Comments on: Life Can Change - Ann Jones in Liberia http://blog.theirc.org/2008/02/11/life-can-change-ann-jones-in-liberia/ the blog of the international rescue committee Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:28:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: john casserly http://blog.theirc.org/2008/02/11/life-can-change-ann-jones-in-liberia/#comment-2463 john casserly Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:38:38 +0000 http://theirc.wordpress.com/?p=509#comment-2463 dear ann, i just read your article on the crimes against women. thank you for being there and writing about your observations. dear ann, i just read your article on the crimes against women. thank you for being there and writing about your observations.

]]> By: Myrle Horne http://blog.theirc.org/2008/02/11/life-can-change-ann-jones-in-liberia/#comment-2462 Myrle Horne Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:30:29 +0000 http://theirc.wordpress.com/?p=509#comment-2462 For Ann, Thank you for your pictures and the news of Lofa County. Before cell phones and the net it was almost impossible to get news. Now there seems to be so little that I can find, but that's probably because I'm an old lady with no kid in the house to help me with the internet. Your news is terrible and breaks my heart again, but I know it's real. I was posted as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borkeza, Lofa County in 71/72 as a midwife and an accidental barefoot doctor to the newly opened clinic. Upcountry, the Loma people and the other tribal peoples know that hungry time, the time between the swallowing of the last of last year's rice and the new harvest, comes every year. They know that antibiotics for STDs, let alone other infections, is very expensive, "dear past all", if there even is any in the small villages up country. (I wonder what their word for AIDS is? There is just one word for smallpox, measles and chicken pox -- just hearing that word spoken in a village is a death sentence for most of their children.) Upcountry I'm sure medication is still rare and expensive for the terrible malaria of west Africa which dims bright minds and lowers resistance to disease. Then there's hookworm and schistosomiasis. Meningitis, amputations, epilepsy, and I can go on and on. So upcountry village family's have always known untreatable pain and unjust death. And, no, that does not make the pain more bearable nor the death more right. Then came this nightmare war. Borkeza is on an invasion route. It is hard to believe any Loma were able to escape. So for my friends who lived, and the babies who lived, over the next 20 years until the beginning of that new hell, what heartbreaking news you bring. And still I remember Sandburg: "And the people shall live on..." Perhaps not because they are so "strong" or "brave", but because they -- and you -- and we -- still do live, and still do reach out -- to a baby's cry -- to a friend's need -- to life. Maybe it's doing so that makes us strong and able to tell armed men just to go away. But most people don't travel to war zones or talk to women, and to ordinary people enough to truly know that. Thanks again, Ann. For Ann,

Thank you for your pictures and the news of Lofa County. Before cell phones and the net it was almost impossible to get news. Now there seems to be so little that I can find, but that’s probably because I’m an old lady with no kid in the house to help me with the internet.

Your news is terrible and breaks my heart again, but I know it’s real.

I was posted as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borkeza, Lofa County in 71/72 as a midwife and an accidental barefoot doctor to the newly opened clinic. Upcountry, the Loma people and the other tribal peoples know that hungry time, the time between the swallowing of the last of last year’s rice and the new harvest, comes every year. They know that antibiotics for STDs, let alone other infections, is very expensive, “dear past all”, if there even is any in the small villages up country. (I wonder what their word for AIDS is? There is just one word for smallpox, measles and chicken pox — just hearing that word spoken in a village is a death sentence for most of their children.) Upcountry I’m sure medication is still rare and expensive for the terrible malaria of west Africa which dims bright minds and lowers resistance to disease. Then there’s hookworm and schistosomiasis. Meningitis, amputations, epilepsy, and I can go on and on. So upcountry village family’s have always known
untreatable pain and unjust death. And, no, that does not make the pain more bearable nor the death more right. Then came this nightmare war.

Borkeza is on an invasion route. It is hard to believe any Loma were able to escape. So for my friends who lived, and the babies who lived, over the next 20 years until the beginning of that new hell, what heartbreaking news you bring.

And still I remember Sandburg: “And the people shall live on…” Perhaps not because they are so “strong” or “brave”, but because they — and you — and we — still do live, and still do reach out — to a baby’s cry — to a friend’s need — to life. Maybe it’s doing so that makes us strong and able to tell armed men just to go away.

But most people don’t travel to war zones or talk to women, and to ordinary people enough to truly know that. Thanks again, Ann.

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