Seared and Learning In Sierra Leone

One definite aspect of Peace Corps service in Sierra Leone is that it teaches you to appreciate small pleasures, especially those that remind you of home. Yesterday I splurged and purchased a bottle of milk ($1.75) from the Lebanese owned western style grocery store in Bo. The lack of reliable power means that refrigeration is a commodity and so dairy is hard to come by; the only other dairy I have had is the occasional wedge of laughing cow cheese. A bottle of milk is not only a creamy indulgence, the lack of milk products means that we have to be conscious to periodically take in dairy so as not to loose the ability to easily digest lactose. But the real treat of the day was the apple. For fifty cents, I purchased a refrigerated apple, and as I sunk my teeth into the cool sweet fruit, I closed my eyes and felt I was under my Grandfather's apple trees in the meadow in Vermont. It is amazing how evocative a familiar taste can be; each bite, including the core, was fully savored with great care standing in the sun on the dusty street corner as motor cycles zipped by. It was the most delicious apple I have ever eaten.  

As pre-service trainings nears its completion, eight weeks of lectures, lessons, practicums, and teaching in summer school, my time with my host family also begins to draw to a close. For the two months I have called the Koroma family house home, I have been truly welcomed as a part of the family and I would not trade the experience as it had been an emersion into Sierra Leonean culture and life, but my home stay has not been without its frustrations. As a guest in the house it is already culturally expected that much will be done for me, but this is compounded by the fact that as a white American it is believed that I am incapable of doing most things for myself as I have a machine to do everything for me in the US. After the second week, I had to prove that I was capable of pouring my own tea water in the morning so that my 7 year old sister did not do it for me. The family was surprised when I was able to fetch water from the well for my own morning bath. At times when I an unable to do something proficiently the first time, the family is loath to give me the practice to build the skills, a problem made worse as everything I can do an African child can do better. Each time I have tried to wash my clothes by hand, my siblings have laughed at me and taken the wash from me to do themselves. Several times I have asked Mama Abibatu if I can learn to cook some Sierra Leonean dishes. She has always said yes, but after my brother and I return from the market with the ingredients, I am rarely able to go alone, Mama has always prepared them herself while I looked on wistfully. While I have been able to help out more as of late, I can now help to sweep part of the house before my sisters take the broom from me, I am still in many respects treated like a child. While my family is always well intentioned, and I will miss their company and kindness, I feel that I would rather fail in doing something for myself and learn in the process that just have it done for me. Regaining my autonomy once I move to Mile 91 will be a breath of fresh air, though I will miss not having my sisters run to greet me each day as I come home.

Last night I had a particularly wonderful evening with Mama Abibatu and my sisters. The conversation we shared followed the pattern which our most engaging and interesting talks have taken, Mama tells me about an aspect of life Sierra Leone and I share its American counterpart. First she spoke about politics in Salone; here there are two main parties, the red All People's Congress and the green Sierra Leone People's Party. The ACP usually favors infrastructure development and the SLPP favors education, though the current President, Earnest Bai Koroma of the ACP has instituted large scale educational reforms. Then at length I told her about the red Republicans and blue Democrats, American politics and Barack Obama, who is loved here. Mama shared stories of the Sierra Leonean civil war. She was in Freetown during the conflict and each day when fighting occurred near the city, she would go down to the bush before sunrise and hide until nightfall. She told of how as the conflict devolved, the various tribal groups formed militias to protect their own kind. In Mile 91, a large rebel camp was located in a walled compound that now is filled with the houses of government infrastructure workers. Then I told her the stories in great detail of what happened on 9/11 and the week of the Boston Marathon bombing. This evening spent on the veranda telling stories while watching the moon slowly rise made me feel how close I had come to the family in the two months of living together.  

Peace Corps is challenging, no doubt about it, but what makes things interesting is that the way in which the experience is challenging is constantly changing. When we first touched earth in Sierra Leone it was the immediate heat which stifled our movement and felt as if a hot washcloth was across our mouths. Now it bothers me not as greatly as my base level of acceptable body odor and sweat has recalibrated itself to my new environment. Ask me again though when the real hot season rolls around. Next there was the challenge of learning Krio and integrating into my new community and settling into living with out host families. Experience slowly gained over time has snowballed, and as I walk about Bo and chat in Krio I know that my functional ability will only increase the longer I am here. Some of the greatest challenges have been learning to deal with the frustration of being unable to do anything easily with my host family and the tedium of sitting through protracted ineffectual Peace Corps lectures. In one week I will travel to Freetown and swear-in, formally transitioning from Peace Corps Trainee to Peace Corps Volunteer, after which I will move into my house at Mile 91 and prepare for school to start several weeks later. While I'll have something with meat on the bone for me to sink my teeth into, I'll go from familiarity and routine to starting from scratch again.               

