Politically (In)Correct in Africa

John, Aden, and I just got back from a trip to Kamakwie.  We spent about 5 days helping one of our teammates Emily put up some solar so she can have a fridge, a light at night, and enough electricity to charge her laptop.  It ended up being about a 7 hour drive from our house. 

It was a fun trip but Emily definitely doesn't have it easy up in Kamakwie.  She is 7-8 hours from Freetown and 'American' type groceries.  She basically has subsisted on bread, laughing cow cheese, and the occasional tuna or luncheon meat (aka spam). 

John and I were stretched as well because we realized once we were about an hour from home that we left ALL OF OUR CLOTHES AT HOME.  And when I say ALL, I mean ALL, and I am including Aden's.  We both thought the other person grabbed the suitcase.  We thought "oh well, a good lesson in living simply."  We each did buy a shirt on the way out at a gas station that a guy was selling.

Once we got to Kamakwie, one of the doctors gave us each some scrubs (that were incidentally far too big) once she heard of our predicament.  She also gave us some clothes that we could use for Aden. 
However, a couple days in after I had already worn my capris twice and the scrubs, I was feeling a bit adventurous to try out the local markets that sell clothes.  Basically, Sierra Leone receives these HUGE blocks of clothing from the US (probably stuff you've donated) that they resell on the streets. I've always been intimidated to shop here because I don't like being 'pushed' to buy something.  I like to look myself and spend time getting the best deal and picking out stuff I really like.

Due to necessity, I decided to break out of my shell.  I braved the streets of Kamakwie (a relatively small town but bigger than a village).  My shopping trip was a big success! I was able to buy a pair of capris, a pair of pants for John, a shirt for me, and a cute sailor outfit for Aden for 35,000 Le which is about 8 bucks! 

While I was walking the streets of Kamakwie a thought came to mind.  I know all throughout Sierra Leone, white people stand out.  People and kids (especially) yell out "APOTO" or "WHITE MAN" every time they see you.  If I thought I stood out before I had a baby, after was much worse! Well the way people address us would never occur in the US without a big hullabaloo!  As I walk along the roads, people basically start saying (in Krio) "hey look at that white person" and "come look at the white child"  "Look how this white person is carrying her baby"  "thank you for being a breastfeeding mother"  It's hilarious! If the majority race in the US... we will say its some kind of white Caucasian, said to all the other white Caucasians, "Hey come look at this _______________(fill in the blank with any minority race) and what they are doing" they would get called a racist and people would be yelling "shhhhh shhhh quiet" But since political correctivity (a new word?) doesn't exist in Africa, this will continue to be our way of life.  I wish I didn't stand out so much, but I also know that when they talk about me (not in secret or behind my back) out in the open for everyone (including myself) to hear, they say "white person" in the nicest way possible.

Flowers in the Canyon

I have been going through the devotional book recently "Streams in the Desert." It is a compilation from Mrs. Charles Cowman and is in my opinion, the best of the best.  It ranks right under My Utmost for His Highest.  I really liked today's devotion and thought I would share it with anyone who needs it.

Highway to the beach in Sierra Leone during the dry season

Flowers in the Canyon

"For our profit" (Heb. 12:10).

In one of Ralph Connor's books he tells a story of Gwen. Gwen was a wild, wilful lassie and one who had always been accustomed to having her own way. Then one day she met with a terrible accident which crippled her for life. She became very rebellious and in the murmuring state she was visited by the Sky Pilot, as the missionary among the mountaineers was termed.

He told her the parable of the canyon. "At first there were no canyons, but only the broad, open prairie. One day the Master of the Prairie, walking over his great lawns, where were only grasses, asked the Prairie, 'Where are your flowers?' and the Prairie said, 'Master I have no seeds.'

"Then he spoke to the birds, and they carried seeds of every kind of flower and strewed them far and wide, and soon the prairie bloomed with crocuses and roses and buffalo beans and the yellow crowfoot and the wild sunflowers and the red lilies all summer long. Then the Master came and was well pleased; but he missed the flowers he loved best of all, and he said to the Prairie: 'Where are the clematis and the columbine, the sweet violets and wind-flowers, and all the ferns and flowering shrubs?'

"And again he spoke to the birds, and again they carried all the seeds and scattered them far and wide. But, again, when the Master came he could not find the flowers he loved best of all, and he said:

"'Where are those my sweetest flowers?' and the Prairie cried sorrowfully:

"'Oh, Master, I cannot keep the flowers, for the winds sweep fiercely, and the sun beats upon my breast, and they wither up and fly away.'

