the boss of one of my friends here is a lebanese Christian who thinks that all american missionaries work for the CIA. that's right. i am the jason bourne of freetown. anyway, shortly after he made this accusation i signed in on facebook and most of the adverts on my page were in arabic and i had invitations to join some lebanese political groups. so i was like, "oh yeah? who's the spy now?!?" and sometimes i jokingly call my lebanese friends "terrorists." just in jest. it's light-hearted fun. well, 2 minutes ago when i checked my blog, the page was in arabic. yeah. saw the 2 boxes where you are supposed to put your sign-in name and your password. but i, of course, put them in the wrong places because, well, arabic goes left to right. so i tried again, and then once i signed in i saw english... anyway, it looks like my cover is blown and now they're just messing with my head.
okay so, here are some stories that i swore i would never tell my mom, but now that they are in the distant past, i think they're are slightly amusing. sorry mom.
a few months ago was supposed to go out to one of the refugee camps with florence and erin. the day kinda boxed up and we left a bit later than we planned to, and i hadn't had time to eat all morning. we had to take one kind of transport to get to another kind of transport and florence kept telling me i needed to eat something, but i'm stubborn and i kept saying i would just get a plate of rice once we got to the camp since we were already late. this was right when it was getting really hot after the rains ended, and the sun was in full force. we ended up sitting in traffic for over an hour without moving a mile, and by then it was too late to go to the camp since we wouldn't get back until late and the east end of the city isn't somewhere you really want to be late at night. so we got down from the bus and started walking back toward town. i needed to stop at a friend's shop to pick something up, so the girls came with me. as soon as we reached, i started to feel sick. i told erin i needed some water and i sat down. then my friend looks at me and says "oh no. what's wrong with you? you're yellow!" so i ask to go to the bathroom. he shows me to the back of the store. i enter the bathroom, the room starts to spin, i think i'm going to die, i leave the bathroom because i don't want to die alone, i fall down in the hallway, lay there for a minute while everyone runs to see what happened, i gain enough strength to run back to the bathroom and throw up, then i started to feel better. they force-fed me 2 candy bars and 2 liters of water before they let me go home. so... the moral of this story is, you are never too busy to eat when it is 95 degrees and insanely humid. i learned my lesson. please don't lecture me.
the next story is a bit more disturbing. i'll spare the frightening details, and beef up the more entertaining ones... i think this happened in october... me and faye and our friends nicole and samir were walking on the beach one friday after work. we got caught up talking to some other friends and it started to get dark before we got back to samir's jeep. well, being the very smart girls that we are, nicole and i started to lag behind faye and samir (who is tall and manly and the kind of guy you want to keep up with if you are at lumley beach when it is getting dark). nicole pulls out her camera because we wanted to laugh at a picture she took earlier of samir (tall and manly) imitating the way faye walks (bouncy and girly). so yeah, 2 girls, lumley beach at dusk, nice digital camera. before we knew it, a guy runs up behind us and tries to take the camera out of nicole's hand. she refuses to let go (she's a very petite little thing too) and ends up getting thrown on the ground by the guy (who honestly wasn't much bigger than she was). anyway, being bigger than both of them, i started shoving the guy as hard as i possibly can. this doesn't sound funny, but it was a little bit because i had my rainbow sandals in my hands and i have a feeling those might cause a sting if you were hit in the face with them, which he was. so there's nicole laying between us in the fetal position with her camera, this little (yet strong) man bent down trying to get the camera with one hand and blocking blows from me and my sandals with the other hand. it was really pretty scary, but he didn't get the camera (even after another guy showed up to help) and i'm pretty sure they had friends watching who will never let them forget that they couldn't get a camera away from those 2 american girls. faye and samir did run back to help us too. i'm actually pretty sure that those guys would have gotten the camera had it not been for faye and samir. i think nicole and i managed for those first 30 seconds on just instinct alone, but once we realized what happened, we were crazy. she was really upset (who wouldn't be?) and i was just mad. so yeah, another lesson learned. and don't worry, i'm too paranoid now to let anything similar happen again. i'm pretty sure i shouldn't have told you this story...
people have asked about a mailing address and a phone number. mail is a funny thing here, and i'm still waiting on a few letters that i know were mailed 4 months ago. but faye did receive some Christmas packages - she received them after Christmas, but she received them. so, it's a gamble, but here is my address:
PO Box 545
Freetown, Sierra Leone
WEST AFRICA
and i use the phone company that does the best job of receiving international calls, but they're not perfect. you might have to try a couple of times to get through. if you are calling from the US, my mobile number is:
011-232-76-23-44-88
oh! and my birthday was nice and i spent it at the beach. this is the first birthday i remember not needing a winter coat... but it was nice. and not as painful as i expected. :) i'm dramatic, i know.
love love love you all.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
i'm on a roll
that's right folks, only one week later and you're hearing from me again.
i don't know what's gotten into me! maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to write from the comfort of my own kitchen table. maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to sleep to the soothing whir and breeze from my very own FAN. maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to start my day with a glass of COLD water from our fridge that makes things COLD. my friends, life is good.
i recieved quite a few responses to my last post which made me realize something... i live in africa. my life is interesting. funny things happen to me every single day and after only 4 months, they seem normal. i actually went back and read that post after reading the responses and i laughed at it myself. i do have some unique stories to share. so i'm honestly going to try to be better. i think that i've been waiting around for some big earth-shaking insight that the world must know, but really, we all just want to laugh at the white girl in africa. that's what all of my neighbors want, so why should i think you're any different? :)
so, for your reading pleasure, here are a couple of notes from my time tutoring in the afternoons... both of these stories involve snack time, so it would appear that they just come here and eat, but i promise that we learn every once in a while too.
