Progress

Being in Sierra Leone is like a never-ending SAT study session: dogged exercises that strain the mind and knowing that there’s really no point in resisting cause what has to be done will – and whether you like it or not, problems will jump out, for which no amount of preparation you’ll be properly equipped .

Last week on our way back from the shelter at Kissi Town we got into a small accident.  Small for us, but a bit more severe for the people behind us.  Ashley, Jon, and I were sitting in the back seat of a poda-poda, the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th person to be jammed into the vehicle.  We were temporarily stopped to let out a passenger when we heard a loud crash.  We turned to see another poda-poda barreling towards us.  Oh great.  In milliseconds, reflecting on family, God, how-in-the-world-am-I-going-out-before-Castro?, and a few books I’d always wanted to read.  Fortunately, the poda-poda had lost much of its speed, so we only sustained a moderate jolt.  Wails of hysteria went up from our vehicle and we piled out of the van like clowns on a circus floor.

We quickly learned a car had tried to overtake a huge truck, which slammed on its breaks in seeing a slowed poda-poda in back of ours.  Everyone involved was okay, except one man who stumbled out of the truck with the bridge of his nose split open.  His eyes were shocked saucers and blood dripped down his shirt and pants.  Ashley yelled, “Pressure, pressure!” and a man put a rag to his head.  He was put into a poda-poda and taken to the hospital; I was surprised with the speed it all happened.   We all piled back into our vehicle and couldn’t help but turn our heads at every screech and horn honk for the duration of the trip.  Thankfully, that has been our first accident in Sierra Leone.  Breakdowns, however, are par for the course.

Meanwhile, progress at the shelter is going well!   The last week and a half have been especially busy with finalizing fund allocations, drafting of necessary documents,  and co-coordinating project completion, both at the shelter and at the farm.

At the school/shelter, bunk beds are almost complete.  They will provide proper bedding for all 32 students and the shelter, many for whom this is the first bed in their life.  Toilet construction is also underway: the 16-foot pit has been dug and we are finalizing estimates for construction of the toilet structure.  Our primary goal for this trip was to make improvements for the student living conditions and it is a blessing to see our donated funds take shape in tangible ways.

Ashley did much research prior to our trip about solar lights and we were able to bring two such lights for the shelter.  A small crowd of children, teachers, Reverend Spencer, and distant onlookers with baskets on their heads watched as we instructed use of the solar plate and the charging process.  This will lessen the need for kerosene lamps, which cause respiratory problems in children and adults.  We hope to supply more of such lights in the future as they are unavailable here.

The agriculture project continues to do well.  4 acres of land have been cleared using a method called intercropping.  As you can see from the pictures, trees are not completely cut down, allowing for regrowth and prevention of erosion.  Crops planted are the following: peppers, eggplants, potatoes, corn, groundnuts (like peanuts), cassava, rice, pumpkin, okra, and pineapple.  Abdul Smith, the head farm laborer, consulted farmers in the area and decided that diversifying the crop types will result in greater selling profits.  Moreover, as we are now using donated land near the school for agriculture classes and food for the students, we can focus the profits at the farm for school/shelter improvements and food for the children.  The Ministry of Land recently visited the farm to commend the work being done with the agriculture project.

Eggplant

Motorcycle Driver, Festus, and cassava

Head farm laborer, Abdul Smith, and Ashley

At the end of this month, under the supervision of Compassion First volunteer, Jon Fjeld, Makripodis Secondary School/Fountain of Mercy Shelter will embark on an Okada Service (Okada = Nigerian word for motorcycle taxi).   This Okada will operate in the Freetown Peninsula and is hoped to bring in significant profits for the school and shelter.

With the agriculture project and now the Okada service, we hope to help the school/shelter move further towards self-sufficiency and sustainability.

