what a celebration!

I can still hear the laughter ringing in my ears! Over 40 pikin running around our compound decorating Christmas cookies (aka dousing the cookie and themselves with red, green and white frosting) for the first time in their lives, making glittery shining stars and dancing to corny renditions of jingle bells and winter wonderland!

Sunday was our Pikin Club Xmas Party!

The kids crafts began in the afternoon. A frenzy of frosting and glitter flying everywhere! I made the cookies with some of the older kids the day before. It was a project they looked at me like I was crazy when trying to explain…although it didn’t take long to win them over! The kids also decorated paper stars with glitter glue to create our night sky backdrop for the program.

 

making cookies!

decorating the cookies...and ourselves!

mmmmm...

A few hours later the adults arrived. You needed a ticket to get it, and let me tell you, tickets were HOT commodities! The kids who have come to kids club over the past few months each received one ticket for themselves and one for an adult.

They proudly performed songs they have been learning and a few kids even recited bible memory verses!

Then the Christmas program began!

Some of the older kids and adults who have been doing a bible study with us after pikin club acted as the narrators and recited a part of the Christmas story and then led the audience in singing a carol. As ‘Oh little town of Bethlehem’ and ‘Silent Night’ filled the air audience members were selected to “build” the manger scene. Mary and Joseph, angels, the shepherds, the wise men and baby Jesus were all there. They did such a good job!

The rest of the night was filled with food and fun! We asked some women in the neighborhood to prepare jollof rice with chicken for everyone! Jollof rice is a traditional dish of fried rice with vegetables and an oily tomato and onion sauce served only on special occasion because it’s a bit more expensive.

What a night! And what a celebration!

the road from kono

 

“Small Small” reads the front the poda poda.  Two small words that described anything but the amount of people crammed into the mini bus that was headed to Freetown.

It was 5:30 am and still dark out.  But the open “park” I was in was already buzzing with people surrounding the vehicles that would be traveling to Freetown and Makeni that morning.  The mini buses (a bit larger than the typical poda poda transport that have four benches behind the driver and can boast loading at least 20 to 25 people) were already filled to what seemed like capacity. 

I had asked around the day before to find out what time the vehicles would be loading.  Without getting any concrete consistent answer, my colleague Fabundeh and I agreed 5:30 am should certainly be early enough.  Maybe not.

I spoke to the driver and asked if there was any chance one more could fit.  “we don fill up, we don fill up” was all I got in response.  (we’ve already filled up)  The chaos of people yelling and shouting while pushing and shoving into the vehicle made me wonder what exactly “filled up” meant, but regardless, at this point I don’t think I would have wanted to be squeezed in.

But I did need to get to Freetown.  I had been traveling “up country” to Bo for a training of paralegals and then on to Kono with Fabundeh to meet with the Village Parent Groups and a survivor I am writing a story about.  My time in Kono had been wonderfully fruitful.  I really saw the work of FAAST reaching the people.  These groups of volunteers, made up of everyone from village chiefs to teachers to police officers to mothers and even students, committed to looking out for human trafficking.  They are excited to be part of this call to justice, even when it defies the traditional and cultural practices.  A call to bring an end to the exploitation of children, which is rampant everywhere you look.  A call to treat children with love and respect.  A call to allow children to grow with possibilities and opportunities to become more than another seller of goods or themselves on the streets.  A call to change the standards of disciplinary action against those who violate this call.

Yet after a few days of primitive guesthouses, the stagnant upcountry heat, motorbikes and dusty roads – I was ready to get back to a busy week of preparing all that I had accumulated.  I just needed a ride.

As I was beginning to lose hope a man called out to me, “driva wan yu, driva wan yu!”  The driver had found space…or at least made space. 

Ten minutes later we are speeding down the dirt road, bouncing from pothole to pothole, leaving a cloud of dust behind us (as well as entirely engulfing us).  I am positioned, or wedged may be a better way to describe it, between the driver and the two people already squished into the passenger seat.  I have nothing to lean my back against and I can’t extend my legs for I am seated on the center console behind the gearshift. 

So there I sit, knees hugged to my chest, gathering a thick layer of dirt and sweat, bouncing along with the rest of the passengers (who must have exceeded 40 and included two live chickens)…for the next seven hours.  Yes, seven hours.

You just have to laugh.  There is no other thing to do. I marvel at the thought of myself, the only white girl in the dense sea of beautiful black faces all of whom didn’t seem fazed by the journey at all. 

Similarly to the night before when Fabundeh had suggested going for coffee (an idea I welcomed with skepticism because I have yet to experience a “coffee shop” that sells more than Nescafe) and we stop at a busy street side eatery.  Although “coffee” (aka very sugary powdered milk with half a spoon of Nescafe) was served, it came accompanying a piled high plate of “macaroni and beench” (aka a plate of black eyed peas piled high with greasy spaghetti and some sort of meat toped with ketchup, a glob of mayo and sliced onion.  Bona petite!  And all for about 50 cents) hmmm…just let that one settle.  Then imagine the white girl, squeezed onto a bench of hungry “coffee” goers devouring the plate that I am looking at in amazement. 

See, you just have to laugh.  I absolutely love moments like these!  And I love that my God knows me inside and out…including how much is too much.

Once we finally arrived in Freetown and I unfolded myself from the accordion I had become, I was hot, I was tired, and I was still far from my final destination…home.  I finally got a taxi into the center of town, which was as crowed as the bus was packed.  Taxi after taxi passed, disregarding the name of the location I was calling out.  And as I was pushed and jostled from every direction, horns blaring so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, I really was about to lose it.  I felt it welling up from within me.  This was my limit. 

