Reflection

We are always looking to the future with uncertainty. Never in my life did I imagine that I would be spending two months in Sierra Leone. Last night I finished a novel called "Homunculus" by Hugh Paxton. The book focuses on the Sierra Leone Civil War, zombies, and an alcoholic Jesuit alchemist. Although I did not encounter zombies or a drunk priest, there were countless reminders of the civil war as well as familiar places and evidence corroborated by my experiences. One character in the novel states that "tourism in Sierra Leone wasn't just dead. It hadn't been born yet." This sentiment was further backed up by a discussion at the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone. The not so diplomatic diplomat said the exact same thing, in slightly different wording. (Just as a side note, "Homunculus" is well worth a read for those looking for an interesting novel...)
During my time in Sierra Leone I felt like Indiana Jones, venturing about in my safari hat, overstuffed backpack, and carrying a cutlass in my belt. However, exploration was not only about looking for crystal skulls (unfortunately I didn't find any, except for one in a store in London, but I'm still on the hunt). It is about getting out of your comfort zone and immersing yourself in the culture of wherever you are. This meant going out to farms and brushing the swamps, decapitating goats, trying to learn Mende, and making friends in Manomenima and Freetown to name a few. My host, Sheku Koroma, told me one night that the villagers in Manomenima had never seen "white men come to our farms and work side by side with us." Despite never having had any experience to prepare me for work in Sierra Leone, and not being with a well known and established NGO, we were exploring and leading. Our exploration and leadership, I found, were tied together. Through the process of going into the village and talking to different groups and individuals we became more intimate with the area of Sierra Leone we were living in and simultaneously exercised leadership. Our job was not to drive in to Manomenima in Land Rovers and begin distributing food, medicine, clothing, and other needed goods. Rather it was to live like the villagers we were staying with as fully as we could. Before I left, people kept asking what I was going to do in Sierra Leone. I answered that I did not know. While this seems like an odd answer, I honestly had no idea. There was no real itinerary, and there shouldn't have been one. What was important was that the group of six UNC and Duke scholars go into the situation with open minds and plunge into the culture of Sierra Leone. And that is what I believe we did...
This past year I have been to New Orleans, New York, Washington D.C., Lebanon, Sierra Leone, London, and of course good ol' Carrboro North Carolina. The day I got back home after Sierra Leone was July 17th, 2010, a year to the day of when I went to Bonnaroo. For those of you who know me (which hopefully you do if you are reading this blog. If not, that is cool too though...), you will know that I left my Bonnaroo bracelet on my right wrist for an entire year. The first thing I did after showering and eating a delicious home-cooked meal was to remove Bonnaroo bracelet. It has had quite a year between going to NY for the first time, spending a semester at Duke, going to the motherland (Lebanon), getting in a life-threatening car crash in Sierra Leone, getting stopped by port authority, and many other fun stories which I don't need to put up on the blog. Maybe it was a way of paying homage to the past year and all of my adventures, as well as looking ahead to London in the Fall and my uncertain future. Or maybe it was because my mom complained that it brought home the Freetown Funk...

Out of Africa, Stonhenge, Port Authority, and other stuff

Hey all! I am finally back in Carrboro. Got back in NC officially on Saturday the 17th after a nice visit with Port Authority at JFK. We left Sierra Leone on the 9th, and the next day in London was spent going "paved roads - what? No trash in the streets...huh? Running water...bizarre..." and noticing other such oddities as well. My week in England was spent drinking pints of local ales, eating fish and chips, visiting the Globe theater, and going to see Stonehenge. For all of you who have not heard, there have been many theories that Stonehenge was built by aliens and that it may lie, along with the Great Pyramid in Giza, on an ancient extraterrestrial "power grid" of sorts. Even the audio guide at Stonehenge acknowledged the aforementioned alien construction theory. I'm still catching up on sleep and enjoying simple pleasures like tap water, but will provide more updates up soon. I think of our friends in Sierra Leone often, especially when I wore my chief suit to my uncle's birthday party tonight. Hope everyone is well, and thanks for reading!

