If We Liberians keep living like Crabs, then let’s move into the Water

As I look around me, our various Liberian communities, organizations, churches, social events, government officials, businesses, neighbors, friends, families and education, etc., we are living like CRABS. We know in a box full of live crabs, if one crab tries to get out of a box another one or two will try to pull him down. Let’s compare ourselves and see how close we live to the water or the land.  Let see how we compare to the crabs in the water.

Our communities

The Liberian organizations - lot of Liberian organizations come up with good ideas and unite us to help our people back home.  We host meetings in our homes, halls and so forth.  We elect bodies to govern the groups.  We establish rules to abide by within the groups.  We end the meeting in joyous styles by celebrating the start of something great.  We feel so proud of ourselves for coming up with such a “good thing” to help our people that we can’t wait for the next meeting.  We collect dues and host rallies to help the cause.  Now, what is wrong here, absolutely nothing, this is where the good ends. 

While a handful is working to get things moving in the right directions, or should I say “get out of the box like the crab”, you have the mass out there creating ways to make the leaders look bad by discouraging some of the members.  They will find faults in everything the handful comes up with and go out of their way to bring confusion within the group. For some crazy reason they are normally the majority.  Why, because in Liberia we were trained to believe only the leaders are the respected ones, they are the one who gets the honor and their say is God or so they think. 

Now that we all are train to believe “the leader takes all”, of course everyone wants to be THE leader of the group regardless of if he/she knows how to lead or not.  We never take into consideration we may not have the experience for the job.  George Weah is a good example of this factor.  So we let ourselves believe if I am not at the top then I am not important so therefore I should fight anyone who is until I am at the top.  No account will be calculated correctly as long as the majority is not satisfied with the fact that he/she is not in charge.  They will curse you up and down, talked about your family negatively all day long on the internet and on the phone in stead of coming forth with what is eating them up. They will be the ones not attending meetings or helping to do anything toward the cause. 

Solution:

·         Come to meetings and pay your dues, dues paying members have more power then they realize. 

·         Bring your ideas and solution to the table, don’t just sat there and say nothing and expect people to know you are boiling inside. 

·         Don’t promise anything you cannot deliver and of all, try to be very respectful in presenting your case. 

·         Like I always tell my children, if you are going to talk to me like you don’t have any sense, then I will answer you like I am even less senseless then you or tune you out completely. 

·         Don’t go with an “I am going to cause trouble today” attitude, people will only hear your attitude and not your view point.

·         Keep it friendly, after all these are the same people you will be dancing and drinking with during conventions and meetings.

The Liberian Wedding/social event– Most Liberians invite people to be organizers of their weddings.  For the most part, no one ever says no but as soon as they are not in front of you, you will hear “I don’t have any money to be paying for people wedding”; its not my brother she is getting marry to”; “they collecting all this money for big show, nothing behind it”; “that marriage will not last”; “that ugly girl is the one I should put money on?” I did not tell them to get marry”; “ who wants to do all that work for nothing”; and so on.  During the wedding, they will gossip about the dress, food, drinks, time, hall, make-up on the bride, etc. 

Solution: 

·         Just say no, period.  Make up an excuse if you have to. 

·         Suggest other means for the couple to collect money like having a bake sale, food drive, and car wash, anything to help the couple. 

·         Don’t say yes and do a no-show to meetings or forget to pay your fees. 

·         Remember, someone in your family or close friend will need that couple one day. 

·         The minute you find anything at a wedding you don’t like, LEAVE or keep it to yourself.  Don’t sat there and complain and gossip,

·         If you are not the bride don’t expect people to wait for you, be on time, the person that included you in their wedding consider you a close friend or family so show some respect and be on time and dress appropriately.

·         Do not change your mind at the last minute; the couple is stressful enough, your prompt minds games will make you look small.

·         Help as much as possible; give advice good or bad but don’t get upset if your advice is not taken into consideration, give it and let it go.

·         If it’s not your wedding, I don’t care if you are the parents paying for it, let the couple do as they wish, you had yours let them have theirs the way they like it to be. 

·         If you offer to help with an event, show up, do as much as you can, don’t expect a “thank you” just be there because you wanted to help and let the rest go.  God will thank you in his own way and time.

The Liberian church – We have more Liberian pastors than we have church building, why so many? Is it that we cannot work together as one or is it the money and power factor?  Get over yourself and do God’s work and do it in the way the bible said, it’s not your personal company.

Solution

·         Liberians should demand that small communities’ churches combine for the betterment of our people.  Do we really need 5 - 10 Liberian churches on the west side of Philly?  This is not necessary.

·         Pastors, if you want to gather members, gather yourselves first, show your people that you have what it takes to lead and do God’s work together as one.

·         Remember you are only a messenger, not God.

·         Members don’t go to church to find partners, go because you want the Lord to come into your life and make him your Lord and Savior.

