Blue Clay People: Seasons on Africa's Fragile Edge

This is non-hero real look into the day to day opperations of foriegn aid work. It presents clear looking to issuse of poverty and enviroment and the history of a unstable area. Worth the time if you are interesting in topic or think of traveling to do aid work.

Before reading this I knew next to nothing about Liberia, only that it was an American "colony" in Africa where freed US slaves returned, and now feel like I know it vividly. This book woke me up. Conflict diamonds, kid soldiers, aid workers living like lords. Blue clay people doesn't hit you over the head with guilt and pesimism, but lets dilemnas unfold through stories. Its all on-the-ground. I do feel even now that there's little that can be done about much of Africa, but there's plenty of hope here. I reccommend this completely.

Having lived in Liberia for 2 years in the early 70's, this book was very personal to me. I thought Powers did a wonderful job capturing many aspects of life in this nation that has been ruined by corrupt leadership for so long. As the Liberians say, the powers above "ate" all the money, leaving the wonderful everyday people impoverished. These people have never given up, and they deserve for their hopes and dreams to be answered in this upcoming election. They continue to "try-small", which is amazing considering all that they have been through. Thank you Mr. Powers for your wonderful details and insights on life in Liberia at the turn of the Century!

Powers' heartfelt memoir of his experience working as a humanitarian aid worker in Liberia is truly a great work. He vividly recounts the cultural and political atmosphere of the time with compassionate prose. The novel illustrates the hardships for Liberians while at the same time helps the reader to understand the coping mechanisms of people in a war torn country. Powers provokes readers to understand the complicated nature of both African politics and the involvement of the international community in African affairs. The medium of memoir allows the reader to be drawn into the history of Liberia through a personal perspective. Powers' work is certainly the most accessible and memorable reading on Liberian trials and tribulations and the intricate relationships that develop between people during atrocity.

I'm a jaded, news reporter, but Mr. Powers book about one of Africa's "hopeless basket cases" had me laughing aloud. The author deftly weaves his own life stories into a memoir of his days as the head of the Catholic Relief Services in turn-of-the-millennium Monrovia, Liberia. As he lands in the country, Powers is taken aback and notably disturbed by his own new role in a strange re-make of American Antebellum Southern living. Some of the language of the English-speaking Liberians is telling and comic. They keep approaching Powers asking for their "weekend" -- shorthand for "fun money" and just enough to make ends meet for their extended families. Invariably, Liberians in the street also refer to the author as "bossman," a funny and utterly ridiculous misnomer for an aid worker trying to get society back on its feet. The book tells us a lot about human nature in a bizarre setting and Powers' humble sprinkling of references to Graham Greene and other great writers concerned with the human spirit suggests that his own reading background is strong in this realm. The author takes on crucial issues that will interest both environmentalists and political scientists. Liberia happens to have a jungle with more diversity in its mammalian population (many monkeys) than any other locale on the globe. As an admitted ignoramus in bio-diversity, I would say that the world needs to start paying more attention -- as Powers would have us do -- to our relatives in the rain forests. Powers does flirt with "going native" and gets upset when fellow aid workers warn him of the dangers. He dumps his blonde beauty in America for a braided, barefoot bombshell in Liberia who trims his toenails with her teeth. (I could have done without the detail!) In the end, Powers' pragmatism and missionary spirit (he is only vaguely religious, but very spiritual)wins out and the girl is left in Liberia to do her good works as the author moves onto Bolivia. (Far more "civilized," we hope.) Through it all, however, Powers does not lose his classic American idealism, a spirit one runs into these days in the "Peace Corps" and very few other American institutions working abroad. Young men like Powers represent America's best foot forward in an increasingly hostile and unpredictable world. Let's hope that the author's powerful memoir isn't just a cry in the darkest jungles of the darkest continent on earth.