Global News and Journalists for Human Rights have teamed up to send four Global News reporters to Africa as part of the Shaw Africa Project.
Barry Acton of Global National and Laurel Clark of Global Edmonton were recently in Liberia. Global News followed their journey and their work over the course of several weeks.
It takes a lot of guts to pack up your life and move to the other side of the world. It takes even more courage when the country you’re moving to is mixed up in violence and political unrest.
For Canadian David Waines, it didn’t just take guts and courage to move from B.C. to West Africa. It took a kind-of divine inspiration.
It came to him in the form of a single, vivid dream.
“It was unforgettable,” he says. “It was more real than real life and I remembered every detail.”
The dream occurred in 1985. Waines says he saw visions of violence transforming into peace. In one scenario, village women who once killed each other’s children were building a well together.
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“I saw all these things very vividly,” he recalls.
There was no doubt in his mind…it all took place in Liberia. Within a year, Waines and his wife Audry had left Canada for West Africa. They fell in love with the people – and eventually founded Equip Liberia. The organization fulfills many needs – from offering safe drinking water and health services to providing care for victims of violent crime.
When the violence broke out in the years that followed, Waines sent his family to Cote d’Ivoire but he remained in Liberia – determined to continue supporting residents. The decision had life-threatening consequences.
“You remember having to walk over dead bodies and you just feel horrible when you have to step on somebody who has just been killed. And there’s no other way,” he says. “And your legs, by the way, feel like they weigh 500 lbs each when … you know very well you could be the next one to be killed.”
Throughout the country’s 14-year civil war, Waines had many close encounters with death. He says in one instance, an intoxicated child soldier fired a shot over his head after he stood up for friends at a local leprosy colony. In another, he says he was interrogated and subjected to a mock execution at the hands of Charles Taylor’s associates. He was freed only after friends convinced Taylor that he was an aid worker.
Nearly 10 years have passed since that time and Equip Liberia’s development work continues. Waines is also working on a book about his experiences living in Liberia during the civil conflict.
When I first heard about David Waines, I figured his bravest moment was deciding to follow the dream and move to Liberia. But after meeting him, I’ve changed my mind. I think the real guts are in his determination to stay.
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