A month has elapsed since I wrote the above paragraph, and as I sit at my desk in the living room of my new house, I am at a loss of where to begin. The past few weeks have seemed like a year, each day being a full odyssey unto itself. For the sake of my reader I will highlight only the more memorable moments and sentiments. When all of us Peace Corps Trainees traveled to Freetown we stayed in the same guest house where we had been lodged when we were fresh off the plane from America only two and a half months previously. To be there was shockingly surreal, as it made me think on what I knew and who I was at that point, and how much progression had occurred in such a short time. The 8 weeks of training had accomplished, more or less, what it was designed to achieve. I know how to utilize the Peace Corps resources at my disposal to ensure my health and safety. The eight week emersion of living in a Sierra Leonean home has made me not only functional and conversant in Krio, but has more importantly allowed me gain an understanding of the new cultural in which I live. It was with nervous reluctance and trepidation when as neophytes we began to do something as simple as a walk around town and through the market. Now we eagerly look forward to such excursions as an escape from the tedium of our lectures and routinely stay out till all hours. We're on a first name basis with proprietor of our favorite watering-hole. Most importantly, I now feel I am ready to teach. While I know that what I know now is only the tip of the iceberg, I know I can do this. Perhaps I am still in the honeymoon phase, but time will tell.

The swear-in ceremony itself was a akin to graduation in that we were given encouraging speeches by a series of dignitaries, including the US Ambassador, the President of Sierra Leone's chief of staff, the Minister of Education, Science and Technology and Minister of Foreign Affairs. In classic Sierra Leone fashion, the program was halted when the power went out and the conference hall was plunged into darkness for a few minutes. We then swore to defend the Constitution. To make it official we signed a document with the text of our oath; next to the desk was a giant poster of JFK. From there to our real induction ceremony – a day on the beach. The beauty of Sierra Leone's beaches have to be experienced to be believed, and I have yet to see the finest. After placing an order for a hookah at the thatched open front beach bar where we staked out, we ran across the the powdery white sand and plunged into the blue serf of the Atlantic. The water was the perfect temperature, ever so slightly cool. As I bobbed in the rolling waves under the warm sun, looking over the swaying palms and rising hills of Freetown beyond, I commented to one of my fellow recently inducted Peace Corps Volunteers: “damn I love conditions of hardship.”

The next several days were spent saying anxious goodbyes to my friends as they left one by one for their various sites in each corner of Sierra Leone. Though we have known each other only a short time, the extraordinary baptism of fire which we have undergone together over the past few weeks has made the 40 people of Salone 4 indelible comrades in arms. We know we can rely and talk to each other about anything; homesickness and nostalgia, the stresses of acclimating and adapting to our brave new world, and the intricacies and nuisances of the various stages and levels of diarrhea. I know we are all eager to begin the experience and work we were sent here to undertake, but hereto we have been together all day every day, and always had each other for mutual support and solidarity. As each group boarded their Landcruiser and pulled out of the guest-house driveway, it struck home that soon we would be on out own and that instantly everything would go from theoretical and nebulous to practical and tangible. Though we knew it was time, this anticipation of departure was especially keen for those who would not have a site-mate in their community with whom they could commiserate. I do not have a site-mate. When I arrived at Mile 91, the Peace Corps Landcruiser dropped by off at the junction. I said goodbye to my friends in the vehicle and we wished each other good luck. Then they drove off and disappeared round the bend of the dirt road. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and thought: now begins the next two years.