And at that very moment, through the crowds came a white Land Cruiser with the FAAST emblem printed on the side.  It was as if Elijah came riding in on a golden chariot, that’s how happy I was to see Sengbe.  We were far, far away from the office on a side of town our Program Manager would rarely frequent, but my God knew what I would need at that very moment and gave them some reason to be headed in my direction. 

Again, I just have to smile. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos!  And I am just along for the ride in the midst of it.

no boundaries

 

I am awakened this morning to the horribly electric and piercing sound of my phone.  I lay there for a moment, trying to figure out where I am.  I hear a car engine rev outside and the sounds of life waking up.  The sunrise is barely illuminating the batik fabric draped across the window above my head creating a soft pink glow in the room.  Then I remember, Bo.  I’m up country in a guesthouse (SL version of a motel) in the town of Bo. (Boasting the second largest city in Sierra Leone, but much more of a town than a city and a significant escape from the craziness of Freetown.)  I realize my phone, still screaming at me to pay attention to it, is not the alarm going off but the ring.  I look at the screen – it’s momma!

I answer only to hear the loud sounds of what seems like a party. I quickly compute that it is still the night before back in America. Mom yells from the other end.  She has someone for me to talk to.

Immediately I am transported from a world of roosters crowing and mosquito nets (which has caught hold of me in a tangled mess as I try to get out of bed still half asleep) to a world of runways, lights and fashion.  A voice, whose soundless words over email have become such a source of encouragement and comfort, comes on the other end of the line.  It is the voice of an incredibly driven, talented, beautiful fashion designer and seamstress.  Kelsey’s show!  The pieces start coming together into focus in my head.

Kelsey’s show!  The one she started working on designing and creating dresses for this summer when I stayed with her.  At the time, the dresses only looked like big hoops of fabric—dreams I could see reflected it her minds eye that I had to take her word for.

After some shrieks of I love you, I miss you, I wish I could have been there the phone is passed off to another.  Ash!  Oh, what a morning!

Before I know it, it’s over, and I’m back in the silence of my little room, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, drinking my instant coffee.

A pang of longing sweeps over me for the first time since I’ve been here.  A pang of longing to be part of two worlds.  My heart has become part of Africa, part of this country and these people.  But part of my heart is still at home.  Still with family and friends in Washington, California, Arizona, D.C.  Part of my heart is with my new little nephews and their parents who have truly become family.  With my sissy and her beautiful new home so full of love and life.  With each of my many friends who are faithfully walking down the paths toward the future, many barely able to see one step in front of the other.  With my family as they gather to celebrate 80 wonderful God given years of blessings grandpa and auntie Joyce have shared…the list goes on.  A pang of longing to be with each where my heart resides.

Yet while my body cannot, my heart has no boundaries.  So as I sit in my plastic chair in a little room watching the sun bring life to Bo, Sierra Leone, I know that that same sun will bring light and life to another world as well.  A world across oceans and understanding.  And just as the sun will rise with my family and friends throughout the world, the Son has no boundaries either.  The Son, our Jesus, has brought light and life to all the world, and allowed my heart to do so as well.

While my body longs to be in two worlds at once, my heart rises with the Son – in the North, in the South, in the East, in the West.  Wherever He has taken my heart – there it is.

City of Rest

“Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!” These words are painted along the top of the wall where guests at City of Rest gather each morning for devotions.  Jesus offers hope for a life – a life, society and culture have robbed from them.  Marked with stigmas and shame, those suffering from mental illness and substance abuse have few places to go in Sierra Leone.  Most are left to be consumed by their addiction, left to cope with their misperceptions, left confused by their abnormalities, left forgotten and abandoned by their communities.  But for forty of these men and women who struggle daily with challenges most of us can’t even fathom, they have found rest.  Maybe not perfect healing by our terms, but rest from the beatings and batterings of a culture that misunderstands mental illness and substance abuse, although it affects so many among them.

Painting the wall of City of Rest common room with a few of the guests

City of Rest is a rehabilitation center and deliverance ministry in Freetown.  It is the only facility that understands the need to attend to the medical, psychological and spiritual needs of those who suffer from mental illness or substance abuse.  In a country with fresh memories of a horrendous war that consumed many and traumatized all, mental illness and substance abuse reign king of all coping mechanisms, whether by choice or not.  Yet while widespread, it is relatively unaddressed, unsupported, underfunded. For all those who suffer from any degree of mental health problem – from depression or anxiety to severe post traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia or delusions to dependency on the easily acquired jamba (extremely strong marijuana) and “prescription” medications – only one mental health facility is operated publicly in Sierra Leone, an institution commonly known as ‘Kissy Mental’ and commonly associated with the ‘mad man,’ ‘kraze man,’ and ‘lunatics’ it gathers from the streets of Freetown to inject with sedatives and keep “under control” for a few weeks before releasing them back into the same environment that shut them out and perpetuated their condition.

This past week I assisted City of Rest in conducting a series of trainings for the Sierra Leone media personnel on how to use the media as a tool to sensitize and raise positive awareness about mental illness and substance abuse.  The World Health Organization funded the trainings in an attempt to shape public attitudes in a consensus that this is an issue that needs attention on the community level as well as within government.  We traveled to the four major towns in Sierra Leone, conducting workshops in Freetown, Makeni, Kenema and Bo.

My housemate Heleen is a psychologist and has worked at City of Rest as a consultant for about two years.  She is Dutch, but has lived and worked in Freetown for almost seven years.  She is a beautiful example of Jesus’ love for the poor in spirit, the broken and abandoned.  She recruited me to come alongside her for these trainings. I felt extremely inadequate to prepare and train professional journalists, since I’d hardly call myself one.  Yet just as Moses expressed his inadequacy and ineloquence of speech, God truly blessed me with the courage, the wisdom and the words to move and motivate as I truly believe He desired.