a few weeks ago the 3 regulars were sitting at the table eating egg sandwiches, and they were making a MESS as usual. they don't eat at a table in their house, so even when one is available they don't use it. so little saidu is sitting with his legs up on the arm of the chair, his plate on his lap, food flying in every direction... he stood up, and there were crumbs ALL OVER his chair. and this is when i made my first real language error. i've made mistakes, sure. but i've never made an offensive mistake. so to make that kind of mistake in front of children... ouch. it's really not fair, because the polite way of referring to a person's back side in english, is to call it just that - their "back side." what i didn't know is this - that is pretty much the MOST offensive way to refer to it in Krio. does that seem fair to you? so i made some comment about food and his backside and saidu and mari start laughing. mari was in tears. saidu just staring at me laughing with his eyes WIDE like i had absolutely made his day. and then there's remie... "auntie steph, you done cuss." so serious and sober. while the others are crying. he told them that they should correct me first, then laugh. which i enjoyed. anyway, completely embarrassing. i apologized to remie, then saidu yells "i'm the one you cussed!" so they laughed again. moral of the story, be careful with krio. i've said it before and i'll say it again; it's just close enough to english to really get you into trouble.
last week the kids didn't have school but i told the boys to come at 3 when i finished my krio lesson. at 3:30 on friday i called noah to ask where they were so he sent them and they reached my house at 4. (i thought i had a fluid sense of time...) we only had an hour before i had to be somewhere else, so i decided i would just give them some ginger cookies and tea - no sandwich. well, then they told me that they hadn't eaten that day, which i didn't really believe, but i sent remie to buy some bananas anyway just in case they really were hungry. long story short, cami overhears them tell me that they hadn't eaten, she sees noah that afternoon and asks him if it's true. of course, it isn't. we decide that as punishment for lying, they won't get a snack at my house this week. so i saw saidu the next day and asked, "my friend, what happened yesterday?" he responds, in a very quiet voice with his eyes to the ground, "something very wrong." it has never been so easy to forgive someone. :)
and hillary, you won't believe this, but i haven't fallen down or tripped in a really long time! my reflexes and night vision are greatly improving. however, last week i was walking to the youth center and all of these people were saying to me "osh ya" and "take time white girl" and i started to realize that they must have thought i was someone else who HAD fallen on that corner... i never figured it out, but even when i stay upright, i get credit for falling. forced humility.
i turn 27 next week. gross. i'll try to have fun anyway, and i'll let you know what i do to dull the pain of reaching my LATE 20'S...
i don't know what's gotten into me! maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to write from the comfort of my own kitchen table. maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to sleep to the soothing whir and breeze from my very own FAN. maybe it's the fact that we have electricity and i'm able to start my day with a glass of COLD water from our fridge that makes things COLD. my friends, life is good.
i recieved quite a few responses to my last post which made me realize something... i live in africa. my life is interesting. funny things happen to me every single day and after only 4 months, they seem normal. i actually went back and read that post after reading the responses and i laughed at it myself. i do have some unique stories to share. so i'm honestly going to try to be better. i think that i've been waiting around for some big earth-shaking insight that the world must know, but really, we all just want to laugh at the white girl in africa. that's what all of my neighbors want, so why should i think you're any different? :)
so, for your reading pleasure, here are a couple of notes from my time tutoring in the afternoons... both of these stories involve snack time, so it would appear that they just come here and eat, but i promise that we learn every once in a while too.
a few weeks ago the 3 regulars were sitting at the table eating egg sandwiches, and they were making a MESS as usual. they don't eat at a table in their house, so even when one is available they don't use it. so little saidu is sitting with his legs up on the arm of the chair, his plate on his lap, food flying in every direction... he stood up, and there were crumbs ALL OVER his chair. and this is when i made my first real language error. i've made mistakes, sure. but i've never made an offensive mistake. so to make that kind of mistake in front of children... ouch. it's really not fair, because the polite way of referring to a person's back side in english, is to call it just that - their "back side." what i didn't know is this - that is pretty much the MOST offensive way to refer to it in Krio. does that seem fair to you? so i made some comment about food and his backside and saidu and mari start laughing. mari was in tears. saidu just staring at me laughing with his eyes WIDE like i had absolutely made his day. and then there's remie... "auntie steph, you done cuss." so serious and sober. while the others are crying. he told them that they should correct me first, then laugh. which i enjoyed. anyway, completely embarrassing. i apologized to remie, then saidu yells "i'm the one you cussed!" so they laughed again. moral of the story, be careful with krio. i've said it before and i'll say it again; it's just close enough to english to really get you into trouble.
last week the kids didn't have school but i told the boys to come at 3 when i finished my krio lesson. at 3:30 on friday i called noah to ask where they were so he sent them and they reached my house at 4. (i thought i had a fluid sense of time...) we only had an hour before i had to be somewhere else, so i decided i would just give them some ginger cookies and tea - no sandwich. well, then they told me that they hadn't eaten that day, which i didn't really believe, but i sent remie to buy some bananas anyway just in case they really were hungry. long story short, cami overhears them tell me that they hadn't eaten, she sees noah that afternoon and asks him if it's true. of course, it isn't. we decide that as punishment for lying, they won't get a snack at my house this week. so i saw saidu the next day and asked, "my friend, what happened yesterday?" he responds, in a very quiet voice with his eyes to the ground, "something very wrong." it has never been so easy to forgive someone. :)
and hillary, you won't believe this, but i haven't fallen down or tripped in a really long time! my reflexes and night vision are greatly improving. however, last week i was walking to the youth center and all of these people were saying to me "osh ya" and "take time white girl" and i started to realize that they must have thought i was someone else who HAD fallen on that corner... i never figured it out, but even when i stay upright, i get credit for falling. forced humility.
i turn 27 next week. gross. i'll try to have fun anyway, and i'll let you know what i do to dull the pain of reaching my LATE 20'S...
