Mama Susu (aka Sohaila) is back in town after 2 months in Syria. She's from Latakia and she went home after a 6-year break. While she was happy to be home, she was also appalled and extremely sad to see her country destroyed by war. She explained that electricity cuts are severe and, folks are relying on gas, wood and, olive seed to heat homes. Deforestation is happening everywhere so people can have a source of fuel. Security is becoming worse. A legend in Monrovia among "expats" and the Lebanese community, she's known as The Godmother, a fiercely independent and proud Syrian who's been doing business in Liberia for more than 40 years. Her restaurant on Gurley Street is where you go to for home-cooked style delicious fare. Folks crave her shrimps and goat meat long after they leave Liberia. She's ferociously proud of her country and, all it achieved under the Assad regime: independent, good health care and education system and free of crime. She's been watching her country get ripped apart by the civil war from afar but to go back and see firsthand how people are suffering must be devastating. For a while, she talked about extremist "animals" who were executing and pillaging long before the name ISIS even came to the mainstream news. (And guess who supported these "animals" ?) But Syria will continue to suffer until the regional and global powers are done with their games.
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