politics and prayers

today was really a very good day. for the first part, we had power when i woke up. yesterday morning, i had awoken at five to the sound of silence. then the incessant barking and howling of the neighborhood dogs. i’ve never been comfortable with the sound of a dog barking, and when it’s eight or nine of them together, sleep stays quite far.

but this morning was lovely, and i particularly enjoyed sleeping all the way until six. this morning i helped out in the OPC (outpatient pediatric clinic). wednesdays are days for vaccines and referrals, and i was able to help the nurses with some of the vaccinations. i weighed a lot of babies, gave two vaccinations, got peed upon, slobbered upon, and almost pooped upon, and i loved every minute. a five day old baby came in, and he was perhaps one of the most beautiful thing i have ever seen so i didn’t mind when he (nappy-less) peed all over the place. his mom was a first timer, and she was so cute, nearly jumping out of her chair when he sneezed.

i went for lunch with terri and susan to bliss bakery. it was so nice to get out of the compound for a little bit during the day. the apc (all people’s congress) supporters were out en masse all decked out in red. free-for-all campaigning opened on monday, and i have witnessed some sort of political demonstration almost every day this week. today was the day that the apc candidate was announcing his manifesto of campaign promises so almost everyone out today was dressed in red. but the grapevine brought us news of the election’s first casualty. apparently, an apc supporter walked into the slpp (sierra leone people’s party) party headquarters and when he refused to leave began to be beaten. he was beaten to death. we spent out lunch watching knots of red clad people dancing down the street past the plate glass windows on their way into town and could only dream about the state of freetown in a month’s time on the day of the elections.

i spent the afternoon running around a bit more and interviewing a few more women for my study. they had both come back to the centre complaining of stress incontinence, and as we are unable to help them, are about to go home. but i had a chance to talk to them both, which is really such a blessing. especially because my ability to go out and recruit participants will now be severely limited by the demonstrations in town. it was really neat to talk to them both. its interesting. part of my interview comes from a quality of life/stress test questionnaire, and nearly all of my women, whether or not their surgery was successful, have returned similar results. there just isn’t an easy life in sierra leone.

yesterday, i spent the afternoon chatting with one of the patients who has become a very close friend, seray. she’s the only one left who has had a bit of schooling and her english is quite good. it was actually really funny, because we had been carrying on a conversation, and i was getting quite proud of my krio. then seray asked me if i wanted to learn krio. yes, i replied. okay, she said, i will stop talking in english. :) i almost died laughing. but in our conversation, it was very interesting to hear seray speak of sierra leone. ‘it’s a beautiful country,’ she told me. ‘but if i ever get a chance, i will leave it. there are no opportunities here. salone suffers. it suffers because there are no opportunities. no one get job so no one get any money and so all man suffer.’ looking around, sometimes i can’t help but agree. i think of seray in london or new york city. her sister has been. she met a brit and lied to him when he showed an interest in her. she said she didn’t have a husband when she did. he was probably away in the mines or upcountry working somewhere. couples and families often live apart here. her british ‘man’ took her to london, but when he found a love letter to seray’s sister from her proper husband, the brit rejected her and sent her back to sierra leone alone.

yet there is so much potential here. i have met so many people with initiative, high hopes, and even bigger dreams. the elections provide a pivotal moment for positive change and growth. please pray with me for sierra leone...

morning time and prayer...

mornings at the centre are my favorite times. we arrive from the team house by 7:30 usually. the admin office is usually opened by terri. i dump my stuff into a chair and grab the coffee pot. it's quite a commodity around here, and so it's the first task of the day. that done, i run off to the morning devotions held by some of the staff for the patients. we sing songs in krio, and clap to all different rhythms. i have several favorite songs, one of which i have copied here:

tell ah, tell ah ten-ki
tell papa god tenki
tell ah, tell ah ten-ki
tell papa god tenki

wetin ee do foh me
teh papa god tenki
wetin ee do foh me
teh papa god tenki

the devotional time ends with a time of prayer, and i love to hear prayers in krio. florence, our official/unofficial counselor is a pastor's wife, and she prays with the most fervent spirit. filling her prayers with scripture and thanksgiving. we have begun praying with each of the patients going into surgery that day. today we prayed with a fifteen year old and an eighteen year old, both absolutely petrified with fear. honestly, sometimes i struggle to understand how such things can happen. when i see such young girls, i realize that we are really treating a symptom but not the problem. fistulas are still happening, and frequently.