As noted several times in other entries, things in Sierra Leone work so incredibly slowly.  Due to cultural differences, certainly at times, and to the obvious difficulties like poor infrastructure and lack of materials -  but usually simply in the fact that what you’d never expected to happen, will.  It works both ways, too: I have been enlivened and amazed by the support so many people in the Kissi Town area are giving to the projects at the farm and shelter.  Reverend Spencer summed it up best in reflecting on the recent improvements at both sites: “It is great….fine, just fine!”

L-R:  Pa Sesay (70 yrs old!), Alpha, Jonah, Abdul

Kambia

 Got back from a short trip to Kambia - town in NW Sierra Leone where we spent a month last year working with AMNet (Advocacy Movement Network) on children’s rights/women’s advocacy –  a few days ago and it is always crazy to go from the peace of the rural, ultimate country life, to that of Freetown and the insanity that persists.

 

In Kambia, greeted friends and families and police officers and teachers and former RUF rebel leaders (now an ordained minister), and more kids than I can count, ate food that was so kindfully made but truly strange (weird parts of goat and chicken swamped in a pool of palm oil), ran in the rain and pushed around a little naked kid on a makeshift cart, while showering saw a spider large as my hand on the wall behind me, watched a 17-year old boy give an English letter writing assignment on a chalkboard on a front porch,  listened to the call of prayer and sat watching an old man next to me push his head to the ground repeatedly, walked to a village called Kassasi and saw Koranic verses tied up in pieces of paper with string hanging from houses to ward away evil spirits, saw the ills of intermarriage in all its forms also in Kassasi (disproportionate limbs, crossed, vacant eyes), watched a man cut bark chips off a tree trunk to soak in water, then boil, of which will be drank to cure malaria – a traditional medicine that works -, threw dozens of children up into the air and think I re-herniated my neck disc, watched football matches in a concrete box of a building with 50 sweaty men, saw the greatest of storms approach like an angry child across the sky, battling its way with grey fingers and then pounce on us, the goats hiding under eaves of houses, gave gifts to neighbors (mostly clothes from my drawers that they treated as heirlooms), saw billions of stars in the sky, waved to a man climbing up a palm tree to tap it for palm wine,  held baby Jonah Walton Turay (AMNet staff member we worked with last year named his boy after myself and Ashley…an unexpected surprise in choice of names last year upon his birth!) and watched him alternate between fascination and terror in seeing a white person (he didn’t cry while Ashley held him, rats!),

 

ran through the jungle on paths walked by rebels and soldiers and now just farmers and villagers, the deep rotting smell of jungle at once alluring and repulsive, heard “Opato” (white man) hundreds and hundreds of times from little kids, shook the leathery hands of old men and women, in one instance a blind woman in her 60′s who held her hands into the air and waited for me to shake it, her nephew explaining that she was shaking hands of an Opato, sat on the  back porch with Ashley and watched the wind dwindle and with it fading sounds of goats and chickens and leaves, spoke to a sweet little 9-year old girl named Senna with browning hair due to lack of vitamins and watched the night envelop us.

 

Stepping through the grass

 Drivers here take this sign too literally.

Since our arrival last Wednesday, we’ve visited Makripodis Secondary School/Fountain of Mercy shelter home several times  to meet with Reverend Spencer to discuss improving living conditions and daily diet for the children.  To maximize profits from the farm at the John Obey community, located 5 miles from the school, we’ve decided to use 100% of farm profits for essentials such as food and medicine.  Two additional acres at the farm have been cleared, providing enough room for recent planting of corn and groundnuts, in addition to the already planted potato, cassava, pepper, okra, and cucumbers.  Meanwhile, we discovered a plot of land adjacent to the newly donated home can be used for an additional small farm.  This will eliminate the costly expense of transporting students to the farm every weekend to work.  And, this will provide on-site, hands-on access for teaching Agriculture class. 

