 Africa to the world, showing positive images of Africa and you know what, I can't believe that I'm in Liberia. You finally made it. I was so scared of coming to this country. And I am here, you know, if one of mine is scared, I guess a lot of people are scared. You know, people are asking me, are you safe? Why are you uploading any video? Is everything all right? I'm all right though. Just because I met the superstar. No, let me get it hard, you know. It's your fault. Ah! Africa to the world. Yeah, thank you so much. Hey, why are you so famous? I'm not famous. You're famous. You're not famous? No way, like everyone were like, hey, have you met already? You need to meet the, like, my whole email, my whole DM, everyone is talking about you. And I was like, let me go check it out. And I was like, ah, isn't it the same lady that O'Shea sent me to do some time ago? Yeah, we went to O'Shea a long time ago. A long time ago, and I was like, okay, finally. I already know her. I'm gonna meet her. Then I reach out to her like, okay. And we made it happen, yeah. No, tell us, why are you so famous? You want to know? You're making me blush. But anyway, I'm not famous, but you know, Liberia is a small country. Wow. For, we're less than five million. So, we all know each other. And as you- No, no, wait. They're not just famous in Liberia, because the people who are testing me are not from Liberia. Okay. But they want to see Liberia, they all see Liberia through you. That's awesome. Why is that? That's awesome. Well, I mean, I moved back. I'm a Liberian. Oh, okay. Number one, I'm a Liberian. So I moved back. And I've been back for about three years now. When I decided to move back from America. Oh, okay. You know, all the Americans are just baffled. Why would you leave this great life in America to go to Liberia? The third poorest country in the world. Ooh. They're taught like you left heaven to hell. To come to hell, yes. But are you sure you're in hell? I don't know. Is this what hell looks like? Because I'll take a first plastic in there. You didn't mean to say 10 when it came here. No, but I decided to just start a vlog. And really, I had no vlogging or videography experience. Started on my cell phone and did some iMovie edits, but just trying to show my American friends that were not living in huts and there's not lions and monkeys in my front yard. Because that's the image that we get in America. They thought you have a lion as a pet. Yeah, as a pet. So I was like, you know, maybe I should just show them the real Liberia, the real Africa. And then something happened where it shifted. My audience shifted from that to people, Liberians in the diaspora who haven't been home for 20 plus years. You know, a lot of Liberians were displaced during the war. So people are on programs in the States in different places where they can't even leave the country. If you leave America, you won't get access back. So they're there. They haven't seen home in years. I'm the only person who's making videos and content about what's happening right now on the ground. So I'm like, they don't have a choice. You guys gotta love me. I gotta be famous, right? Now I understand. They've seen the real Liberia through you. And I want to say congratulations. Thank you. Because a lot of people out there love what you do. They were telling me, what am I? You have to meet them. If you don't meet them, don't leave Liberia. I want to know, how has the experience been like since you came back? Well, I mean, again, we're here. You see this, this is Liberia. Everywhere you look, you know, I always post pictures and my friends are like, you're really enjoying yourself. And I'm like, well, that's my country. When you're in town working, you see the Atlantic Ocean. We're surrounded by the ocean. But just like any African country and Liberia even more because of the infrastructure, challenges that we have, it's not an easy move, right? It's not an easy transition. I've talked about this many times on my vlog channel, the things to prepare, how to prepare properly to make the move back. It's not easy. It's not easy anywhere. She's been real. It's not easy. I tell you guys on my channel all the time, you know, it's not an easy thing. You know, especially if you're living in America or Europe in the Western world where everything's a convenience, right? You have Amazon, you have this, you have that. I always say it's not too difficult. It's just a change and shift in your life style, right? But the benefits, the benefits are so much more and so much more fulfilling to your soul, right? Because especially somewhere like Liberia where it's such a small country, me, one person with an iPhone camera was able to make such a difference that people are messaging you, right? So they can see the potential, they can see the country. So I look at this, you know, people think that us YouTubers make some, and you're like way beyond me, you know? I think he has like 300,000 subscribers. I think I have four and I'm like, I'm doing really good. And then I look at his page and I'm like, oh my God, this is a real YouTuber. You know what, no, wait, before I let it continue. Her name is Eury. Reuter Filomena Yuri. And she's a YouTuber. So I know that you're already enjoying the conversation, but I want you to do me a favor. Go to her YouTube channel right now, go and subscribe before you come back again to watch the remaining video. Welcome back. That was a quick commercial break. Thank you. I want to know, 26 years in America, three years in what? Liberia. Actually, what took you to America? The war. The war. And I know that definitely a lot of people went to various parts of the war just because of the war. Exactly. You've been here three years now. Do you think that Liberians in the diaspora should come back home? Definitely. Wait, if they should come back home, what are they