Althea Romeo-Mark

Sundown at Dawn: A Liberian Odyssey

Wilton Sankawulo. Sundown at Dawn: A Liberian Odyssey. Houston: Dusty Spark Publishing, 2005. 204 pp. ISBN: 0976356503.

Sundown at Dawn: A Liberian Odyssey is the second novel written by Wilton Sankawulo. The novel is set between Liberia’s rural societies of Bong County and Lofa County, and urban Monrovia, the capital city. In these settings, Dougba Senfenui, nicknamed “Zurong” by his mother, sets out to fulfil his father’s dream of his son having a “kwii”, i.e. a western, education. Dougba’s story starts as a journey of hope and promise and ends with the loss of faith in man and country. The novel takes us up to the mid-seventies, a time right before the indigenous people rebelled and took control of their country after one hundred years of settler rule. The aftermath is a period of upheaval, followed by what we might cautiously call today a period of truce and healing from which a better Liberia might emerge.

The book begins as a heavy read. The opening chapters are laden with sociological and cultural references, which serve to educate the reader about traditional indigenous Kpelle culture. The author appears to be consciously preserving traditions and customs for future generations. Through Dougba we journey into an indigenous world where the only hope for an education is to attend schools run by Christian missionaries, and though this road sets Dougba in cultural and religious conflict with his people, he is determined to fulfil the dream of attaining an education that his father has for him. His journey up the social ladder tests his faith in himself, his fellowman and God. It also reveals the role that the settlers and missionaries played in shaping the education and the political outlook of indigenous people in an evolving nation.

Dougba is almost too naïve, suffering uncountable betrayals, but never appearing to become cynical. His character brings to mind Job, the Old Testament character who is seen as a model for perseverance in suffering. While Job is tested by God and the devil, Dougba is tested by rural as well as urban Liberian society-which is dominated by “Americo Liberians”, the settlers or the “kwii” people, as they are called by indigenous people. No one really understands Dougba, trapped as he is between two worlds; he is persecuted by all; and unlike Job, who survives, Dougba is ultimately destroyed.

In chapter one, Dougba’s father tells him the story about Nagalakemeni, a son born to older parents: “Not wishing to leave him a helpless, lonely orphan when they died, they sent him to school to become “kwii” (1). He learns at his father’s knee that great sacrifices are necessary to become “civilized”, and despite initial disappointments, he must continue the pursuit of his education for the rewards it brings. Thus Dougba is thrown into the great beast called life and caught between two opposing worlds. Though he is first made ready for traditional society by way of a circumcision ritual, he is denied the opportunity to join the Poro Society before being sent away to become educated. His foray into the “kwii” world prevents him from attaining full manhood and deprives him of power and special privileges in the traditional world. He does not share the secrets of the Poro Society and therefore is unequal to other men, and like women, is excluded from Poro ceremonies.

Dougba’s preparation for formal western education starts at a missionary school in a rural setting. His odyssey begins in the care of Ma Miller, a middle-aged white missionary who introduces him to Jesus.  He has to pass up sharpening such traditional skills as farming, hunting, fishing and building a home, to the disappointment of members of his extended family. He meets Caesar Augustus Dennis, a “civilized” city friend and descendent of settlers, who becomes his link to Monrovia and “kwii” society. Dougba’s swift advance through school is put down as witchcraft.  He is forced to hide a talisman given to him by a Zoe to protect him from harm, as it contradicts Christian teaching.  Soon, his talk of Jesus and miracles become an irritant to his people.

Dougba has to seek work to support his parents’ effort to give him an education. He puts his trust in Teacher Lorkula, who is said to have “never consulted a Zoe or joined a secret Society except the Poro, which is compulsory for all males” (68).  Dougba takes on the job of managing Teacher Lorkula’s liquor shop in Zulotaa. Teacher Lorkula justifies the selling of liquor by saying that the missionaries gave him an education but do not pay him enough to live on: “What should we do? Starve to death?  Why do we go to school if not to live a decent life?” (69).