"Then the Master spoke to the Lightning, and with one swift blow the Lightning cleft the Prairie to the heart. And the Prairie rocked and groaned in agony, and for many a day moaned bitterly over the black, jagged, gaping wound.

"But the river poured its waters through the cleft, and carried down deep black mould, and once more the birds carried seeds and strewed them in the canyon. And after a long time the rough rocks were decked out with soft mosses and trailing vines, and all the nooks were hung with clematis and columbine, and great elms lifted their huge tops high up into the sunlight, and down about their feet clustered the low cedars and balsams, and everywhere the violets and wind-flower and maiden-hair grew and bloomed, till the canyon became the Master's favorite place for rest and peace and joy."

Then the Sky Pilot read to her: "The fruit--I'll read 'flowers'--of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness--and some of these grow only in the canyon."

"Which are the canyon flowers?" asked Gwen softly, and the Pilot answered: "Gentleness, meekness, longsuffering; but though the others, love, joy, peace, bloom in the open, yet never with so rich a bloom and so sweet a perfume as in the canyon."

For a long time Gwen lay quite still, and then said wistfully, while her lips trembled: "There are no flowers in my canyon, but only ragged rocks."

"Some day they will bloom, Gwen dear; the Master will find them, and we, too, shall see them."

Beloved, when you come to your canyon, remember!

source

Konta- Makelben Day 9

Today I woke up with some BM trouble if you know what I mean...  It seems to be happening every other day or so.  I guess it is the change in diet.  My largest meal of the day is rice and sauce.  The sauce is mainly palm oil and then has some hot pepper thrown in, some type of veggie (krein krein, okra, etc.) and the some bush meat.  I don't know if my stomach is not used to the hot pepper, the bush meat (cotton grass, fritombo), the amount of palm oil, or perhaps some unhygienic way in which it is prepared.  The sad thing is is that I really enjoy it! I think I may have to cut back on the amounts if I don't want to continue getting these stomach problems. John doesn't seem to be getting them but I usually eat more than him.  John woke up this morning with a sore throat and his voice is almost gone.  


After breakfast the elders approached John and said the community had raised 150,000 Le for the boy (Mohammed) to get the rabies treatment and would give John 50,000 of it to take the boy and his mother into Freetown himself.  They also said they had remembered that the dog who bit the boy had been previously bitten by another mad dog.  John was pretty impressed that a community of that size (~100 people) and impoverished as they are were able and willing to raise that kind of support.


So we left on a nearly 200 mile journey that took most of the day.  We stopped at the clinic at Konta Line for the boy to get his 3rd antibiotic injection.  We continued on our way.  We met Chad at Waterloo to give him our GPS to mark a few wells for the future.  


I learned from the mom that most of the village believes this boy has (or is?) a demon (inside) and that is why he was bit.  We told her that we don't believe that.  It was just the mom and son today.  Yesterday the dad had come as well.  We found out that he had two wives but this was the Sr. wife.  She seemed to be proud of the fact that she was the Sr. wife.  This made me sad for her.  She also shared with us today that who ever did Mohammed's circumcision took too much off.  I'm not exactly sure what that means for the boy but it makes me thankful and feel blessed for the quality and access to healthcare that we had in America for Aden.


Once in Freetown we took the boy to the clinic.  He was given part 1 of 3 anti-rabies shots.  They sent the other two with us on an icepack.


We went for lunch at Bashas.  It is our most frequented place to eat in Freetown because it is one of the more economical Lebanese restaurants.  We bought the boy and his mother, and Pastor Abdul and his wife lunch.  All 6 of us shared 2 roasted chickens (like those rotisserie style ones at grocery stores in the states).  They come with Lebanese pita type bread and chips (french fries) or rice.

It was really neat to see Freetown (the "big city") and the restaurant through the eyes of Mohammed.  I would liken it to taking a farm boy who has never left the farm to Disneyland followed up with dinner at Ruth Chris' steakhouse.  The little boy didn't want the rice nor bread, just the meant.  I told the mom that its typical of all men and she smiled.

We got a few groceries and stopped by our house on the way back for an extra tent and some throat lozenges for John.  We made our way back to Konta, stopping at the clinic to drop off the rabies medicine.  We got back around 5 pm... we had left around 8:30 am.  Everybody clapped as we returned.  Alleyo had told us that all the village kids were trying to get dogs to bite them so they could go to town too.  Precious!