A Sierra Leonian 4th of July

Greetings from Banana Island! (See map above.)

We have now left the village for good -- our work here is done. For our going away, the village had two special events: a disco, and a futbol match. Our village was decked out in the new jerseys we bought and played the village that the Robbies went to last year. For the disco, they brought in some men with generators, disco equipment, speakers, and CDs. My host, Ibrahim, gave me two pictures of himself to remember him by, and we traded phone numbers so we can keep in touch.

We feel good about what we've done. However, we're very concerned, since David is no longer in the country, that this program won't continue. We all feel strongly that although it has been challenging at times, it is an awesome program. I talked to Abu a little about a program called "Nothing But Nets," started by former-UNC basketball player Sam Perkins. I know Sam from attending his basketball camp for many summers and he's such a great guy, and really humble and kind. He told me he was very interested in what I was going to be doing in Sierra Leone as he has been committed to the lives of people in this continent for a long time, which is why he started "Nothing But Nets" -- http://www.nothingbutnets.net/. Sierra Leone is one of the countries they are hoping to become involved with. This is something I hope to follow up on when back in the States.

To get back to Freetown, we went on motorbikes. We were going to go a quicker way where we hike a mile, cross a river by canoe, hike two miles, take a bike, take a cab to Bo, and then go from there to Freetown. However the river part was too dangerous in the rainy season, so we took motorbikes between our village and Squema, then Karama, then Bo. (No helmets!) Then we ended up having to all get in a small pickup truck after trying to arrange several other kinds of transportation unsuccessfully. Cameron, Michael, Austin, Abu, Sparrow, Holla, a random man, and I were all crammed in the bed of the pickup on wooden benches that were not attached to the vehicle, along with everyone's bags! We had to grab the edge of the truck with one hand and cling onto the one bag that was weighted down with the other hand for dear life! Amazingly nobody fell out.

Back in Freetown, we're still doing paperwork such as budgets. We're also readjusting to different foods: my stomach was used to having the same thing for lunch and dinner, which were cooked at the same time, and it was always 1) rice, 2) palm oil, and 3) something else. The something else consisted of plazas, crem crem, or groundnut soup. I am no longer accustomed to variety! We hope, while in Freetown, to get a tour of Parliament with The Honorable Robin Folley.

We are now in Banana Island for a few days for some serious relaxation. Cameron, Austin, Abu, Sparrow and I went to a party today for the new chief here, who is a WOMAN! (Sweet!) There was partying and dancing, and the new chief gave us some Star Beer (we are all overage here, no worries, Robertson Program!). I also saw a shooting star; no signs of UFO's yet, but there's still time!

We plan to spend the 4th of July out here on the beach at Banana Island singing patriotic songs and toasting all of you back in the great country of America. We're going to try to find some fireworks, too.

A few more days in Freetown, and then we're off to London. It's hard to believe the adventure is almost over.

Beach Balls, Knife-Wielding Children, and My Hero Pat Conroy

After recovering for several days in Bo, it is time to go back to the village. We've already purchased a generator for the hospital as well as futbol (soccer) jerseys and balls for the village.

The first day back in the village, we spent most of the day playing with children. Before leaving North Carolina, I grabbed a few beach balls from the dollar section at Target; we inflated them today and had a ton of fun with the village kids. It was a little disconcerting to be playing with small children when when many of them were swinging cutlasses around (without sheaths). There was one boy dragging a large knife who couldn't have been older than three. And to think my mom wouldn't even let me have a toy gun when I was growing up!

There are only five goats left in the village now. The rest have either died or been given to neighboring villages to prevent them getting sick too. We believe the mystery goat disease is PPR. (Moe's sister looked this up for them and it stands for Peste des Petits Reminants. It mainly affects sheep and goats although it can affect gazelles. The mortality rate is so high -- between 90 and 100 percent -- that some say it could be used as a biological weapon. It is common in the Middle East, West and Sub-Saharan Africa, and part of India. THANKFULLY it is apparently not transferable to humans! What a relief for our mom!)

