Letter To The Dead

Greetings, hello and salutation to all of you who have gone to the great beyond especially the ones who just kicked the black bucket or perhaps followed the narrow road to pick herbs.

For some of you, it was not easy to let you go as we cried, cried and cried, but tears could not bring you back to life thus forcing many to stand or sit in smaller groups to discuss or witness your departure from this world full of memories and pains.

Our reasons of not approving your fast disappearance from our eyes are countless if not plentiful since we are from different backgrounds and have a mixed generation with divided motives in life and let me hasten to inform you that a new group of members of this generation that is popularly known as ‘Zogoes’ and the spelling of their name may not be stable just has their friendship fades away after they find a car for you in dangerous street corners especially at night; so if you see ‘Zoegoes’, I advise that you also pay them the respect they deserve, they are the same.

Some, the plays, deals and activities we were involved with together; but in it all, you left us and we do not know which one of the two roads spoken about by the Holy Bible you followed (Narrow and Wide Ways).

It is our hope that most of you have rested and to those who are just joining you, we did not mean to hurt you, but to timely inform you about happenings behind you since you left us for a while now.

Like Sumo and Gbatai in ‘The Rain and the Night”, a Liberian Novel, may we say we wish you all save journey and that our ancestors will safely cross the rivers with you into that the other parts of the world.

Our only wish and request to you is as you go, please open our way and allow all lucks to befall us.

We need rainfall to grow our crops and do not curse us with bad harvest as we who are alive are perhaps more than you who are dead.

Remember, during your days here on this other side of the world, you did not know that super slim or dry person could be high-blood pressure patient, but fat people; today, that story has changed.

When you guys use to get sick and there was a request by a nurse or Physician Assistant (PA) that, that person needed to take 500ml of drip, family members could say that, that sickness was not an easy one, but that story has now changed back here because if five (5) of them are (administered) hung over a patient at a clinic these days, it means just the beginning of a treatment for that person and therefore it is not a news just as rubber-gun killing a bird is no longer a news.

But I can remember eight years ago I killed a hawk (‘Chicken Rogue’) with a rubber gun and I was hailed by the villagers especially returning to my home town, Gorwaimue, from Monrovia 17 years after I took unto a challenge to pursue secondary education.

Current Issues In The Country

Now, let me lay the latest ‘gees’ (news) in your nose so you can smell them.

We have a new government led by a man once considered by many as non-presidential material and that he was never going to become president of Liberia; today, that story has changed as the name of his political party, depicts (Coalition for Democratic Change).

He is Amb. George Oppong Manneh Saykosay Usman Gbekugbeh Country Giant Weah.

Under his government, he has a program plan for the country that he says will help make life sweet and better for poor people like some of you who did not celebrate your birthdays one day until dust went to dust!

But in this program, most of the people he is hoping on after changing to do the people’s work are mainly working to satisfy themselves and you know, some of them were poor just like you and it is widely said in a Liberian parable done in the Kpelleh language, that you don’t tease a bachelor with granting him a night of offer, imagine how he will not give you a chance.

Today, a single razor blade and matches box are both sold for L$10 each thus making many young boys to befriend Sabu or bushy hair style, Afro, the style some of you once used while you were on this other side of the world, as a way of keeping them still fit in the situation they find themselves.

Even grand children who celebrated the pronouncement of the reduction of tariff on chicken feet are still being joined three to one chicken foot instead of the opposite.

Mosquitos are even ragging hell at night since single parents are using a single mosquito coil for two nights with an aim of just making the mosquitoes drunk by mid-night and cut it off for the next day.

Onion is sliced and kept in plate for inhabitants to just smell it while they eat for the sake of eating onion, one of the reported over two thousand and fifty (2, 050) commodities the ‘Country Giant’ reduced tariff on.

To make matters worse, the Liberian Dollar has lost its value against the United States Dollar; the worst ever in the history of the country and it is seen to go endlessly as long as a bottomless pit since there is nothing to hold back the Liberian Dollar from raising against the United Dollar.

Additionally, before then, bag of rice was affordable by a parent before the coming into being of the administration of former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf that witnessed the disappearance of a whole bag of rice from the Liberian market.

Sadly now under the new government that is today, June 22, 2018 turning five months old has agreed to borrow almost one billion United States Dollars with no clear interest rate or the guarantor of the loan, so that God forbid, if the future generation is unable to pay back the loans can fill in the gap; someone whispered Wologisi Mountain as guarantor but some children of Lofa already said if that happens, white men will disappear in broad day light like the case with the Liberia Agricultural Company (LAC) years back. Eminent Domain Vs ‘This is our Land’.

Glaring hardship which serves as direct opposite of the professed “Pro-Poor Agenda” is now forcing two to three family heads to join and buy a 25Kg (half bag) rice bag just to sustain their respective families as they are unable to individually purchase a half bag of rice.

That is why great ones, we have come here seeking your face and your timely intervention in all of the above-mentioned struggles so that the impending calamities that behold us as we do not know our ways out, but you.

It is said that dried dog is sweet, but what does one eat as he awaits the dog to get dried?

Until we come back to this river where we seek your face for interventions and pieces of advice, we remain obedient.

 

Sincerely yours “Great Ones”,

 

The Children of Your Beloved Country you left here; hear our cries…s

 

About The Author/Columnist

Esau J. Farr is a Liberian born in Central Liberia, Bong County and of Liberia’s most popular ethnic group (Kpelle).

He graduated from the Billie Call Christian Institute (BCCI) where he served as a President of the Student Council Government for about 950 students Academic 2004/2005.

He is a candidate of BPA of the University of Liberia.

Coming from arts background, he served in the classroom as Language Arts Instructor for seven years following his graduation from high school before graduating from the Liberia Broadcasting System School of Journalism (LBSSOJ), formerly, the International School of Journalism (ISJ) in 2009 with great honor.

As a broadcast and print journalist, he has served the United Methodist Radio, Liberia Women Democracy Radio, Red Power, the Corridor Newspaper, Focus Newspaper and now the New Republic Newspaper.

He has also served in the NGO sector providing short term media consultancy to several NGOs and INGOs in Liberia including the Liberia Immunization Platform and Alfalit Liberia International.

Currently, he is the Media Analyst of Liberia’s premier Public Relations Firm, Media Link International, owner of the New Republic Newspaper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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