Lost But Never Forgotten

“Change my story. / I tiyad, aye, Papa.”

This was the chorus of the song I marched along to during a funeral in February.  The funeral was for my landlord and friend, Frederick Mark B. McGee.  Mark, as we all called him, was only nine years older than me, yet he was a very caring figure to me and my sitemate, Rachel.  Mark really looked out for the both of us.  He made sure things were fine with us in Gbarma:  he always asked how our relations were with others in the community and school and made sure we were being well-fed by the occasional Sunday rice + soup deliveries from his fiancé.  He was like the older brother I never had, and I’m glad I at least got to know him for the first year and a half of my service.

Mark’s birthday was just last month, and he would have been 35.  He passed away in a motorcycle accident in late January.  35.  Thirty-five.  What a terrible thing, to have life pulled out from under you so soon.  I wish I would have made the time and would have had the emotional push I needed to write this post earlier, but here it is a few months late.  This is a tribute and a thank you to a friend that is truly missed. 

Me & Mark, March 2013

Everybody is Gbarma Town knew Mark.  I’m not exaggerating.  Everybody knows him.  He was involved in many organizations and had many friendships with people in the community.  He was very devoted to improving the conditions of others.  He constantly worked with the youth of the district to encourage them to have a voice, to get them to organize, and to facilitate their contribution to the betterment of the community.  And, it took me over a year into my service to realize this, but he was also helping students at our school with their school fees.  For example, his generosity allowed Fatu, a single teenage mother, to continue to the 9^th grade this year.  The reaches of his connections to helping others never ceased to surprise me.

Because of his busy schedule, Rachel and I didn’t get to see Mark all that often.  He was a student at Univ. of Liberia (a sophomore, studying Sociology) and between that, his job with the World Food Program, and the bazillion other things he did, he didn’t get to spend too much time in our town.  However, no matter how little time he had in Gbarma―even if he was just passing through―he always made time to come check up on us.

Whenever we saw Mark approaching, we’d exchange a quick look that said “here we go!”  Mark loved to chit-chat.  Really, “da man can talk-oh!”  Although his impromptu visits usually meant four-hour-long “lectures” (conversations), Rachel and I definitely enjoyed talking with him.  He was one of the few people in the community that really understood our perspective on things, or at least tried to.  During our talks, we all would exchange jokes and laughs…man, did we laugh! We also would exchange tidbits of information of American vs. Liberian culture and Gbarma town gossip.  Mark always had the latest scoop for us as to what was going on in the community, and we’d also use our lectures with him to vent our frustrations about the school / community, knowing that he’d see to it that people were talked to and that issues were resolved.  During our lectures, Mark also asked us about our future plans and aspirations and expressed his own.  He was the kind of person that liked to dream big, but he knew the work that was necessary to get to the finish line.

Mark was someone that was definitely going places.  He had the desire to become a politician and wanted Rachel and me to come back to Liberia in 2017 when he planned to run for local elections.  He had big hopes for himself, for his family, and for his community, and watching him talk about all his plans was electric. His long arms would punctuate the air as he excitedly, and speedily, talked through some upcoming plan.  His dimples would sink in deep into his cheeks, and his eyes would shine with enthusiasm.  He was so full of energy that it was infectious.  (I wish I could be that excited about anything!)  I never once saw Mark in a bad mood either.  He didn’t seem to let the little things bother him.  He just kept on keepin’ on.  I remember that during difficult parts of my service, there were instances in which I felt that just being in the presence of his resiliency was the encouragement I needed to keep going.  Mark was always complimenting us, encouraging us, helping us problem solve…he did so much to try to make our service easier, better, and more meaningful.