While the morning session was a brief overview of teaching on the most common forms of mental illness seen in Sierra Leone, issues surrounding substance abuse and current (or the lack there of) legislation.  It was incredible to watch the eyes of grown, educated adults opened to the reality of what the ‘kraze man,’ ‘mad man,’ and ‘lunatics’ they see everyday and admittedly fear, call names, even forcibly restraint – actually face.  It was as if they realized for the first time that these are real human beings.  Human beings that if given proper treatment and care many times could recover and actively participate in society.  I was brought on to teach the afternoon session about how to use the tool of media (which in Salone is newspaper and radio) to advocate for changed attitudes, better care and more services for this vast portion of the population. 

And for all of you who know me best, advocating for something I believe in and care about is what I love to do most.  It is why I write.  I recognize the power of the media, the power of a story, and the responsibility that comes with it.  Preparing for these workshops and compelling others to put into practice what I so strongly believe is possible, was an incredible opportunity of learning for me as well.

So now it’s my turn.  To advocate for this issue of widespread need in Sierra Leone and for the hope and possibly of life at City of Rest.

City of Rest is a small city of it’s own within the bustling, chaos of Freetown.  The small three story building houses forty guests, most of whom suffer from substance abuse but also mental illness. Pastor Ngobeh started a deliverance outreach to drug addicts in 1985 which became a day program in 1994 and by 1996 City of Rest residential rehabilitation center was opened.  The guests meet each morning for devotions with Pastor, they cook, they clean and live life within these walls.

The current City of Rest in Freetown

But the walls are small, the space is cramped.  City of Rest receives no funding from the government and is supported entirely by individuals and churches, mostly from within Sierra Leone.  The funding is small, the staff underpaid, medical supplies limited and the facility badly in need of repair.  Yet with the little they have, Pastor Ngobeh and the rest never cease to love – love God and love the guests – and that’s more than these guests have ever received and all that God requires to work miracles of transformation. 

Some guests come and go quickly.  Others have lived at City of Rest for some time.  One man, once a guest who suffered from a severe drug addiction, is now fully recovered and a full time volunteer.  His is a story of recovery, of redemption, of resilience.  It is a story that could be told so much more if the love and care he received could be felt by the many others outside these walls.

City of Rest just recently acquired property in Grafton, about 30 minutes outside of Freetown.  It is beautifully nestled in the hills, away from the noise, the smog, the chaos of Freetown.  It is quiet and peaceful, truly the site of a City of Rest.  Plans have been made for a facility that will have the capacity for 70 guests, rather than only 40.  There is room to breath, fresh air and fresh perspective.  Yet the building process is one of prayers built upon prayers.  As the miracles come in, they have built what they can.  A wall now stands with the sign of what will, by the grace of God, one day be inside. A City of Hope.  A City of Love.  A City of Rest.

 The site of the future City of Rest!

Working on mapping out the foundation!

I invite you to be part of these prayers.  Pray for the building funds, for miracles.  Pray for the staff, for endurance and perseverance, for wisdom and strength.  Pray for the guests, for them to know and feel their worth, their significance, the love of God despite the rejection of man.  And pray for their healing.  Pray for the people of Sierra Leone, for eyes to be opened to the hope and opportunity for transformation of the lives that suffer from mental illness and substance abuse.  Pray for compassion and sympathy.  Pray for the journalists to use the tools they have within media to positively influence public opinion and advocate on behalf of these issues.  And pray for the government of Sierra Leone, for the urgency of this issue to be addressed through programs, funding and legislation.

Thank you to all who are following my journey.  This is continuing to be an incredible experience and I am so grateful to get to share it with all of you.  I love your comments, emails and updates.  Please keep them coming.  Blessings to everyone and Happy Thanksgiving!

Seven wonderful friends + the tallest mountain in Sierra Leone = one wonderfully beautiful weekend

What do you get when you have…very, very bad roads, bridges made of a
few tree trunks lying side by side, villages with chiefs whose
permission to pass through must be bought and paid for, thick, lush,
dense rainforest, and a raft tied together with vine to navigate a
strongly flowing river…between you and the tallest mountain in Sierra
Leone?

The most wonderfully, challenging, frustrating, painful, breathtakingly
beautiful, backpacking excursion to Mount Bintumani.

 

While in theory we were relatively prepared for most of these
adjectives, I am still pondering the range of emotions I experienced
packed into four short days.  From the awe of God’s breathtakingly
beautiful (think the island from ‘Lost’) creation, to sheer physical
exhaustion after hiking over 18 miles in one day, through more
diversely beautiful terrain than I have ever been immersed in, finally
reaching camp (aka what became a clearing after our machete bearing
hunter guide so kindly deforested an area large enough for our tent)
after hiking the last hour in the dark with headlamps that often
missed illuminating the root that is out to trip you or the branch
that pokes your eye out or the vine that seems to stretch out and grab
you from behind – and this was just day one.

The weekend painted a picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A lush
landscape of every shade of green tropical leaf and every pattern
colorfully winged butterfly you can imagine.  The beauty took my
breath away - every time I looked up from the path my feet were
attempting to follow without tripping, sliding, buckling or giving out
from beneath me.  And the night sky beamed with the brilliance of more
lights than Candy Cane Lane at Christmas time, a sight only seen when
the nearest electricity is hundreds of miles away.

 

(yes those sticks to the left...is a bridge!)

 

I discovered that the words for bridge and raft are quite relative
terms and can be used for anything that attempts to assist you in
crossing over water without getting wet – although its success in
this, is not required.  And I discovered that the strength of a Salone
teenage boy who carries a backpack filled with food and water up the
mountain I am stumbling up empty handed, is astonishing – yet does not
come free of complaints. (teenage boys are the same everywhere in the
world).  I discovered that seven white people coming to stay in your
village, which is inaccessible by motor vehicle, is probably the most
strange and curious thing to have happened in a long, long time – and
warrants spending the entire evening watching every move they make.

a raft?!