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
a couple of months later...
well, well, well. here i am again. i don te.
it would appear that i have vanished from the face of the earth, but the truth is that i really haven't had a lot of spare time for that whole communication thing. or maybe a more true statement would be that i haven't had the time to process my life so i haven't really known what to say. the last 2 months have been quite eventful - in work, in play, in learning, in every other area... there has been plenty to write about, but no space in which to write. i know that's my own fault, so please forgive me. i will try to be better in 2008. :)
faye reprimanded me the other day about my 2 month absence from the blog-world. she brought it up right after we were invited to the beach this past sunday where one of our favorite uncles would be slaughtering and roasting a goat... faye's suggestion was that i video the killing of said goat, and then post it on this blog to "draw back the audience." good idea, but that would require that i witness the slaughter myself, and i really wasn't up for that. she was a cute goat. black and white, with kind eyes. they drove her to the beach that morning in the back of my friend's jeep. they said she was quiet and well-mannered on the drive. i said it was nice that they were able to spend some time getting to know her before they cut her throat... almost enough to make me a vegetarian, but no. don't worry dad, i'm still a country girl. and i still love me some red meat.
Christmas was eventful and busy and fun and kinda strange this year. i have spent the holiday away from home before, but i was traveling and distracted and excited about the change of scenery. but this year wasn't like that. i told a few people that i think part of the difficulty was that the excitement of living here was starting to wear off at the exact wrong time... i still want to be here, don't get me wrong. but after 4 months, it's not all new and different and exotic anymore. it's like, i live here. this is it. so hitting that phase during holiday time wasn't fun. because i really just wanted to be with my family in my culture where i knew and understood all of the traditions and got to eat all of my favorite food and hear bing crosby and wear sweaters. it's the little things, it really is...
it was good though. our Christmas parties for the kroo bay kids and the lighthouse program went really well. it was fun to celebrate with the kids, and i was told by numerous people (who could easily see how homesick i was) that they would be glad to stand in as family for me. so, i missed the moselys and mcGuires immensly, but was so so so humbled by the willingness of others to welcome me into their own lives and homes and families. wow.
new year's was an event worth writing home about. one of my friends here is a lebanese guy who used to make a living playing "one man shows" in beirut. basically he gets set up on two very complicated keyboards at once and sings and plays hours and hours worth of arabic music. so he was hired to do a show at a resturant on the water for new year's eve. most of you are probably aware that the lebanese know how to work. they have a reputation across the globe as good business people. what you may not know is that the lebanese also know how to have fun. i had no clue what they were capable of in this area! anyway, it was a cultural experience that i certainly enjoyed. food, music, food, dancing, food. happy new year.
and, of course, i spent a lot of time at the beach over the holidays. so that sure helped with that whole homesick thing... :) but now it's back to reality. busy busy.
OH! this information won't be super exciting for you since you didn't know the situation beforehand, but... we have electricity at our house now! that's right, we haven't had electricity since we moved in. we would occasionally borrow a generator so we could turn the lights on and charge things, but then we figured out that the house wasn't grounded (after cami's fan caught on fire and her computer battery was fried) so we haven't been able to plug anything in at our house for the last 2 months. anytime i've needed to charge anything i've had to haul it to a friend's house. but now the electricty situation is being sorted out, so we are all happy. i slept with a fan on ALL night last night. it was the best thing ever. i'm worried that i'm going to revert back to my old over-sleeping self now. this seems like an appropriate time to tell you that we also don't have running water. :) we buy water in 5 gallon rubber containers, and take bucket showers. hopefully that will get sorted out soon as well. i'll keep you posted.
it would appear that i have vanished from the face of the earth, but the truth is that i really haven't had a lot of spare time for that whole communication thing. or maybe a more true statement would be that i haven't had the time to process my life so i haven't really known what to say. the last 2 months have been quite eventful - in work, in play, in learning, in every other area... there has been plenty to write about, but no space in which to write. i know that's my own fault, so please forgive me. i will try to be better in 2008. :)
faye reprimanded me the other day about my 2 month absence from the blog-world. she brought it up right after we were invited to the beach this past sunday where one of our favorite uncles would be slaughtering and roasting a goat... faye's suggestion was that i video the killing of said goat, and then post it on this blog to "draw back the audience." good idea, but that would require that i witness the slaughter myself, and i really wasn't up for that. she was a cute goat. black and white, with kind eyes. they drove her to the beach that morning in the back of my friend's jeep. they said she was quiet and well-mannered on the drive. i said it was nice that they were able to spend some time getting to know her before they cut her throat... almost enough to make me a vegetarian, but no. don't worry dad, i'm still a country girl. and i still love me some red meat.
Christmas was eventful and busy and fun and kinda strange this year. i have spent the holiday away from home before, but i was traveling and distracted and excited about the change of scenery. but this year wasn't like that. i told a few people that i think part of the difficulty was that the excitement of living here was starting to wear off at the exact wrong time... i still want to be here, don't get me wrong. but after 4 months, it's not all new and different and exotic anymore. it's like, i live here. this is it. so hitting that phase during holiday time wasn't fun. because i really just wanted to be with my family in my culture where i knew and understood all of the traditions and got to eat all of my favorite food and hear bing crosby and wear sweaters. it's the little things, it really is...
it was good though. our Christmas parties for the kroo bay kids and the lighthouse program went really well. it was fun to celebrate with the kids, and i was told by numerous people (who could easily see how homesick i was) that they would be glad to stand in as family for me. so, i missed the moselys and mcGuires immensly, but was so so so humbled by the willingness of others to welcome me into their own lives and homes and families. wow.
new year's was an event worth writing home about. one of my friends here is a lebanese guy who used to make a living playing "one man shows" in beirut. basically he gets set up on two very complicated keyboards at once and sings and plays hours and hours worth of arabic music. so he was hired to do a show at a resturant on the water for new year's eve. most of you are probably aware that the lebanese know how to work. they have a reputation across the globe as good business people. what you may not know is that the lebanese also know how to have fun. i had no clue what they were capable of in this area! anyway, it was a cultural experience that i certainly enjoyed. food, music, food, dancing, food. happy new year.
and, of course, i spent a lot of time at the beach over the holidays. so that sure helped with that whole homesick thing... :) but now it's back to reality. busy busy.