For more on PPR: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/biosecurity/ag-biosec/anim-disease/ppr.html

We still haven't been able to get a vet, sadly, and we are getting really conflicting information such as from HEIFER International -- some say there is no vaccine, while others say there is one, while others say there is a vaccine but it is not available here. (Moe's sister did research and there is no possible treatment for sick goats -- they will die. However, there is a vaccine that may help prevent the disease, but it was a new vaccine in 2002 and she doesn't know if it is available there now.)

Now it is time for a fun fact! Have any of you read The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy (my favorite author)? If so, you may remember hearing about the Gullah people in South Carolina. These African Americans are of Sierra Leonian descent; their ancestors were brought to Charleston as slaves. They have retained a great deal of culture from Sierra Leone that is not seen in such density elsewhere in the States (except for a Gullah population below in Georgia). These groups reside mainly in coastal fishing communities and speak the Gullah language. A very high percentage of the Gullah language comes from Mende and Vai, both Sierra Leonian languages; it is mainly a combination of Mende and English. (Mende is spoken in the village.)

On my way down for my first Robertson summer, Austin and I drove down together and stopped for the night in Georgia. At a bookstore there in Decater, I found an absolute treasure: a signed copy of Conroy's first (self-published) book, The Boo. So it seems that Pat Conroy and car-wrecks are haunting my Robertson summers.

If you've never read anything by Pat Conroy, immediately stop reading this blog, and go get The Prince of Tides.

ps -- our cab karma still isn't that great. The car broke down on the way back to the village. Clutch cable was broken.

Don't Panic!

Remember how I said that Sierra Leone had other needs that were more pressing than seatbelts? I TOTALLY TAKE THAT BACK.

Don't panic -- we're all fine -- BUT:

I'm still picking shards of glass out of my hair from a windshield.

On the way back from our lovely night in Banana Island, we were in a bad car accident. I was in the front seat sleeping (with my seatbelt on!) when the car went around a curve and was hit by another car that didn't see our cab because of a blind spot. That was the first impact. I woke up at that point with my head on the dashboard. When the other car hit our cab, we careened off the road and hit a tractor. This was the second impact, and at that point the cab was totalled. I was sandwiched between the seat and the dashboard. The impact of my head completely shattered the windshield. (Moe's sister is for once really glad that he is so hard-headed.)

The seat had broken and I was unable to get out of the car. There was a cascade effect of all of our stuff flying forward. Everyone was thrown forward, and Hawa was especially thrown into my seat; she was howling in pain and in shock. Some people passing by on motorbikes helped us all out of the car and transported us to the hospital. The only time I did start to "wig out" was when I was on the motorbike behind the driver with someone behind me making sure I didn't fall off, thinking, "Great, now I'm on a motorbike with no helmet, after sustaining a headwound!"

Here's the injury update:
Austin had cuts on his arm.
Nari has a fat lip and sprained ankle.
Brent has a headwound and concussion.
I have a headwound and concussion.
Sparrow hurt his leg and back.
Cameron has a mild concussion.
Sparrow and Hawa were badly beat up. Although again, everyone is fine.
Michael was mostly ok.

There are 30 Peace Corps volunteers in the area. When word got out that "a bunch of white kids got hurt," the Peace Corps members training at the hospital went to the hospital because they assumed that it was their fellow volunteers. They stayed to take care of us, so we got extra good care. When I first got to the hospital, they gave me a headscarf to try to stem the bloodflow from my head, and later wiped the wound with alcohol swabs, which was painful. They saw each of us one at a time but it all went very quickly. I didn't need stitches, and they put purple mercurochrome on the wound (which Moe's mom said she thought people stopped using in the 60's and was suprised to hear it is still made). (Update: the mecurochrome was kept in a plastic water bottle such as one would buy off the street. And the Sierra Leonian doctor was wearing a Sacramento Kings shirt.)