 

A few of our porters (he carried that rice on his head the whole way!)

 

'Snap me snap me!'  (they wanted a picture taken) Pikin dem at one of villages we stayed

 

Yet the weekend painted another picture of Salone I had yet to see.  A
picture of chiefdom culture.  A culture that is so far from anything
our western culture can even begin to compare to.  A culture of
hierarchical respect to be paid in currencies of money, rice and time.
Which reminds me, I have also learned never to be in a hurry – ever.
You will only always be late.

We never actually reached the top of Mount Bintamani.  Between
unplanned delays in the village, awaiting a chief’s decision of whether we
can pass through and our porters' unknown commitment to afternoon prayers, an unwelcome fever that
attempted to slow down our toughest member, and the looming threat of
the nine hour ride home (on roads that should not be called a road)
and work at 8:30am Monday morning – we cannot claim to have summitted.
 Yet while we never made it to the peak, if was a weekend filled with
more than we had set out for.

Maybe once the sore muscles relax, the bruised hips heal, the scrapes
and scratches disappear, the bug bites stop itching, and all that’s
left are the images of exquisite beauty and the ambitious drive to
summit the tallest mountain in Salone…we will toy with the idea once
again.  Until then, I am left with the masterpiece God continues to
paint of this country and its people – the masterpiece I am so
grateful He has painted me a part of.

a breath of fresh air

Our car speeds down the nicest road I have been on since arriving in Sierra Leone. As the most “main highway” the country has, it is in relatively good condition. We stop in Waterloo, the last town outside Freetown on the way to Makeni. The car stops and we are immediately bombarded by children and young adults trying to sell us anything and everything. Bread, fish, biscuits, cold soft (soda), fried plantains… If the window is down you practically could eat an entire meal without moving just by biting down on the array of food thrust in your face. A get bocu padi dem. (I have many friends) One boy tells me he loves me and another asks for my number. Maybe this is what it feels like to be a celebrity. If it is, I don’t ever want to be one. I laugh and joke with them in my bad bad Kiro. And then we are off again and they promise me they will remember me forever.

As we continue on away from the busyness of the city, the landscape is not at all what I thought Africa to look like. It is lush and green—full of tall grass, tropical plants, flowers and palm trees. We pass through villages with houses that all look alike. Villages rebuilt after the war. The fighting left nothing but remnants of life scattered throughout the beautiful landscape. Housing projects and IDP programs came to rebuild, to get people to move back out of the overcrowded city of Freetown where the last refuge from the fighting was found. One after another, African versions of housing developments. Some villages reconstructed with mud bricks, others with thatched huts.

We pass through a larger village at a main crossroad on market day. People from all the villages within walking distance come to buy and sell goods. Colorful women with baskets piled high upon their heads line the roads as we pass.

There is freedom outside of Freetown. I sense it. Less chaos. More simplicity. A greater sense of peace. I take a deep breath of fresh air. There is freedom outside of Freetown.

***

I have come to Makeni, a town about three hours outside Freetown, where World Hope has another office. I have come to conduct communications trainings for the staff – how to write a basic impact story. FAAST is based in Freetown, but most of the work of World Hope is rural development out in the village communities surrounding Makeni.

I wake up to a baby crying outside and the dissonant praises being sung out to God in the next room. I have to pee, but it’s not light enough yet to not need a flashlight and to bother with winding my non battery powered light source doesn’t seem worth the effort yet. We have no NPA in Makeni. If people have power at all, it comes from a generator. No electricity, no running water. This is the Africa I was expecting. The Africa that gets along fine without these simple “necessities”. The Africa that sings praises to God for clean water pumped miraculously from the ground, as if Moses himself tapped the hard stone earth. The Africa so thankful for the opportunity to learn and grow and develop – eager to pass along not only knowledge but seeds to a fellow neighbor.

I see the work of Jesus – the way he calls us to live. And I see those living it sing praises to papa God for every chance at living one more day of life.

It is a breath of fresh air from the smog of Freetown. A freshness in the literal sense but also a clarity seeing the excited willingness of people to embrace new ways of life.

While I conducted the training, and Praise God it went extremely well, I am also here to capture stories for WHI general programs as well. I accompanied the staff to schools recently built, wells recently dug, and communities being transformed. I talked with villagers, laughed with their children and listened to their stories. It excites me to see the work of international development with true, tangible excited smiles to tell of the transformation.

I see people willing to break cultural norms that tear each other apart and replace them with a sense of unity and a spirit of working together. People learning to love and embrace their women, “we learn to call our wives honey” and empower them to take ownership of the work their own two hands can do. People learning to problem solve among themselves. To settle disputes and come up with solutions and even innovative ideas such as a shop for selling basic necessities to local villages to avoid the cost and time of traveling to Makeni or the inflated prices of sporadic good brought by traders. People learning to save money as a community for future development, for a bad harvest season, necessary repairs or a family in need of some extra help with school fees. People learning to value the next generation. To raise up healthy, educated children to carry on.

I am excitedly fascinated by what I see taking place and even more excited to sit down and write all the stories I’ve heard.

Yet, while my time in Makeni was a breath of fresh air, I am warmed by the feeling of peace in coming home. As we turn down Scan Drive I realize that this is home. I see familiar faces and hear little voices yell ‘Auntie Crissa!’. I am exhausted from the week but delighted to think that it is Sunday and we will have Scan Drive Pikin Club in a few hours. These are my neighbors, this is my community, I’m glad to be home.

Communications Training with WHI staff

 

Water is Life!

 

village life

stories...

