Out on the ocean, Liberians are surfing, and I have a brief moment of dislocation: It looks like California, where I live. The white-blue waves are crashing onto the flat sands as the surfers ride the crest, crouched slightly, dark against the gleaming water, and then come in a bit shakily but triumphant.

In Africa, Martin explains, life is based on relationships, not on results. He tells a story about a "ride board" that he hung outside the hospital where he used to work in Bong County, where Sachs's Kokoyah is. It was a blackboard where people could sign up for a ride down to Monrovia in the hospital's one truck. He put it up because many people needed transport but only one small group were getting all the rides. Once the board went up, Martin says, everything was regulated and it was pretty fair. "It worked for four years," he says. "But the minute I left, they dumped the board and went back to getting places in the truck by using connections." Now maybe that just works better for them, Martin says. Their culture is not like our culture. His adopted son, a young man from Bong County with marks of ritual scarification on his cheeks, listens attentively.

I tell Martin about Sachs and the Millennium Villages. He shrugs, then says, "Great! I'm willing to try a lot of things."

The waves are crashing and breaking on Thinkers Village Beach. They're breaking at the edge of the Firestone plantation, they're breaking against the river delta that feeds the water down below broken Vai Bridge. "There are riptides here," Martin says. "People drown all the time. They found a fellow just the other day." He looks at his son, looks at the surfers. "Yes, I guess I'm willing to try a lot of things," he adds quietly. "In fact, I would try anything . . . anything!" And I think to myself that in his own way, Martin is just like Sachs. Both willful optimists, for humanity's sake.