~*~

This is on the mountain road out of Freetown

Chelsea and Patience- she's 18 months old and well under 15 lbs.

Lakka Beach

Lakka Beach

(and the little boys who sat by us white-people watching finally walking away)

My trip to Tiama was so good. We left (tried to leave) Thursday at about 1:00 but we had a fan belt problem about 5-10 miles from the mechanic's place, so Mustepha (the CHASL driver we were traveling with) got the car back by coasting most of the way. We would just have the car on for 30 seconds or so to get going and then coast on hills for a couple minutes. I was impressed. We spent an hour or 2 at the mechanic's getting the belts fixed, then started on the way. It s 150 mile drive but it takes a long time because of the condition of the roads here. They're mostly dirt roads so the going is slow. For the trip out of the city, we took a mountain road. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! The mountains here are shaped kind of like the Smokies but they are totally covered in trees. It was so pretty. An hour or so into the trip we had aonther fan belt problem. So we sat in a village while Mustepha and a mechanic and some random guys tried to get it figured out. That's one cool thing about Sierra Leonians is that they just really want to be helpful. People from the street see you are having car trouble and they may know nothing about cars and they may only be in your way, but they come over and look at what is wrong and at least stand around for a while or offer some opinions. Once we got going again, it went well. We ended up getting to Njala (the guesthouse) at about 8:30.
In the morning, we went to Tiama and set up the clinic. Another thing is that people here, especially in the villages are so much less time obsessed than we are in the US. The clinic was supposed to start at 9:00, but between waiting for a vaccine package to come and having a health talk and a small worship service it didn't start until 11:00. Here people were fine with coming at 9 or 10 and not being seen until maybe 3:00. If that happened in the US, people would just be angry but here people just took the chance to catch up with eachother, hold eachother's babies, etc. The medical facilities here are also a lot different than in the US. They are just so undersupplied. Like the Tiama clinic, which serves a large area only 2 weeks ago got a set of bathroom scales so they could weigh people older than 2 years old. The medical facilities in this country are also understaffed. The Tiama clinic, which I would guess serves 20,00 or more people has no doctor and a staff of 3 paid nurses and 1 volunteer nurse. It is just amazing to see such a lack of medical care and its like that throughout the whole country. While we were in the clinic working both a chicken and a dog wandered through the exam room. Its funny how at home people would just freak out about those animals in a doctor's office, but here its just par for the course and someone shooed the chicken out and the dog left on his own eventually.
Chelsea, her assistant Nurse Lucy and I saw a lot of kids. Her program is really good and very needed. Almost all of the kids previously on the program had gained a pound or 2 since just 2 weeks ago. Some of these kids are so underweight, I'm glad that there is at least some way to help them. I saw a 7 month old that weighed about 10 pounds, and another little girl who weighed probably less than 15 pounds that was old enough where she should have been walking. I'm just excited for Chels to get the opportunity to spread the program further.
In the late afternoon, we went to Bo, Sierra Leone's 2nd largest city, to check on some patients in who had been in the hospital and to get some meds to take to a patient in Tiama. The difference between Freetown and Bo was amazing. Bo was like a big village- probably not more than 25,000 people, where Freetown is a big crowded city. Back at Njala, Chelsea and I watched Africa Magic, a Nigerian soap opera, for a few hours. It was entertaining. Its a lot cleaner than soaps in the US but more dramatic.
In the morning, we stopped in Tiama to say goodbye and take care of a few things. Then we headed back to Freetown. On the way our breaks went out. That was something- Mustepha is such a good driver. I'm thankful we had him. He ended up fixing the brakes on the side of the road using random things- a lug wrench, a crecent wrench, my small pocketknife, some superglue, dirt and his teeth. It was amazing. I just can't beleive how much people here can do with practically nothing. We got back to Freetown in time for dinner. We made spaghetti. I had missed pasta!
Yesterday, we went to church and then to Lakka Beach. Church here is partially not so different from home- there is still an order of service and most of that is the same. The building itself is far different. Peace Prespbyterian where Chels and her friend Melissa go is made of wood and plastic. They have one fan, a keyboard and a sound system. In church, it is a lot less focused on making everything pretty. The music is not necessarily pretty- no one but the man playing the piano knows what pitch they are supposed to be singing or what beat they are supposed to be clapping on, but they are all enthusiastic and bold. It is cool having a place of worship where everyone seems to be involved in the service and how you sing isn't even a factor. Lakka beach was so nice. The water was the perfect temperature and there was practically no one there. From the beach, you can see mountains just a mile or so away. The people we went with were pretty cool- there was a group of six North American under-30s who came to the beach who all work for NGOs in Freetown. It was neat to hear about what they do. You can't imagine how many NGOs are in Freetown. Seriously about 1/10 of all cars on the road in Freetown belong to an NGO, especially the UN. Its good though how much help this place is getting, but it isn't even enough. Yesterday on the way home from the beach, I got to see the President of SL drive by. That was cool. And this morning on the way to work I got to see one of teh guys on the SL Olympic track team running. Its cool to be in the capitol to see all this. David Beckham is even in the city right now (but I haven't seen him).
And still, I'm healthy, happy and loving being here!