yet i notice every morning after the devotions and after the times of prayer that one of the most amazing things about prayer is that no matter who or what you are praying for, you always end up feeling better. even with these girls, and the whole country of sierra leone and all its difficulties, there's a peace in my heart and a confidence in god's abundant love. it's the mysterious blessing of prayer...

a quick summary after some delay

one of my biggest technology-related pet peeves is when you spend a relatively substantial amount of time, energy, and effort into doing something and then your computer flips out and you lose it all. that’s what happened to me on thursday. i had written a really lovely post for this blog that kind of recapped the few days prior and summed up my feelings of the moment. i clicked ‘post’ and then the server could not be found. of course, when i clicked ‘back,’ it didn’t reload the words i had typed. ah well. i can’t really go back and write everything up, because that plus everything that i’ve done since would make for an inordinately long blog post, and that would just be daunting to read all in one go. so i thought that i would just do some bullet points of the daily highlights of the past little bit to (hopefully) help me to stay concise.

• wednesday. morning. mercy ministries team trip to an hiv/aids hospice and orphanage in downtown monrovia run by the sisters of charity. met some really lovely liberian nursing students who chatted the morning away while we all cuddled and hugged and did our very best to get these poor little dear ones to smile a little bit. twenty to thirty kids, most hiv positive, one sister and a handful of local volunteers. i never learned the name of the little one i was cuddling, but at the end of two and half hours or so, i finally did coax a smile out of her. really, one of the most gratifying moments of my life. afternoon. tagged along to a meeting with sr. barbara brilliant, alum of bc nursing, one of the only ex-pats to stay in liberia for the duration of the war. absolutely blown away by the impact she has made on that country and the volume of work which she does. really, incredibly inspired.
• thursday. woke up. packed. said oodles of goodbyes. couldn’t really eat lunch because my stomach was so twisted. spent some time wondering why goodbyes never get easier no matter how many times you done them. wrote a blog post which was sadly lost. met my traveling companions, kent and oebele. got to know them even better when our flight was delayed two hours or so. arrived in sierra leone. i could barely keep from smiling to see the beautiful hills of the land i have come to love.
• friday. came in to work only to be frustrated by the internet. organized some data for the study. headed out in the early afternoon with bas and anna for makeni. drove three and a half hours. arrived in magbenteh village outside of the town, where bas and anna worked in a hospital. was almost mobbed by all of the villagers who were so ecstatic to see them. was often taken for bastiaan’s second wife. a little awkward. :) went for a drink at ibrahim’s, a particularly lovely lebanese man. ended up at the house of action contra la faime (acf), a french ngo. met some of the most open-hearted, hospitable, friendly, easy-going people i’ve ever encountered. had a dinner of fried rice, a nice glass of wine, and played ‘the were-wolves of thiercelieux’ (roughly translated) – the french equivalent of mafia. set up a mosquito net. fell asleep.
• saturday. woke up to almost complete silence, a novelty after freetown. took a quick, cold shower that felt absolutely amazing. breakfast of tea, freshly baked bread, fried egg, cake, fried rice, and pineapple. packed up. waited for the rain to end. began a long process of saying goodbyes, to acf, to makeni town, to magbenteh village, and to magbenteh hospital. felt so incredibly privileged to see and participate. got on the road around one in the afternoon. rain, some suspicions of car trouble, a couple of stops for bananas, bread, a little squat behind a gallon drum, and three hours stuck in the middle of a political parade opening the official presidential campaigns equals arriving to the centre a little after seven. after a little food and a second shower, i felt tired but absolutely content.

