Education

In U.S., Expat Liberians Reunite to Rebuild

By Rebecca Harshbarger

WeNews correspondent

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Liberian women in the U.S. who were once scattered by war are challenging each other to go back and visit the war-torn country. For one woman, that led to reunions with former classmates and fundraising for the girls' school they left behind.

Liberian women gathered in Philadelphia in August to celebrate their community. PHILADELPHIA (WOMENSENEWS)--When Jasoe Sharpe attended a girls' Catholic school in Liberia's capital city Monrovia during the 1980s, stray bullets and fighting would often shut down class.

She left the country in 1996 in what she calls the "heat of war," doubting she would ever have any reason to return.

Now the 34-year-old mother of two teaches first grade in Atlanta. Her life has moved on, but at the same time it seems to be circling back.

Because of the persistent problems facing Liberia--a country where maternal mortality has risen in recent years--many Liberian women in the United States are encouraging each other to take a trip back home and see their former homes firsthand, even when it means painfully reopening the past.

Sharpe decided to face her memories in 2008, when she spent a month there.

"I was scared the entire trip," she told Women's eNews. "When the plane landed--oh my goodness! I went walking and I was in tears, remembering 12 years ago…that this used to be me. Kids are still selling food at the market and walking barefoot."

That same year, 17 of Sharpe's classmates from Monrovia's St. Theresa's Convent tracked each other down through the Liberian embassy in the United States. That led to a reunion in August 2009 outside Washington, D.C., and another one last month, in what the group hopes will be an annual tradition.

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