In Zulotaa, Dougba is faced with temptation, torn between the conflicting values of the Christian education he receives and his traditional upbringing. His virility as a man is questioned when he remains unresponsive to the traditional girls who flirt with him daily. He is expected to impregnate a woman because he is thought to be old enough. There are rumours that he is impotent. In this environment, Dougba considers leaving school and taking a wife. He decides to stay true to his father’s expectations for him and not put himself in a position to be “vulnerable to unlimited demands for favors he couldn’t afford” (73). Yet, he succumbs to traditional pressure and takes a girlfriend who does become pregnant and needs financial support.

Among other trials, Dougba is betrayed and tricked by his own people, and finds himself in great debt after money is stolen from him. He leaves his door unlocked after the village chief tells him, “by locking your door when leaving town . . . you are indirectly accusing us of being thieves. The spirit of the ancestors watch over this town. If you continue acting like that, they will stop supporting it . . . Lock your door only when you go to sleep” (p.75). Believing that he would not be swindled by his own people and observing the rules of the village, he is robbed.

After such tribulations and disappointments, Dougba and his parents are persuaded to take up on an offer made by his friend Caesar’s mother, Mrs. Dennis, to go and live with her and her family in the city where he would become “civilized.” Mrs. Dennis promises to take care of him and return him in good health. His father, who suffered a negative experience with a kwii family, warns him “to be on his guard in Monrovia . . . use his head and make friends with the right people” (98). His mother tells him that the secret societies in Monrovia where he is going are “far more dangerous” and “that members of these societies are always dressed in black and spirited away children and even full-grown adults to secluded places and killed and parts extracted from their bodies for juju” (102).

In Monrovia, given the name Joseph Crusoe by the Dennis family, it is not long before Dougba learns that the promises made by Mrs. Dennis are empty ones and he has no chance to go to school. He soon finds that he has to put up with verbal and physical abuse, is treated like a second class citizen and a servant, and that his condition is worse than when he was home. He is told by a fellow servant that “most native boys serve some civilized family for a year or two or until their masters are satisfied-then they send them to school. That’s the only sensible thing to do if you want education” (p.107). He also learns that they were no better than slaves because “once they spend money on you, you’re bought” (p.109). Not long after, Dougba is forced to become a fugitive. He learns from another indigenous boy working in the Dennis household that Mr. and Mrs. Dennis were bargaining with a big shot over his price. Jacob, who helps him escape, is shot and wounded. They manage to escape to Jacobs’ village outside Monrovia, and Dougba is advised to go home.

Back in the traditional setting, Dougba, now Joseph Dennis, renews his pursuit of an education. He starts in Sanoyea, with the help of Ma Mille; he also has to work to support himself, and is forced to carry loads between towns to earn money. School suddenly becomes challenging and he fails a semester. He then attends Belefani Mission, headed by Teacher Paul Gayflor, where he lives on the verge of starvation but does better as a student, and is promoted to the seventh grade. He then advances to Zorzor Lutheran Mission, moving from Kpellaland to Lomaland.

On his way to the Lutheran school, Dougba encounters another student, John Flomo, with whom he has a revealing conversation. Dougba asks John Flomo if he has children, and how many. John Flomo responds:

Two—a boy and a girl.  My girl is pregnant again: she lives with my parents.  I’m not doing this because I want.  We start school late, Joe.  Now, I’m twenty-five. When I finish school, I’ll be thirty-five or forty. I want to live to see my children grow up and be on their own. The missionaries expect us to finish school before raising a family. (128)

Dougba’s father, relentless in seeing to it that his son keeps climbing the ladder of education, introduces him to Pastor Isaac Gbada, an indigenous missionary educated man. Pastor Isaac Gbada tells them that members of the Lutheran church pay only a part of the school fees at the Lutheran Training Institute (LTI). He explains that how much they pay depends on the number of points that a student earns during the year. Thus, to save on school fees, Dougba and his parents are baptized.