hopefully i will have a chance to write a bit more about my time in makeni – the wonderful people i met and my reflections upon the whole experience, but for now i will end. it’s getting late, and i’m quite tired. also hopefully the internet will work tomorrow and i will be able to post this up. i think that there is another post that i want to put up that i wrote before i left for monrovia. better late than never, i suppose. :)

a day in the village

my goal for today was to notice in particular all the little details which really do make up each and every day. and armed with that perspective, i headed out to face the day. so what did i notice? i noticed how riding in the land rover along back country roads was similar to riding a frisky horse. i noticed how the red of the iron-rich earth of the dirt road contrasted so beautifully with the green of the plants and the blue and white of the sky. i noticed how beautiful was the workmanship which placed the mud onto the walls of the huts in the villages we visited and laid the dried palm fronds on the roof. i noticed how the hot items of the liberian market are mosquito nets and tarpaulins. i noticed a unhcr bucket full of rainwater. i noticed the detailed faces of the little children which clung to my legs and my fingers. i noticed the domineering attitude of the young teenage guy who professed his love for me, asking for me to take him to the united states and care for him. i noticed the change in his face when i reminded him of his sisters and brothers who need him to care for them. i noticed the young girl who was nine months pregnant, and i wondered if she has a birthing plan or if she will become a future vvf patient.

you see, i went today with the community health education team to distribute chemically laden mosquito nets. they’ve been working in the area of cheesemanburg, which is made up of a chain of seven or eight villages. today we were in kosoh town, a grouping of seven or eight homes whose inhabitants comprise one extended family. we went into the homes, counted how many people sleep there and proceeded to hang the nets. one for the bed on which this husband and wife sleep. one for the children who sleep on a mat on the floor. two more for the brother’s family in the other room, and one for the grandparents who sleep in the third room. according to jen, the team coordinator, one can really only home that at least by taking the nets out of their plastics and hanging them up that it will be enough to prevent the recipient from taking them down and selling them, which has apparently happened quite a bit in the past. there were heaps of people to hang everything up, so i spent the better part of the day playing with the village children, who were so incredibly cute. i’ve only seen children at the opc, the outpatient pediatric clinic, the one day with sandra and annekoos, and i forgot how much i miss children. i met emmanuel, tony-boy, angel, homer, and infa. they were beautiful children, and i was flattered by their attention. according to one woman in the village, normally they all just cry and run away from the white people. :)

we ran out of nets fairly quickly, though, and were heading back to the ship by a little after twelve noon. we got back to the ship a little after one. climbing out of the car i met ann, jutta, and kate all going out to hopefully meet with a man who had some rabbits to sell for the micro-enterprise project. at their invitation, i climbed out of the one land rover into the next one. we went to one of the local supermarkets and waited for nearly half an hour before we were able to contact him by phone. his car was having trouble, he could meet on friday at the same time. with no real other choice, we abandoned the hope of getting some rabbits and proceeded to cross a few other things off of the to-do list, like placing an order for bamboo so that one of the other women in the program could have the materials to build her rabbit hutch. apparently, once the woman can demonstrate that she had an appropriate hutch built, then she receives the pair of rabbits. anyway, we drove out on the same road which took me nearly a week ago to white plains. it was really fun to recognize something, i must say. :)

and now i am back, once again, on the ship. it’s funny, with all of the wonderful amenities of life available here on board, i must say that i couldn’t help but look a little wishfully at some of the homes that we went in and out of today. they were really beautiful. beautifully constructed, beautifully kept up, beautifully simple. mud floors, mud walls, palm frond and tarpaulin roof, but i found myself wishing for more than half a moment that i could live there, with these people. honestly, i know that this desire is one of theory and born out of the luxury of choice, but still the desire remains, much to my chagrin. maybe someday...

a day with the dental team

i suppose that i owe every one a blog post, for all of you who are so wonderful to be faithful readers of this little web log. so i have settled down with a lovely cup of darjeeling tea, and i will faithfully record the events of the past few days, and get you updated. :)

the weekend passed uneventfully enough. it rained all day saturday, spoiling plans for a trip to the beach, which i was used to after a few weekends in sierra leone. it was such a blessing, though, to spend the day with power and the light and air conditioning that come with it. yet how quickly thankfulness turns to complaining, as there really was no where on board where i could get warm, and suddenly the blessed ac became a burden as i shivered through the day. last night, at the crew sunday service, the speaker, rob cairncross, spoke on just that.