 

 Today we met the Reverend in Freetown to finalize plans for building bunkbeds for the shelter children and preminilary plans for a proper toilet facility.  We are excited as both projects will be an enormous improvement for their personal hygiene – 21 boys currently sleep on the floor in the church and 8 girls plus Rev. Spencer’s wife sleep in one double bed.  A certain blessing for overall health and physical comfort.

We also distributed some clothing that was donated by parents of students from The Marin School in Sausalito, CA.  One boy whispered, “Now I will have a clean shirt I can wear to church.”  To see their serious faces as they buttoned up new shirts, to hear them talk and compare the crisp whiteness, a humbling scene. 

 Tomorrow we will be purchasing sets of academic books for the children.  At present, most classes have only one copy of a book per class (For example, teaching The Tempest in literature class with one book for the teacher).      

Last year students of Makrapodis Secondary School boasted the highest scores on the BECE (Basic Education Certification Exam) of all schools in the rural district on the Eastern Peninsula of Freetown.  Without a passing score on the BECE, students are not allowed to continue secondary education.  100% of Makripodis students passed their BECE last year, an incredible accomplishment for these students, many of whom were rescued from forced labor and street prostitution as a result of being orphaned at a young age.  This was achieved by selfless teachers who have worked for two years straight with no pay, no electricity at the school, thereby requiring students to study by candle or kerosene, and with woefully insufficient materials.

Being at the shelter again today – as always –  is a humbling experience.  Orphans who have been taken in and are living with love, compassion, and opportunities for education never seen before.   

Near the completion of our meeting today with Reverend Spencer, Ashley leapt up from her seat and went to the window: A 9-year-old boy named Ibrahim walked slowly through the field admiring his new shoes we gave him today.  Ibrahim was given to Rev. Spencer from the Ministry of Social welfare when he ran away from home, barefoot and with one change of clothes to his name; his parents did not enroll him in school, instead forcing him to sell petty supplies on the street.  When Ibrahim did not make enough money, his parents beat him severely, so Ibrahim ran away.  Ibrahim kicked his feet out left and right in the grass, swiveling his head, oblivious to the heat and sun above.  Ashley snapped some pictures through the steel bars in the window, a great silence enveloping the room, Ibrahim’s body growing smaller, smaller, never taking his eyes off the bright whiteness of his new shoes.   

Ashley and kids, Ibrahim far right

Road to Kissi Town and shelter home

To Kissi Town

            Today we went to the shelter home at Kissi Town.  Our first leg was to walk down to Congo Cross, a crazy junction where accidents should really be happening more frequently.  Drivers here have mastered the art of squeezing through the tiniest of spaces.  On our first poda-poda (a mini van that jams as many people as possible), I sat in the front passenger seat and Ashley in the middle.  The right side mirror hit a school boy in the back of the head as we were passing and he rubbed the spot in patient resignation.

       You catch hundreds of small human vignettes as you pass through Freetown.  Between two parked cars a woman picks her toes.  On a second floor balcony a young girl twirls like a ballerina.  A frighteningly old man slaps his knee, his laughter drowned out by the defeaning noises of the city.  Stacks of fake Levi’s.  A store that sells nothing but PVC piping.  A woman lounging against a mangled building, lazily inspecting her breasts.  How people in Freetown manage to live and survive in such close quarters is truly amazing.

            Our second leg of the trip was another poda-poda, this time to Waterloo, a roadside town an hour outside Freetown.  The driver passed Waterloo Junction, so we had to backtrack our steps through a downpour.  We were in the rain no more than a minute and we were soaked through.  Several okata (motorcycle taxi) drivers beckoned us to sit under their cover and alternated between staring at us and being engrossed in the happenings all around.

            After our third poda-poda trip, we arrived at Kissi Town.  Revered Spencer’s face was all smiles when we saw him.  We greeted the Reverend’s wife, Theresa, several teachers and students, and sat down to a discussion about the school and farm progress.  Reverend Spencer shoulted out the window and across a field at some students to bring him his glasses, the sure sign that he was ready to get down to business.   We discussed logistics in preparing for installation of bunkbeds and the completion of a small building that will, hopefully, be the girls’ new home.

