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A review by sjgrodsky
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore
5.0
A story of resilience and persistence and love. The author was just five when she, her father, her grandmother, and two sisters fled Monrovia during the first Liberian civil war. The family makes it to the remote village of Lai, hiking on highways lined with bodies. “Why are those people lying on the ground?” asked the author. “They are sleeping,” answers her father, sparing his daughter the grim truth. It’s not clear if the author understood the reality then or twigged to it later.
The family (minus grandmother) refugees to Sierra Leone, then to Texas. Fast forward to the 2010s and the author is a student in New York City, adjusting to a society in which “everything’s about race.” There is a somewhat funny section in which the author, following her therapist’s advice to start dating again, scans Tinder. I am way past the age of dating apps, so it took me a while to figure out what the one-word sentences (“Left,” “Left,” “Right”) meant.
There is a confusing final section in which the point of view shifts without warning. Suddenly it’s not Wayetu who is speaking but her mother (“Mam”) who, like her daughter, is a student in New York. But it’s the early 1990s and Mam has left her husband and children (Wayetu and her sisters) in Liberia. When the Liberian Civil War breaks out she journeys back to Sierra Leone, makes her way to a town bordering Liberia, and hires a Liberian rebel soldier (“Satta”) to guide her family on the perilous (but successful) journey from Liberia to Sierra Leone.
These last chapters form the most interesting and suspenseful part of the book. Satta’s motivation for undertaking these rescues is unclear. Yes, it’s partly money. But Jallah, who connects Mam to Satta, has a sort of explanation: “Most fighters, they will do bad things, but not all of them are bad... if you pay her enough money, she will go and get your family for you.”
The author does not give much information on the first or second Liberian civil wars. She does include a half-sentence reference to a conference in Berlin.
So here is as much as I have been able to work out via reading in Wikipedia. The Berlin conference of 1884-5 was the conference of 14 European countries and the US, convened by Bismarck, the chancellor of Prussia. The conferees divided up the continent of Africa, deciding who would have colonies where. Not a single African attended. Belgium, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy were the big winners.
This utter ignorance led to countries composed of hostile tribes, while friendly tribes were separated. Hostile tribes were subjected to colonial rule. With independence came civil wars. People thought of themselves as members of a tribe, not citizens of a country. Bloody wars ensued as tribes reworked the balance of power.
The family (minus grandmother) refugees to Sierra Leone, then to Texas. Fast forward to the 2010s and the author is a student in New York City, adjusting to a society in which “everything’s about race.” There is a somewhat funny section in which the author, following her therapist’s advice to start dating again, scans Tinder. I am way past the age of dating apps, so it took me a while to figure out what the one-word sentences (“Left,” “Left,” “Right”) meant.
There is a confusing final section in which the point of view shifts without warning. Suddenly it’s not Wayetu who is speaking but her mother (“Mam”) who, like her daughter, is a student in New York. But it’s the early 1990s and Mam has left her husband and children (Wayetu and her sisters) in Liberia. When the Liberian Civil War breaks out she journeys back to Sierra Leone, makes her way to a town bordering Liberia, and hires a Liberian rebel soldier (“Satta”) to guide her family on the perilous (but successful) journey from Liberia to Sierra Leone.
These last chapters form the most interesting and suspenseful part of the book. Satta’s motivation for undertaking these rescues is unclear. Yes, it’s partly money. But Jallah, who connects Mam to Satta, has a sort of explanation: “Most fighters, they will do bad things, but not all of them are bad... if you pay her enough money, she will go and get your family for you.”
The author does not give much information on the first or second Liberian civil wars. She does include a half-sentence reference to a conference in Berlin.
So here is as much as I have been able to work out via reading in Wikipedia. The Berlin conference of 1884-5 was the conference of 14 European countries and the US, convened by Bismarck, the chancellor of Prussia. The conferees divided up the continent of Africa, deciding who would have colonies where. Not a single African attended. Belgium, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy were the big winners.
This utter ignorance led to countries composed of hostile tribes, while friendly tribes were separated. Hostile tribes were subjected to colonial rule. With independence came civil wars. People thought of themselves as members of a tribe, not citizens of a country. Bloody wars ensued as tribes reworked the balance of power.