it's pretty neat. this trip which i thought would be all about my study, and seeing different things and just experiencing the ship and ship-life again, really has become a spiritual retreat of sorts. i've had so much time to just sit and think and read, and it's amazing what little thoughts bubble up to the surface when you give them a moment. i've been reading a lot about prayer, and that has been so incredibly enriching to my day-to-day life. i love waking up the morning to see what the day will bring.

today brought a trip with the dental team. they have established a clinic in one of the areas of a local government hospital, and we set out early in the rain, all very much resigned to the fact that it's the rainy season, and you're just going to get wet. :)

the day seemed as though it was going to be slow, because of the rain, but in the end, it was a fairly full day with everyone just showing up late, delayed by the downpour. i worked mostly on the admin side, pairing up with the woman in charge of admissions paperwork. i sat and watched and then later helped taking medical histories. the pidgin english here is no less fun than krio.

Have you had rhuematic fever?.....Whe' yu small, yu get fevah dat put red spots on yu skeen?
Have you had hepatitis?.....Yu get yellow jaundice or livah diseese?

fun times. :)

there was actually a man that came in who was sierra leonean. he only moved to liberia on 28 June, so he only spoke krio and mende. i don't speak any mende, but we managed to communicate a bit through my broken krio. the poor guy was in an extraordinary amount of pain with some pretty severe swelling near his jaw. he seemed much happier when he left and even gave me a little corner of a smile.

another memorable patient was one of the little children that came through. his name was simeon, and he was from a local orphanage which was taking advantage of having a pediatric dentist on the team. i didn't get to spend much time with him, but his adorable smile warmed my heart in the middle of the morning when i was wondering why i had come. it's the interesting part of mercy ships, or any missions work, really, we all get so used to being understaffed that when you are there to volunteer or help out, no one can really sort out what you could possibly do, although you know there is heaps of work to be done.

but i really can't blame them, because i know that i will be gone tomorrow, and they'll have to shift back to being chronically understaffed...

photos

you can follow this link to my online photo album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lauren.fadely/SierraLeone

monrovia, white plains, and memories

it’s funny to be on a ship again. it’s been four years since i laid foot on a mercy ship, but here i am again, and it feels...good. not the kind of good that makes your stomach bubbly and your heart flutter with excitement, but the kind of good of waking up late on a weekend morning to streaming sunshine and birds singing. it’s a kind of lazy good that says this feels right, but also knows that this moment doesn’t last forever yet can still appreciate the moment for what it is.

the africa mercy is a beautiful ship, but it’s very different from the little ship i called home for so many years. the caribbean mercy was older, much shorter, and thinner with tiered decks that allowed for a lot of outdoor space. the africa mercy is like a floating building, square and full to the edges. there’s very little wood to be found anywhere, but it really is lovely. yesterday my dad told me that we sailed the anastasis for the first time when the ana was twenty-eight years old, and we sailed the afm for the first time when she was twenty-seven. it’s funny then to think of the years ahead of this ship and all of the families that will call it home and the loyalties that it will engender. because that’s really what one feels now, as the anastasis is prepared for her final voyage, the sadness of many goodbyes to many years of memories. what makes us humans so fond of the past, i wonder?

this has been, so far, a nostalgic trip, as i remember life on board the cbm and childhood memories evoked by familiar smells and sounds and other ship-esque things. box milk, fresh bread, food lines, public spaces, the generator’s hum, the gentle listing in port – so many things i didn’t even know i remembered.

then there was our trip yesterday to see the sites of my dad’s childhood, in and around monrovia. we left the ship around midmorning, and drove along a road-turned-river, compliments of the rainy season, to white plains, a retreat center run by the united methodist church, where my dad had spent some holidays and where my grandmother’s heart is buried. after a lot of asking and some backtracking, we met up with the groundskeeper, mr. mo, and he drove with us the rest of the way. we emerged from a small track densely crowded by a hundred shades of green to find a large clearing with several buildings of cinderblock and brick. Walking up the main clearing, flanked by the men’s and women’s dormitories, we came upon a large rectangle of unmarked stone shaded by some young trees. this is karis, mr. mo pointed out, and it was a really special moment. what really struck us the most, throughout our journeying around, was how everyone remembered the name. my dad would only say, i’m jon fadely, the son of tony and karis fadely, and everyone’s eyes would get very big and they would say, ohhhh, and that would be that. everyone remembered or remembered hearing about the young white family from the united states that had lived there thirty years ago, who had pastored the church, and who had taught the choir. in talking with mr. mo, he found out that i was working in sierra leone. “you are in missions like your grandmother,” he said. “thank you for caring about africa.” i nearly cried. it was a beautiful moment.