The day before his accident was a Sunday.  I had just woken up from a nap and was hot and crabby.  I was rushing to get to school to do some work.  It was one of those days.  As I was walking down the small gravel hill in front of my house to reach the main dirt road, I saw Mark’s tall figure approaching.  “Ah, here we go,” I thought.  “I hope he doesn’t talk to me forever.  I have got to get to school to get this grading done!”  And he didn’t.  Mark sensed that I was in a hurry so we just caught up for 10 minutes or so, right there along the edge of the road.  As we parted ways, he shook my hand and held on to it, saying that we’d lecture some more later on, and he wished good luck to his sister.  With that, I continued on towards the school and he went back home to lead a Royal Ladies / YORWI (local women’s organization) meeting.

The next day was a Monday and Rachel and I were at school typing tests until sundown.  It was a long day.  Once we were back at home, we began working on our lesson plans for the next day by the light of our headlamps.  Out of nowhere, David, one of our neighbors, shouts through the window, “Ms. Bendu!  Did you hear about the accident?”  I took out one of my earphones and shouted back, “What?”  Then Rachel got up and went outside to the front porch to talk with David using voices at a non-shouting volume.  He informed her (and she then informed me) that Mark was in a motorcycle accident in the afternoon and had been taken to the hospital in nearby Tubmanburg, Bomi County.  The motorbike had been hit head on by an SUV, and Mark wasn’t wearing a helmet.  He was thrown from the bike headfirst into the windshield.  He was “taking oxygen” and unconscious in Bomi Hospital.  And guess who was the owner  (not the driver though) of the car that accidentally hit the motorbike?  A politician.  He was literally hit by two tons of irony, no?

Tuesday, Mark’s accident was all anybody in Gbarma could talk about.  That day he was moved to JFK Hospital in Monrovia, and we tried, unsuccessfully, to get in touch with Joanna, his fiancé.  By Wednesday, his condition had worsened:  brain hemorrhaging, coma, broken bones.  What could be done in a place with subpar medical services besides praying?  So everybody prayed.  Even I prayed and I’m not a religious person.

By 7:35 A.M. on Thursday we found out Mark had passed away.  The sound of ol’mas wailing was what woke me up that morning.  Rachel and I woke up and unlocked our doors at the same time (they face one another across the hallway).  “Dany,” she said morosely.  “F*ck,” I replied.  We knew.  We knew what those cries meant.  Those 30 seconds or so we stood in our doorframes felt like an eternity.  We didn’t know what to do next.  I felt sick to my stomach and kept telling myself that it was just a nightmare that I’d soon wake up from, but I didn’t.  The longer the wailing women passed the back of our house (where our bedrooms are), the more it sank in that he really was gone.  I will never forget the sound of those women’s cries, all the pain that fully infused each one.  It was one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard.

Fast-forward to February 8^th:  the funeral.  Skip the crying in front of a class full of fifty 10^th graders while giving their test instructions the day of the death.  Skip the terrible town gossip that my Counterpart had placed some witchcraft on Mark to cause the accident to happen.  Skip the people paying their sympathies to the bereaved Peace Corps.   Skip the Mefloquine dreams in which Mark was there, saying it was all a bad joke and he’s a-comin’ back to Gbarma Town tomorrow.  All that was hard, but the funeral and the day before were two of the hardest days I’ve had this year here in Liberia.

Imagine a large, concrete “palava hut” (pavilion) with a large, shiny wooden casket inside the center.  A blue, satin blanket, dotted with white bows and bordered with a white fringe, is draped across the top.  Members from our women’s group, the Young Rural Women’s Initiative (YORWI), formerly the Royal Ladies Birthday Club, begin to march around the casket.  Music is blasting from two huge speakers, propped up on tables on opposing ends of the casket.  The beat of the music is fast, requiring everyone to drop a foot onto the hard, cement floor quickly in order to pick up the other one.  When Rachel and I were first summoned to march with our fellow Royal Ladies, I was reluctant.  In Liberian English, I’d say, “to be frank, I na get intrest to do dah one.”  No interest at all.  I did not want to march around a casket to an upbeat Liberian gospel song blasting in my ears.  But I did it for the Royal Ladies.  And I did it for Mark, as he was our Board Chairman.

