Editor's note: Journal Staff Writer Philip Marcelo will be traveling to Liberia in August to report on that country's progress 10 years after the end of a devastating civil war. This is the latest installment of an online and print series called "Rebuilding Liberia: The R.I. Connection."
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- One of the first Liberians I reached out to for this project was Winston A. Gould, head of the Liberian Community Association of Rhode Island.
Gould, a Silver Lake resident, was elected president of the association in 2012.
He has been a valuable contact for navigating the fractured Liberian community in Rhode Island. (More on that later).
He also has a personal story that, in some respects, is unique among local Liberians, but, in other respects, is also very typical.
According to Gould, he had worked in the Liberian government's immigration division during the administration of President Samuel Doe in the 1980s.
But he was ultimately forced out and beaten over a personal dispute with a ranking military officer. Fearing for his life, Gould fled in 1986, starting a new life in Rhode Island at the age of 28 and leaving a young family behind.
But Gould, who is now re-married, continued to send back monthly payments to cover school tuition costs, rent, food, clothing and more for his three children, who lived with their mother and her family in Barnersville, a suburb of Monrovia, the capital.
"Everybody in this country supports people back home," he said recently. "We send them money and stuff back all the time. Our country is a country where if I have enough, I can share with you."
He continued: "If someone calls you from Africa and tells you they don't have food to eat, what are you going to do? There's no way you're not going to send money. Even if its $60."
Gould, who runs his own company, Alesther Construction, says he had been unable to bring his children over during the war years because he was not, at that time, a legal resident. (He is now.)
But he says he still provides support for them even though they are now grown.
When I travel to Liberia in August, I'm hoping to meet up with at least one of Gould's sons, Lafayette, a government prosecutor in Bong County.
Gould says his other son, Winston Jr., and his daughter, Winnie, split their time between Liberia and Ghana.
I'm hoping that Gould's family story will provide insight into the modern Liberian family dynamic and some common themes: how families were split apart during those years, how fundamentally different their experiences of the fighting were, and how their ties to their native country have been reestablished or maintained through remittances.