The hospital is comprised of two side rooms and one main room. Different things are done in different rooms, such as one for having temperature and blood pressure done, and another for cleaning the wound. At the end, an American doctor showed up, so again, we got plenty of care.

I feel especially bad for our cab driver. His car, which is his livlihood is completely destroyed, and he was understandably distraught. We have already committed all of our money, but I will talk to Sparrow to see if there is anything we can do. (Update: The cab driver was luckily insured. He and his boss and his boss's wife were very kind and came to visit us to make sure we were okay.)

We were very lucky because the cab driver said that if we'd been going just 5 mph faster, we'd be dead. We are also lucky because at one point we thought about putting Nari and Sparrow in the front seat -- because they are both very small, they could have been thrown completely through the windshield. The doctor also told me I was really lucky that I was asleep because I was less tense, and if I had been tense on impact, this could have been a whole lot worse (in ways his sister doesn't like to think about). So again although we're all still very sore / beat-up, not to worry, we're all fine.

I'm starting to think that I am just bad luck for the Robbies. Last summer, when I was on the St. Charles streetcar in New Orleans, the streetcar was hit by a car, which I was told never happens. Two Robertson summers and two car accidents: coincidence?

Obviously our plans have changed somewhat. We're going to stay in Bo for the next 24 hours to recuperate and be near medical care just in case anyone needs it. Because of the accident and the unexpected days in Bo, we won't have time to go to Bonthe because it is a 2-day trip to get there including 18 hours on a boat. So it looks like we'll have to forget The Land That Time Forgot. Day after tomorrow we'll go to Kenema to meet with people the villagers want us to talk to; for example, we're trying to find a vet there to help with the goat problem. The on the 17th we will head back to the village two days earlier than planned.

I must look pretty bad because everyone I pass asks me, "What happened to you??"
I reply, "If you think I look bad, you should have seen the car."

(Moe's sister would like to report that he is actually in good spirits and joking about things like "Why was there a tractor in the middle of the road? Ha Ha!" He also seemed more concerned about the Celtics beating the Lakers than this accident in which, again, his head shattered a windshield. She hopes this is due to resiliancy and a positive attitude rather than to the concussion / brain damage.)

Seed Bank, Seatbelts, Seashore (Say that three times quickly!)

We've all been sick and really tired coming back from the village, so we decided to go to the beach for a night to get away. We plan to sleep out on the beach at Banana Island which is large and sandy. There are some straw huts that we can run under if it starts raining.

We got to Banana Island by cab. All eight of us are crammed into one cab. I usually end up in the front seat because of my size: the cabbies seem to always say, "You should get in front. You're big. You have long legs." Lucky for me, that's the only seat in the car that has a seatbelt. (But I think Sierra Leone has other pressing needs that need to be addressed before seatbelts.)

All the cabs are very very old, in fact I'm pretty sure part of the muffler of our cab came off during our ride to the beach. Part of that may be because the roads are just abysmal.

When we leave Banana Island, we will take another cab to Bonthe Island, where we will spend a few days. Bonthe Island is called "The Land That Time Forgot." It's a very old fishing village with rusty lamp posts and an old slave fortress.

While we are away from the village, we are working on our "Business Plan Competition," which is the process where different groups brainstorm about projects for the village (I talked about this in my last post). We can give up to 500 US dollars for each project that is selected. Again, the project has to be sustainable. The grant money is not a loan, but it needs to be 'payed back' in that it should generate funds to be used for the community. Each of us is giving $1000 of our stipend to fund the different projects. Part of this money will also be used for a small generator for the hospital. Those who use the generator other than the nurse will pay to replenish the fuel used; in fact the nurse said that if she uses the generator for a personal use, she will repay that amount of fuel. (Can you imagine in a US hospital or office having to repay the amount of electricity you use to keep the lights on at night when you're doing something of a personal nature?)

