The Road to Porlumba Poma

Forest Products Start
Where the Pavement Runs Out

Update:

I am praying for the friends I made in Foya. The people of Foya are survivors and will find a way, but will they be able to maintain their humanity? They will need more than medical help to recover from the Ebola. Their economy will need to be rebuilt. With the border closed at Guinea trade and commerce will have failed. New finance will be needed. New leadership developed. Skills and trades ret aught. The job was hard in February 2013 but it was progressing after ten years of civil war. Now in the last half of 2014 it has become immensely difficult.



                         Charcoal Buying Station                                           Rubber Buying Station

 

The road comes to a fork. To the right it turns to Namibia Mountains iron fields. A new rail line is being laid to run the iron ore back down the mountain to the port at Buchanan. To the left a red clay road leads to the Lofa Mountains and the oil palm plantations. Oil palm is the world’s leading vegetable oil and biodiesel with huge industry production in Malaysia and Indonesia with China and India the principle consumers. Liberia could be an exporter of oil palm, but is unable to produce enough for its own consumption. This raises the question of are we doing anything harmful by encouraging oil palm production? Is this bad for the environment?

An estimated 31% of Liberia is covered by forest, its use largely confined to production of lumber for local needs. Liberia's forests encompass 4.7 million hectors, an area twice the size of Vermont, and include the last remaining closed-canopy tropical rainforest in the Upper Guinea Forests of West Africa. National forests constitute about 18% of the land area. In 2000, Liberia had 119,000 ha (294,000 acres) of forest plantations. There were five major reforestation areas with a total of 4,260 ha (10,500 acres).

As stated the SHOPS program is trying to restore the current 64, 000 hectors Liberian oil palm plantations. This is only one percent compared to the 18 percent the national forest represent. The remaining is substantial and merits the attention of the Liberian government.

Lumber and Oil Palm Latex 

Lumber for local construction                        - Processed Oil Palm latex stored and Tran-
and export                                              ported in five gallon jugs

The interior of Liberia is remote separated by streams, jungle and rugged mountains. The plantation development has stayed near the coast with shorter lines of communication and greater rainfall for the rubber and coca. The interior has the forest and cattle. Oil palm plantations supported with processing factories was originally established before the civil war. Today if the small oil palm holders can reestablish these old and dying trees with new producing palms a middle class economy can be formed giving these returning refugees encouragement and a reason for living peacefully together.

 

Lofa River and the Mountains

            Bridge 1958                                   -                   Mountains a series of ranges

The red clay road is potholed in Bong County and stony in Lofa County. Some of the pot holes are enormous. Fortunately it was the dry season as one pothole completely engulfed the little pickup with its hood running below the road surface before while it crawled out in four wheel drive to the other side. Then comes the stones which tore up the truck tires skidding across the hill sides of Lofa Mountains.

Making way along the road

         The larger trucks sped down the road like a       -     The fleeter motor cycles where harder to see 

                                charging rhinoceros                                                       in the dust

 

The trip could not be made in a day, not at prudent speed. Every straight stretch was speed down, every slow moving cab or cargo truck was passed with a wild abandon. The beat of the gossip music was intoxicating. The dust was flying with every bump. The onward coming trucks loom on the narrow roadway. While more massive they would be challenged by the fleeter little pickup truck. As if playing chicken with a challenging rhinoceros we would pass one more vehicle before pulling back over to let the rhino slip by.  Slow is not a driving method in Liberia.

                                                             Foya or is it Carson City 

Broad Street was the Meeting place - Saturday was the weekly Market Day

Broad Street in Foya is dusty. Bikers hang out on the nearby street side coffee shops. There is mostly waiting by the customers at the shops. Talking is the product exchanged but little actual buying. On market day everyone comes to town. Goats, chicken, teas and spices are exchanged. The rock boulders strewn about the town makes it feel like you are in Carson City.

 

                         Mount Kunako and Walled Guesthouse

                                If you really want to get away from it all this surely was the place

The landscape starts to change at Foya. An hour before in the Lofa county capital of Voinjama the area is still mountainous, but in Foya the hills are more promenades surrounded by rolling clay hills and lowland swamps. The savanna starts to make its inroads west of Foya. Water is scarce here making the irrigation demonstration more important. The Jef Guesthouse well is a critical service. The water from the well is used for households here and is chained down 18-20 hours a day. Each guest must get his/her water by bucket of water for the day. The water is used to take a bird bath in the shower stall and used to flush the toilet. The rebels during the civil war ripped all of the fixtures out of the walls leaving only the shower stalls with empty pipes on the wall and drains in the floor and nothing else. There is a laundry service. For a bar of soap a small stack of clothe are hand washed and air dried. I wait, but in only a couple of days of working in the African heat my clothes are stiff from sweat they can stand in the corner of the room as if I have a neighboring quest peeking in for a visit. There is electric power, but only from dark to midnight. An enterprising blacksmith has hooked up his generator to wires run up and down Broad Street and the two other avenues selling his unneeded power to the businesses during the off hours for his business.