She aged at least 15 years as she continued to tell her story. Each sentence she spoke was another step carrying a heavy burden that seemed to be getting heavier. I hadn’t seen her without a smile, without her playful glee and high-pitched squeals, since I met her. She was child-like almost, although she’s a grown woman. But as we sat out there on the balcony and she revealed the truth about a life desperately shameful to have lived, I found my heart filled more and more with the burden she spoke, the burden of truth. That she had actually walked the path she described. That she was a survivor.

The story is not new. The story is not uncommon. It is a story that I thought has lost its shock value to me, a story that once would make me cry but now has become common knowledge. But sitting there, face to face, with a woman I have grown to love already — the story became alive. Her story of survival, God’s story of redemption. The story became alive.

***

Maka’s small, frail ten-year-old body seemed to fold up into itself as he sat on the couch next to me. That is, until I brought up football (soccer). At the very mention of the game, I saw the sweet bright-toothed smile I knew had to be in him all along. “I play center mid,” he said proudly. “Me too!” I told him. And from then on I knew I had a friend.

But Maka doesn’t play much football anymore, or any rough and tough games kids his age love. If he gets hit in the shoulder where a blistering burn has forever scared his skin, “it hurt so much.”

Maka was a victim of child labor trafficking which led to an accident that will never let him forget this. The woman he lived with forced him to do hard house work, much too hard for a mere eight-year-old. And when he would forget what all she had said to do or took too long to do it, she would beat him.

One morning, two years ago, Maka awoke to the harsh sound of her yelling that he should not still be in bed at 5 am. But when he stumbled out to light the fire for the stove, the candle flame caught his shirtsleeve and lit up in flames. Maka suffered from severe burns across his left shoulder and chest.

He lifted up his shirt to show me the scar. We are sitting on the couch at his parents' house where he has been reunited with his mother, father and four brothers and sisters. His littlest sister is climbing all over him, before she decides I look like I might be more responsive.

“A glady fo de wit mi fambo,” he says as he smiles at his sister. He is glad to be home, glad to be back in school, glad to be a boy again. But his scars will always tell, they will always remember and never allow him to forget.

a few pictures...

 The FAAST staff at our celebration dinner

 

  

  God's masterpiece, painted for me everyday

When it rains, it pours...and the lion doesn't sleep tonight.

The rainy season.  The dry season.  There is no such thing as in between.  It is wet, or it is dry. Well, if there is an in between, we are in it.  During the middle of the rainy season it seems as if the sun has gone into deep depression, never to show her face again.  Yet since I’ve been here, the rain usually doesn’t last longer than a few hours, giving us a breath of fresh cool air. Last night, I was awakened to a sound that could be felt with every part of my body.  It was so loud, so deep, I could have thought it was a bomb going off right in my compound.  But I was so disoriented by sleep, the fear fortunately didn’t cross my mind.  Instead I waited for what came to follow.  The falling of water that cannot be described as rain, for rain entails drops.  But here, it is more of a stream…a river of water pouring from the sky as if all the clouds were completely concentrated over this little patch of earth. 

I heard from someone, although I don’t remember who, that Sierra Leone was named for the notorious roar of thunder that shakes the water from the clouds as if the lion commands it.  If it is loud here, on the bottom floor of my thick concrete compound, I can’t imagine what it sounds like from inside the thin medal structures, most call home.  The sound of the rain alone must make for many restless nights with the wind howling through every door way, window opening, crack or crevasse thrashing in rain and anything else it picks up along the way.  Yet this is the sound that promises life.  With it comes the water that will grow desperately sparse as the dry season stretches into the long dusty future. 

Water is life.  And the lion knows it.  Sierra Leone knows it.

***

This morning was set to a different sound of life, the music of crowded markets teeming with people selling everything you can imagine.  Fruits and vegetables, pots and pans, cookware and clothes to wear, shoes, sandals, radios, electronics and any film you could possibly think of – even if it came out in theaters last week.

I was in town for the lapas.  Beautiful fabric in every color, pattern, design and style.  Tailors will make any and every style of modern or traditional dress perfectly to fit.  I have determined that this will be the most stress free shopping experience of my life - despite squeezing through crowds of people, dodging anything with a motor (for clearly the bigger you are the more right of way they have), bartering prices that have doubled from the color of my skin and tripled from my bad krio speaking, and stuffing my way into a very overcrowded poda poda while grasping to keep hold of my load and still being able to see the landmarks that tell me when I’m almost home.  Not quite a trip to the mall, but so much better.  These are the stresses that excite me.  Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos. And to get a beautifully hand made, perfect to fit, skirt or dress that is exactly the right length for about ten dollars...simple, beautiful, messy, chaos...and wonderful.

daily life

 

I have finished my first week of work, and have settled into some idea of the lifestyle I will live here.  The mornings have been cool and breezy (at least in comparison to the rest of the day) giving me the little incentive I need to start my day with a sunrise run.  I am not the only one to wake up with the sun, many are already out and busily starting their day.

Daily chores take on a whole new meaning here.  Even in my home, with it’s fairly modern westernized appliances.  To wash the dishes requires washing in a bucket of tap water and rinsing with water that has been boiled to be clean.  Although we do have a washing machine, it is small and must be filled with water for each load.  The laundry is then hung out to dry (which in this humidity and during the rainy season is a relative determination).  Then every article of clothing must be ironed to kill the fly eggs that have been laid in the clothing, so they don’t hatch into your skin.  And unfortunately, contrary to my usual behavior, clothes must be washed every time they’re worn unless sweat stains become a new fashion statement and body odor the new perfume.  Sweeping and mopping the dust and dirt that get tracked in or falls from the ceiling as the ceiling ants nibble away must be done every day and food for the guards prepared from scratch. I was a little uncomfortable at first with the idea of having Marie, our wonderful house help, come every day to do the things I feel should be household responsibilities.  But I have quickly discovered that if she did not, we would spend the extent of our days cleaning, instead of working for and loving on the people we have come to this country to serve.  Also, for Marie this is much-needed employment.  A job that means life for her and her family, although it costs us little.

