Week of Events

Travel is always an adventure. This is me squished up against the window of a poda-poda (minibus) on the way from Makeni to Freetown. That's Linda and Diya (British volunteers) enjoying the ride as the woman in back looks baffled by the crazy white people. They cram as many bodies as possible into these things -- comfort is not a priority. One guy in front of me was hanging out the window most of the way there. When I went to inauguration, my taxi took somebody along in his closed trunk. You learn to accept such things as normal when you live here.

I went to a traditional wedding yesterday. My office-mate's sister got married. There were tons of people wearing nice African dresses and we had some food and listened to some live drumming. The odd part was that we didn't get to see any of the actual ceremony. It was held inside the house with a few family members, and everyone else was sitting outside listening to the MC relay the wedding play-by-play from a microphone. It was a good experience nonetheless.

The nuns from the Catholic Mission invited me to mass at a nearby village today called Binkolo. It was a special celebration for baptisms and confirmation, so the place was packed. They met under a huge hut made of tree branches. Most of it was translated from English to Limba, the tribal language of that area. The Bishop of the Makeni Diocese was there, and people brought him gifts down the aisle, including rice, potatoes, and two live chickens. They set the chickens down at the front and one of them immediately stood up and pooped right on the fancy church rug. Nice. And during the confirmation of about 40 people, the bishop asked questions about their faith and they would respond in a confusing way. 'Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God?' 'NO!' 'Do you believe in the Catholic Church?' 'NO!' and so on. All the nuns sitting next to me were in shock. Later we discovered they were actually saying 'Ndo,' which means 'Yes' in the Limba language. Whew.

One more thing...Thanksgiving. In the absence of turkey, Diya and I went to the market to pick out a live chicken. I pointed out the plumpest-looking one in the cage and watched the man slaughter it right there on the street. He dumped it in a plastic bag and handed it to me while it was still clinging to life. I told myself it was just a sack of potatoes and tried to ignore its movements. Luckily others took care of the plucking and cleaning. All I had to do was provide the oven. So we had some friends over and enjoyed an amazing meal of chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn and green beans. As the only American there, it was good enough for me. I hope you all had a happy Turkey Day as well.

I've lost a good chunk of weight since I arrived. I started running some mornings with our laundry boy Jerry, but stopped because I got a cold last week. I guess my body still thinks I'm in the States and should have a cold. Otherwise life is good. 'Til next time.