OH! this information won't be super exciting for you since you didn't know the situation beforehand, but... we have electricity at our house now! that's right, we haven't had electricity since we moved in. we would occasionally borrow a generator so we could turn the lights on and charge things, but then we figured out that the house wasn't grounded (after cami's fan caught on fire and her computer battery was fried) so we haven't been able to plug anything in at our house for the last 2 months. anytime i've needed to charge anything i've had to haul it to a friend's house. but now the electricty situation is being sorted out, so we are all happy. i slept with a fan on ALL night last night. it was the best thing ever. i'm worried that i'm going to revert back to my old over-sleeping self now. this seems like an appropriate time to tell you that we also don't have running water. :) we buy water in 5 gallon rubber containers, and take bucket showers. hopefully that will get sorted out soon as well. i'll keep you posted.
Friday, November 02, 2007
8 weeks
today is the 8 week anniversary of my arrival in freetown! faye said we need to celebrate and that she'll buy me a coke. i said that the last thing i need is another coke. i rarely drink regular pop in the states, but i cannot get enough of it here... oh i love coke. bottled. canned. on ice. lukewarm. love love love coke.
soooo, a lot has happened since late september. cami and faye both left for the states at the end of the month. faye's trip was planned, but cami's departure was a bit sudden. they are both back now, and things are getting back to normal, but that week and a half without either of them really wore me out. i said a lot of "i don't know the answer" and "i don't know how to do that" during those 11 days. ah, humility.
also, we moved. it was a very quick and chaotic move, but we actually moved, so no one is complaining. it happened at the end of ramadan, which made it even more interesting. i said to a friend during the process, "moving never goes as planned, and we live in africa, where NOTHING goes as planned to begin with... so i wonder what today is gonna be like..." we had a lot a lot a lot of help from some very generous friends who loaned us trucks and workers and boxes and all sorts of things. oh!! and the funniest part... we had a specific day that we needed to be out of the old house because someone was moving in. but we were still waiting on some little details to be finished at the new place. so on a wednesday, faye and i were talking to some friends about needing to be out by the next tuesday. it seemed like plenty of time... what we were forgetting was that the weekend marked the end of ramadan, which meant a 3-day weekend. however, we didn't know exactly which day was the last day of ramadan because they had to wait to see what the moon would do in saudi arabia. so the holiday would either be friday/saturday/sunday. or saturday/sunday/monday. but we wouldn't know until thursday night, and this was on a wednesday. so at 10 o'clock on wednesday we realized that we absolutely had to move on thursday if we were going to be certain that we were out by tuesday... i'm tired again just recounting this. anyway, it was crazy, but it's over and here is a picture of my new room:
the new place is great, and so convenient. i can walk anywhere work-related that i need to go. and we can catch transport to a lot of places right out of the front door. we have a pretty good breeze most of the time because we're on the third floor and i can see water from my bedroom window! it's really far away, but i'm from the midwest, so i don't care. i live by the sea!!! the biggest negative for me is that the place is so loud. so so so loud. all day it's loud. usually quiet by 11 at night. loud again starting with the call to prayer around 5:30. many of you know how difficult it is to wake me up. i love to sleep and i do it very well. but not here. i wake up early every day, and i run on not enough sleep until i'm so tired that i can't function, and then i get 10 hours of sleep a couple of days in a row and start the whole process over again. so that's kinda hard. but i'm adjusting.
things with the kids are going okay. we're getting used to each other. they push my limits sometimes, and i am insensitive sometimes, and in between those times we laugh and try to get to know each other. again, adjusting.
tutoring the little ones is going well. that's my favorite part of the day. monday i will start working with them at our house instead of at noah's and i think that will be much better. first of all, it's more convenient for me, so i'll have more time with them. secondly, the child who needs the most one-on-one attention goes to school right by our house, so he'll be able to get there before the others and get the attention he needs. also, there won't be other people going in and out of the house so the kids that have trouble focusing might actually be able to focus. i'm excited about the change. and the kids are REALLY excited. they just like to be at our house. it's maybe something like what i felt when i got to go to Grandma's. oh no, did i just equate myself to a grandma? i think you know what i mean...
i've been to the beach twice so far and i'm going again this weekend, so i'll try to take some pictures and post them. and then i can introduce you to some of my new friends. i've made some really fun friends who i enjoy a lot. they keep me sane. most of the time... i'm still me, so i can't be sane aalllll of the time. you know.
okay thanks for being so patient waiting for this boring update. i love you all and will try try try to post more often. happy fall! i can't believe it's november... it's getting hotter here and colder there. i'm all mixed up. anyway, ENJOY!
soooo, a lot has happened since late september. cami and faye both left for the states at the end of the month. faye's trip was planned, but cami's departure was a bit sudden. they are both back now, and things are getting back to normal, but that week and a half without either of them really wore me out. i said a lot of "i don't know the answer" and "i don't know how to do that" during those 11 days. ah, humility.