On his way to LTI, Dougba visits Monrovia in search of Jacob, who saved him from being sacrificed by the Dennis family. He is told that he will find Jacob at Happy Corner, a house of prostitution. His search leads him to a shack where Jacob lives with his girlfriend, Miatta. Dougba learns that they have a very volatile relationship and seeks to advise Jacob about changing his lifestyle.  Jacob, however, replies “My man, education without experience is no education” (139). His association with Jacob leads to his arrest and imprisonment. He is accused by the police of being a vagrant and a thief and manages to escape along with Jacob during a prison break. Escaping again to Jacobs’ village, they are warned to stay away from Monrovia.

His educational pursuit briefly sidelined, Dougba decides to seek employment at Firestone Plantation in order to save money to attend LTI.

At Firestone he supports himself, like most rural students, by cutting logs and becoming an evangelist, which again pits him against traditional society:

Villagers never took kindly to the unassuming young man who posed as ‘God’s messenger’ and idled in town all day living on their sweat. To them, only a lazy person would want to live by word alone . . . Many evangelists left behind pregnant girlfriends at the end of their mission, broke up marriages, and viciously attacked the well-favored traditional practices . . . (149)

On his deathbed, Dougba’s father continues to encourage him: “Respect everyone but fear no man! Be strong, brave, and wise! Trust in God . . . and don’t come back, even for my funeral, until you graduate” (159). Several months after his father’s death, Dougba wins a scholarship to attend school in America. He forfeits the scholarship, deciding to marry his faithful girlfriend and mother of his child born out of wedlock, and serve his people as teacher and missionary. He returns to Haindi, his village, in the midst of a great celebration, the place where “Life and death become one celebration, the place where drawing a demarcation between the two was senseless” (162). He renounces his English name, Joseph Dennis, and announces that he is Dougba Senfenui, Jr.

Dougba ascends to head the mission school in Zamei, and when it seems that he will finally receive rewards for all his sufferings, his life takes a further tragic turn. A former schoolmate at LTI called General, who had experienced failure in Monrovia, becomes jealous of his achievements. General takes advantage of information Dougba shared with him in confidence and tells the Lutheran Church council that Dougba “worshiped ancestral spirits . . . wore a charm . . . fathered a child out of wedlock . . . was a member of the Poro Society . . . [and] killed old man Dennis” (166-67). As a result, the mission which Dougba struggled to build up is burned down, and his wife is arrested and carried to Monrovia.  It is rumoured that she dies of a broken heart. Dougba “turns blind with insane rage” and sinks into despair, feeling that “his father was unrealistic in investing him with his unfulfilled dreams and aspirations” (169). He sets out for Monrovia to seek revenge, but his moment of revenge is taken away when he discovers that General was killed in the struggle to destroy him. His reunites with his wife and child, who were thought to be dead, and experiences a moment of pure liberation when he throws the dagger, with which he intended to kill General, into the sea.

Dougba’s faith in himself renewed, he takes on a challenging project-the building of a school-without the backing of the government and the church, attempting to convince the villagers that it wasn’t necessary “to believe that only foreign governments, churches, and humanitarian agencies should solve our problems” (175). Although he is among his own people, they are suspicious of him because he is not a member of the Poro Society and because he is educated  . That he belongs to neither the indigenous world nor the “kwii” world is constantly reinforced in the novel. Dougba is visited by the village chief, his former playmate, who tries to persuade him to join the Poro, but the chief realizes that Dougba has spent too many years with missionaries who despise the traditional Kpelle way of life. The chief warns him that his own people will thwart or seek to eliminate him because he aspires for things beyond their reach, and that they are not as grateful for his efforts as he supposes. He further advises Dougba, “eat from no woman but your wife; keep secret any belief you value; talk less in conversation-do more listening; avoid fishing in the river or hunting in the forest, alone” (177).

