Day 4 - September 28

We ended the evening last night on the top deck of the ship. The sun was setting and the breeze was wonderful. No matter where you are in the world, an amazing sunset looks the same. The children play on the upper deck and clearly they were having a great time racing around on play cars and rollerblades. I can't imagine a childhood where my 'normal' is rollerblading on the top deck of a missionary ship in the middle of Africa. As I was riding around the deck on one of the play cars, a little boy raced up beside me and 'won!' He was thrilled. It was blissfully fun. Hard to believe we would laugh as much as we did today and had as much fun as we did. Life after Africa will never be the same.

The traffic was worse than usual last night because of the earlier wreck. At one point we went to turn around in a very treacherous area and the local men were kind enough to stop traffic and help us avoid the ditches. They love the Mercy Ships here and when they see our vehicle they always stop and wave and help if we need it. I know I have said this a lot but I just can't emphasize enough what traffic and roads are like here. Thank God Dulce knows how to navigate this area and she is an excellent driver in the worst of conditions. 

We passed by the children's hospital on the way home and you could see the beds all in one large room. Each bed was covered with mosquito nets. The parents sleep on small, thin matresses under the child's bed. The hospital is free for kids under 5. Over 5, you either pay or don't get treatment. That explains why childhood mortality is so high here. The people of Sierra Leone simply don't have the money to take care of themselves physically and even if they did, there is hardly anyone to take care of them. They truly lack the most basic health care.

After 2 hours we finally made it back (2 hours for 10 km). I didn't sleep well last night - lots of noise and music until late and then the rain started. Huge torrential downpour with lightning and thunder. Although it was hard to sleep, it was nice listening to rain again. Too bad we aren't getting any in Texas! I got up at 11:00 to take some Tylenol pm but that still didn't help. That's ok though. I had a lot to think about - this trip has been like nothing else.

Up at 5:30 and off by 6:30. On the drive this morning we saw many children walking to school and they were dressed so nicely in their uniforms. As previously mentioned, despite the living conditions many of the locals dress very nicely in their finest clothes. The women wear elaborate printed dresses with matching head scarves and the children are often dressed in what I would consider 'church clothes.' (Side note for you Office fans out there - we saw one shipyard worker wearing a Dunder Mifflin shirt - too funny!) The children in uniforms go to private schools - those that cannot afford private school can go to public schools, but even those are not free. The parents have to pay a small fee and many cannot afford it so they just don't have their children go to school. That explains the high number of children we see during the day just milling around.

At one point during our drive, traffic was still backed up from the accident last night (we did finally get our first glimpse at the wall that was taken down that had been the source of our traffic woes) and we cut through an area called Bishop's Court. Inside the area is a burned out/falling down building. Apparently it was a church at one point and during the civil war, people would go there to take refuge. However the rebels (I guess that is what they called the bad people) invaded the area and burned the church with the people inside - they burned alive. Such a sad history.

Also on the drive this morning a little boy about 10 stopped to wave at us. He had a marvelous smile. We kept driving and then would stop and he would catch back up to us and stop and smile and wave. This continued several times until his mother got impatient with him and gently smacked him on the shoulder. When we passed him a moment later, he didn't dare stop and wave but couldn't resist a smile at us. It made us all laugh - he was adorable.

After breakfast we left for the Kissy Eye Clinic to start our painting project. Today's project - scraping paint. Lots of it! We were blessed with a mainly overcast sky so it wasn't too unbearable except for the humidity, which just makes you feel damp all the time. I guess today was about paybacks because we all have been gawking at the locals for the past 2 days and today was their turn to gawk at us. I am sure it was quite a site to see 6 white women scraping paint off the outside of the building. Lots of locals just stopped and stared.

