Veronica's story

Veronica’s father was a general in the Doe government – the one that was deposed by Charles Taylor in the early 1990s. Her family lived in the capitol city, Monrovia, but Veronica was sent to an uncle who lived in the interior because “he had no girl children” and had always had a special fondness for Veronica. The African sense of family is very fluid and inclusive, so it is not uncommon for children to be sent to live with relatives for all kinds of reasons. Most often these decisions are related to economic opportunity, but it’s not uncommon for unruly children to be sent to live with a particularly strict aunt in order to straighten up. In any event, it did not seem unusual to Veronica to live with this uncle and aunt and she enjoyed a good life in the village being doted on by a loving man who she described as more of a father to her than her own. When the war came to her village, Veronica was out fetching water with other kids from the village. As she returned from the well, she saw that rebel soldiers had already entered her house and were violently beating her beloved uncle demanding to know the whereabouts of his whole family. Her aunt was screaming, terrified. The next thing she saw was rebel soldier put the butt of a pistol in her aunt’s mouth and shoot. Veronica told me that seeing this made her 8 year old mind “go crazy.” She said she wanted to scream out but fortunately a woman, who had also been watching the scene, came up from behind her and put her hand over Veronica’s mouth.

With these brutal images in her mind and not knowing what happened to her uncle or her family back in Monrovia, Veronica fled to the bush. The next morning she returned to find that her worst fears had been realized and her uncle had been killed – a slit to the throat. She had no remaining relatives in the village, but a local woman took Veronica along with her as they fled overland to Cote D’Ivoire. Due to this one day, a woman of no previously relation to her, become Veronica’s mother for the next 5 years. In Cote D’Ivoire, Veronica went to school and learned French and tried to lead a normal life. But her past haunted her enough that she changed her name in efforts to protect herself. After several years, the woman died leaving Veronica once again alone. Shortly after this, a man with a very small child approached her calling her by her childhood name. She was amazed to see, Peter, a boy she played with in her uncle’s village, all grown up and with a child of his own. Their courtship was brief and partly based on his need to find a mother for his child and her need for some kind of family, but there was genuine affection for one another and the comfort of common roots. She took in the little boy as though he were her own and in fact, to this day little Mathew believes that Veronica is his birthmother.

However, as is the unfortunate case for so many Liberian refugees, soon enough Veronica’s host country, Cote D’Ivoire, became embroiled with a civil crisis of its own and Veronica again was forced to adapt to a new country and a new refugee camp, this time in Ghana. She was also beginning to fear that too many people were discovering her true origins and felt the need again to flee so that those who had once threatened to kill her entire family would not accomplish that goal. So, she left her Ivorian refugee camp, not for asylum in a wealthy country or for repatriation to a now stable Liberia, but for yet another camp. Despite continued rootlessness in Ghana, a sense of normalcy once again returned. She began to volunteer working with children and Peter started a small business selling pictures. They had a baby of their own. Then one day a woman who nobody seemed to know came seeking Veronica, calling her by her childhood name. She was with a small girl and seemed exhausted and irritated. She informed Veronica that Ellen was her sister’s child and she could no longer care for her, because Ellen’s family name was threatening to put her life in danger. Veronica did not know whether to believe this claim, and the woman offered no proof other than the girl’s mother’s name, which was the same as Veronica’s sister’s. But the thought of a piece of her family returning excited her. She has not heard whether any of her sibling or her parents have survived the war, but holds on to hope. Because of this, she agreed to let the girl stay the night and discuss the issue further in the morning. The next day the woman was gone. So that is how Ellen has come to live with Veronica and Peter. She is a sweet girl with an easy smile and eager to please. Veronica is not sure if she is her niece, but that doesn’t seem important. She is caring now for a lost little girl just like the woman from the village once cared for her.

Veronica has lived through more upheaval and abandonment than I would have thought a person capable of coping with. But I do not know her as a broken woman. I know her as a woman who is always sharply dressed; who wears a generous smile; who is often unsure of herself but so quick to laugh and throw her arm around you that you can’t help but feel good in her presence. I know her as a woman who everyone goes to for gossip and cookies and dresses up her baby girl like a doll.

It’s impossible to think that almost all the adults on camp have a similarly horrifying story, but sometimes it’s even more unthinkable that they all carry on, loving their kids and taking pleasure in material comforts, that they continue to find laughter so easily and find ways to so generously care for relatives and even strangers. Many women on this camp are caring for war orphans simply because someone has to, and because of that there are few if any orphanages. While the camp is filled with thousands of testaments to the cruelty and thoughtless we are capable of, it is at the same time it is witness to the remarkable resiliency and generosity of the human spirit.

(names have been changed)