Christen Wilcox graduated from my school in 2005. I remember her as a bright fiction writer and poet. She was very quiet. She was studying in the Teacher Education Academy program. I heard back from her from time to time as I made no mystery about the fact that I thought her writing was brilliant and, as it (a short story and a handful of poems) was featured in our then school magazine she, I hope, felt her efforts were validated. She went on to a liberal arts Christian college in Chicago where she was involved in an outreach missions to the city’s homeless population. I remember she was often downcast when recalling the city’s solution: to build a wall to hide them from public view. Christen had a special place in her heart for the people she worked with, and I remember, at times, fearing for her safety. She was more concerned with spending time with them, listening to their stories, to befriend them if possible. I knew Christen was bound for great things by the sensitivity of her writing, but also by the sensitivity of her social consciousness.
While in Chicago she headed an Invisible Children chapter and become engrossed with the phenomenon of child soldiering. After a while she started to feel as if she were talking about something she didn’t know enough about. She visited Africa for the first time through a New Zealand organization called the Global Volunteer Network. She sold what she considered superfluous personal possessions, did some fundraising, bought a plane ticket and arrived in Liberia. She chose Liberia because it seemed like one of the least threatening places in Africa, and there would be less of a language barrier.
Christen spoke candidly about Liberians. “They know every capital of every American state... Their flag is like ours,” she said, “but with one star instead of fifty.” I asked if they are an American colony. “Kind of,” she said. Christen revealed that Liberia, formerly known as The Gold Coast, was formed by the United States. “We took freed slaves to Liberia and put them in charge.”
Today, people who can only be described as indentured servants work at extracting rubber for US Firestone, and gather cocoa beans for US Corporations like Nestle and Hershey. Christen finds it curious that those who were former slaves would build a system nearly identical to the one they escaped. Having interviewed over one hundred Africans, she was shocked that the trauma of growing up as an indentured servant was more horrific for some than living the life of a child soldier. After speaking for a while with Christen, it became clear that the Imperial avarice that spurned Conrad to use expressions like “the germs of empire,” and to expose the atrocities of the Ivory trade in the Belgian Congo, is alive and well in US interests in Liberia.
Christen further educated us on Tuesday in class: the capital of Liberia is Monrovia after US President James Monroe, and Liberians consider themselves American. “They say they’re more American than Hawaiians,” she said, laughing.
“So they love our culture?”
“Yes,” she said, “but the US has admitted to assassinating their presidents, and has offered arms support to all three rebel armies... I almost want them to hate me,” she says, “but they think if they make a friend with a white person that it will change their life.”
One student asked why since we have financial problems in our own country, are we spending money there? “Do they want our help?”
Christen said, “Good question. Some of the newer generations of Africans want US involvement, but in a way they’ve been brainwashed into thinking our presence is a good thing. They don’t understand our culture. They think America is paradise. Liberians don’t understand credit and how we have what we can’t afford.” She related the opinion of an elderly professor named Sweet Africa that she befriended. “He’s old enough to remember how it was before we got really involved. He doesn’t want our help.” Before the government of Liberia was set up the villages were run by tribal communities with different religious beliefs. They don’t really don’t know how to make an imposed central government work the way it’s supposed to. Christen maintained that most Africans believe in spirits and ancestors, not voting on widespread laws and issues.
As far as aide goes, Christen said, “We value resources like rubber, oil and diamonds... sometimes when we aid countries we’re doing it for ourselves.” One of Christen’s friends inherited some land in Liberia, land with gold on it, and he laughingly admitted that he was afraid to claim it. “If white people find out, I’ll be the first to die.”
One student asked what the environment was like in Liberia. Christen explained that the city has restaurants, cars, and that the streets are packed. Apparently cars are much less expensive in Africa, and though there is an emerging middle class, it is still a city of marked disparity between the wealthy and the poor. Tourism is thriving, and there are universities. Taxis are reluctant to travel outside of Monrovia due to the general practice of disarmament. When his “service” is up, a fee of $150 is paid to a soldier for his gun and he’s turned onto the streets. Most soldiers, Christen explained, were exposed to drugs at a young age and are still addicted, so their $150 goes toward cocaine or other drugs (some “blue stuff”... she didn’t know what it was), and when the money runs out, often a desperate person will turn to crime, therefore the areas outside the city can be extremely dangerous.
