...]