We had dinner with Ahmed Shetu, a friend of David's who works for CRS, and we talked to him about the work that we're trying to do. Regarding a potential agricultural project, Ahmed told us that it is great if you get people from a Farmer Field School to do demonstrations of more effective farming. The Farmer Field School sets up a sample plot and teaches techniques by doing a demonstration on that plot; they only ask for lunch that day as payment. For example, it is best to separate crops rather than throw all the seeds together. Still, Ahmed reminded us that it is one thing to demonstrate these methods and another to see if they are actually implemented long-term; one of the things I've come to understand (and NGOs and other service organizations struggle with this as well) is how little control I or anyone has over the long-term effects of any project.

Another potential initiative is to set up a seed bank in the village. Whoever borrows one bushel must give back a bushel and a half after harvesting, so that the seed bank will not only be sustained but thrive. A prerequisite for using the seed bank is to go for training with the Farmer Field School.

Sadly, it seems to be universal -- but in our village, there are five disabled members, and they feel very excluded and marginalized. This group of four blind people and one paraplegic is not an official group (like the women's group or youth group), but since they weren't being included in other groups (as Sparrow pointed out to us), we decided to talk to them separately. They said they are ignored and treated as if they are not part of the community.

One of the blind men, Abdulai, is especially brilliant and is fluent in English. I was able to have a good conversation with him. I asked him if he would be willing to speak up at the next meeting in front of the village and share how the disabled people feel excluded and how they want and need to be part of the community. Abdulai did this, and I believe the community responded, especially the chiefs, because the chiefs made an announcement asking for provisions to be made for the disabled members to be brought to meetings from now on. (Again, while this is wonderful, one never knows how things will play out long term.)

Overall, the fifteen days in the village were hard, but I look forward to returning and working with the community to pick the final projects and kick-start them. For now, I'm looking forward to basking in the Sierra Leonian sun and doing some reading. I've just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, which I loved! Now I am starting a Zecharia Sitchin alien-conspiracy-theory book I picked up for a quarter during my last summer in New Orleans. One of the places Sitchin talks about is Baalback, a place in Lebanon that I visited in March, with stones arguably too large to have been moved by ancient humans. (Moe's sister was at Baalback too and can't explain the stone thing, but she still thinks Sitchin is full of goat-poop.)

PS -- Each of us has gotten pretty serious intestinal issues at different times but luckily we are all okay. We were just trying to give those sick goats a run for their money!

PSS -- a long overdue map of Sierra Leone is at the top of this post -- you can see Freetown on the left, Bo in the middle, the Killhaun district where the village is on the right. Bonthe and Banana Island are on the bottom left coast.

Hunting Antelope, Sleeping on Logs, and Looking For a Goat Vet

It's been a long time! Speaking of "long," I have a new name: "Longman". The villagers dubbed me this because of my height, not knowing that it is also my last name.

We just got back from 15 days in the village, where among other things I learned to hunt antelope with sticks and a net only. More on this to follow!

I feel that the time there went really well. The things I thought would be difficult, such as dealing with the latrine, didn't bother me at all. The one thing that is driving me crazy is the cultural etiquette. There are special greetings that must be given to everyone that you see or pass, and it is difficult to do this correctly when you don't speak Mende (the language is still pretty tough), but at least I've mastered counting to ten!

In terms of our work, Michael had an idea which we embraced to ask the villagers get into groups (women, youth, elders, chiefs, etc.) and have each group work together to come up with a list of what projects they think need to be done -- and it has to be a project that is sustainable. We also told the villagers that in terms of funding we would have at most 500,000 leones (or 129 US dollars according to a currency converter used by Moe's sister?).

After identifying the needs, we asked each group to prioritize the needs: short-term needs, medium, and long-term needs. We then brought the whole community together and each group presented their short, medium, and long-term goals, and as a community then prioritized these needs. One difficulty is that every group put the things that required the most money at the top of their immediate/short-term list. One of our colleagues here, Sparrow, has been instrumental in helping us reiterate to the villagers that we can't do it all and that there is a limited amount of money, since Sparrow identified the issue that the villagers were still under the impression that they would receive more money.