The Makelben well guys called while we were in town because they were working for 4 hours on another rock with no progress.  John told them it was up to them if they wanted to start drilling at a new site.  When we had returned they had gone down 27' in one day and hit the same rock layer.  John had wanted them to go closer to the swamp but got pressure from the community to have a more central location.  So instead, they tried not too far from the other site.  I asked John if he was frustrated that they did not take his advice and he said no.  He said he can't tell them and encourage them to make their own decisions, to think for themselves, and then yell at them for it.


We called off the teaching at Makelben tonight because we got back late, the drill team worked late, and John was feeling sick.  Instead we showed the Jesus film to the Konta village for the second time.

Kontah-Makelben Day 8

Ok, sorry I have been MIA... We just finished hosting a team that left Wednesday night.  They were from Yuma, AZ... Chad and Robin's home church.  And we have another team arriving on Sunday! Busy busy but lots of fun!  I will try to get this week 2 posted up ASAP.
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We woke up in the morning and had some more of Robin's banana bread and some eggs.  I'm not sure how healthy eating banana bread for lunch and dinner with a lunch of rice (with spicy sauce) is but I am enjoying it!


I brooked Aden's diapers again today.  When Aden woke up from his first nap I changed his diaper to to find that he had some diarrhea :(  I'm not really sure how that was possible considering he only gets breast milk.  My thoughts were running wild with all the possibilities of what could be... maybe somebody washed his pacifier with dirty water? teething? getting sick from being passed around locals that don't wash their hands?   Whatever the case, I didn't want it getting worse or for him to get dehydrated.  We decided to just watch to see if it got any worse.  In retrospect, I wished I had brought some bottles that I could put coconut water in to rehydrate him if necessary.


This morning we left to take Mohammed to a clinic nearby.  Mohammed is a little boy who was bit on Saturday by a hunting dog.  I'm not sure why the dog bit him, someone said he was pulling on his ears, but they did put the dog down. Mohammed had went to that clinic on Sunday but was only given antibiotics.  We could barely read the prescription but it said to return for daily antibiotic injections and for the dressing to be changed.  We decided to take him in ourselves on Monday to clarify what was done and to make a decision on whether to send him to Freetown for anti-rabies treatment.


Mohammed with his bandage

After the appointment we went to a nearby town for eggs and bread.  It was decided that the mom and son would go into Freetown the next day.  John and I decided to pay for their transport in.  In the car I was able to practice my Krio with the mom.


Once we returned to Kontah, we had some 'lunner'.  The rest of the day Aden had no diarrhea! yay! I was so thankful! That night we walked the 3/4 mile to Makelben to try and rally Kontah village members to come with us.  We were only able to pick up 2 or 3 but I think some came later.  Pastor Abdul did the teaching on not judging others.  More and more people seemed interested. 


One guy at the end asked a question on how he should pray now that he is a Christian.  Interestingly enough, most of the kids know all the words to the Lord's Prayer because of attending a Christian school.  None of them knows what it means much like many people have portions of the Qu'ran memorized in the Arabic language but don't know what it means either.


John opened up the time for question about anything, including any question they had about America.  People asked if 'all Americans are rich' because they had heard that was the case.  John said no and explained that there are poor and rich in America the same as in Africa.  It was funny because they said they didn't believe John.  They also talked about how they work really hard (which they do) and John tried to explain that there are a lot of Americans who do a lot of manual labor and work hard as well.  I'm still not convinced that they believed that. 


Sierra Leoneans really do work hard.  When I first came here and I would drive through the village, I made a wrong assumption that they don't work hard.  When you drive through a village you do see people sitting on the porch and what looks like relaxing and shooting the breeze.  However, if you spend any amount of time in the village you will see that most of the adult married men are away in the fields farming.  And farming is back breaking labor day in and day out.  I would argue that the women work even harder.  It is the responsibility of the women to thrash the rice to remove the husk, carry the gallons of water on their heads from far away to their homes, cook all of the meals, take care of the children (often carrying them on their backs), doing the laundry, and probably a dozen other things I can't think of.  In America we often get breaks from working hard if we want them.  If we have a hard day of work, we can turn on the faucet and get some water and pop a microwave meal in for dinner.  Here, they can't 'take a break' from getting water or making dinner.  It is the same hard work day in and day out.  If they don't fetch the water... they won't have water to drink or cook with.  If they don't thrash the rice, they won't eat dinner. 


Back at camp that night, the same man who asked how to pray came up to John to discuss that he wants to be a Christian.  John was able to disciple him about how its such an important decision.  He explained that his life won't become easier but how God wants us to find contentment in all circumstances.  Later I found out (since I had been sleeping during all this) that he was one of the guys helping to drill the wells.  I feel like John working hard side by side with this man was a witness to him... that he is not just a white American that lets all the black men do all the hard work.