Now that I was finally at my post, there were two orders of business for the two weeks until the beginning of school; learn about and begin to integrate into my community, and make my dusty drab house into a sumptuous designer bachelor pad. Challenge accepted. I developed the routine of having one day working in my house, reading and relaxing, then dedicating the next to being as extroverted as my stamina and the midday heat allowed. Fortunately I have an amazing next door neighbor who has helped immeasurably on both fronts, becoming my guide, Themne teacher, and close friend. Osman Kanu is 17 and has an amazingly kind, warm, and quietly effusive disposition. Since I have moved in, each day the Kanu family has given me a large bowl of whatever meal they have cooked for the day, usually rice and a sauce, without being asked or expecting pay. When I offer to contribute monetarily, they decline, saying that they appreciate the work I am doing, though I am at a loss as to what this might be. Before I came to Mile 91 I took a massive US high school world history book, thinking it might come in handy. Low and behold Osman is a passionate student of History and I am thrilled to facilitate his learning. Many nights we have read from the textbook and plan to finish the entire tome in 2 years. We teach each other our languages. At night we read by the light of an exquisitely carved and varnished wooden standing candelabra which I designed and Osman built by hand. In addition to attending the first year of Senior Secondary School, high school in Sierra Leone, Osman is a highly skilled carpenter's apprentice. I have watched him saw and plane boards and have seen beautifully crafted furniture take form in his workshop with only the use of hand tools to make the pieces. This has naturally led to the most satisfactory of arrangements: let me give you wads of the US government's money, and you can build me awesome custom furniture for my house. In addition to building a sofa, love seat, armchair, coffee table, long table, wall shelf, bed, full length vanity case, and clothing rack for the previous Peace Corps occupant of my house, Osman has built for me a table, office desk, bench and seat for my toilet, kitchen shelf, book shelf, two chairs, and the candelabra. The finished desk upon which I am typing this, Osman created from rough lumber in a single day. The price his carpentry shop overseer posed was 70,000 Leones; 50,000 for materials and 20,000 for labor. 70,000 Leones is about $16. After the varnish dried Osman carried the desk to my house on his head. Did I mention he is 17? Osman has also helped me paint the inside of my house, taking it from a blotchy muted light blue to a restful deep blue. Maps of Sierra Leone, West Africa, the African continent, the world, and pictures of home now decorate the walls. As we transformed my living living room, I pumped G-Eazy and Daft Punk from my battery mini-speakers, then the Kanu family and I ate rice and beans together. Cultural exchange at its finest. Osman has also helped my to purchase items in the market, such as a giant water barrel, avoid paying the “white man tax.” Once a week I draw water from the well in the yard with a rope and bucket and fill the barrel which stands in my kitchen next to my tiny one burner gas stove. In addition to beautifying my home, these projects also have given me a sense of pride and ownership of my new house. Lord knows I'll spend a good deal of time here. Soon I plan to pull up the worn and drab patterned linoleum floor covering and put down more aesthetically pleasing flooring. No matter the ups and downs of my Peace Corps work, I'll always have a comfortable and restful retreat to call my own; its all about making my house a home. Above my desk hangs a string of Tibetan prayer flags from my mom's greenhouse in Boston and in the kitchen rests a small bottle of pure Vermont grade A maple syrup, worth its weight in gold.                  

On the days I have not been indulging the in felicity of unbounded domesticity, I have taken to walking about my community to get my bearings in my new environment. In the morning, I will head our of my house and just walk without a set purpose, returning in the evening to collapse into bed. As I greet people on their verandas, I have yet to have an interaction that was not friendly and welcoming. Many shared their strong memories of Peace Corps from before the civil war and of the gentleman whom I am replacing. On these days I will spend 5-15 minutes talking with each group of people I encounter, keeping time with the policeman at the checkpoint on the road out of town (who shared his jug of palm wine), the manager of the local radio station, the imam of the area's largest mosque, the town blacksmith (who had me work the bellows of his smithy as he pounded out farming machetes on his anvil), and shopkeepers and vendors in the market (so as to develop relationships and take mental notes on what is available and where). On the days when I have felt lonely and isolated, going out into town  has always buoyed my spirits. However the constant attention at times is very tiring. Greeting people is an indispensable part of the culture in Sierra Leone and to fail to do so is a major foux-pas. This means that a every time I leave the house I must greet, at least for a moment or two, each adult I pass. There is no such thing as a expedient or quick trip into town. This is compounded by the fact that as one of the only 4 non-Africans in town (more on the others later), and a high profile one at that. I am a celebrity; most everyone knows my name, and the young children who don't yell oporto (white man) like a high pitched broken record. To this I call back othemne (Themne man) or attempt to ignore it as best I can. Always being the center of attention can be brutally tiring at times, and I am attempting to focus on recalibrating the expected pace of life and appreciating the sincere extensions of hospitality.       

It is the formation of little comforting rituals which has made the transition into my new life infinitely more comforting and familiar. Each morning since the start of school I have arisen at 6:30. This is after floating in and out of consciousness for an hour after the call to prayer from the nearest mosque partially wakes me at 5:30. Flicking my cheap Sierra Leonean lighter 50 or so times, I light my little one burner gas stove and heat a pot of water for my morning cup of Earl Grey tea or cardamom Arabic coffee with sugar and milk powder. For breakfast I either slice a number of bananas into a pot of oatmeal with a hearty dash of cinnamon or saute onions and eggplant for a two egg omelet which I put on bread with mayonnaise. A breakfast of champions eaten as I listen to the morning news from the BBC World Service over my shortwave radio. This is usually the voice of the only native English speaker I hear all day. At the end of the day after all is said and done, I take a bucket shower of cool water by candle light in my tiled bathroom where the sloping floor makes the water run into a drain. Then I curl up with my head lamp under my giant canopy mosquito net and write a page in my journal. Each day is filled with so many small events and I want to record my sentiments on any one day to chart my own progression. Even three months in it is amusing to read the entries from my first few weeks in Sierra Leone. After that I read one poem in my book of the 101 most famous poems in the English language. Then I read my book of the week until I find myself rereading the same paragraph over and over, switch out the light, and listen to the crickets and occasional howling stray dog as I drift off to sleep.   