also, we moved. it was a very quick and chaotic move, but we actually moved, so no one is complaining. it happened at the end of ramadan, which made it even more interesting. i said to a friend during the process, "moving never goes as planned, and we live in africa, where NOTHING goes as planned to begin with... so i wonder what today is gonna be like..." we had a lot a lot a lot of help from some very generous friends who loaned us trucks and workers and boxes and all sorts of things. oh!! and the funniest part... we had a specific day that we needed to be out of the old house because someone was moving in. but we were still waiting on some little details to be finished at the new place. so on a wednesday, faye and i were talking to some friends about needing to be out by the next tuesday. it seemed like plenty of time... what we were forgetting was that the weekend marked the end of ramadan, which meant a 3-day weekend. however, we didn't know exactly which day was the last day of ramadan because they had to wait to see what the moon would do in saudi arabia. so the holiday would either be friday/saturday/sunday. or saturday/sunday/monday. but we wouldn't know until thursday night, and this was on a wednesday. so at 10 o'clock on wednesday we realized that we absolutely had to move on thursday if we were going to be certain that we were out by tuesday... i'm tired again just recounting this. anyway, it was crazy, but it's over and here is a picture of my new room:
the new place is great, and so convenient. i can walk anywhere work-related that i need to go. and we can catch transport to a lot of places right out of the front door. we have a pretty good breeze most of the time because we're on the third floor and i can see water from my bedroom window! it's really far away, but i'm from the midwest, so i don't care. i live by the sea!!! the biggest negative for me is that the place is so loud. so so so loud. all day it's loud. usually quiet by 11 at night. loud again starting with the call to prayer around 5:30. many of you know how difficult it is to wake me up. i love to sleep and i do it very well. but not here. i wake up early every day, and i run on not enough sleep until i'm so tired that i can't function, and then i get 10 hours of sleep a couple of days in a row and start the whole process over again. so that's kinda hard. but i'm adjusting.
things with the kids are going okay. we're getting used to each other. they push my limits sometimes, and i am insensitive sometimes, and in between those times we laugh and try to get to know each other. again, adjusting.
tutoring the little ones is going well. that's my favorite part of the day. monday i will start working with them at our house instead of at noah's and i think that will be much better. first of all, it's more convenient for me, so i'll have more time with them. secondly, the child who needs the most one-on-one attention goes to school right by our house, so he'll be able to get there before the others and get the attention he needs. also, there won't be other people going in and out of the house so the kids that have trouble focusing might actually be able to focus. i'm excited about the change. and the kids are REALLY excited. they just like to be at our house. it's maybe something like what i felt when i got to go to Grandma's. oh no, did i just equate myself to a grandma? i think you know what i mean...
i've been to the beach twice so far and i'm going again this weekend, so i'll try to take some pictures and post them. and then i can introduce you to some of my new friends. i've made some really fun friends who i enjoy a lot. they keep me sane. most of the time... i'm still me, so i can't be sane aalllll of the time. you know.
okay thanks for being so patient waiting for this boring update. i love you all and will try try try to post more often. happy fall! i can't believe it's november... it's getting hotter here and colder there. i'm all mixed up. anyway, ENJOY!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
i'm alive i'm alive
wow. i had no idea that i hadn't written in over a month... i really thought it had been a couple of weeks. that should tell you something.
so i'm working on a nice long informative blog, but i just wanted to let you all know that i'm okay. things have been a bit hectic (which i will fill you in on) but they are slowing down and i'm trying to figure out some sort of pace and rhythym and balance. it's a process for sure!!
thanks for continuing to check in on me and getting on my case when you haven't heard anything in a while. let's me know that you notice when i'm gone. :)
much love, and i promise more soon soon soon!
so i'm working on a nice long informative blog, but i just wanted to let you all know that i'm okay. things have been a bit hectic (which i will fill you in on) but they are slowing down and i'm trying to figure out some sort of pace and rhythym and balance. it's a process for sure!!
thanks for continuing to check in on me and getting on my case when you haven't heard anything in a while. let's me know that you notice when i'm gone. :)
much love, and i promise more soon soon soon!
Friday, September 28, 2007
it was a day much like today
This week has flown by! I’m actually on some sort of schedule now, so that makes things a bit more manageable.
I didn’t mention in my last post how fun my trip to the airport was on Friday… It is really difficult to know how long it will take you to get to and from the airport, and like I mentioned, the ferry schedule is completely unpredictable so you really just have to use the hurry-up-and-wait approach. If there is an opportunity to move in the right direction, you take it. You can’t count on having another opportunity. So, we arrived at the airport with 5 hours to spare… but that was nothing… chris and erin arrived without a hitch. With all of their bags, bright-eyed and ready to go. Since they felt good, we decided to take the ferry across the bay instead of paying the big bucks to take the hovercraft.
Let’s just say that the ferry thing didn’t work out. I was promised by the guys selling the bus tickets that the ferry would not leave the dock without our bus. Promised. Not a flippant, ‘yeah sure’ kind of promise, but a long drawn-out nagging-white-woman ‘you better swear to me with every fiber of your being’ kind of promise. Well, I learned my lesson. When a guy has the chance to sell 4 bus tickets at once, he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. Honestly, I can’t say I blame him either. So, we didn’t make the ferry, and I was not happy about that, but it gets funnier. The ferry that didn’t wait on us got stuck in the mud about 30 yards from the dock. For 5 hours. So… once the tide rose, and the ferry finally moved, it had to cross over to freetown, then load up again and come back. So we boarded the ferry around 2:30 am and were dropped at the house at 5. I took a shower and fell asleep listening to the Islamic call to prayer. Not my favorite Freetown experience to date, but we all survived. And I have made the decision that I will never again attempt to welcome someone to freetown with the ferry. It’s worth the $35 extra per person to not have that happen again. Ugh.
Other than that little hang-up, things are going well. I started Krio lessons this week. And I started tutoring my favorite little people in kroo bay. I love them. They make me completely crazy and I love them. I think they will all grow up into really incredible big people. You know how you just get that sense about some kids? I get that sense with all of them. They have all had it rough in their short number of years. Really rough, in ways that I can’t even imagine. And they sure do have their issues and struggles and brokenness. But they are just so beautiful inside and out. Every one of them. I just love them. Love love love.
Patty griffin continues to provide the soundtrack to my life right now, and the song of this week was ‘goodbye’. Parts of it could not possibly be more fitting. 2 years ago this week, I was living in freetown and called home to hear that my grandpa (who had been dealing with cancer for the previous 9 months) wouldn’t likely make it through the night. Even now, remembering those days is so difficult. I have never felt so far from home. I wrote about it on this blog, so you can check that out in my archive if you feel so inclined. (September 2005) Anyway, I want to leave you with a few lines from the song, and just say that I still miss my grandpa to this day, but it is a blessing to have known someone like him, and even more of a blessing to have his blood in my veins. How could you not miss someone like him?!?! I am so grateful to come from the family I am from – a long line of really amazing people.
