Tammy Tibbetts
As the Web editor of two Hearst teen web sites, MisQuinceMag.com and MyPromStyle.com, I work in a world of tiaras and taffeta, roses and lace, and prom queens. But for my Christmas vacation, I decided to travel somewhere totally out of this realm — to Liberia, an African nation recovering from civil war and inhabited by descendants of freed American slaves.
If you were to look up Liberia on Wikitravel, you will find a red WARNING box that says “the US State Department strongly urges American citizens to consider the risks of traveling to Liberia.” Before you depart, you need seven shots — for yellow fever, typhoid, Hep A, polio, meningitis, tetanus, and influenza. More than once, I thought I was nuts for signing myself up for this trip.
But the moment I knew for sure that this was an adventure I’d never regret happened on the day and time when, on any other year, I’d be opening presents from under the Christmas tree with my mom, dad, and younger sister: December 25, 8 a.m. New York time, 1 p.m. Liberian time. I was in Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia, and a bus had just pulled up the driveway of a wealthy Liberian man’s home. He had offered up his yard for the MacDella Cooper Foundation’s Third Annual Christmas Party. I had been waiting at his house since 10 a.m. that morning to greet these special guests, and they were finally here: More than 100 orphans, waving their hands enthusiastically and singing a Christmas hymn in unison as they entered. Within the next half hour, at least another 200 orphans arrived by foot. It was 80 degrees and there wasn’t a Santa in sight, but the spirit of Christmas was off the charts.
So how did I end up in Liberia, teaching these kids how to sing “Jingle Bells,” while they taught me the (ever-so-clichéd but oh-so-true) meaning of Christmas?
I met MacDella Cooper through my college professor — like me, MacDella had attended The College of New Jersey, and surprisingly, the alumni association hadn’t uncovered her special story. That became my mission for my senior journalism project last spring. I discovered how MacDella, now a 30-year-old New Yorker, had escaped Liberia at age 13, just after the country’s civil war had broken out (quick Wikipedia history lesson here). Following their stepfather’s disappearance, MacDella and her brothers trekked countless miles to a refugee camp in the neighboring Ivory Coast. There, an American woman eventually helped get them to the US to reunite them with their mother, who had been on vacation when the war broke out and wasn’t allowed to return to Liberia. MacDella then attended high school in Newark, New Jersey, got a full ride to college, and worked her way up the New York City social ladder, interning for the New York Film Festival and then landing her first job at Ralph Lauren.
If MacDella looks familiar to you, you probably attended NYWICI’s 2007 Annual Meeting. She was the striking, exotically dressed African woman who may have told you about her efforts to help children in Africa — not to be confused with the keynote speaker, Iman. Barbara Brennan, a NYWICI Foundation board member, and I had invited MacDella to the event, knowing how much she and Iman resembled one another in style and substance.
In 2004, the year after Liberia’s civil war ended, MacDella started a namesake foundation to send supplies to Liberians. From there, she decided to set up a 501(c)(3) charity to renovate orphanages and sponsor children’s school tuition, since education is not free in Liberia. Through her foundation, one can sponsor a Liberian child’s education for $500 a year, receive copies of his or her report card, and send the student encouraging notes. MacDella raises money here in New York and then travels to Liberia to put the funds to work. She has an apartment in Monrovia, which is protected by guards, and she has taken in three foster children — 3-year-old Belle, 7-year-old Leila, and 12-year-old Hajal — as well as a college student, Marcie.
When MacDella invited me to join her for her annual Christmas party for the orphanage, staying with her in her apartment, I hardly thought twice. What made the trip even more exciting was that she had also invited my friend and classmate, Genevieve Faust, who would be filming a documentary of the entire trip. Genevieve and I were both so enamored with New York City, the city of lights, that we were curious to visit Monrovia, which is literally struggling out of darkness. Electricity runs on generators, which turn on at about 7 p.m. and shut off at 7:30 a.m. along with the running water in the home.
While it wasn’t easy spending Christmas away from my family and breaking special traditions, I have many memories of that Christmas party that I’ll retell at every Christmas dinner for the rest of my life. The massive buckets of fried chicken, macaroni salad, and rice, scooped out on the kids’ paper plates; teaching the kids “Duck, Duck, Goose” and learning their hand clapping games; dropping Starburst candies into dozens of little palms; the dance-off competition that pitted orphanage against orphanage in good fun.
But what sticks with me more than anything else is this photo, which I’ve saved to my computer desktop. It is little Mapu, a quiet but always sweet orphan from the Children’s Rescue Mission. Her expression isn’t necessarily sad, but it seems to beckon our help. To her right is Belle, the happy-go-lucky 3-year-old MacDella rescued and took into her own home, where she receives endless affection, clean clothes to wear, and warm food to eat. She’s wearing a headband I found in the Seventeen beauty closet. I love how I snapped the photo prematurely, capturing the moment that she smiled at Mapu before looking directly at the camera. In that stolen moment, it’s as if she senses hope for Mapu’s future.
And at the end of the day, no matter how hard we work, volunteer, and communicate, hope is all we really have.
Tammy Tibbetts is a 2005 and 2006 NYWICI Foundation Scholarship Winner, a 2007 graduate of The College of New Jersey, and a NYWICI Student Affairs Committee member. She is now a Web editor for Hearst Digital Media.
Links
· My Liberia Travel Blog: http://newyorktoliberia.wordpress.com
· MacDella Cooper Foundation: http://www.macdellacooper.org
· Liberia’s Angel: The Life of MacDella Cooper (my senior project): http://www.liberiasangel.com
· My Travelogue for MarieClaire.com:
http://www.marieclaire.com/world/travel/liberia-macdella-cooper-1
http://www.marieclaire.com/world/travel/liberia-macdella-cooper-2
http://www.marieclaire.com/world/travel/liberia-macdella-cooper-3
Filed under: 1, Blogroll, NYWICI | 1 Comment
I applaud what you are doing keep up the great work!