PAYNESVILLE, Liberia — On blue computer screens inside an air-conditioned Internet cafe, a message flashes - “The Liberian Dream.” Here there are no guarantees. Dark streets have become hunting grounds for young thieves searching for high-priced game - cell phones, laptops or a wad of dirty Liberian bills.
It is difficult to find investors willing to sink big money into a country only five years after the end of a ruinous civil war.
But entrepreneur Stephen Tamba said he is determined to help end a nightmare of guns, violence and destruction in this neighborhood of bushy, green, open space outside the traffic-clogged capital of Monrovia.
“We are about to change that dream. Their next dream will be one of hope. There is a future here,” he said.
Mr. Tamba, 35, and two former elementary-school classmates recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of their Internet cafe, named Sapata Inc.
Sapata got a chance because Mr. Tamba’s business partner Mike Sarkor, a Liberian engineer working in Canada, was able to secure private investors. It took about $120,000 to open the cafe. All the equipment, including 10 computers and a generator, had to be imported. The cafe gets its speedy wireless connection via a satellite company in Florida.
Thieves remain a threat. Red steel frames called “rogue bars” cover the windows and the air conditioner sits caged and bolted deep into the ground.
Robertsfield Highway, the main road stretching through Paynesville, is lined with dingy kiosks that charge cell-phones batteries for about 40 cents, and sell fizzy drinks to wash down fish roasted on sticks.
Mr. Tamba began selling kiosk owners some of the surplus power from his generator, hoping a future partnership can bring more light and safety to the area at night.
As people migrate to Paynesville, they must find a way to make a living.
Jobs in Monrovia are hard to find. Unemployment throughout the country is estimated at 85 percent; the literacy rate is about 20 percent.
For now, hundreds of Liberians are trying to pay their way by working on an expansive plot of land known as “Rock Hill.”
Deep within holes bored into the red dirt and along jagged cliffs lined by murky water, the “rock crushers,” as they are known, chip away at giant slabs of rock.
They sell the crushed gravel to construction companies - the result of grueling and dangerous work in which bits of gravel fly from crude hammers as if stray bullets. Even small children and pregnant women can be seen pounding away jagged pieces of stone in the heat of the day.
On a recent afternoon, Jerry Gbavah, 21, sat with pieces of rock secured between his feet. A burning tire smoldered on a rock slab behind him, generating heat that makes the rocks easier to chip apart.
Many days, Mr. Gbavah pounds away for 10 hours, alongside his mother and older brother. A pile of gravel will yield him a little more than $2.
He is using the money to put himself through school. At 21, he is only in the ninth grade. It costs about $3,500 Liberian dollars, or $50, a semester.
His dream - to graduate high school, go to college and put rock crushing behind him - is daunting. Sometimes he feels discouraged.
“Some of our friends get the opportunity to go to school, so they find life easy,” Mr. Gbavah said. “But the work I am doing makes it so hard for me to continue.” Still, Mr. Gbavah is hopeful.
“We want to see our people coming back to our homes so we can resettle,” he said. “I know that things will be fine one day … one day, for our country, I know … the time will come for us.”
In Paynesville, signs of rebuilding give the appearance that people are holding on to hope.
Not far from “Rock Hill,” two branches of established construction-supply companies have opened across the street from one another in the last six months.
Before the nation’s 14-year civil war that ended five years ago, people wanting to build had to fight heavy traffic to get into Monrovia.
Sethi Brothers Inc. has been in Monrovia for 28 years and saw an opportunity to meet a need in the expanding Paynesville community.
The Indian-owned company opened a branch here in February as more Liberians moved in.
The store is close enough that Liberians who do not have a car can walk there and carry home a few supplies. One woman walked along the road near Sethi Brothers with a small roll of zinc roofing atop her head.
Fredrick Griffin, 37, of Jacksonville, Fla., sat in the Sethi Brothers warehouse recently and negotiated prices for building materials with manager Manmeet Singh.
Mr. Griffin came to Liberia in May to help a pastor rebuild a church in a remote area of the country. But after two weeks, Mr. Griffin perceived that the need to help Liberians was so great that he and his wife, Diana, decided to move to Paynesville. They are building a home nearby.
Mr. Griffin, a mortgage lender by trade, opened a company called Griffin International Service, which he hopes will provide loans to Liberians to help them rebuild, get educations and start businesses in rural areas.
“We’ve got all these people, all different kinds of ideas,” Mr. Griffin said. “But they don’t have the money to facilitate their ideas.”
Rebuilding Liberia likely will take years, and those who have returned to make a new life are not naive. They know it won´t happen quickly.
Back along Robertsfield Highway, leading to the only commercial airport that will get a person out of Liberia, half-built houses made of concrete blocks are planted on a deep-green landscape of grass and palms. Houses can take years to build because Liberians construct their homes as they have money.
But even a half-built building on the outskirts of a capital city that still holds the ruins of war is a sign of rebirth.
“This is a businessman’s nightmare,” said Mr. Tamba, the Internet cafe owner. “But the fact that we are here, letting the flag fly, means there is hope.”
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