Occurred to me the other day that you’ve been gone now a couple years.
Well I guess it takes a while for someone to really disappear.
I remember where it was when the word came about you;
It was a day much like today, the sky was bright and white and blue.
And I wonder where you are, and if the pain ends when you die.
And I wonder if there was some better way to say goodbye.
Today my heart is big and sore. It’s trying to push right through my skin.
I won’t see you anymore. I guess that’s finally sinkin’ in…
I didn’t mention in my last post how fun my trip to the airport was on Friday… It is really difficult to know how long it will take you to get to and from the airport, and like I mentioned, the ferry schedule is completely unpredictable so you really just have to use the hurry-up-and-wait approach. If there is an opportunity to move in the right direction, you take it. You can’t count on having another opportunity. So, we arrived at the airport with 5 hours to spare… but that was nothing… chris and erin arrived without a hitch. With all of their bags, bright-eyed and ready to go. Since they felt good, we decided to take the ferry across the bay instead of paying the big bucks to take the hovercraft.
Let’s just say that the ferry thing didn’t work out. I was promised by the guys selling the bus tickets that the ferry would not leave the dock without our bus. Promised. Not a flippant, ‘yeah sure’ kind of promise, but a long drawn-out nagging-white-woman ‘you better swear to me with every fiber of your being’ kind of promise. Well, I learned my lesson. When a guy has the chance to sell 4 bus tickets at once, he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. Honestly, I can’t say I blame him either. So, we didn’t make the ferry, and I was not happy about that, but it gets funnier. The ferry that didn’t wait on us got stuck in the mud about 30 yards from the dock. For 5 hours. So… once the tide rose, and the ferry finally moved, it had to cross over to freetown, then load up again and come back. So we boarded the ferry around 2:30 am and were dropped at the house at 5. I took a shower and fell asleep listening to the Islamic call to prayer. Not my favorite Freetown experience to date, but we all survived. And I have made the decision that I will never again attempt to welcome someone to freetown with the ferry. It’s worth the $35 extra per person to not have that happen again. Ugh.
Other than that little hang-up, things are going well. I started Krio lessons this week. And I started tutoring my favorite little people in kroo bay. I love them. They make me completely crazy and I love them. I think they will all grow up into really incredible big people. You know how you just get that sense about some kids? I get that sense with all of them. They have all had it rough in their short number of years. Really rough, in ways that I can’t even imagine. And they sure do have their issues and struggles and brokenness. But they are just so beautiful inside and out. Every one of them. I just love them. Love love love.
Patty griffin continues to provide the soundtrack to my life right now, and the song of this week was ‘goodbye’. Parts of it could not possibly be more fitting. 2 years ago this week, I was living in freetown and called home to hear that my grandpa (who had been dealing with cancer for the previous 9 months) wouldn’t likely make it through the night. Even now, remembering those days is so difficult. I have never felt so far from home. I wrote about it on this blog, so you can check that out in my archive if you feel so inclined. (September 2005) Anyway, I want to leave you with a few lines from the song, and just say that I still miss my grandpa to this day, but it is a blessing to have known someone like him, and even more of a blessing to have his blood in my veins. How could you not miss someone like him?!?! I am so grateful to come from the family I am from – a long line of really amazing people.
Occurred to me the other day that you’ve been gone now a couple years.
Well I guess it takes a while for someone to really disappear.
I remember where it was when the word came about you;
It was a day much like today, the sky was bright and white and blue.
And I wonder where you are, and if the pain ends when you die.
And I wonder if there was some better way to say goodbye.
Today my heart is big and sore. It’s trying to push right through my skin.
I won’t see you anymore. I guess that’s finally sinkin’ in…
Sunday, September 23, 2007
my future home-sweet-home
i may or may not have mentioned this before i left...
right now we live a few miles away from downtown, but we have a contract on an apartment in town that is not yet finished. it was supposed to be finished a couple of months ago, but who knows when we'll actually live there. maybe within a week... likely not.
anyway, faye wrote a funny blog about our recent excursion to check in on the progress of the place. you can read it here and look at the pictures and envy the amazing view we will have from our roof. eventually... maybe. i hope soon.
the quote of that day came from the man faye calls "C." he wasn't even in the same room as a most of the commotion at the time, but he shouted in exasperation, "senegalese!!! you talk too much!" for some reason that made me laugh until i choked. aaaah, west africa, i love you.
right now we live a few miles away from downtown, but we have a contract on an apartment in town that is not yet finished. it was supposed to be finished a couple of months ago, but who knows when we'll actually live there. maybe within a week... likely not.
anyway, faye wrote a funny blog about our recent excursion to check in on the progress of the place. you can read it here and look at the pictures and envy the amazing view we will have from our roof. eventually... maybe. i hope soon.
the quote of that day came from the man faye calls "C." he wasn't even in the same room as a most of the commotion at the time, but he shouted in exasperation, "senegalese!!! you talk too much!" for some reason that made me laugh until i choked. aaaah, west africa, i love you.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
to serve the world proud
earlier this week (maybe it was last week???) cami asked me who was my favorite person in the Bible. obviously, you cannot answer this question, "Jesus!" - that is just lazy. unlike most "favorites" in my life - always changing depending on circumstance and realizations - my favorite person in the Bible has remained the same for a number of years. mary. so cami and i talked for a good long while about the faith of mary, her instinct to ask questions, her willingness to ignore conventions, her joy in the face of impending hard times... then i played the patty griffin song for cami (it is so fun to introduce people to my friend patty) and we both cried and i'm so glad that she asked me that question... it's provided some focus over the last few days.
