Liberia turns on the lights in Monrovia

There's a pride growing among Liberians in West Africa, the pride of a people who, as many hope, are turning away from bloody civil war to peace.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for the heady task of rebuilding a nation scarred and taking care of a generation of young adults who were used as the tools of war-mongering.

This summer has given Liberians some cause for celebration. Flanked by leaders from other West African countries, Sirleaf turned on streetlights powered by generators in the capital Monrovia for the first time in 15 years. And water flowed through the pipes in some parts of the capital.

Even if the ceremony was marked by a suspicious blaze in the presidential building, it was a milestone in the emotional growth of the country.

Liberia's civil war was particularly nasty, with routine rape and murder often perpetrated by child soldiers who were fed drugs.

The alleged leader of the violence, rebel leader-turned president Charles Taylor, is sitting a jail cell in The Hague, awaiting his trial on war crimes.