Looks like I will spend my birthday on the road…9 hours inside a dodge van. Hooray!

(And jet-lag still kicking)

Picture the typical African country torn apart by a corrupt government that keeps the power by terrorizing the civil population. It has all the necessary ingredients: children soldiers, famine, murders, rapes, displacement and rebel groups even more dreaded than the government itself. More than ten years of violence. Just another doomed and poor African country with apparently no hopes of recovery any time soon.

And now picture a group of women that can’t take war anymore. They are mothers, sisters and wives, and all they want is peace. It all starts in a small christian community but it rapidly propagates into the Muslim community as well. They dress in white, and they gather and chant in the same spot day after day, recruiting more and more people. After a while they make enough noise to be heard by the country’s despot itself and they ask him to talk with the rebels and bring peace to the country. They do the same with the rebels. They involve the international community and get them to organize peace talks to stop the bleeding of the country.

And they succeed.

This happened in Liberia, which has now the first woman president in Africa’s history, and should be known by everybody. People with no fear, an incredible willpower and an intense desire for life and peace accomplished the impossible. They united religions and helped topple the dictatorship. It is an incredibly inspiring documentary:

http://www.praythedevilbacktohell.com