Fears and cheers

I quickly realized that there's very little anonymity here. I don't blend in so well among Liberians. However I've never felt that I really stick out either, probably because people don't react to my presence in a major way. They notice I look different, but I'm not the first white person they've seen, and they have more important things to think about.

So yesterday I was jarred a bit when I walked outside of my office and waved back at a small child who promptly started to cry. I smiled at her, and she just wailed harder, and reached for her father. I ran back inside and tried to tell myself that just because I made a child cry it did not mean I have no maternal instincts or abilities.

Driving home from work I asked our driver Alfred for his take. He told me that he had been in a similar situation when he went to visit a friend of his and brought one of my colleagues along with him. His friend's son started crying immediately upon seeing my white colleague and couldn't be consoled. Alfred's explanation: "Sometimes, Alexis, children are afraid of your color." Bill's suggestion was that Liberian children who played with dolls growing up aren't as afraid of white people, because the dolls are often white.

This morning I had another experience of standing out, but this one worked to my benefit. I was jogging up a hill, away from a crowded outdoor marketplace called Waterside. The street and sidewalk were clogged with people moving in the opposite direction, and some people were sitting outside of their storefronts or on walls alongside. When people began taking notice of this pale jogger weaving up the hill, they started yelling "helloooooo" and as more and more people saw me, more and more started chanting. It was pretty energizing. And funny that something that would have been extremely annoying or creepy back home was somehow very welcoming here.