A few students asked about AIDS and Malaria in Africa. Christen has contracted malaria four times. Students asked what it was like. She said it was an intense fever that induced muscle cramps and delirium. “It’s the number one killer of children in Africa, but treatment only costs four dollars.” In America, the treatment for Malaria costs seven thousand dollars. In Africa, AIDS victims are stigmatized much like they are in the US, but superstition considers them downright bad luck. There are many superstitions surrounding the AIDS phenomenon. Some tribes believe the only way to get rid of it is to have sex with a virgin. Free AIDS tests and condoms are available, yet some Christian groups are against educating people in safe sex because they believe the answer is abstinence. In some African countries it’s against the law to be gay. In Ghana there’s a minimum seven-year prison sentence.
Some students asked how one could go about traveling to Africa on a budget.
Christen explained what “woofing” is. Apparently this is a way to sustain oneself in Africa. WWOOF is an acronym for Willing Workers on Organic Farms. If you agree to work on the farm, apparently you can stay on the land.
“So what did you do over there?”
Christen said, this last time I worked with a psychologist and interviewed child soldiers. Most of the questions were morbid. War is morbid. Stories of people being hacked to pieces, camp lines demarcated with intestines. There’s betrayal, cruelty, and murder. “Don’t you just want to cry?” someone asked. Christen said, “you have to keep yourself under control so your reaction doesn’t make them feel even more guilty.” Christen has interviewed more than 100 child soldiers, and worked closely with a Harvard professor in the psychological rehabilitation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Christen was also responsible for teaching adult literacy. “I spent most of time with African friends, former child soldiers, drumming and hanging out on the beach,” she said.
Christen was animated when describing the process of helping one of her reformed child soldier friends how to write in English. She described the process of tracing letters. After months of one on one tutoring this man was able to write a letter in English to his daughter. “That was awesome,” she said.
Someone asked, “So what’s the war about?”
Christen claimed to feel like a detective trying to piece together printed information (most of which is unreliable, apparently) and stories from the native people. She felt if you asked five different soldiers what they were fighting for, you’d get five different answers. She reinforced that these soldiers are children dressed in costumes, like pink wigs, and crazy Elton John glasses, or naked, often high on drugs like cocaine, who have been told that if they do not kill they will themselves be killed. Her descriptions reminded me of a particularly harrowing passage of Cormac McCarthy’s
Blood Meridian in which the natives (in this case, American Indians) are rushing into battle wearing piecemeal uniforms: “
A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fever dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil...”
I recalled that Ishmael Beah (
Long Way Gone) was kept relatively complacent by a general who promised him revenge for his parents’ death. Christen reinforced the point that African society used to be tribal: very small groups who looked to a chief or village elder for guidance. Their way of life was wrapped up in folklore and storytelling. Once they gained independence (Ghana was the first), they didn’t know how to work within the system of government that was put in place for them. Someone asked whether or not it seemed as if imperial powers were making sure the land was in turmoil making it impossible for organization... organization that might allow Africans to charge more for their resources.
In the past, Liberians would farm what they eat, mostly rice and potato greens. Now the UN imports food and sets the price. Potable water is often imported as well. The cost of food and water is set by the UN. I said this arrangement reminds me a lot of what Daniel Quinn was writing about in
Ishmael. Christen agreed. Most electricity in villages is pirated from lines to the city.
The last question of the day was “Why isn’t there more international attention paid to what’s happening in Africa?”
Christen felt that there was attention being paid to the problem but felt that the celebrity attention and the types of commercials featuring babies with swollen bellies and flies crawling on their eyes makes Africans out to seem weak, desperate, lazy and stupid. “They’re not. They’re more happy than nearly everyone I know in the United States... most Liberians under thirty speak four to five languages.” Christen also felt that part of the problem was that most Americans don’t know what the word imperialism means, much less the fact that Africa has only been independent for fifty years or so.
In all, Christen’s knowledge and wisdom helped create a highly informative and dynamic class period for my seniors reading
Heart of Darkness. Thank you Christen and God bless.
Between being a dad and an English teacher, I have been working with my wife on finding a new home, and I have made up my mind not to slander any persons, places, or school systems in this post. 