And while we are so taken care of by Marie, we are also protected by Mohammad, the day guard, and Ali and Jr., the night guards.  Our house is considered a compound because it is surrounded with high walls and barbed wire.  We have a very large iron gate with a little door to walk through.  The guards are wonderfully friendly.  I feel extremely safe.  There is a compound just up the road that has been abandoned since the war.  Over the wall, you can see bullet holes in the upstairs windows.  Reminders of the war are everywhere, although it’s hard to know what was destroyed by the rebels and what has been destroyed by this harsh climate.  The heat, humidity and heavy rains make it difficult for anything to last.

When I leave the house for work at 8:15 I take the path less traveled, at least by vehicles.  The road is so steep and broken leading down, I don’t think a car would make it if it tried.  I have begun to recognize the same faces I will pass every morning with a ‘good morning!’ and a ‘how de bodi?’  ‘Fine, fine’ or ‘to go tanki’ is the correct reply.  When I get down to Wilkinson Road, it is busy with traffic and people with places to go.  The market stands have started to open up selling fruit, vegetables, bread, eggs, candy, soda, phone credit and other random things.  And the day is filled with horns that interrupt the voices and street sounds.  The roads may be dirty, but they are so colorful.  Women wrapped in lapas of every shade and pattern with bright bowls filled with anything and everything atop their heads.  Market stalls painted in bright orange, pink, yellow and blue. Taxis and poda podas (old van-like mini-buses) with mismatched doors, bright yellow hoods and hand painted sayings scribbled across the back usually claiming praises to Jesus, Allah or Manchester United. 

The colorful street is matched by the colorful voices that sing shamelessly out at the start of each day in the office, a beautiful dissonance of clanging voices calling out praises to God.  We meet at the FAAST (Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking) staff at our office just off Wilkinson Road at 8:30 am for devotions.  It is a time of singing praises and listening to the Word brought by a different staff member each morning.  It has been a time of learning about my colleagues and their own, sometimes different, cultural perspectives of the same God whom we love and serve. 

I have mixed feelings about being back in an office environment.  While it is not quite the business suit professional high-rise office experience that I had in DC, it is very customary for Sierra Leoneans to dress quite “smart” for their jobs and although the atmosphere is relaxed, I still find it hard to be indoors all day sitting on possibly the least comfortable chairs possible until the work day ends at 5.

I have started organizing my thoughts and ideas about the work I will do throughout my time here.  While I will be writing alot of stories and have started talking with the staff about some ideas, I am also recognizing the importance of the communications training I will be doing.  I am thinking that to best benefit the program long-term I want to develop the training manual and conduct the training early on in my time so that the staff can work on writing stories themselves while I’m here to coach them and edit.

During my workday I have also started Kiro lessons.  The language seems relatively easy since it has so many similarities to a sort of pidgin English.  It was created when Freetown was the British colony of Freedom, where slaves who were pardoned from the Americas and Britain were taken.  These slaves brought back broken American English and broken British English, which mixed with the local tribal languages.  It actually seems much more practical and simple than the English we speak, using more phonetic ways of spelling and speaking and structuring sentences.  For example, the common greeting ‘how are you?’ is asked ‘ow de bodi?’ (how is your body) And verbs and nouns never change tense, just a tense indicator before it.  For example, ‘a don go to Freetown’ is ‘I went to Freetown.’ Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos. 

While proper English is spoken and taught in all schools, anyone with even a little education knows English.  But learning Krio will help me to understand everyday talk and will help me establish mutual respect with people.  They love it when I try, although they think it’s pretty funny.  Everyone here truly is extremely friendly and always wears a smile.  

Well, except maybe all the people crammed into the tiny taxi cab I take home. Transportation in Freetown is a crazy experience in and of itself that I will try my best to explain, but to be honest, it is an experience you just need to have someday.  You will never complain about traffic, bad drivers or road rage ever again. The taxis run more as public transportation than taxis we are used to, on specific routes yet not always so specific, more like specific directions.  They will cram in as many people as possible and pick more up on the way who are going in the same direction.  There is one-way transport, which will take you a specific distance (although you can get out anywhere along the way but you still pay the 800 leones one-way fare approximately 25 cents).  Then you catch another taxi to go the next leg of the journey, unless the driver is willing to take you two-way (for an additional 800 leones) which usually only happens if someone else is traveling that direction as well, if there is someone else to pick up or if you offer him more money.  In other words, lots of people cram into cars that drive way too fast on extremely crowded streets yelling and pointing in different directions, driving on every side of the road, and never looking to see if someone is coming before weaving in and out of the mess.  I heard someone say that you just worry about what’s in front of you and honk to let anyone and everyone know you're there.  You never worry about what’s behind you because they will worry about you. I just hope and pray to get in the general area of where I am going.  Poda-podas are similar, except they are vans that cram even more people in making the driver have an even harder time hearing.  It is an experience I have not had yet, and may try to avoid.  They may be cheaper, but for 50 cents, a taxi ride home is enough of an adventure for me. 

Whew!  I’ll save the after work adventures for another time.  But as promised, here are a few pictures of my daily life in Sierra Leone. (I added some photos to the previous post as well)

 

 

The FAAST office and Anti-slavery advocacy posters.

 

 

 

Beautiful beaches (River #2)...

 

 

 

and beautiful new friends.

i take a breath

...further excerpts from my journal the past few days...

