Woman flees war-torn Liberia to start new life, business in Auburn

Graceful hands moved back and forth over Rosaline Fornah’s head, over and around and up and down, knotting, twisting, turning, weaving the pedestrian possibilities of ordinary follicles into the intricate order of African braids.

Those hands belong to Elizabeth Foday-Dodge, owner and operator of Kadiatu’s African Hair Braiding at 225 E. Main, Suite D. She has practiced her craft in the small shop at the south end of the Arcade Building since opening in June 2004.

Word about this unique business is spreading.

“My customers are African-American, Caucasians, I do Indian hair, Russian hair, men, women, young guys and girls. And so far it has been good,” said Elizabeth, 32.

But life hasn’t always been so good for her.

Elizabeth immigrated to the United States from Liberia in 2001, a nation founded by freed American slaves in the early 18th century. The fourth of seven boys and two girls, she grew up in the peace of the countryside outside the capital city of Monrovia.

But between 1989 and 2003, three civil wars ripped Liberia apart, searing into her memory images of war at its most squalid, perverse and lunatic.

“I remember in class when the war broke out they were killing students,” Elizabeth said. “It was terrible, just terrible. War is just trauma. Americans don’t know what it is. In America there are good and bad things, and you can choose between them. But in war you don’t have a choice. “

When gun-wielding rebels singled out Elizabeth’s physician father for execution, her mother concealed him and shielded her brothers and sisters from harm. Her mother stood outside the family home, telling the bad guys there was no man inside for them to kill. With ice in her veins, her mother satisfied the marauders with the last scraps of food in the house and whatever valuables she had. But the family survived.

Unfortunately her mother could not outlast the wars. She sickened, and because basics like medicine are in short supply in time of war, died, breaking Elizabeth’s heart.

“God is my rock, but she was everything to me,” Elizabeth said softly.

Her father survived the wars.

Shortly afterward Elizabeth’s foster mother persuaded her to leave the hopeless situation for America.

“Where war is, there is no peace,” said Fornah, Dodge’s aunt, who had immigrated years earlier. “There are shortages of food and water and everything. Armed people come and take your food and your home, and they kill you for it.

“… The only lucky part was I never got raped, hallelujah,” Fornah added. “Some of our friends got raped, women got raped a lot, especially the university students. If I was going to be raped, I would kill myself … I know the sound of every gun, trust me. I know the bazooka and the sound of the rocket launcher being released. But it’s the AK 47 that gives you the heart attack. When they shoot it goes ‘pip, pip, pop, pop.’ That made me jump. I escaped to Ghana with heart palpitations.”

Elizabeth added: “They were shooting from every angle. You see them beating people, killing people, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, aunties and old people. It is the unarmed people, the innocent people, the children and women who suffer. I didn’t know where to turn. You’ve got to run for your life, and you’ve got to keep on running. And you have to disguise yourself. Anybody found to be a university student would be killed. It was God that got me through.”

God and the visas then being handed out to students. Elizabeth’s visa enabled her to come to the United States and continue her education.

“When war is in a country it is hard for you to achieve what you want or to go to school regularly. That’s why I came,” she said.

Elizabeth’s first glimpse of America was of the World Trade Centers in New York City and the Statue of Liberty. But it was August of 2001 and one month later, those towers were gone.

“It bought up all that trauma of war,” Elizabeth recalled of the Sept. 11 attacks. “I said, ‘Oh no, not again.’ It was like running from death, but then you meet with death. That was hard for me, very hard. It was a terrible thing.”

Elizabeth settled first in South Carolina on a scholarship to small Bible college. When she decided to pick up where she left off with nursing, she moved to Philadelphia. But the city proved too crowded for her, so she accepted a friend’s invitation to resettle on the West coast. She earned her certified nursing assistant certificate from a college in Des Moines.

In early 2003 at that most American of institutions, the backyard barbecue, Elizabeth met a man named Ron Dodge. Their first date was at a baseball game and they married on Oct. 11, 2003. They have one child, 2-year-old Emily.

It was Ron Dodge who noticed how his wife braided her hair and suggested she could make a living doing it for others. Initially she was reluctant, but she finally agreed to have a go at it. She couldn’t run the business out of her apartment, so she rented the shop in downtown Auburn.

“It was his dream, not mine, honestly,” Elizabeth said. “All I knew how to do was my own hair. Every business from the beginning takes a lot of work. I used to work as a full-time, certified nursing assistant from 6 to 2 and after work I would come here and change and braid until 8 p.m.

“What I have learned is that in America you can achieve, but you’ve got to work hard for it. You’ve got to do things right,” Elizabeth said.