With the desperate urge to find normalcy comes the courage to challenge the impossible. It was this faith coupled with the desire to find normalcy that gave birth to the business mind-set of Liberian women during the civil war era of the early 90s to the latter years of the twentieth century. This, along with the emotional trauma of being newly widowed or abandoned created entrepreneurial mindsets overnight. Most women were forced to be heads of families, in most cases including more than four children and over two members of the extended family.

Some women began selling in open markets along the bordering town of Bo-Waterside, a border crossing town between Liberia and Sierra Leone. Markets ranged from fresh produce to meats, clothing, pottery, water, etc.

Few women, however, each a hero in sheep’s clothing, risked their lives to save and reunite families. Some were just leaving girlhood, still insecure and desperately seeking themselves, yet still they represented a courage that to this day has me in awe.

They were mostly young, very attractive women who had befriended soldiers and rebels from both warring parties of the conflict. The primary objective in the friendships and courtships however, was what gave these individuals wings, what set them aside from any monetary aid sent by world banks and kingdoms. The women would dress themselves in camouflage gathered by their military accomplices, use their friendships to travel about the country and across the border freely, and secretly help civilians in and out of the country. They made it their business to use the associations that their beauty blessed them to transport lost loved ones across war infested borders to be reunited with their families. This service could cost anywhere from $75.00 USD to $600 USD. The border towns were the most dangerous, since they were where most of the fighting took place. After the war, both rebels and government soldiers set up forts along the bordering towns and participated in small lingering conflicts. Thus, the only way out of the war and into the safety of Sierra Leone, Guinea, or The Ivory Coast was through a border town. Civilians stayed away in fear of post-war stress and harassment from soldiers, and possibly even losing their lives. Most families just hid in wait of a cease fire, only to return to looted, destroyed, or denigrated homes. The border women proved to be involved in a very lucrative business, and one that saved the lives of my husband and three daughters; and in a strange way, it saved my own.

One of them, Sata, made several trips per day to the border, transporting family members to and from Liberia to the border at Bo-Waterside. I was attending Columbia University in New York on a Fulbright Scholarship when the Liberian Civil War started.

My family had stayed behind in Liberia while I finished school, and were there when the first bullet flew through the country and in seconds destroyed decades of peace. Through a series of God’s acts and Liberian networks in America, I received a call from an old family friend that informed me that he’d seen my husband and children walking, when the soldiers initially invaded Monrovia, and that my husband told him that they were headed to a small hidden town called Lai. My husband must’ve known that if I were to ever make it back to Liberia, Lai would be the first place that I would go looking for them. It was the town that my mother was from, and where I had spent a good amount of my childhood summers.

I was advised by my Professors and Mentors at Columbia to stay in New York until the war had died down, but nothing at that point could’ve kept me away from my family, especially since I knew exactly where they were. If my husband were in my position, I would’ve been in Lai waiting for him to come for me. I therefore, had to find the same strength that I expected of him. I raised money, borrowed money, and used money that I did not have in a leap of faith across the ocean to get them. I didn’t know where to start, or what I was doing, but I was led by the faith of father Abraham, who knowing that God would provide a lamb for the sacrifice, took his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice in obedience to God’s command. He believed that the impossible would happen by faith, and it did. So I believed.

I stayed with a friend of my older sister in a town in Sierra Leone that was close to the border. After barely dropping my bags, I prodded her with questions. Where was I? How close was Monrovia from where we were by bus? On foot?

Fortunately for me, she knew a man named Jallah who happened to live in a small area near the town of Bo-Waterside. She took me to his house, and after only a short while of talking to him and telling him my troubles, he told me of a woman named Sata who took money in return for retrieving people’s families out of the country. He told me that he would go and find her for me, and I waited anxiously in his house, daydreaming of what this woman, who this woman could’ve been that was willing to take on such a dangerous task.

Sata was young. I saw her walking towards Jallah’s house to meet me and I knew instantly that she was young. It frightened me a bit, but once again, my train of thought was outside of reason and anything that had to do with it. I wanted to see my loves again. And that is all. Sata was a small girl. She was petite, a little over five and a half feet, with a baby face. I examined her carefully as I spoke and she listened. She wore camouflage, looked rough, her body barely as feminine as her soft face suggested, and her eyes were blood red. I pleaded with her to go and find my family for me. She said yes. “It will be risky,” she explained, “you have to show me something that will let them know that it is really you”. It just so happened that I was carrying a picture of myself. I quickly retrieved it from my bag and handed it to her. She agreed to go, I paid her, and she left.

Ten days later, I saw her walk towards me with my husband and children. Through dust, but still I recognized them. I cried; tears flowed in an overwhelming abundance at what had happened. Who was this woman?! This girl! Who was this rugged angel that had risked her life, that was risking her life on a daily basis, so that me and other women like me could know ours again? This business of women, this legion of unmentioned, unknown, unsung heroes, had touched me in such a way that every time I sit with my family to laugh, eat, drink, and talk, a piece of me goes out to them. These women were remarkable! They could have easily delighted in gold and jewels from the rebel lords in praise of their beauty, they could’ve physically delighted themselves and received thousands of dollars in return, but they instead made it their business to see others in a state of calm and happiness. They could have delighted in gold, but they invested in love instead.

I do not know what happened to her; Sata. There was no way that we could really keep in touch after my family and I left for New York. The only way that I can praise her and thank her beyond monetary gifts is with her story, and other women like her, who were to me, and will remain to thousands of Liberian refugees around the world…. Heroes.