I am standing at the front of this little cement building, one room filled with plastic lawn chairs.  About twenty or so faces stare back at me, half of them children.  I am the only white face.  It is the end of the service at Wilberforce Christian Church.  We have sung, clapped, prayed and praised the Lord with Alleluias and Amen’s!  The children are a bit fidgety in the front row, but they are quiet.  The baby suckling at her mother’s bare breast hasn’t made a sound the entire three hours we have been here.  Now all eyes are on me.  The only white girl, the only visitor.  The pastor’s wife (who has presumptuously taken over the role of pastor) introduces me and praises the Lord that I am there.  She prays and then proceeds to make the entire congregation come up row by row and shake my hand.  I am an outsider.  But I feel welcome.

Letty takes my hand as we walk outside.  Gwen (my house mate) helped round up the neighbor kids she has been trying to get to come with her to church.  Gwen had another church commitment this morning, but the children knew where to go.  Aminata, Katiatu, Letty, Elizabet, Salina, Isaac and Tomba.  Isaac and Tomba I knew already because they come to our compound to work on their homework with Mohammad, the day guard. But the others didn’t seem to mind that this was our first meeting.  I feel so much more comfortable walking down the road hand in hand with them.  It is as if I have been accepted.  As if I am known.

We come back to my house as has become the routine after church with "Auntie Gwen," as they call her.  The children sit and read the only books most of them ever get to hold and read themselves.  Old, ripped, discarded and donated.  Books kids in America deemed unfit. 

Me and some of the neighbor kids.

***

Right now I sit and am mesmerized by my surroundings.  I am on the balcony of my home, a palace in comparison to the many small tin and dirt shacks that paint the hill side brilliant shades of yellow, red, and blue—nestled between the lush deep green collage of the rainy season.  I am not in the only palace on this hill, the west side of town, and not a palace by any stretch of the word in western terms—but a palace, nonetheless, in this country.

The sun is setting out over the expanse of ocean beyond the foliage collage.  Caribbean music is playing from somewhere below me and I can smell something cooking over an open fire.  The thermometer reads a pleasant 83 degrees and a nice cool breeze sways the branches of the tree that hints a smell of lavender.  It feels good on my cool, freshly showered skin and wet hair.  I do not mind having no hot water, I wouldn’t use it if I did.  Especially after the run Gwen and I went on this evening.  Living on the hill creates a beautifully breathtaking view, but makes for a killer hill to run up.  The people we pass give greetings of kushe or how de bodi? Kiro for hello, how's your body? Some even join in for a few steps.  The cars passing by come frighteningly close, giving only a honk as fair warning as to evade any responsibility if they swipe you with a mirror.  I will learn this community.  The faces.  The names.  The lives.

The view from my balcony...this picture does not do justice - I will take another

***

I am taking a breath.  Slow and deep, after a wonderfully full four days.  My spirit is overwhelmed, maybe overflowing is a better way of saying it.

I have already seen many faces of Sierra Leone and I am basking in the warm glow of it. Friday was filled with the joys of children singing, contrasting the harsh noisy reality of life in the city of Freetown.  I will not officially start work until Tuesday, after Ramada, the Muslim holiday.  My housemate Gwen, a women who has committed her young adult life to the mission field, seeking to bring transformation into the lives of Sierra Leoneans through transformation of their education system (her organization is called Transformation Education), has introduced me to this life, to the city, to its people.  But she is more than a guide, she has become a friend.  

I traveled with her to Freetown proper and the east side of the city.  This is where the ex-pats do not live, or at merely a few at most.  Where the famous cotton tree stands, the once symbol of freedom.  Where industry meets primitive living just as the hillside meets the coast, tumbling over itself and spilling into the murky depths. 

The streets are filled with cars and busses.  People selling anything and everything they can balance atop their heads. As we leave the main road and head up into the hills, we enter into village life.  Children bathing in the natural spring, rejoicing in the cool water that will soon dry up forcing them to seek another water source at the bottom of the mountain.  The sounds of joyful splashing will be muted by the long treck to the bottom and an even longer treck back up with full buckets of waters balanced a top the heads of women and children.  A bucket to wash, drink and cook.  A bucket to sustain life.  The ground is littered in trash, runoff from those living above.  As we climb, the road becomes less road and more pot hole, the area between the holes getting thinner and thinner.  Gwen’s 4x4 bounds along until we can go no further, so we get out to walk.

We are visiting Mother Ester’s Preparatory School, one of the schools Gwen works with.  We are greeted by a welcome of praise songs and chants as the children open their day with an “assembly.”  Each one can steal my heart away with a simple smile or touch of my hand. 

I taught in Prep III.  Just a simple book and song about storms.  They love to sing and to raise their hands regardless of whether they know the answer.  Mother Ester is an incredible women who has transformed this community.  She and her husband pastor a church and have started this school.  They are beautiful pictures of hope and of promise. 

***

As I sit and think back over these last few days, it sinks in more and more that this is the lifestyle I have always found myself daydreaming about living.  A lifestyle I have felt both excited and fearful to live.  Not admittedly fearful of the lack of amenities, the color of my skin, cultural differences, political instability, safety risks or any of the unknown—but under the surface, fearful of these very things which excite me.

from my journal...day one

...taken from my journal, Thursday morning...

The rooster is crowing and I can hear children playing outside—shouting things I can’t understand.  But laughter, the sound of happiness, is universal.

It takes me a moment to realize the white cloud I’m enshrouded in is just my mosquito netting.  My face is a little damp.  My whole body is a little damp.  I think dampness must become my friend.  Otherwise it will be a constant unwelcome companion—and who wants someone annoying hanging around all the time?  The dampness does bring the mosquitoes, which are annoying—which reminds me, malaria meds time.  The sooner I take it in the AM on an empty stomach, the sooner I can eat breaky.  Sometimes it makes me think my body is fighting the war against the malaria right then and there.  But my body will win, the nausea will pass.  It’s amazing to me how the one tiny tablet, seemingly insignificant, smaller than a frosted flake, could protect me from the #1 cause of death in Africa. 