we also visited the methodist church and the compound in sinkor where my father lived and my grandfather worked. more memories, more friendly and warm greetings from the methodist workers. even though it was raining buckets nearly the whole time, i remember it even now as a beautiful, sunny time.

liberia is, after all, different from sierra leone although they share a border and their west african culture. the first thing i noticed after coming off of the plane was how flat the land here is. freetown, nestled in among the hilly mountains of sierra leone, has a different feel from monrovia which sprawls across a plain. the war here is fresher, and the people are more subdued. the wounds of the war are only just beginning to heal here, it seems. after only a short time in the car with our driver immanuel, who returned to monrovia two years ago after living as a refugee in ghana for six years, the stories began to spill out about the atrocities which he had witnessed and the monumental task of forgiveness and reconciliation which he and others had begun to undertake.

two of his sisters had been raped a killed by a man who Immanuel knew to live in a certain neighborhood. he met the man and became friends with him while the man was unaware of their connection. then, after several months, immanuel took the man aside and told him, “you know the two women you raped and killed in such-and-such place? they were my sisters. i forgive you.” and the man broke down in tears. “it is the only way,” immanuel said. “the way of forgiveness is the only way.”
after we had seen everything that my dad wanted to show us, we were well past lunch time. immanuel offered to drop us off at a nearby hotel restaurant while he ran and grabbed some food from a local vendor. but it seemed to silly, so condescending to have our “driver” drop us off at this swanky restaurant while he ran off to huddle beside some food stand in the rain. but when we offered to have him join us, he grinned sheepishly and said that he doesn’t like western food. so after a brief discussion it was decided that we would go with him, to eat african food.
a few minutes’ drive brought us to the door of daba’s african food restaurant, and we ran inside. once we stopped dripping, we sat down at the table and looked at the day’s menu. everyday had some standards: fufu with soup, douboy and soup, GB, and then there was a daily special available. monday was potato leaves, tuesday cassava, wednesday palava sauce, thursday jolof rice, friday collard greens, etc. so palava sauce and rice it was, and it was good. much better than royal hotel, i think, and much more human. later, my dad and i had a really wonderful and stimulating conversation on the benevolent prejudices which often plague missionary or charity works, whether overseas or in your own neighborhood. it poses an interesting challenge.

so it is another rainy day in monrovia. i don’t think that i will get to know and love monrovia nearly as well as i have already with freetown, but i am very happy to be here, to see the extended family of mercy shippers that i have missed so much, and to reconnect a bit with the past. my prayer today is with everyone involved with the anastasis’ final voyage. it’s not an easy task to be the bearers of so much scrutiny as everyone is really deeply invested in that beautiful ship. it’s never easy saying goodbye...

another day on the ward...

i can't believe that this week is already nearly over. it has gone so quickly, but at the same time, the days have been so long. i've spent the most part of the week sorting out everything for my study.

monday started off with a bang. i spent the morning structuring the questions and doing research online. then suddenly i heard that there were two women waiting to be screened who had been here before. i dashed off to talk with them, and i had my first two interviews done.

tuesday was also spent in research and helping helen with the vocational training. mostly helping the girls who have had some education to read and write a bit more. then two more previous patients were there, and i had four women in the study.

yesterday, i spent the most part of the day helping with the vocational training. we were doing embroidery, little fish and flower designs on some plain cotton fabric. the girls loved it. it was also gladi-gladi day, and it was a small, intimate group of five as opposed to the eleven or so last week. it was really special, and i got some really good photos - but i haven't been able to get them online yet. still working on that...

