the team

Me and my friends at the farm

Dona, the boy in the pink above wanted to use my camera. He's good.

Some of the younger people who live on the farm.

As I promised before,heres a more interesting review of the trip. It started out pretty normal until we met the team in Atlanta. The trip doctor introduced himself and chose me to be the team's first recipient of his book on grieving and loss. It was an interesting way to be introduced to someone. In London, one of the older ladies started giving team massages in the airport. She had brought a massager with her and ready. Then we left for Sierra Leone. Everyone and everything waspretty normal at the hotel. On the day we left for Tiama, a small group went to the Christian Health Assn (CHASL) to mix up some peanut butter supplement. The rest of the group entertained themselves by trying to force-feed beef jerky to the starving city dogs. Even they wouldn't take the Slim Jims. Then we went out to eat where most of the team took picutres of the food. They couldn't believe that they served whole fish head and all. Our group was something for the locals to stare at! Then we headed upcountry to Tiama. What a bus ride!This was when we realized what talkers our group had. Man- there were talkers! Chelsea & I essentially became mute from the time we left freetown till we got back. The whole ride in the bus was like being in a parade. Everyone waved out the windows like celebrities and peppered the conversations with "they just love white people" comments. Then the beef jerky began being thrown out the window like candy from a parade float. I guess if dogs won't eat something the next logical thing is to throw it to people walking down the road!
As soon as we got to Njala (our guesthouse) the drinking began and it never stopped. they're probably still going strong as I'm typing this! that's not something i expected from a mission trip, but man was i wrong. [my shift at this computer has mostly stopped working so forgive all the missed capitals].
in the morning I went with a group to Tiama farms for the day. When we got to the farm, the conversation went about like this-
- "Do you need chickens here?"
-"No we don't want chickens."
-"Okay so where can we get some chickens? We should build the pen here."
-"Maam there is no need for chickens"
-"How many do you think we should get? eight or ten might be a good start....."
The whole farm trip was like this. Which is some indication of why the pharmacy was my location of choice.
The next day, the animal rescue mission began. By the end, there was pretty much a separate team for animal affairs. There was a monkey at the nurse's house that was being kept to eat. The team did not want that to happen so they bought the monkey and droveit out to the middle of nowhere for release. This was repeated with another monkey from a shop and someone's pet owl. By the end, people in the village were coming up with animal schemes. One guy came to the doctor and said if he could be snuck to the head of the line, he would tell us of a turtle to rescue. There was some real consideration of this- no kidding. The townspeople thought this group was nuts taking their food to the woods, but at least they were paid well for the animals.
One day on the trips between Tiama and Njala, one of the older women brought out a cat puppet. oh my- no children on the trip and we still had to deal with being talked to through hand puppets. This was the moment that I thought maybe i had been put on a mission with the mentally unstable. The puppet was a frequent member of our team after this!
We got to go to 2 village churches while we were upcountry. It was very cool to experience church in a place without modern ammenities and no electricity etc. The camera flashes going off the whole time were obnoxious, but when that wasn't happening, it was neat to be in a service in complete African darkness with only 1 candle for a whole building. It was very different but very cool.
The group lived by the "we've got it lets toss it" motto. Everything they had became a projectil meant to 'help' the children. They threw beef jerky a lot, bracelets, trinkets, there was even nearly an incedent with money going out the window. and the famous quote- "who wants to toss these out to the kids?" just tossing water bottles for the kids to fight over.
But really, the team wasn't so bad. They were some entertainment and it sure helped in the logistics of me getting here. This has just been a joint effort of me and Chelsea's venting of how 'different' life was with the team. It was just a skewed life being around so many Americans and doing dinners with speeches and meeting officials and stuff. I'm glad i finally get to experience real life here. If you want to read the rose colored version see Chelsea's blog. Now its good to just hang out with chels.
Yesterday, we went to the beach and went to a coffee shop and hung out with some of chels's friends here. It was a good time. The beach was pretty and it was nice to walk around with the sea breeze, etc. Everything is going great and I get to go to CHASL tomorrow and work with Chels.