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.
_________________________________________________________________
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.
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