Liberia: Making a Living Through Cold Water Sale

Mama Flomo

Take a reflective look at a displaced or refugee camp within which a home of 10 children [all of the same mother] existed without the mother. How would the children feel at home? How would the atmosphere in that home look? Imagine the physical, emotional and spiritual trauma the children will go through in the absence of their mother. All of these attest to the indelible role Mothers have and continue to play in raising their families. In post-war Liberia, some mothers are the sole breadwinners; the duty to raise the children falls squarely on them.

Mama Flomo, currently, a resident of South Beach, United Nations (UN) Drive, in Monrovia, hails from Zorzor district, Lofa County. She is a mother of 10 children and has, for six years, depended on the sale of cold-water at the Rally Time Market to make ends meet. The profits she makes are used to feed her large family and send at least six of her children to school. Her four grown-up daughters are yet to enter college or university following their completion of senior secondary schools or gain any employment in our job scarce country.

Mama is a single mother. Her husband, a heavy-duty mechanic, was killed during the 14-year Liberian civil war. Before the outbreak of the war, Mama and her family lived in Mano River, in Grand Cape Mount County. In 1990 when the civil war began escalating, Mama, together with her husband, sought safety in Monrovia with their kids.

Mama told me  that it took her years [following the murder of her husband] to actually stand on her own and be strong for the children. All a long she was of the conviction that with God’s blessing she would have been ‘lucky’ to have met another man who would have helped her with the raising up of her children. After few years of bitter struggles with this dream buried in her heart, Mama came to realize that things would have not been as expected.

She narrated: My husband was killed in cold blood during the war. All of our children were with me; no food, no money. We were only fighting for our survival in the mist of bullets, hunger and diseases. But I always thought that maybe I would have had another man to help me raise my children. Things were very hard with us. But it never happened that way. Here in our country, when you (woman) have two or more children, no other man wants you. And for me I have 10 children (five boys, five girls)! So men were running away from me especially after the war.

Mama was, however, not deterred by her failure to find a supportive partner. She and her children had to struggle on their own through out the war. They were living on backyard gardening by then.  I would go in search of tomatoes, bitter balls, pepper and okra for the children to sell wherever they could be found at the expense of my own safety and protection. We also sold okra leaves to feed ourselves. Some of the vegetables that I brought were also eaten by us, while we sold some to buy cubes, salt and soap, she told me.

Two years later, following the signing of an agreement by the former warring factions for cessation of all forms of hostilities and to return the country to peace and serenity, Mama once again began a petty business, selling cold-water in her community, to make a living. Gradually, her business grew and she began selling her cold water at the Rally Time Market.

She added: I first started by buying L$50 cold water. I would make about L$65 as profits from that. But now, I can buy about L$ 125 and can make about L$150 as profits. I sell in rounds (two rounds). The first round of cold water is sold in the morning hours and the L$150 from that sale is used for food. The second round is for the next day’s food money.

Mama’s business boosts during the dry season when she’s able to generate at least L$600 from four rounds of sale on a daily basis. She told Women & Family that profits generated during this time is put into susu clubs (traditional system of banking widely used by ordinary market women and other petty traders in present day Liberia). The money is then used to meet some of her family’s basic needs including education for her children; feeding and other amenities. I’ll continue to do this as long as my children are in school, she said.

Mama’s situation is not a unique case. Scores of mothers from (low economic brackets) across the country are experiencing similar situations (or even worse) on a daily basis for the upkeep of their families. As in any society, Liberian women have primary responsibility for raising the next generation of the country’s leadership and citizens. Indeed, Liberian mothers have tightened their lappas and continue to remain relentless, resolute and resilient in their struggle for better life for their children.