Working for USAID foreign service, I was assigned to Liberia in 1972. We were designing health programs, and I worked on getting the John F. Kennedy Hospital launched.
I was there during construction, and I was there when it was dedicated. We were also building a lot of roads. There s probably not an inch of Liberia that I have not traveled in.
During that time, the person that I worked with most closely is now the president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, then deputy finance minister. From that point on, we have remained friends. It was not always easy to work with Ellen.
She was a tough negotiator, but she was also very knowledgeable. She educated me about Liberia. We were na ve Americans coming to Liberia, not understanding the culture.
Ellen was a strong defender of her culture. She was an excellent mentor. She was able to walk the line between the donors and the government and look out for her own country s national interest, and that was not always an easy task.
I am very pleased that she will be honored this year. We are planning a wonderful tribute. The First Lady of the United States is going to be there, and the director general of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
This is an honor that is richly deserved. All of the skills she learned throughout her career, she needs now. She has a hard job.
Liberia is not an easy country to manage. But she has paid her dues. She has been to jail, she has spoken out in times when it was difficult to speak out, and it s great to see that now that she s at the helm.
We expect her to take Liberia to a different level. Having lived and worked there through the years since 1972, I know the challenges she faces, and I know she can do a great job. Ho can people in this country support what Africare is doing in Liberia?
We re working to help refurbish clinics throughout the country, and we re helping the government get medicines and medical personnel to those clinics. The clinics feed patients into the hospitals JFK in Monrovia and Phoebe Hospital in Bong County, where they can get treatment they can t find in the clinics.
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