A Funny Thing Happened...

Our group, less the 4 summer interns and Tamara and Ben, who will stay an additional two weeks, returned to the U.S. on May 30.  Being back home is a wonderful thing, but for me at least, almost as disorienting as the arrival in the villages. To have running water, a car, electricity and the many other comforts we usually take for granted is like jumping forward 150 years in time. 

While we stayed busy with our work during our stay in the villages, I will say with certainty that each member of the team had a great deal of fun.  We thought it worthwhile to report back on some of the funnier things that we saw or experienced.

•  The health team saw people grind an amoxicillin tablet and start putting it in their child's ear to heal an ear infection.  This noncompliance with medication was promptly corrected.
  
• One member of the group saw a monkey coming out of a cemetery and was told that this particular primate was in the habit of digging up grades to steal body parts, but that it always filled the dirt back in after completing the job.  There was some question as to the veracity of this story.
• In one village, a resident was seen with a Walkman and headphones grooving to some tunes.   When asked what he was listening to he said that he had no batteries for the player, but he thought he looked cool.  I'm thinking we all know someone like this.
• One village resident asked how he could learn to speak english with "american intonation" (accent).  Independence from Great Britain is now complete.
• One group member learned that swimming a channel at the beach with one hand holding a digital camera in the air and the other a bottle of water is very difficult.  Jeff Hall, our group leader, can now add "lifeguard" to his resume'.
• People really seemed to enjoy it when we danced with them.  I'm still not sure if they were laughing with us or at us.

Rhythm of the Earth

Jokibu, Sierra Leone

Before coming to Sierra Leone, I had read several books on economic development to learn more about the problems faced by the extreme poor. Each of these books agreed that effort, hard work and determination were not the problem.

During our time in the villages here in eastern Sierra Leone, it had become clear that the extreme poor work extremely hard each day in the process of their survival. From a very young age, children help with the work of the family, including farming, carrying water, preparing meals and hauling loads balanced on their heads. The work to be done each day is literally back-breaking. As a middle-aged American, I watch the way people bend over their work cooking, washing clothes, planting, weeding, cutting brush, and I marvel that they don’t have more back problems than they do.

A previous traveler from Plymouth said that life here is in rhythm with the earth, a particularly apt description. The sun rises and sets nearly the same time each day throughout the year, and people in the village begin their day before dusk and wind down after sunset. When it is dark, people will sit on their porches or in their homes and talk by flashlight. Last night, four of our group had dinner with a family in Foindu, and as dinner was ending, the rain came. We sat in near dark listening to the thunderous sound of rain on a zinc roof that the family felt tremendous gratitude for having. Before, they sat under thatch that leaked constantly, or had a tarp that wore out and leaked after a year.

Just as there is no shortage of a willingness to work, there is a constant desire to learn and find ways to improve their lives. They are very smart people, and grasp new concepts very quickly. In fact, the longer I am here, the fewer differences I see between us.

Economists have spent a great deal of time studying poverty in the world and state as fact that the single greatest determinant of your economic status is where you where born. The thought has occurred to me on numerous occasions that the main difference between my life and the lives of my friends Sowah Momoh, Siaka Brima, Karim Abu and others is not a result of me being smarter, harder working or more resourceful, but simply that I was born in the wealthiest country in the world and they were born in the poorest.

Halfway

Foindu, Sierra Leone

The work here is keeping us very busy. I have been visiting with farmers (who comprise 95% of the economy) to learn about their farm practices and uncover methods to grow more food. Here is rural Sierra Leone, people have enough to eat only after the rice harvest in the fall. The remainder of the year, food is apportioned carefully to avoid running out completely. Still, the “hungry season” as it is known, is time when food intake is most severely restricted, and can last upwards of three months.

Life here is dug from the soil. Work is very manual, and the labor extremely hard. I visited with a farmer who grows ground nuts in an upland area. The road to his farm is really a foot path, wide enough only for one person, and the walk to his farm takes about 20 minutes. Everything used on the farm during the day must be carried along this path. Nuts are planted in a cleared area of several acres only after all the other vegetation has been cleared. The seeds are inserted into the soil, and the continuous process of pulling weeds begins. All of this, too is done by hand. When you live in the rainforest, it is a constant battle against the will of nature. The jungle wants to reclaim anything, and a farm clearing is an open invitation for re-growth to take place on an accelerated pace.

