Yesterday was the International Children's Day of Broadcasting, sponsored by UNICEF. I've been working with a group of 30 kids (12-16 years old) called Children of God for the past month or so to produce a kids' radio news program. We aired the debut edition of Pikin News ('pikin' means child in Krio) yesterday with only minor hitches. The kids did most of the work and I served as their producer. They focused the first show on the problem of teen pregnancy in Sierra Leone, so we had field interviews and a panel discussion. The next topic will probably be child trafficking. We hope to start producing Pikin News weekly. The kids are fun to work with, although it is exhausting to deal with them. We've heard good feedback from people around the country, and the Director of the radio station wants the program to continue. So it looks like that will be a big part of my work here, which is a good thing.
This is Thomas and Victor at the radio station where I work. The window on the right is my office.
I went around town with a few of the kids last week to interview people about teen pregnancy, including one 15-year-old mother. The most interesting stop was at Magbenteh Community Hospital, where a few friends of mine work. We entered a doctor's office to interview him, and right away his cell phone rang. He answered and calmly said, "Yes, it is definitely cancer. She must be amputated." Then we visited the Therapeutic Feeding Center, where malnourished children go to rehabilitate. There we met a tiny boy named Foday who was, quite literally, just skin and bones. He was surviving with only milk, but I hear he is eating a bit now.
People are incredibly difficult to work with here. Nobody can work as a team and they don't trust each other. Everyone suspects everyone else of being corrupt. They are incapable of holding a meeting without an out-of-control screaming match. Even the kids accuse their group president of being a corrupt criminal. And this is supposed to be a Christian radio station. We had a ridiculous outburst last week and I was stuck in the middle. It involved the money (of course) which I budgeted and gave to the kids' coordinator to pay the caterers for yesterday. It's certainly not worth going into much detail here because it should never have been an issue. Basically, a couple people were upset that we were spending too much money on food and they didn't know about it. I guess they thought the money would find a better home in their own pockets. Anyway, after plenty of accusations, threats, and near-fistfights right in front of the kids, the whole thing sort of blew over. Days like that one make me think a full year of this is an awfully long time. It was frustrating and unnecessary. Nothing is easy in this country.
And now for some things completely different.
I marched through Freetown for World AIDS Day on December 1 and recorded the President's speech for later broadcast on Radio Maria news. The highlights? A bat pooped on me while walking under the giant cotton tree downtown -- a huge, nasty African bat, not some wimpy Congress Avenue bat. And our taxi ran out of gas in the pouring rain, so the driver left my friend Davina and I in the car, took our umbrella and went to fetch gas while we blocked traffic in a driver-less taxi. Good times.
I went to a birthday party at the British High Commission in Freetown. A strange scene, as it was full of expatriates hanging by the pool and dancing around big white Roman columns. Not more than five black faces in the crowd. An interesting experience to say the least.
Sierra Leone's 'winter' has begun. I actually have to cover up at night! Very exciting. The Harmattan winds are coming in from the Sahara. All the locals whine that it's so cold and they wear winter hats and huge coats. I'm sure it hasn't reached below 70 degrees yet. And you thought Texans were bad about cold weather.
Thank you and goodnight.
It is obvious that Kambia was once an amazing little town, with a beautiful river, rolling hills and palm trees. The rusted remains of light poles dot the now-darkened streets. It is very sad to see such wasted potential in a town like this. The destruction in Makeni was not so bad because the rebels used it as their headquarters. In Kambia, every other building speaks of the terrible things that happened there.