·         Pastors stay away from your members private parts, they are not there to please you; they are there to please God and fellowship.

Liberian Small Business – Most Liberians don’t use their Liberian small businesses for fear that their personal life will be in the public after the business transactions.  “As soon as I am finish, he will tell his wife or sister how much I make”; “everybody will know how bad my credit is”; “my immigration problem will be all over the communities”; “my man, we are all Liberians you want me to pay that much?” “My man do the thing I will pay you later”; “you know how long that man been on this project”; “the man left and he did not finish the job”; “my man all that money I give you, the car is still not working?” “My man don’t you have a child you can add to my income tax form so I can get more money?” and so on. 

Solution

·         Stop wasting your customer’s time and money.

·         If you cannot do the job or do not have the time, just say NO.

·         Do not do a job half way and expect us to understanding because you are a Liberian.

·         Show up and on time, you want people to be able to recommend you to others in the future. 

·         Give more that you are getting back, more will come.

·         You are not the only one in this field; compete by giving customer your best regardless where they were born.

·         Don’t share your customer important information with anyone not even your spouse; this is against the law all over the world.

·         How bad the person credit is, is none of your business, just do your job and keep your mouth shut.

·         If the person charge you 100.00, pay it and stop crying, he has to eat too. 

·         Take them to court if you are not satisfied with their services or they did not show up but have your money.

·         Network your product and services; there are no rules that state you should do business with only Liberians.

The Liberian Family and Friends in Liberia – With the war or even before the war, we all got used to sending money home to our family and friends.  We would even work two jobs to be able to send money home.  Some have been here for over 10 years and have never sent anything at all to their family back home.  We sometimes limit what we do for ourselves to help our people back home.  But sometimes, they make us weak to send anything to them.  After working two jobs everyday only to hear “That’s all”; “what am I suppose to do with $25.00?”  “Can you send me $5,000.00 to buy a car?” “You want me to sell what, water, I beg you yah?” “The children school fees is due, can you send it for me?”  My absolute favorite, “where is my Christmas?” and so on.

Solution - I know I am going to get a lot of heat for this one but here goes….

·         We know Liberia is hard especially if you do not have a job or are not getting pay, but please STOP the unnecessary begging.

·         For us out of the country, stop sending money you will never see again.  Try to help them help themselves by starting a small business of their own. Liberia is full of ways to make money, ask the other African people living in Liberia.

·         Have you seen people in Liberia in pictures, they look healthier and younger than we do on this end.  They are wearing the best gold, best clothes and eating the best food, why because we are sending all our money for them to dress up and party with.

·         If they cannot afford to put their children in private schools, they should not, and if they do, they should not expect us to be responsibility to pay for it.

·         We, outside of Liberia are not responsible for you so if and when we sent something be grateful for it no matter how big or small.

·         When someone is coming our way try to at least send us a milk candy.  Don’t send us a list of what you want; we are trying to live just like you and this country is too hard and the money goes too fast. 

·         I tell people all the time, the only people in Liberia that I am responsible for are my grandparents and my adopted children; any thing outside of that is totally out of the kindness of my heart, period.

·         Don’t ask us to send wedding dressing, it’s cheaper to have it made in Liberia and it is easier for us to send money then boxes.

·         If we over here have to send money to the family individually, for me, you wouldn’t get it, I don’t care how mad you are with the other members of the family, go get your share of the money, it’s that simple.

·         If we are not close to someone don’t call us collect to tell us the person just had a baby or is in getting a divorce, we don’t have the time in the USA to add that to our list of worries. 

·         People home, you know the time difference by now, why do you call us at 3am in the morning hoping for a long conversation; ask us when is the best time to call unless it is an emergency.

·         If you don’t have a job and or is not getting pay, don’t ask us to help you buy a car, where’re you going?  How are you buying gas? 

·         We are not going to help you buy a new car if we are driving old ones, NO, WE WON’T, and it makes no sense to us.

My Liberia people the next time you meet another Liberia, tell them you are sorry for giving them the crab treatment and you promise to do better in the future.  We should practice loving our brothers and sisters, if we don’t who will?  Let try and put an end to living like crabs by pulling each other down all the time, its not healthy and we need each other now more then ever.  Practice been true to yourself and others. Let your yes be yes and stand by your convictions.  Remember to “do onto others as you would like done to you?  Stop the gossiping; talking about a dead man at his funeral is very wrong.  Let the man go in peace.  Stop lying to each other; be sincere about your fellowmen and women so we can go far in Liberia.  If you join a group to help your people, do just that, help and leave the small stuff, let it go.  If you credit money, do your best to pay it back when you said you will; the person you credited the money from could be waiting for it to pay their bills.  Secondly, you may not be able to credit from that person again if you have not pay the first one back.  We should love each other as we love the land Liberia. 

Liberians, please stop the crab way of living, please.

God blessing to all.