on monday i started sitting in on the book discussions and business meetings with the sierra leonean interns. they are a really neat group of people, and by the end of the year at least a few of them will be staff members. sorta. almost. we don't have a sierra leonean board yet, so actual staff positions might be a little way off... the point is, these are very great people and i'm excited about the things we will learn from and with each other. they are doing a lot of stuff, but the main responsibility is that they act as sort of small group leaders / case managers for the lighthouse program. i'm excited to see how my brief (but full) experience as a case manager might help streamline some of their goals, scheduling, policies, paperwork. it isn't really consistent with the sierra leonean way of doing things, and if you know me you know how rediculously culturally sensitive i can be, but i think some consistency of expectations on both sides would be really great for the young adults in the program as well as the staff. we shall see...
we took a break during that meeting and george (intern) was listening to the radio because they were expected to announce the election results. when they announced that the APC won you could hear a roar of excitement coming from all over our part of town. and it went on and on and on... for hours. faye went into town later and said that there were people marching and celebrating all over and then they actually swore in the new president, ernest bai koroma, that very evening. i didn't hear the ceremony myself, but apparently the ex-president and ex-vice-president (who was the opponent in this election) both gave speaches and spoke highly of ernest, saying that this was the president for ALL of sierra leone and that there was no reason to be divided any longer. it was all so HOPEFUL. i heard someone last night say that the sierra leoneans in her office seem gaurded. but almost every sierra leonean i know is PUMPED. freetown can be a really rough place. the poor are desperate. but they are the ones who elected this president. that is exciting if you ask me. there is a headline on the BBC website today that says "violence spreads in sierra leone" but i have seen or heard of nothing in freetown. it sounds like people are acting out against the losing SLPP party in areas of the country which are still controlled by rebels. pray that this will end, and that the peace and hope i see in the capital city will not fade any time soon. (read more on faye's blog about the election)
i was sick again this week, which is why i didn't get to go dance in the rain and celebrate the new government. i self-diagnosed strep throat, started some heavy doses of penicillin, and it cleared up quite quickly and only cost me $0.33 and an afternoon of sleep. i love the lack of pharmaceutical regulations sometimes...
tomorrow i am going on an adventure! i am going to the airport to get erin and chris harrell. erin was on my servant team in 2005, and she and her husband will be in freetown as WMF interns for the next 5 weeks, discerning if they might come back as staff in the near future. exciting times! it will be good to talk with erin about all that has changed in the last 2 years. and it will be so fun to see freetown for the first time through chris' eyes. i can't wait to see them both! so, 'what's the adventure?' you may ask... well, getting to and from the airport, of course! they are only running one ferry right now, so the schedule is unpredictable. if it is late, we may have to take a pom-pom boat which is a long, skinny, dug-out canoe. there are just a lot of ways to get across the bay, so it could go a lot of different ways... none of this is any problem. the thing that could get interesting is that i will have to talk price ALL DAY. all day. which is kind of like a sport because it wears me out, but is really fun when you actually get a fair price. it's a small kind of victory. my competitive spirit loves it. my friend alimamy is going with me because he is fun, speaks krio and english, and he can carry heavy things.
okay, that's enough for today. this was supposed to be my day off, but i did work-related stuff all morning (both of my parents are at fault for modeling this kind of behavior my whole life). so i'm letting myself spend as much time as i want on the internet tonight. because i'm worth it. and now i will go home where we will have power in 20 minutes. i will charge my ipod, eat another peanut butter and banana sandwich, and spend the evening with my dear friend patty griffin.
on monday i started sitting in on the book discussions and business meetings with the sierra leonean interns. they are a really neat group of people, and by the end of the year at least a few of them will be staff members. sorta. almost. we don't have a sierra leonean board yet, so actual staff positions might be a little way off... the point is, these are very great people and i'm excited about the things we will learn from and with each other. they are doing a lot of stuff, but the main responsibility is that they act as sort of small group leaders / case managers for the lighthouse program. i'm excited to see how my brief (but full) experience as a case manager might help streamline some of their goals, scheduling, policies, paperwork. it isn't really consistent with the sierra leonean way of doing things, and if you know me you know how rediculously culturally sensitive i can be, but i think some consistency of expectations on both sides would be really great for the young adults in the program as well as the staff. we shall see...
we took a break during that meeting and george (intern) was listening to the radio because they were expected to announce the election results. when they announced that the APC won you could hear a roar of excitement coming from all over our part of town. and it went on and on and on... for hours. faye went into town later and said that there were people marching and celebrating all over and then they actually swore in the new president, ernest bai koroma, that very evening. i didn't hear the ceremony myself, but apparently the ex-president and ex-vice-president (who was the opponent in this election) both gave speaches and spoke highly of ernest, saying that this was the president for ALL of sierra leone and that there was no reason to be divided any longer. it was all so HOPEFUL. i heard someone last night say that the sierra leoneans in her office seem gaurded. but almost every sierra leonean i know is PUMPED. freetown can be a really rough place. the poor are desperate. but they are the ones who elected this president. that is exciting if you ask me. there is a headline on the BBC website today that says "violence spreads in sierra leone" but i have seen or heard of nothing in freetown. it sounds like people are acting out against the losing SLPP party in areas of the country which are still controlled by rebels. pray that this will end, and that the peace and hope i see in the capital city will not fade any time soon. (read more on faye's blog about the election)
i was sick again this week, which is why i didn't get to go dance in the rain and celebrate the new government. i self-diagnosed strep throat, started some heavy doses of penicillin, and it cleared up quite quickly and only cost me $0.33 and an afternoon of sleep. i love the lack of pharmaceutical regulations sometimes...