coming to do? Anything, everything, build your country. Thank you. Because if we don't do it, especially Liberians in the diaspora, to come back, bring all the knowledge, all the experience to this country that may not have it, but we can get there. We can get it with our small population that's in the diaspora. If just a few of us come back, it'll be one more Filipina doing something else. Then I won't be the only vlogger. Then there'll be someone else in a different sector. We have to come back. We can't count on our fathers and mothers. They're getting older. We are the next generation. We have to change things. We have to build our country. If no one does, we won't get there. We're talking about we, we, we, we, who are we? We are the young people. We are the ones that were displaced by war. But guess what? We made a difference. We were out there. We got our education. We got our experience. Now bring it back. Places like Ghana, you go to Ghana. Ghana's beautiful. Ghana's developed. You see a lot of young Ghanians coming back. You even see now the year of the return. Yeah, exactly. African-Americans wanting to come back. And the crazy thing is Liberia has a very close tie with African-Americans. And they don't even know because we're so under the radar. Liberia was founded by a free place. Exactly. And they are African-Americans. African-Americans, but they don't know that. But we need channels like this, you know, exposure like this to get people to come back. So if an American wants to come and visit, Liberians should definitely want to come back, invest in your country, and show this. Why not show this? Now you're telling them to come back home. I just want to know what can they invest their money into? Well, like we've talked about, there is a huge gap in the infrastructure of Liberia, right, since the war. So any sector you can think about, you can probably come here and make something of it, right? One of my favorites, though, is I come from a farming family. And agriculture is so rich in Liberia, but so not used. We don't use our land. And Liberians and Africans, all of us, we can eat off our land. There's no need to import anything. But we, as Liberians, we import everything, our vegetables, our fruits, our rice. And I don't know if you know Liberians, but we eat rice every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Liberians, in general, there's a statistic. We eat seven times more rice than any African country. I feel like Liberians don't have a lot of similar. We're very close. They're our cousins. They're our cousins. But we eat more rice than anybody, even Sierra Leone. And we import all of our rice. So agriculture, there's nothing but land, rich, fertile land. We can grow anything here. So farming, energy. You know, you hear Liberians complain. I think it's a common complaint, not in Ghana. I was in Ghana for two months last year. I was sick in Ghana. And I don't remember the current going out one time. Nigeria has the same problems that we have. LEC always, you know, fluctuates. So solar energy. I mean, any of you can think of tourism. I have a friend who has a tourism company. She moved from the diaspora as well. Back home, Liberian girl, came here. She has her own tourism company. She sets up tours for things like this. So any sector, it can be from top to bottom, engineer to doctor. You know, we're all here where there's a need for it. And we're looking for our people to invest back into the country. Like, you know what, I just feel like crying, but I don't cry in front of women. So I'm not going to cry. Because when I went to Sierra Leone, I realized that most of the things, like any flashy thing that you see in Sierra Leone belongs to, it doesn't belong to the people. It belongs to foreigners. And I came in here and kind of seen exactly similar. And I'm here to tell you that I don't hate anyone, but I feel like we as Africans, it's time for us to claim our land and develop our own countries. So if you're in America, who do you expect to come and develop your country for? Yes, the foreigners are here creating jobs for the people. But hey, you can create better jobs as somebody from different countries to come create jobs. And have a Liberian-owned business. My sister. Do you have any final message for each and everyone out there? Well, just want to thank you again. We finally linked up after many messages, many DMs. Everybody can relax. Voda in Filipina finally met. It's okay. Pause the alarm, but thank you for coming and shining a light on our beautiful little country. But the message is clear. I think he says that I say it. Come back. We need you. We need us to invest in our country. We are the only ones who will rebuild our countries. And yeah, follow me, continue the conversation. Let's keep the conversation going. Hopefully we'll get Voda back here to visit. Now that he's not scared that he's gonna get it, he's not walking to the middle of the war. I said I'm gonna spend five days here. That was the plan, but I guess I'm gonna stay more than five days. You're still in your trip after one day. I'm telling you. So which means that they've been lying to us that they said the civil war is still going on. I checked on Google what I saw. I was like, oh my goodness. My mom was like, my son, don't go. I don't want to lose you. But here I am, I've extended my days. So definitely it's safe for you to come in here. And when you come in here, you can definitely meet here. But hey, don't go beyond. I know some of you, that's the things that you do. But hey, it's your boy Mr. Ghana, baby. Make sure you go subscribe to your YouTube channel. Go see more of Liberia through her because I'm going back. And I don't know when I'm coming back. But if you really want to see what is going on in this country, her channel is the best place for you. Thank you again. Thank you. I love Maya.