Home Sweet Home

I've arrived in Makeni (yes, sounds like McKinney, TX) and started work on Thursday. Here are a few blurbs on random topics:

HOUSE...I'm living in luxury compared to most people here -- even other volunteers. My house has running water (pumped from a well, but still...), a shower (very rare), a generator in case we need electricity, a huge front porch, a living room, and 5 bedrooms for 3 people. There's even a hut right outside where locals gather to drink palm wine and while away the afternoon. I haven't ventured in there yet. I live with an older Irish man named Jim and a Swiss anthropology student named Mike -- he's working on his master's thesis about the motorbike riders in Makeni (see below). Life is fine without electricity...the candlelight is kinda nice. Makes me go to bed very early. So I'm settling in slowly. We also have a Sierra Leonean boy named Jerry who comes to wash our clothes. I feel slightly guilty about this, but honestly he probably helps feed a family with the 7 bucks a month we each pay him. He's a super nice kid -- just like almost everyone here.

WORK...I work primarily at Radio Maria, the Catholic station which is a stone's throw from Fatima Institute, where I'll help with teaching Intro to Journalism, and Development Communication. Right away I had a meeting with the 4-person radio station staff, and the director kept calling me 'Grant S. Foolah' over and over again. Kept introducing me to people like that, too. Made me laugh. Anyway, the station actually has some pretty good equipment, and one interview studio with an A/C unit -- it's like a little slice of heaven in that room (see below). Another VSO volunteer, Jill from England, hosts a morning news show and she's gonna interview me on the air tomorrow -- yikes. I'm still observing things and getting a feel for what exactly my role will be. I helped Jill teach a journalism class (4 students) on Friday, which was interesting. Much more about work later...

SWEAT...It is hot and seriously humid. Like living in Houston without A/C anywhere. I am constantly dripping with sweat. This means I have to drink lots of water, which is not always easy to find. They sell little plastic packets of water at the Fatima 'canteen' and you can get bottled water along the road. But if I don't want to pay for it, I have to boil it and then filter it, which takes a long time.

MOTORBIKES...They're everywhere in Makeni. It's the primary mode of transportation. I have a sweet black helmet with flame decals. It says 'UNEED' on the front, as in 'U-need to wear me.' The main highway through town (off of which I live) is nice and smooth, but most of the other roads are in terrible condition -- dirt roads with potholes galore. So riding is sometimes an adventure. But riding in a car on the bad roads is even worse. The new government has promised to improve roads throughout the country...we'll see about that. I'm on a quest to buy a cheap bicycle somehow.

FOOD...Variety is not a strong point. Mike has shown me the few decent eating spots around town. By 'few' I mean three. They all serve rice with a sauce usually made of ground cassava leaves. And in the tiny supermarket, they have pasta, spam, tuna, crackers, baked beans and corn. In the streets you can get bananas, green oranges, sweet potatoes, bread, carrots, cabbage, green beans, tomatoes, and cucumber. Chicken is hard to find unless you're willing to kill it yourself -- I'm not. My friend Diya made mutton curry for us last night from the leg of a goat that was sacrificed as part of a baby naming ceremony (welcome to Africa). It'll take some getting used to, but it should be fine once I learn my way around and settle into a routine. At least the restaurants are cheap -- about $2 for a meal and drink. I'm not starving by any means, so don't worry.


Gotta rest up for my big on-air moment tomorrow. 'Til next time...

Freetown

I am here. I am safe. I am healthy. I love it. You can stop worrying.

Sorry for the long delay, but I just wanted to say that I've had a nice first week in Freetown. Training wraps up on Wednesday and then I'll travel three hours 'up-country' to my new home in Makeni. I can't wait to get started. There's far too much to tell you in one post, so I'll try to spread out the info and avoid overwhelming you.

This is where I spent my first evening in Freetown. Not bad, huh? I went to another beach yesterday that must have been paradise. Ah, the volunteer life is so tough...

I'll soon be in Makeni, far from the beach and much hotter than Freetown (and it's hot here, believe me). OK, one more photo. We took a hovercraft like the one depicted below from the airport to Freetown. I liked this painting, so there you go. The writing is in the local Krio language, which I'm just beginning to learn.


Alright, look for more soon. Hope everyone's well. Chao.

Sierra Leone!? I didn't know that was a real country!

A store cashier seriously said that to me the other day. Apparently there's a passing reference to Sierra Leone in the movie 'Shallow Hal,' which she openly admitted she had seen.

Chances are you don't know too much about this place I'll be living (don't worry - I didn't either). Here are the basics: Sierra Leone is a tiny country in West Africa. It is trying to recover from a brutal decade-long civil war which ended in 2002. It is poor. Very poor - ranked 176th of 177 countries on the UN's Human Development Index. The official language is English, but most people speak Krio. The population of my city is almost 100,000 and it is a 3-hour drive from the capital, Freetown.

If you want to know more, check it out on Wikipedia. More details to come in future posts, too.

I'm off to the airport this afternoon. I arrive in Freetown on Saturday. I'll be there for 9 days of training before I move to my new home in Makeni. Adios America...

10 Days

So I've been in Ottawa for the past week and a half, learning all kinds of good stuff about international development work and trying to figure out exactly how I'll manage what is sure to be a challenging year ahead. I head to Sierra Leone on October 12 and I have a million-and-one things on my to-do list.
I'll try to post news and updates here whenever possible, but I'm not yet sure how reliable my Internet access will be at work. I'll do my best.

Check back soon!