and today. what did i do today? in the morning, i sat for a while in the ward and chatted with several of the patients. one girl asked about my hair - she couldn't sort out how i had gotten my hair this way. she puts special creams on it, one of the staff told her. ahhh..., the patient replied. every day i feel more at home in the wards. the patients stay here for an average of one month - what with waiting for surgery and the post-op care, the women stay long enough to build a relationship, which is really wonderful.

then i spent the other bit of the morning cataloguing OR meds and reading with two of our more literate patients. After reading a page, i had to explain to them in broken Krio (or really, really bad english) what they had just read. it was pretty hilarious, i must say. :)

then it was time for chop - pumpkin. i asked if they had pumpkin all the time, because we only have at home in the fall, and the cook said just in the rainy season. it's actually a really good way to eat pumpkin. i'll have to see if i can sort out the recipe from one of the cooks so that i can make it back at school. it's funny, when i say 'school' here, everyone thinks secondary school, so i have to extra sure to say 'university.' :)

my apologies that this isn't more thrilling. it was just another day on the ward...

weekdays and wheelchairs...

It’s been a few days since I’ve written. The power has been up and down, and, honestly, there hasn’t been heaps about which to write. Not that a lot hasn’t gone on, but it’s funny how quickly life, no matter how extraordinary, becomes routine, and you never think to write about the routine.

My research study is well underway. I started on Monday, pulling things together and doing some research online, mostly from the WHO database. Then late Monday afternoon, I was told that two of the women waiting to see the doctors after the surgical day was done were returning for follow up after having gone home. Absolutely perfect! Then there were two more again today, plus one woman already on the ward. I’m so happy for the ease with which it has all begun, but I have to say I’m a bit wary about how long it will be able to go before I’ve exhausted the realm of my reach.

Today was really a day for realizing things taken for granted.

I’ve never felt more the frustration of being a single, young, white girl. I was talking about it today with Stefani, an OT from Tyler, and it’s so true. Where you can go and what you can do is delicately contained within the balance of daylight and company. At home or at school, there are always the dodgy places which are best to avoid if you’re out and about alone, but the limitation is only a thin line just below your field of view. Occasionally you see it, but for the most part it’s out of sight and out of mind. Here, though, it’s rather difficult to just blend into a crowd. People watch you, even if you are just walking down the street. Growing up in Central America, it was the same, but then I was a young girl, I never had any inclination to go out and about on my own, and I thought it was all rather funny. Now, a bit older, I realize a bit more of reality, perhaps.

The other thing I have taken for granted is my education. Today, I worked for a bit with some of the literate girls, reading a children’s book and checking for comprehension. There were about five of us gathered about. After the story was done, everyone dispersed except for one, Jinneh – the one that captured my heart last week.

She was sitting, staring at the ground, and I could tell that something was wrong. Thinking of her recent surgery, I asked her if she was in pain. No, she said. After a few moments of silence, she turned her face toward mine and asked me if I go to school. Yes, I said, I go to university in the United States to become a nurse. When do you leave, she asked. Middle of August, I replied. Oh, she said. Silence. Do you have a camera, she suddenly asked. Yes, I answered. Can you take a picture of us for me to have so that I can remember you when you have gone? was her request. I ran to the office where my bag and camera were waiting, and returned to “snap” her. Then we got Helen to “snap” us together. We sat together for a long time, in our sisterly embrace. She’s my age, after all. Then, in a small, small voice she said, “I would like to go back to school. More than anything else.” She left shortly after that. I went to the bathroom and cried.

Another of the girls, Seray, told me her story. She lost her father, probably during the war, and her mother had to care for all of the other children in her family, and could no longer pay her school fees. So she married a man who promised to pay. Then she became pregnant. Now she has a fistula, no husband, and definitely no money for school. How much is school? 35,000 Leones. At the current exchange rate, that adds up to a little under $12.

So Tuesday was a hard day, another one to add to the pile. But the hardest thing is, that when I look into their eyes, I see only my own face ridden with guilt. I am going home on 10 August. I can leave.