The rest of our team has also been extremely busy. Our health team, comprised of Betsy, Lorrin, Winston and Andy from Birmingham, assisted by Ben, an intern from Amherst, has been seeing patients in each village. As soon as they arrive, the line begins to form, a procession that will only end when they pack up and leave. Yesterday in Pujehun, there was a small child with malaria and dehydration who was rushed to a hospital in Bunumbu after Jeff arranged transportation. There are no ambulances here, and a ride on the back of a motorbike is sometimes the difference between life and death. They have been seeing about 50 people per day on average, trying to attend to those most seriously ill, but they have also been able to see many people with chronic but not life-threatening conditions.

Our Education team of Benjamin, Tamara, and another Amherst intern, Karen, have been busy meeting with teachers and education committees, starting work on adult literacy, and presenting awards to top students. Last Friday, we stopped in at the Foindu primary school and were honored with two songs (including “When Your’re Happy and You Know It”, which we all knew). The mass of children singing, all in their blue school uniforms, is truly a memorable event.

Our third Amherst intern, Sid, has been working extremely hard learning about the work of the loan officers in each village, the status of the many loans they make to farmers, and how the process of originating and collecting loans works. As far as we know, none of the villages have expressed a need for TARP money! Sid is also responsible for working with the water committees in each village this summer. As you may know, clean water is extremely rare in developing countries, even in a place like Sierra Leone that gets abundant rainfall. Ground water is dangerous to drink, and presents considerable health hazard. There are at least three wells in each village, but some require repair and many run dry as the dry season progresses. A well specialist came to the villages yesterday, and told us of a new method of drilling bore hole wells with a manual machine instead of the traditional shovel method. Ordinarily, the well digger would find bedrock 30-35 feet belowground. This new drill can go down an additional 40-50 feet, and the well will never go dry.

A Day in the Village

Pujehun and Foindu, Sierra Leone

Today was a day to tour the villages and learn about the differences for each one. This morning, I walked around delivering letters and packages that previous travelers had sent along to families and friends they made on their visits. This was an especially pleasurable activity after seeing the happiness on their faces at having made contact with old friends.

What one discovers when walking around the village, especially in a group, that you quickly pick up an entourage of preschoolers, since all the older children are at school. This morning after having met a few people, a boy of about 3 becomes physically attached to me so that even as I covered a great deal of ground up and down roads, through paths in the forest, across farmers fields and back to town, he never left my side, often holding my hand. I discovered his name to be Bobor, which became Bubba. He was promoted to the leader of my security detachment, and seemed to enjoy the attention. Children here are surprisingly quiet and seemingly un-needy. As I am sitting here typing this, there are at least a dozen children standing so quietly behind me in the dark that I have to occasionally look back to see if they are still there.

Still, as I walk along with holding Bubba’s very small hand, it occurred to me that although he has gotten past infancy, the chance that he would not survive to see his first day of school was uncomfortably high. I told myself that since his father is better educated than most, and has a job off the farm, that his chances were better than most, but I cannot estimate his future with any certainty. No one can. Even if he survives or even thrives, there are so many others just as loyal and adorable who won’t.

People here don't dwell on tragedy, they don't talk about lost children or what happened to them during the war. They are preoccupied with survival, yet they are friendly and accepting beyond description. I can't remember the last time I drove by people in a car and they all waved, or when I walked up to someone's house and they got up to give you their chair. I think I'm going to miss that.

The Thanks You Deserve

Freetown-Bo-Kenema-Foindu, Sierra Leone

On Wednesday, we left for the villages, starting very early in order to arrive and get settled before dark, which in equatorial Africa occurs around 7:00 p.m. In the early morning there is little traffic on the streets of Freetown, but people are out beginning their day hauling water in the dark.

Our first stop on the trip is in Bo, where we meet officers of Rotary International with whom we are beginning a project to build latrines and wells in the villages. When we return to Minnesota, we will complete a grant proposal to Rotary with the endorsement of the organization in Bo and their agreement to provide oversight of the projects.

Next, we stop in the much larger city of Kenema, where we divide the group in half and visit the hospital and the secondary school where we have several scholarship students enrolled. Our health committee goes to the hospital where they meet the district medical officer, a nursing supervisor on loan from Canada, and a nursing student who will work for us as a village nurse when she graduates in two years.