tomorrow i am going on an adventure! i am going to the airport to get erin and chris harrell. erin was on my servant team in 2005, and she and her husband will be in freetown as WMF interns for the next 5 weeks, discerning if they might come back as staff in the near future. exciting times! it will be good to talk with erin about all that has changed in the last 2 years. and it will be so fun to see freetown for the first time through chris' eyes. i can't wait to see them both! so, 'what's the adventure?' you may ask... well, getting to and from the airport, of course! they are only running one ferry right now, so the schedule is unpredictable. if it is late, we may have to take a pom-pom boat which is a long, skinny, dug-out canoe. there are just a lot of ways to get across the bay, so it could go a lot of different ways... none of this is any problem. the thing that could get interesting is that i will have to talk price ALL DAY. all day. which is kind of like a sport because it wears me out, but is really fun when you actually get a fair price. it's a small kind of victory. my competitive spirit loves it. my friend alimamy is going with me because he is fun, speaks krio and english, and he can carry heavy things.
okay, that's enough for today. this was supposed to be my day off, but i did work-related stuff all morning (both of my parents are at fault for modeling this kind of behavior my whole life). so i'm letting myself spend as much time as i want on the internet tonight. because i'm worth it. and now i will go home where we will have power in 20 minutes. i will charge my ipod, eat another peanut butter and banana sandwich, and spend the evening with my dear friend patty griffin.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
the pigeon in the airport
i made it. hopefully you had already guessed that by now... what you may not have guessed is that i made it with all of my luggage and ON TIME. i met cami at the airport in london and she assumed most/all of my books so i could meet the weight limit, and it was smooth sailing from there. we rode the ferry from the airport to freetown, which isn't the most exciting way to go (when helicopters and hovercrafts are the other options) but it was the perfect way to re-enter this crazy city - approaching slowly, moving with the waves of water and people, wondering at the sunset and praying it doesn't rain just yet.
i've had a cold this week which is likely due to a huge deficit in my sleep account before leaving, and also due to the climate change. i spent an entire day in bed this week, but i'm feeling much better.
the reunions have been sweet, and i'm VERY MUCH looking forward to a routine. oh, how i long for a system of doing things. i'm so lost and confused by even the simple things right now... i have to ask questions just to dish a plate of rice properly. and speaking of questions, the krio is coming back very slowly... but it is coming back.
during my layover at JFK airport, i was chillin' out by a starbucks (my last for a while) and a pigeon walked quite-confidently past me toward the boarding line at gate 25. he seemed to know what he was doing, but he certainly looked out of place and must have been a bit intimidated. i laughed, and made eye contact with someone else who thought it was funny. and a lot of people noticed, but no one bothered him. i have thought about him everyday. at first i thought that he must be lost, but maybe not. he walked with such purpose, like he was exactly where he wanted to be. and who am i to say that a bird can't be interested in airports and airplanes? i mean, maybe they swallow up other birds, but this pigeon seemed certain that he was going to be just fine.
i realized today; i am that pigeon in the airport.
i've had a cold this week which is likely due to a huge deficit in my sleep account before leaving, and also due to the climate change. i spent an entire day in bed this week, but i'm feeling much better.
the reunions have been sweet, and i'm VERY MUCH looking forward to a routine. oh, how i long for a system of doing things. i'm so lost and confused by even the simple things right now... i have to ask questions just to dish a plate of rice properly. and speaking of questions, the krio is coming back very slowly... but it is coming back.
during my layover at JFK airport, i was chillin' out by a starbucks (my last for a while) and a pigeon walked quite-confidently past me toward the boarding line at gate 25. he seemed to know what he was doing, but he certainly looked out of place and must have been a bit intimidated. i laughed, and made eye contact with someone else who thought it was funny. and a lot of people noticed, but no one bothered him. i have thought about him everyday. at first i thought that he must be lost, but maybe not. he walked with such purpose, like he was exactly where he wanted to be. and who am i to say that a bird can't be interested in airports and airplanes? i mean, maybe they swallow up other birds, but this pigeon seemed certain that he was going to be just fine.
i realized today; i am that pigeon in the airport.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
neatness
so, we've come to the point where i can no longer sleep. and i'm still 5 days away from freetown... this could get interesting. i've already developed "finals voice" - the name i have for the raspy tone that i acquire as the result of an extended lack of sleep. as you may have guessed, this began in college as a result of my relentless procrastinating...the point is that i have been awake since 3 AM, and i've managed to accomplish a few things, but not many because my mind keeps running ahead of me. i think this is working to my advantage in some ways. let me explain. you may or may not know this about me; i am a perfectionist. and a procrastinating one at that, so i'm sure you can imagine how fun that is... anyway, i've been wracking my brain for weeks now about how to pack those stupid bags that i mentioned in my last post, but this morning i was just thinking that it really doesn't matter. i mean, it matters. but i will inevitably make a few packing mistakes - no matter how much i plan and rethink, i will chose to take something i will never use, and i will forget to pack something that i know i will need. that sucks a little. but... on thursday morning, i will be on my way with my imperfectly packed bags, and on friday i'll be in freetown. ON FRIDAY I'LL BE IN FREETOWN!
so that's what i realized this morning. the goodbyes have been tough so far, and the remaining ones will be the toughest yet. but i'm so much more excited than i am sad. in the coming week the following things will happen; i will speak krio (poorly, but out of necessity), i will watch the sunset on the atlantic, i will eat fula bread, i will ride/sweat in a poda-poda (see photo) and i will listen to the apprentice on said poda-poda yell "abadeenabadeenabadeenabadeen" without ever coming up for air, i will be called "wayt gyal" repeatedly (which will cease to be amusing very quickly, but i still look forward to the first one), and i will see saidu, remie, joseph, noah, david, haja, kwame, kadi, and so many other friends who i have missed over the last 2 years. that last one sends me straight out of giddy and into tears. i really am so excited.
i will try not to have a lot of goals or expectations for my first week - that just seems like another set-up for failure, like the 55 pound suitcases. however, i think it would be a really good omen to see the 'neatness' poda-poda in my first week. some of you know what i mean, the others will hopefully see a photo someday soon. so that's my number one goal. number 2 will be to catch up on some sleep.
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