And I have it. 

I paid fifty cents a day for it.  I fundraised and got donations for it.  But why me?  Why me and not the feverous boy on the streets just on the other side of town?  Why me and not the mother of five who can no longer work because of her violent fever shakes so strong sometimes she can't stand to fold the laundry.  Why me and not the millions more who deserve it just as much?  This is the first of many of these questions.  Questions that will be strung together like heavy beads on a frail chain.  Brilliantly colorful beads that reflect light and create dancing images of different colors flying through the room.  Beads that are so old, their origin is unknown.  Beads that are sometimes seen as a nuisance because of their heaviness, the weight they carry.

Those that have, those that have not.  Those that are healthy, those that are not.  Those that are safe, those that are not.  Those that welcome destiny, dreams, futures…and those that welcome food on the table and can’t see past that which will sustain them one more day.  Why me?

As I rose above the clouds of London on my way here, I realized I was leaving a world of haves, a world I am used to.  A world of organization, of order.  A world I can understand and predict.  A world of $5 coffee, designer jeans, make up, do ups, whatever ups.  Street cleaners and park cleaners whose job is to make the trash and themselves invisible.  I leave my clean, pristine, organized, routine, complicated life—for one much simpler. 

It is now 7:30 am and I hear the world is alive outside, not just the rooster.

I am tired.  I don’t even know what time it is at home.  But I am excited.  To see my new life splashed with daylight, colored in—and maybe not all within the lines.  Maybe a little messier than I am used to.  The simple beauty of a painting that does not claim perfectionism—but rather realism.  Because life here is messy.  Life everywhere is messy, but here they don’t try as hard to complicate it by making it look neat and put together.  Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

But will my heart be content?  Will my selfish, egocentric, instant gratification seeking heart be content?

It is 8 am.  The NPA just left the country.  No, not some political group.  Just the National Power Authority which rations the country's power to different areas at different times everyday without warning.  To most in this country, they will barely notice.  Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos. 

I take off the heavy string of questions that hang inquisitively around my neck.

It is time for a cup of coffee and the beginning of a brand new day, a brand new story.

I have arrived!

11:30pm Sierra Leonean time. I stepped through the door of my new house after 24 hours of planes, airports and speed boats!  It has already proven to be a beautiful country full of beautiful and friendly people. I feel so at home already.  I promise to write more later...I just wanted to let everyone know I have arrived! 

The journey begins.

Fundraising.  I dreaded the thought of asking people for money, especially people who I know don’t have much to spare.  But when given this opportunity to do exactly what I have dreamed of doing—to help the voices of the oppressed be heard throughout the world, ringing truth about the plight so many face and so many ignore—fundraising seemed like a cowardly obstacle to let stand in my way.  Yet as my projected time of departure neared, the daunting task of fundraising grew simultaneously with my love for a country I’d never been and a people I’ve never known.

Humbling? Yes.  While most people graduate from college and get their first “real” job with a salary and benefits, here I am with my dream job trying to figure out how to raise $13,000 to support myself for the next six months.  Sure I believe the cause is good and the work is necessary.  And I truly believe God has brought me into this opportunity and therefore I truly believe, in my head, that I should trust Him to provide.  But the reality of how to actually come up with $13,000 by mid-August just seemed impossible.  Trusting God to provide meant trusting people would give me money when I asked…which meant I had to ask.

So here I was.  My job in DC had finished in June, I moved out of my cute little row house and into a backpack, and I had enough in savings to get my fund started.  Now I only had two months and $10,000 between me and Sierra Leone.

***

It is now the end of August and while I went into this summer anxious for it to be over, funds to be raised and for the journey to really begin, I have realized that it already has.  The last few months have blessed me more than I ever anticipated and prepared me in ways I didn’t realize I would come to rely on.  In an attempt to find ways of fundraising without the traditional support letter, I “cris”-crossed (as I like to call it) the US planning events that would allow me to spend time with family and friends, share about what I am setting out to do, and hopefully raise a little money.

I was excited at the idea of connecting with people from so many seasons of my life but had no preconceived notion of how blessed I would be by every one of them.  From a Farewell Fundraising Picnic in Edmonds with my dearest family and friends I’ve known my whole life, to a Freetown Field Day Fundraiser in DC with friends I’ve known less than a year, to beautiful new friends I met while speaking at churches in Edmonds and Chelan—I have been left utterly speechless at the generosity, support and encouragement I have received at each of these events.  With games and raffle tickets I expected to raise a few hundred dollars at each event and instead walked away with thousands.

My mind is left buzzing, wondering how I can ever thank my supporters for this kind of sacrifice.  And my heart is bursting with the realization of the love and faith all of these people have for me and what God will do through me in Sierra Leone.  While the monetary funds are an easy way to measure support, what is even so much more meaningful and overwhelming is the love and prayers behind these gifts.

I am not only encouraged in God’s faithfulness and His ability to provide for me, I am inspired by the faithfulness and trust my family and friends have that God will provide for them when they make this sacrifice for me.

While I am not quite to my goal, I have no doubt that the funds will come and all will be provided.  But what has really changed my heart is realizing how much more prepared I am to go, knowing that so many are praying for me with complete faith.  Where my faith falls short, it is made up for in leaps and bounds.  While packing lists and immunizations, research and fundraising are all necessary in preparing for this journey to Sierra Leone, it is this true understanding that I am not going alone, but with an army of prayer and support along side me, that has truly been my preparation.

I am going to Sierra Leone to be a voice for the voiceless, to help those who are oppressed and abandoned to tell their story.  Yet what I am realizing, is that my own story is also being written.