To be a white man in Sierra Leone naturally means that I am a racial minority, but it is being a hyper-privileged minority that at times I have had to eschew and downplay. Though I am routinely offered, and I decline, the best seat or the first serving, most of this is because of the great culture of hospitality in Sierra Leone. The overwhelming majority of times race has come up in conversation, Sierra Leoneans and I talk of how as people we all have the same basic emotions as human beings; hopes and dreams, fears and worries, no matter the color of our skin and that race doesn't matter. The only explicitly harsh words against white people I have heard have never been directed against me and have been in the context of discussing colonialism. As one wise older man said: “the white man came and gave us the Bible and told us to read, and when we looked up he had taken our land.”

            But it has been the few times when Sierra Leoneans have advanced ideas of white racial exceptionalism that have truly stunned me. I'm a skinny-ass honky. One day I was passing a worker, who could have been on the cover of a bodybuilding magazine, digging a massive irrigation ditch with only a pick and shovel. We warmly greeted each other, and as part of greeting I thanked him for the work he was doing and said what a strong man he was. To this he replied, “no, you are a white man, you are stronger than me,” lowering his eyes slightly. Once greeting an old man in a thatched house out in the countryside, as we shook hands he gently touched my right forearm with his left hand, saying ”white skin is so beautiful.” A old lady brought me a plate of rice and beans, for which I thanked her effusively. To me she said “no, thank you. Do you know what it means for a white man to come from America to Sierra Leone to help my black brothers and sisters?” I have only heard such comments on a handful of occasions and I always try to be as outgoing and personable as I can, denying any inherent white status to the person who has made the comment with a laugh to make light of the situation. But even the fact that a few such comments have been made is arresting. Whether it is a legacy from over a century of colonial rule, decades of ineffectual and corrupt leadership and a civil war, a dependency of foreign aid, or a combination of those factors, I know not. Nor can I offer an answer to the problem of racial self-effacement, but I do feel the solution and the action must come from Sierra Leoneans for Sierra Leoneans, and not from a white voice.            

As the days passed in turn, and the start of school was still several weeks away, I began to feel very restless and stir-crazy. Without any real work to sink my teeth into I was feeling despondent and so went out looking for something, I didn't exactly know what. As so out I went, introducing myself at the various offices around town, explaining who I was, the few skills I posses, and that I was happy to lend a hand in whatever capacity I could. Like a pilgrim I arrived at the Our Lady of Guadalupe medical clinic. The staff is comprised of one volunteer doctor from Italy who will be there for a few months, two nuns from Mexico who have been in Sierra Leone for two years and are trained nurses, two Sierra Leonean nurses in training, and three volunteering Sierra Leoneans who help in the pharmacy and lab. I told them that I am an English teacher, and that the extent of my medical training was that which I received when I became a lifeguard 4 years previously. The extent of that training was rub lotion on it. I offered whatever help I could. Why yes we would very much appreciate your assistance the sisters said, can you come in tomorrow? Indeed I could and did.