When the official wake ceremony began in the middle of that hot, Friday afternoon, Rachel and I were two out of four women that kicked off the marching.  By the time we tapped out, there were at least over 20 people there… I had a difficult time counting who all was in the circle.  Just think how slow you have to march when there are that many people in a congo-line-loop in a confined area!  Anyways, the point is that so many people participated in this activity:  men, women, old, young.  They were all there to celebrate the life of Mark, and to share with one another their pain at his loss.

I marched around that casket for nearly two hours, until my feet hurt and I was dehydrated.  At times during the march, tears were streaming down my face.  I tried to find a dry spot on my sweat rag but it was already wet from all the sweat, dust, tears, and snot from earlier in the day.  I was a mess, but I didn’t care because we all were a mess that day.  No one judged one another; instead, we just shared our grief with one another.

That night “Gbarma was lively-oh!” as people drank heavily and blasted music until 4 A.M.  I don’t know why, that’s just how they do it here.  Let’s just say I didn’t sleep much with the walls of our house literally shaking from the sheer volume of the music.  (It was blasting from next door, where Mark, Joanna, and their daughter, Naomi, used to live.)  The next day was the funeral, and we marched to the palava hut for the service with the Royal Ladies.  We carried a banner than Rachel and I had made for the occasion.  (Together, we spent at least 12 hours on that thing.)  The palm frond awning that was erected near the palava hut wasn’t large enough to cover all the attendees, so we stood out under the scorching sun during the hottest part of the day—and subsequently got sunburned—with everyone else during the service.  It sucked, but it was worth it.  We didn’t go sit in the shade when we were told to and we didn’t sit when we were told to.  “Your skin will spoil-oh!” they warned us.  “It’s ok,” we replied, and for that day it was.  That day we wanted to be like all the other Liberians in Gbarma, and they let us.

As the service ended, we began the 15-minute walk to the other part of town to where Mark would be finally laid to rest.  Some people even trudged through the creek, shoes and all, to reach the other side, as the tiny wooden bridge was backed up with foot and motorbike traffic.  Once we reached the tomb, the pallbearers began chanting and lifting the casket up and down, a final celebration of Mark’s life.  And then that’s when I lost all composure I had worked so hard to maintain and lost it.  Crying―no, wailing―uncontrollably alongside other members of the community was just the release I needed.  I’m glad I didn’t hold it in and that I was able to share that moment with them.

Now (months later) that I think about it, it’s fitting that we marched to that song around Mark’s casket for so long.  The Liberians explained it to me that day that in the chorus, someone is appealing to God to let them rest.  They are asking for God to let them go from the pain in their current mortal life and move onward to peace in the next life, to join him in heaven.  They’re saying, “Lord, I’m tired.  Change my outcome, change my story.”  While I’m not Christian like most people in my community and don’t share most of their beliefs, I get the explanation.  While I’m not quite sure what I believe, I know that Mark is now at rest, at least from the pain and injuries from the accident.  He fought as hard as he could, and although he couldn’t physically make it, his memory will live.  Through Joanna (his fiancé), Naomi (his 5-year-old daughter), the citizens of Gbarma, Rachel and myself, and so many more, the memory of Mark McGee isn’t going to go anywhere…not for a long time.

The banner we made for the funeral and laid upon Mark's casket before it was sealed in his tomb.

The crowd of people who attended the funeral.

Yes, they print t-shirts for funerals here, and yes, I have one.
Mark's face is on the front.

The walk from "in the town" to the tomb.

Even in death, Mark went out with a bang. His friends hoisted his
casket up and down right before they laid him to rest in the tomb.

The Tombstone

To check out more photos from the funeral, click here.  Also, here's a super old text I remembered I kept in my phone from Mark.  He sent it to me back in Dec. '12 when I was getting sent home on my med-evac.

"Open heart receives love.  Open mind receives wisdom.  Open hands receive gifts.  Merry Christmas and may God safely return you to America.  From, your brother, Frederick Mark B. McGee"

If there's anything I've learned from all this, it's that you should truly cherish the people that are important to you (and let them know it!) because you never know when they'll be gone.