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.