In the morning we had quite a few local men just wonder over and ask to help. They knew they weren't getting paid but just wanted to help anyways. Several small children also came over to help. Sadly, they should have been in school. We let them help and there I met my African equivalent, Abu. Abu is 12 and talks non-stop. Unlike the other children who were pretty quiet and shy, this little boy was so chatty and amazingly smart. It is tragic he isn't in school because clearly he is a gifted kid. As we were talking, I couldn't always catch what he was saying because of the noise and his thick accent. He called me out on it, "you are not understanding me" and I apologized and told him, "it is loud and you have an accent" to which he quickly replied, "so do you!" At one point he asked me, "why is our English different?" Which led into me trying to explain dialects to a 12 year old - being the sharp kid he is, we finally made the connection with mobile phones vs. cell phones and "how de body" vs. "how are you." (The locals speak an English/Creole mix where one of the expressions is, "how de body" to which you reply, "de body is fine.") He told me all about his family, his love of football (soccer to us), how he reads his Koran every night and that he is learning Arabic. (SL is primarily Muslim.) Being the mom I am, I made sure to work in some motherly advice like telling him to brush his teeth twice a day. He had never heard of dental floss. Trying to describe it as "thread between the teeth" only led to more confused looks. He was simply adorable and wonderful and I hope his living situation is ok. He seems happy and well adjusted, like all of the kids in SL, but the lack of school worries me. I hope to see him again. I kept telling him that he should go play with the other kids but he insisted on working with us and he was a very hard worker.

At lunch time the private school let the children out to play and they immediately surrounded us. They were so cute and reinforced to me that children are universally children. They all play the same and do the same things and they loved seeing us (according to Dulce, many have rarely ever seen white people). They all wanted to help us scrape and fought over the scrapers (I had to start a count to 10 and switch game with them so they wouldn't fight over them.) They sang for us, took pictures with us, held our hands, hugged us, and some just stared in amazement. The little girls were concerned about the paint flecks on my arms and they kept trying to clean my arms for me. I taught them to twirl to make their dresses 'fluff' out and they loved that. I also taught them to bow and we would clap and they also loved that. They loved it any time we clapped for them. After school they came back out and lingered until the head of the school made them go home (as most had a long walk ahead of them). Hands down, they were the best part of the day. I absolutely loved the children and can't wait to see more of them. They made the day of scraping old paint totally worth it.

There was a maternity clinic nearby and many of the women were bringing in small babies for check ups. They too were adorable. The people of Sierra Leone are truly beautiful with gorgeous skin, big white smiles, and very healthy bodies. There is absolutely no obesity here and everyone appears to be in very good shape. Despite the poverty, not too many seem malnourished. However, just because they have food doesn't mean it is healthy food and there is malnutrition due to the lack of fresh fruits, vegetables, vitamins, etc., coupled with consumption of a lot of sugary/processed foods, sodas, etc. They are very fit given their lifestyles and amount of walking they do. Much of the poverty here is more about living conditions than food or goods. They have plenty of stuff for sale everywhere (seriously, I have never seen so much stuff) and food seems to be readily available (although not high quality food). The poverty is more centered around the lack of houses (and/or condition of the houses), plumbing, running water, sewer system, drinking water, vaccinations, medical care, government, schools, police, technology, infrastructure, etc. For a population of 1.5 million, they are lacking basic things like proper roads, traffic lights, police, hospitals, etc. This is why they are in such dire straits. They are not starving - they are living in squalor surrounded by 'stuff' but no basic infrastructure to support it all.

Because of this, Mercy Ships has done a great job extending their help beyond the ship. They have a magnitude of off shore projects (like the eye clinic and the agriculture program I mentioned before) and many of those initiatives will still be around long after they leave. The people here are very grateful that not everyone has forgotten them.

It is 11:00 and I have to be back up at 5:30 so I better stop here. We ended the night playing trivia which was a lot of fun (so many normal things combined with so many abnormal things!). Tomorrow is security detail at the dental clinic until 10 and then surgery observation, which should be really cool. Then back to the eye clinic. Here's hoping my buddy Abu is back.

P.s. Special thoughts to my friend Michele. Check your email sometime tomorrow. I love you!!!