One time, as a kid, we visited a hands-on science museum. One of the exhibits was on wheelchairs, and you could get in one and had to try your way around an obstacle course of household things – chairs, tables, books on the floor. It was really fun, and I told my teacher that I really liked being in a wheelchair, and I wished I had another go. Yes, she said, you like it because you can get out when you are done...

from orphanage to market...

Weekends. Always a lovely break from the week, and in Sierra Leone, it’s no different. Sleeping in an extra hour, eating breakfast in your pajamas, having plenty of time to wait for the water to heat in the boiler. Little luxuries which make the weekend such a wonderful time.

I didn’t post a blog yesterday because, comparatively to the earlier week, very little happened. I went with Helen to an orphanage run by a Canadian couple out in Regent. We left a little later in the morning, took a taxi to the main bit of Regent and then hiked for a good half hour up to the top of one of the nearby hills. About fifteen or twenty orphans live in the compound set up by this couple after the war. They are there for various reasons, into which I didn’t really pry.

In any case, we arrived there only to find that no one knew of our coming and the proprietress had gone away for the day (which we were expecting) and she had taken the key to the school room with her (which we were not expecting). So we made do for the morning, practicing some basic math and reading from some of the books collected in the house. I worked mostly with two younger girls, Kathy and Kadiatu. Probably kindergarten or first-grade reading and math level. It kind of reminded me of when I student taught the first-grade kids (Emily, Will Donner, Tim Clark, and Miranda) on board the CBM. :)

We had a fun time, but then the kids all went off to do their chores, and Helen determined that it would be next to impossible to get them all back together again with any kind of focus for work. So we left there a little earlier than normal. Helen had contacted the vocational educator at another VVF centre, but she wasn’t available to meet up, so we headed back to the team house. We couldn’t get transport in Regent, so we walked to IMATT, an international co-operative training center for the Sierra Leonean military. It was a good walk, probably another half-hour or so. Then we found a taxi there that would take us to Mamba Roundabout, a ten minute walk from the house. A lot of walking, but it was really nice to get out and about and see some more of the country.

I was really exhausted, and crashed around four, after attempting to read and stay awake. I woke up a short time later, but never really got my energy back. The sun and heat had drained it all away! :)

Today, I enjoyed a leisurely morning and was sitting out in the verandah when an old colleague of Annekoos and Bastiaan came to visit with his four year old daughter, Esther. It was really nice to sit and talk with them. It was really enlightening to hear his opinions on George Bush, Tony Blair, Salone (Sierra Leonean) politics, superstitions, etc. He explained that he loves Tony Blair because he is crafty, and has so much power in his speaking. He told me he hates George Bush because of his pride and how he has stumbled into the Middle East, leaving a “scar,” as he put it. He says that the next president should do everything possible to bring reconciliation. I couldn’t agree more.

I just got back from downtown. I went with Anne, Bas, and Sandra to the fabric street. I bought some really lovely print and batik for a skirt and a shirt-dress. I think the tailor is coming later this week, and I can give it to him.

It was really great to walk around the market. So much life and color concentrated in one place. The markets in Central America were similar, but this was much bigger, and the wares much more diverse. I don’t remember ever seeing pig’s feet in Guatemala! :) It was really fun, though. And it was great to get out of the house for a little while. The other three have been here for so long, and are really knowledgeable about how everything works. It’s so great to have them as a resource, and I’m ruing the day when they will be gone. But until then, I’ll try to learn as much as possible, and if I make some mistakes a long the way, then that is also a way to learn…

I wish that all of you could be here with me, or that I at least could connect your mind and your senses to mine. Sierra Leone is a full sensory of experiences. I haven’t taken many pictures as of yet, because I find them so inadequate to convey every part of that moment. What picture, for example, can tell you about the sounds outside the window which have become so common place – the birds, the wind in the trees, the children’s voices, the clinking of rocks being broken down, the distant techno music, laughter, crying, all at once. How can you know the smell of Sierra Leone? The sort of campfire smell mixed with earth and, oftentimes, rain. I don’t want to lose these moments, because I know that they will all pass by fast, fast. But, I suppose, the nooks and crannies of memory will have to suffice. Man has not learned how to capitalize on that God-given system…