Now what our group will do is work out where to give the grant money and then kick-start and support the different projects. Some have to do with business, some with agriculture, some with transportation. I feel that the community assessment has overall gone very well and feel like I've learned a lot about collective need assessment and project planning.

I've also realized that it is best, since we want the whole village to be behind and feel invested in the projects, that the villagers -- instead of us -- present the selected projects to the chiefs. Then it is very important to get the chief's input and ideas, and I have been consistently impressed by the chiefs, who are really focused on the needs of the whole village and have wonderful ideas and suggestions. This way, hopefully the villagers will feel that they own the project -- which they should -- and the chiefs will hopefully feel respected.

I am also psyched that the group has decided to buy football (soccer) jerseys and balls for the village! For someone like me who loves sports and appreciates the positive effects of sports on a community, this is really exciting.

We got back to Bo yesterday by traveling on motorbikes, with three of us to a bike. It took about 30 minutes and was another new experience for me.

While it has been great being in the village, there are some very serious problems that need to be addressed immediately. There is goat poop EVERYWHERE. The goats have gotten some unknown disease. Twenty goats last week starting foaming at the mouth and had diarrhea, and had to be killed. In addition to poop there is also goat urine with blood in it. Again, it is absolutely everywhere: children have to walk over the goat waste even on the steps to school. One villager got a Heifer International worker to come look at his goats, but there has been no one to come address the situation with the whole community. No one seems to know the origin of this disease and the nurse doesn't know if it can be transferred to humans. We are going to go to Freetown to try to get a Veterinarian to come back to the village to help. I would also like to add how impressed I am by our nurse. She is so bright and insightful and handles different stressful situations really well.

Another person I have grown to admire very much is our colleague Abu who I have mentioned previously. He has a wicked scar on the back of his neck from where his head was literally on the chopping block when he was about to be decapitated during the Civil War. At the last moment, one of the soldiers recognized Abu as a classmate of his and was able to spare his life. The war ended a decade ago, but it is so hard for a country to recover from the devastation, and Abu's story is a literal manifestation of the lingering scars. Interestingly, there was an article last week in the North Carolina News and Observer that mentioned Abu:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/03/513490/sierra-leone-parents-seek-answers.html?storylink=misearch

Abu is working with a group of parents who lost their children a decade ago. They were duped by HANCI (Help A Needy Child International) into thinking that their children would be educated and cared for during the war since it wasn't safe for them to stay there during the war, when in reality HANCI sold their children to Americans for adoption. Abu is coordinating the efforts of these parents to locate their lost children.

Also, in the village we each had homstays with different families, and it was interesting to compare our experiences. I stayed with one of the chief's younger brothers. I lucked out by getting a bed with a pillow, whereas Brent slept on logs with a sheet over them. I also was in a house right near a BEAUTIFUL mosque, and much of the village is Muslim. As with everyone we've met, my host family was incredibly gracious and warm. The chief visited my host family's house each night for dinner. I've been able to speak some Arabic with the family and sometimes at night my host would read part of the Quran to me, which is in Arabic, and then we would translate it and have discussions about it. This has really been one of my favorite moments of the trip so far.

My host also said to me that before our group of Robertson Scholars, "never before have white people come to our village, toiled on our farms with us, worked with us, lived with us." This really brought home to me how important cultural immersion is and what a privilege it is for me to be a part of this.

After being isolated in New Orleans last year, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to have a community summer with my fellow Robbies. We have all become very close, to the point where I feel it is important that we try to keep a balance and not go everywhere in a pack, although we enjoy each others company, so as not to seem like a group of outsiders: we really want to become part of this wonderful community.

We should be in Bo until the 12th and hopefully I will be able to get another call in to my sister before we leave. Thank you all so much for following my blog.