The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir

The Dragon The Giant The Women encapsulates some of lifes most solemn issues: war, racism, migration, love, psychological issues, the power of hope and prayer, and then some. Waytu shared with us a first-hand account of the war in Liberia. Skillfully she shifted gears as she recanted events from a childs perspective and then to the realism of an adult. Waytu educated us, giving us just bits of Liberias rich culture tribes, language, folk tales, and tribal remedies. Although the story was filled with how hateful we as humans can be against each other, there was a more powerful narrative that reigned from cover to cover one of love, strength, support, community, hope, and prayer. Her ability in her early years to pull from her ancestral gift of storytelling to vividly juxtapose who, The Dragon The Giants The Women all were. I especially admired Ma and Sattas strength and tenacity unwavering in their decisions.

What great lengths would you go for love and family?

Memoir Junkie – AuthorAnnaBella

A book that starts out talking about how sudden war can break out and how a family overcomes many tense moments to overcome and escape. Lot of tense moments without putting in any gore details. The fact that it comes from the point of view of a girl who is about 5 or 6 years old makes it all the more interesting and saddening. It ends rather abruptly and starts in a new middle narrative which I wasn’t sure what the point of it was even though it tells a powerful narrative in itself. I still put it down at that point for a week or so. But then picked it up, slowly kept reading, absorbing, then when the “third” narrative of the book picks up from another person’s point of view does it get extremely riveting and heart-aching. And in the end I found like it all came together rather beautifully even though it’s a rather hard story to absorb with definitely some bitter and bittersweet moments. Kudos to the author of this one and her family whose love for each other is in a league of its own.

This memoir has taking me on a journey like no other. I discovered storytellers and the importance of oral history. I learned about the war in Liberia, survival, family, community and love. Feeling all the emotions of a young child that is struggling to regain her connection with her mother, wanting desperately to be in the presence of a woman that she adores. Wanting and searching for another woman that was entrusted with the lives of a family to get them to safety. The women are warriors, healers and survivors. They have struggles but had the courage to fight for the lives of their family.

Quotes:
Death is not the end.
Mam never feared her blackness. So I never feared my blackness, until the men.
There is a weight that builds on shoulders when one leaves home. The longer a person stays away, the heavier the burden of displacement.
I stopped, at once, because she said I seemed to know that tears were a way of letting the world know that the healing, the work, had already been done.
Look into your mirror in the night and when you start seeing you not the same, come home.
..the best stories do not always end happily, but happiness will find its way in there somehow.
Suffering is a part of everyones story.
Among the dragons there will always be heroes.

Wayeto Moore brings the growing horror and panic to life as the Liberian civil war moved across her country. Her depiction of her family’s escape just ahead of the rebel forces makes compelling reading and her child’s eye view of how it all unfolded is both gripping and affecting. So too is her experience growing up in Texas and her young womanhood in Brooklyn. Her feelings of alienation within American culture resonate with many who live in the USA yet still know they are outsiders. The addition of her mother’s life as a student in New York city and her return to manage the rescue of her husband and three small daughters adds to the roundness of the story. Her writing is nuanced and deeply appealing. How I wish I could have read her book before I moved to Monrovia to work in 2003.

You can feel the pain and anxiety as well as the amazing calm and love of this family as they try to negotiate one of the modern tragedies of our times with the war in Liberia.There is nothing self serving in this story just the clear view of courage and love in one family. So much of the sadness reflects the abundance of destruction of the modern world that our culture brings upon itself, whether it is rural Texas or the jungles of Liberia. Her remedy is not explicitly proscribed but is inherent in the story as you see her family able to embrace change and yet never let go of their love for each other. One of the most inspiring books you will ever read.

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