While the chief questions Dougba’s trust in his people and warns him against naiveté, Dougba feels that “too much concern about his personal safety [would] breed insecurity,” and that as “a son of the soil” he is entitled to be protected by his people: “nobody’s witchcraft, malice or conceit could do him harm.” He also believes that he is watched over by the Christian God, and “the future belonged to ‘book people’” (178).

Bolstered by his convictions, he goes to Monrovia to seek support from the government for his newly founded private school.  In Monrovia, corruption becomes an obstacle until he discovers that the Minister of Education is a member of the Dennis family with whom he briefly lived. His hopes are further dashed when he learns that the Ministry of Education is broke because the budget had been drained for personal use. He realizes that he has to depend completely on his own ingenuity. The outcome of his hard work is the Dougba Senfenui Academy, a school which goes to the sixth grade, and in time “has more students than it could handle” (182).

Dougba’s march forward is again hindered by a jealous senator who feels that Dougba has become too powerful. The senator and his followers try to strike fear in Dougba, first through witchcraft, then through masked spirits who scare the students and faculty away, steal the animals, and destroy the school-sustaining coffee farm. His people beg him to give up the struggle and leave because they are afraid for their own lives. In the midst of this chaos, a friend and distant relative who works in the Ministry of Education brings the news that his school will soon be granted a subsidy. He also learns that his school friend, Caesar Dennis, has taken over the Ministry of Education after the death of his brother, George Dennis.

Dougba’s stubbornness or sense of fairness leads him to write an article against the government’s unequal practices, which is published with the aid and encouragement of Forday  . Soon after, he is accused of treason, ordered arrested by the senator and sent to Belleh Yallah, a maximum prison for hardened criminals. He shares a prison cell with Pastor Gbada, who also has been arrested for being outspoken. In prison they talk about the fear of change that is responsible for them being where they are and the theory that “Africans are backward because nature is too kind to them, and white people are progressive because nature is too mean to them” (198), an extension of Senghor’s controversial Negritude ideology. However, Dougba and Pastor Gbada realize that they are being punished for wanting to help their people and for speaking up for progress, and perhaps their own people might have resented them less if they were “District Commissioners going about the land with soldiers collecting their children, money, and foodstuff for their own use” (202).

In the end, there is no reprieve. When Pastor Gbada is shot, Dougba asks, “why should they kill a man of God and a public servant for only speaking their mind?” (203). He is told that “Prisoners are not killed here, my friend . . . There’s no capital punishment in Liberia. People guilty of capital offense either die of natural causes or go for water or firewood” (202). Dougba, facing his sundown at dawn, the hour when prisoners are killed, relieves his anxiety with prayer until the moment he is ‘sent to fetch firewood.’

Sankawulo presents a very bleak outlook for Liberia. It would appear that the effort of the indigenous man, who wishes to educate himself and integrate into modern Liberian society is thwarted at every move. His climb up the social ladder is hindered both by traditionalists, who become suspicious of him, and corrupt settlers, who feel that he must remain subordinate and not share the fruits of success. The message the novel seems to carry is “don’t even bother trying.” On the other hand, the author might be hinting that the older generation had to make great sacrifices in order for the younger generation to take their rightful place in a modern Liberian society; that perhaps the separation of the rural and urban Liberian is only an artificial one.

The author may also be hinting that the false or arbitrary division of traditional vs. modern is manipulated in order for people to be controlled. However, one comes away with the impression that the road to success for the indigenous man is froth with more moments of despair than moments of triumphs. Dougba is an unrecognized hero. He becomes a sacrificial lamb as he paves the road for others who will follow him. The book is a necessary read for anyone who wishes deeper insight into Liberian society and its past, and it gives one a better understanding of why Liberia stands where it is today.

15 September 2008

Copyright © 2009 Althea Romeo-Mark