My visit to the secondary school is the highlight of the trip so far. Students here are in the equivalent of junior high school and senior high school, except that due to the short supply of facilities, they attend in shifts. As we arrive at midday, the junior secondary students are filing out into the street having completed their day. The senior secondary students will arrive later to start their classes. In between, students from Jokibu, Pujehun and Foindu and a few of their teachers gather in a classroom to welcome us and make a few speeches. Everyone enjoys being appreciated, and appreciation is one thing that people here have in abundance. In a particularly impassioned speech that would make President Obama proud, a teacher declares “My mouth is too small to give the thanks you deserve”.

Having had the opportunity to watch video shot in the villages last year, our arrival is much like I expected. The difference, however, is like going from black and white to Technicolor, from monotone to dolby surround. Masses of children in school uniforms chanting “Welcome” or singing a song about their patron saint, Jeff.

It becomes clear after spending time in the villages that their gratitute is too much for them to fully express and somewhat too hard for us to adequately appreciate. The way I chose to look at it was that they were not really thanking me, but everyone who has ever made an effort to understand and alleviate the difficulty in their lives. Therefore, I reflect their gratitude back to you, the reader, since you have read this far for a reason. And that is reason enough to give you the thanks you deserve.

The Road is Very Bad

Apologies to all, we did not get to Bunce island today. Rain was in the forecast, and the boats don't like to run in the rain. So instead, we got to spend the day at the beach. To get to the beach involves running a gauntlet of people, vehicles and motor bikes through Freetown. In many urban areas, people choose not to own vehicles since there are easier ways to get around. Here, people can't afford vehicles, so foot traffic is abundant. Still, it's probably for the best that car ownership is so limited, since I doubt many more vehicles could fit on these roads. As it was, I was afraid at times that we would end up with a human hood ornament.

Freetown is a city designed for far fewer people than currently live there. The civil war, which ran on and off between 1991 and 2002 was conducted largely in the provinces, and a great many people fled to Freetown and relative safety. This is a city bursting at the seams with people, most unemployed, and few living in any manner of relative comfort. In the hills overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, there are several comfortable-looking villas with clean stucco, new roofs and an impressive concrete wall topped with barbed wire. A fortress against the human degradation that exists outside their walls. Mostly, it is a city of unfinished concrete buildings and metal huts colored by layers of dust.

Off-roading is a concept that simply doesn't exist in Sierra Leone, since most communities are connected by a network of roads that are better suited to dirt bike racing than driving. Land Cruisers are the vehicle of choice, and broken axles are not uncommon.

What really stops you, however, is the eyes of the people you pass. There is a stare that is neither desperate nor peaceful, perhaps just resigned. Even the dogs seem to have forgotten how to wag their tails. As I write this, I am wishing I had a picture to better convey what I saw, but taking one would have felt condescending and wrong.

The beach itself was, well, a beach. I've been to beaches rated by Conde Nast as some of the best in the world, and this one was easily their equal. One should never expect the beach at River #2, Freetown to show up in theirs or any ranking for that matter, since it is far outside the realm of civilized travel that magazines specialize in. But that really is the point. Today wasn't about the destination but the journey down one very bad road.

A Day in Freetown

Our group arrived Sunday evening after gathering up all of our members at Heathrow airport (including two for whom catching up to the group was an aerobic workout) and taking the seven-hour flight to Freetown. Two van rides, one bumpy boat ride and over four hours later, we were all safely ensconced in our hotel.

Monday was day for a late breakfast, our initial group meeting, and a trip into Freetown proper to gather up medical supplies, books, cell phones and the occasional souvenir. We were very delighted that several friends from the villages came to Freetown to meet with us and become acquainted with the team.

The afternoon was spent visiting the U.S. Embassy in Freetown, where we were warmly greeted by the embassy nurse, public affairs officer and staff, and had the opportunity to meet with Ambassador Perry. We were thoroughly briefed on the possible health hazards we faced, all of which had been anticipated and prepared for. Most informative was an inside view of the issues affecting the economic progress of Sierra Leone, and a discussion of programs that the U.S. is implementing in healthcare, agriculture, food security and education.

Tomorrow we spend another day in Freetown, visiting Bunce Island, a historical monument to a human rights issue that persisted far too long and died under the weight of public opinion - the slave trade.