Reviving a school ravaged by war

VIRGINIA, Liberia -- When Olu Quaity Menjay arrived last year to become principal of the Ricks Institute , once a prestigious boarding school, he found rows of shacks holding several thousand displaced people on the school grounds, Nigerian peacekeepers sleeping in school buildings, and the empty shells of a half-dozen dormitories destroyed during years of civil war.

``I must be honest, I wanted to turn right around and return to the States," said Menjay, 33, a Liberian who earned a master's degree in sacred theology from Boston University two years ago. ``It was so discouraging. But then I asked myself, `If I don't do it, who will?' "

With the help of $90,000 in donations and supplies he collected last summer from Americans, some of it from a church in Dorchester, Menjay, his faculty, and staff are beginning to rebuild this private school, which has 330 students from kindergarten to grade 12.

Americans provided 95 percent of the school's funding this year. Menjay's staff repaired classrooms. An art teacher painted scenes on walls. Workers replaced hundreds of broken windowpanes. And Menjay tried to boost morale by increasing teacher salaries to about $120 a month, a jump from the paltry $17 monthly during the years of decay.

But like Liberia itself, which endured 14 years of conflict that killed an estimated 250,000 people, the school will need years to recover. Everything was broken, from the school desks to the teachers' spirit.

The school, founded in 1887 by Baptist missionaries, was named after Moses Ricks , a local Baptist farmer who donated $500 to purchase a 1,000-acre plot about 15 miles east of the capital of Monrovia. Over the decades, the coeducational institution became an elite boarding school, housing about 650 students and faculty and staff. Wealthy families sent their children to Ricks as a stepping stone to studying overseas.

When fighting began in 1989, the school's fate paralleled the country's descent. For intermittent periods that lasted for weeks, rebels and government troops fought on the school grounds, shutting down the school. When fighting moved elsewhere in the 1990s, 30,000 Liberians from different parts of the country moved onto school land. During interludes of peace, the school barely functioned.

``For such a long time this school has been in a survival mode," Menjay said, entering the school's library, which has one of the most extensive collection of books in the country: roughly 2,000 volumes, fewer than most American elementary schools. ``Now we have to start thinking about the future."

He walked past a portrait of William V. S. Tubman , Liberia's president from 1944 to his death in 1971, and a descendant of freed American slaves who led the movement in 1847 to declare the country an independent republic. During Tubman's tenure, Liberia recorded for a time the highest economic growth rate in sub-Saharan Africa, fueled by investments in iron ore and rubber.

Tubman's portrait reveals the more recent reality: it has two bullet holes in the canvas next to his head.

The school has been open continuously since the fall of 2003, at the end of the civil war. But programs -- and the school's infrastructure -- were in ruins. Dirt roads were torn up from years of use by heavy military vehicles. Lizards dart around the rooms of the empty dormitories. The school's 57 cows graze in grass around four buildings, including what once was the health clinic, now occupied by the last 100 Nigerian peacekeepers.

Menjay, who earns $600 a month and lives on campus with his wife in a row of small buildings for school staff, walked into the cafeteria, which weeks before had been vacated by some of the peacekeepers. ``I was very forceful in trying to get them out of here," he said.

The school has started serving free lunches to students and staff on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; they decided against the first and last days of the week because the food would spoil in the hot climate. The country has no electricity. The school has a borrowed generator, used for a couple of hours two times a week to power donated computers and an old mimeograph machine to make copies of tests.

Menjay, whose middle name in the Sarpo language means ``humble," fled Liberia after earning a high school degree from Suehn Mission School , which was destroyed during the war. At age 18, he arrived in the Ivory Coast. A year later, he received a scholarship to study at Truett-McConnell College , a Baptist school in Cleveland, Ga. , and then spent the next 13 years studying and becoming a Baptist preacher in America.

In 2001, he enrolled at BU to further his studies in theology. While in Boston, he visited several churches, and found himself returning to Metropolitan Baptist Church in Dorchester . The pastor, Rev. John H. Womack Sr. , 61, invited him to deliver sermons.

``He's a great preacher," said Womack, pastor at Metropolitan Baptist for 13 years. ``He's a godly man, sincere, well educated, and down to earth."

In early 2005, the slightly built Menjay, who resembles the filmmaker Spike Lee, took the job at Ricks. A few months later, he returned to the United States. One stop was Metropolitan Baptist, where parishioners responded to his pleas for help, contributing books, clothing, pencils, batteries, even jumper cables. Menjay put those items and others collected around the United States into a container and shipped it to Liberia.

``We decide it's part of God's work that we wanted to do, to help Pastor Menjay," Womack said in a telephone interview. ``We heard his story. He told us what he was doing. And the congregation wanted to assist the young people over there. They needed to be schooled."

One of those students is Massa Mamey , 17, a 10th-grader who hitchhikes 5 miles to school and then 5 miles home every day. She said Menjay tries to expose students to new experiences, including a visit that she and 14 others took recently to the US Embassy.

``I didn't want to leave the place," Mamey said, smiling at the memory. ``The air conditioning! We drank cold water. We watched TV -- we don't have access to TV. I wanted to sleep there. The chairs were so big, I could have slept in them."

Bruce B. Yeboah , 17, a senior who is ranked number one academically in his class, still remembers the day in March 2003 when rebels stormed onto the campus, firing shots in the air.

``We were in class when they attacked. Everyone scattered," he said. Weeks later, they returned to find almost everything gone. Now, Yeboah said, ``things are really improving."

One sign is that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia plans to address the graduating class June 18. That day, she and Menjay hope to announce that Ricks will be the first private school in Liberia to offer free primary school education.

That, of course, requires money.

Ten days after graduation, Menjay expects to be preaching again at Metropolitan Baptist in Dorchester, as part of a tour around the United States to raise $210,000 for the school. His pitch: sponsor an elementary school student for $1 a day.

``I keep asking myself . . . what is the essence of being here" at the school, Menjay said as he walked along one of the school's deeply rutted roads. ``Is it more helpful being here than in the States? It's not an easy walk. But I am reaching more people here. It's a calling to come and change society."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.