 

Sunday a Day of Rest and Rejuvenation

             Lutheran Church Dialect Choir                      -                 Foya settling in for the evening

 

Church life and family life are important part of the rural culture. The missionaries of past made great adjustments to the African’s beliefs, but much of the old way of life remains unchanged. The African adaption of Christianity is found in the rewording songs, bible stories and even incorporation of tradition dance. Retaining their cultural heritage and way of life is interwoven into every aspect of daily life. In Foya the Kissi Dialect is still spoken and taught in school. The Kissi have their own alphabet in order to describe the languages’ unique sounds. In church when the youth choir entered they precede while singing their praise to the beat of the drum in a gated step that is a cross between a walk and a shuffle. The Dialect Choir song tells a story. On the second Sunday I was given the translation of the lyrics to one Dialect song. It was the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt. It included the statement they would never return to the plantation. The choirs are run by strong willed directors that have great pride in managing the service. The bible school instructor greets every late quest with admonishment of when the study started, what they missed and instruction to come on time. Offerings are made for bible school ad two after the sermon. One for the church and one for mission support. The crumpled Liberian bills are counted by the treasure and a report is given before the service is concluded. There is ceremony in every aspect and an evangelistic style throughout.

Family life was less observed by myself, but not unnoticed. The workday started only after family business is complete. That meant meeting at the farm at 9:00 to discuss the days plan and then travel to the work site after many stops to pick workers and relatives up to start possibly at 9:30. The late star can be attributed to the time it takes to prepare meals and prepare uniformed children for school. Everything is done by hand. Meals cooked over open flame. Cleaning the house, the cooking wear and other things by hand just takes more time; and the family comes first.

These two central aspects of faith centered in church life and the high esteem the family is to the African resonance throughout rural Lofa. This retention and adaption into their culture gives the Kissi people the strong resilience that has enable them to persevere through their 14 years refugee status and the desire to improve today. Today children are happy with full stomachs and everyone is striving to improve their lives.

Group for Unity Development

                  Farm Association Members Discuss Plan

Group for Unity Development (GUD) is our local sponsor. It is composed of family members, church and business associates from Foya, the village of Porlumba Poma and a third village near the nursery site. The nursery landowner is a minister who donated the land. The principle leader managing the nursery and the work crews is a medical technician from Foya originally from Porlumba Poma. He works at a local clinic only on stipend. Of the eight clinic employees only two are on salary. This makes the business success of the nursery important to him. The current high labor cost of watering the oil palm seedlings is an excessive $70 per month. The villagers of Porlumba Poma are close relatives who provide the daily labor. Other members of the GDU belong to the association with hope of starting their own nursery.

Rebuilding the oil palm industry has been done in stages. First the hand operated oil palm kernel processor was introduced solved the problem of the destroyed processing plants. The processor help create local market for the palm oil. Now establishment of local nurseries to address the concern to replace the dying trees with new seedlings is the next critical. Since it costs $70 a month to carry water from a well to just 2,100 business-model needs to produce 5,000 to break even solving the water problem is why the demonstration was requested.

Traveled to 
Six of Forty Prospective Nurseries

Upland Rice planted on hillsides after trees           -        Old Oil Palm Logs used for bridge on trail

cleared – growing food is driving the clearing

The road from Foya to Guinea and Sierra Lone becomes a trail. This international highway brings in most of the commodities that sustain Foya. The flour baked daily for the morning bread comes from Guinea. The milling is noticeably crude with at least one sand grain found each morning in your bread. The coffee is uniquely French with thick cream poured from a can over American style coffee grounds. Instead of butter mayonnaise is spread thick over the bread. We leave Foya on the road to Guinea to inspect a nursery in the village Sorlumba close to the border.
 

Visas only for Liberia stop here

 The Makona River - Liberian egress point to Guinea.     Note the female Porter, One bag at a time.

The commodities destined for Foya come from Guinea. These must cross the Makona River. There is no bridge  to carry the commodities. Instead porters carry each box, or bag from the canoes up the hill to waiting trucks for the trek back to town.

Makona River 

                     Cargo is carried by Guinea Porters is then loaded into Liberian canoes

                        which is then reloaded into four wheel drive pickups for transport

The method of travel even at a international border has not changed in eons. Note when I asked was informed the crocodiles are found further down river. Footnote update: Today due to the Ebola crisis the international border is even more critical to commerce. With closed borders the food stuffs, medicines and repair parts cannot be supplied. At the same time exports of cattle, lumber and  other exports are denied. This lost of income will undermine the political stability gained in the past ten years.

 

Porlumba Poma  -  Group for Unity Develompent 

Children are happy when Fed

Five families live in the Village of Porlumba Poma. Dave myself knelling in center with Robert the sponsor behind me and David the local Carpenter wearing the cap and white shirt is standing next to him.  

Footnote: this photo was taken February, 2013. Today, August 2014 there is limited word from the members of these families and while are still healthy Robert says the situation is critical.

 Between the Ebola disease, economic turmoil, and political unrest there is cause for concern. How much of the progress made from the irrigation demonstration will be undone is unclear. Very possibly everything could be erased back to ten years ago at the end of the last civil war. It does not mean the efforts have been in vain. ‘
It would have been worst both morally and for the economy if nothing had been done.’ This region has an economic advantage to produce Palm Oil both for local consumption and as a significant export impacting the national GDP. As this region rebuilds it is hoped that agriculture is not over looked as the people’s health and civil needs are redeveloped.