            The next morning at 8:30 I began taking the medical notes and records from the patients who sat patiently waiting. Through the gates a motorcycle sped in and a mother leapt off, running inside holding her semi conscious infant. I watched and fetched supplies from the medical cabinet as the staff quickly worked over the child as he writhed and moaned. He was in the advanced stages of malaria. The nurses did all that they could to bring his high fever under control but as is so often the case here, lack of knowledge of disease and how to fight it leads people to seek medical treatment for themselves and their children after it is far too late. After a time, the child's jerks and groans became softer and less sporadic until he stopped moving all together. It was 10:45. The Italian doctor called me into her office where she and a scared teenage girl sat. As the doctor speaks Italian and English, and Krio is similar enough to English; she is able to roughly communicate with patients but she asked me to help facilitate a conversation with my more advanced Krio. I told her the 16 year old swears she has not had sex. I then helped explained to the teenager that as she had said her period was late and had a positive pregnancy test, this was slightly dubious. That day at the clinic, a woman had been stretched out on a bench resting for what she knew lay ahead. She was pregnant with her seventh child and in the early afternoon she began having contractions and going into labor. The clinic is equipped for births, but this woman's case was far more serious. She was only six and a half months pregnant. She needed to go to a full hospital immediately and fortunately the clinic has a rather advanced ambulance. But there was still a line of people who had been waiting hours to be seen and only a handful of staff. And so as the mother was lifted into the ambulance, the nurses remained at the clinic while the doctor, the woman's husband and I jumped in and shot down the highway, siren blaring. The drive to Bo, the nearest major city, is two hours and fortunately the road is paved. The woman was laying on a gurney in the center of the ambulance and said that she could wait no longer. With the Italian doctor gently giving instructions and encouragement, a tiny baby boy was born. The newborn could have been held in the palms of my hands. There was no clamp in the ambulance medical kit and the doctor asked me if I had anything that could suffice. I tore off a strip of cloth from the mother's wrap, a piece of colorful fabric to tie off the umbilical chord. Holding up the child for the father to see, the doctor asked what he wanted to name his son. Pointing at me the father said, Samuel. The final stretch of road to the Doctors Without Borders hospital was an endless 5 miles of washboards and frozen waves of earth over which we had to creep at an agonizingly slow pace. Examining the mother, the doctors said she would be fine, but that there was no realistic hope for the child. Being born two and a half months premature is extremely serious anywhere, let alone the nation with the world's highest infant mortality rate. Swathed in a blanket against his mother's chest, Samuel, his mother and father, the doctor and I made our way back up to Mile 91 in the ambulance. Sitting silently next to me, the mother took a small pouch from her wrap with her delicate fingers and took a pinch of snuff. I very gladly accepted a pinch from the extended pouch. As I savored the effects, we sped past a mini-van bus with a goat tied to the roof. Reflecting on the day, a death, a birth, the sights sounds and smells working in the clinic, I was struck by how unfazed I was by it all. The next day the mother came into the clinic for a follow up. She told us Samuel in now is heaven.

             Three months ago as I sat in the terminal at JFK, if you had told me what I would be seeing and doing, boarding the jet would have been infinitely more nerve wracking. But after only 12 weeks of Peace Corps, planet Sierra Leone has cease to be disconcerting. Since my first eventful day at the clinic, I have been back many times. I have helped to change bandages on mangled legs, distributed medicine, helped set IV drips, prepared injections for the nurses and even given injections. Witnessing an epileptic seizure, I tried to explain to terrified onlookers that it was a noncommunicable disease and not demon possession. As I was taking the temperatures of waiting children to determine who were the most serious cases to be seen first, I thought of how heinously illegal my hands-on help in the clinic would be in the US, and how unqualified I was. I then realized the stunning fact that I am very qualified. I can offer another pair of clean hands, I can take directions and efficiently do what needs to be done after being shown once, I am not squeamish, and I can speak both English and Krio. Adapting to Sierra Leone means having to accept and understand that there is just a different set of rules here; there are no rules. 

Especially in my position, it is amazing what doors you can open just by asking. Mile 91 has it's own radio station which broadcasts music and talk programs, and as it focuses on local issues it enjoys quite a large following. Radio is particularly important as it is the one outlet of mass media which can reach a very wide audience in Sierra Leone; radios are cheap and the majority of the adult population is illiterate. Three of my fellow Language Arts teachers at Benevolent Islamic Secondary School are involved at the 91.0 station; one is the production manager and two conduct an evening talk program called Good Governance in which a panel discusses national politics concerns, with a focus on how the community can get involved and access their government. I expressed my interest in assisting at the radio and with the program. Several days later I got the word, come on down to the station tonight for our broadcast. The two teachers and I had about a half hour prep during which I speed read a pamphlet on Sierra Leone politics and scribbled notes as if I was preparing for a debate rebuttal. The atmosphere was very much “we'll do it live.” It was with nervous excitement that I stepped into the broadcasting booth. The two panelists and I introduced ourselves. To remain calm, I tried to ignore the microphone a few inches in-front of our faces which transmitted our every utterance to an unknown number of ears, people whom I would see in town, live. Over the next 45 minutes we discussed the the issue of the night: the responsibilities of members of parliament and how citizens can communicate grievances to their elected officials. The Sierra Leoneans spoke of the problems of citizen's apathy, corruption, and politicians who are very good at talking and little else. I was asked to comment on the differences between politics as I see it here and in the US. I said we have the same problems. The entire program was in Krio. As I type this I am at the station waiting to sit on a panel discussing the proposed redistricting before the upcoming election of the Yoni Paramount Chief.

Three and a half weeks into living at my site, my feeling is so far so good.