            The farm continues to do well.  A few more acres have been cleared and students visit the farm every other weekend to work.  My jaw dropped when I saw the site.  10 months ago Reverend Spencer had hacked his way through a jungle and when we reached a small clearing said, “Okay, this will be the farm.”  My skepticism ran high at the time and now I was humbled by an enormous swath of land that had been cleared by hand.  Hundreds of groundnut (looks like peanuts) plants, cassava, eggplant, pepper, potato leaf, and corn as crops, all of which that can be sold locally.  The rain picked up its usual pounding and we stood under a tree looking out at the acreage.  At the far edge of the field we could see two figures approaching.  Reverend was quick to tell us it was Abdul and Pa Sesay, the two main laborers for the farm.  They picked their way across the field, looking side to side as if doing a last-minute inspection, and greeted us with weathered, toothy grins.

           

Ashley and main farm laborer, Abdul Smith

In the farm pics here you’ll see a bunch of sticks poking up through the ground.  Bizarre looking, but that’s the way they do it here: too difficult to tear them from the soil completely; also, the remaining trunks provide extra protection against erosion. 

Planted crops and recent clearing to distant tree line

We left the farm a while later and headed back through the jungle to the main road, Reverend jumped off at Kissi Town and we continued on for 10 miles on okatas, luckily with no rain.  The fog clawed its way over the mountains on the left and on the right the Atlantic waters seeped into low lying rice fields and palm trees. 

L to R: Ashley, Abul, Alpha Festus, and Rev. Spencer

            2.5 hours later we were slogging our way up a hill to our home, kids yelling in glee and playing soccer barefoot on shards of glass and broken concrete.

In Transit

At SFO

          We arrived in Sierra Leone last night at Lungi Internatoinal Airport and were overjoyed that all five bags arrived with us. A bag for Ashley and I, two 50 lb. bags of shoes, and a 50 lb. bag of clothes, solar lights, medicine, and an essential 3 lb. can of peanut butter. Per usual, a 20ish year old kid asked about the contents of our bags at immigration.

“What do you have in the bags, Sir?”

“Shoes and clothes,” I replied.

“Shoes? Clothes?”

“Shoes and clothes.”

            I started to open the bags to show him, but he slowly waived me off and motioned for me to move along. For all he knew, my bags could have been bulging at the seams with cocaine, AK-47s, or a small child. The bags weren’t checked at San Francisco International either, so I wonder where all this ‘ramping up of security’ I hear about on the news is happening. I surveyed the range of innocent to shifty eyes elbowing their way to the baggage belt, my imagination considering the contents of each bag.

              We met a woman on the plane who was part of a missionary team from Minnesota. This lady had never seen the ocean and had never been out of the country until this trip. Nothing like baptism by fire, so to speak, with her first trip being to SL. I hope she is faring well today.

              A 7 hour layover in London saw us taking the tube to Covent Gardens, lunch with Ashley’s mom who was working in London for a few days, fluffy pancackes and napkins folded perfectly. Groups of women leaning toward each other and chatting about a ‘handsome bloke,’ a ‘stunning purse,’ and the warm day they were to have in the park. Strange to several hours later be watching an old lady wearing one flip flop beg for coins at Lungi Airport.

               Ashley and I exited the airport, swarmed by hawkers and taxi drivers. Ashley purchased tickets for the 40-minute boat ride from Lungi to Freetown and we were soon bouncing our way along in a van to the docks. The boat ride from was dips and rises with the water, a scratchy TV planning the same two music videos over and over: guys crouching on Lumley Beach outside Freetown, flashing shiny watches and dark sunglasses, dancing with buxom ladies. Ashley and I had gone running on that same beach numerous times last summer and counted dead dogs and hypodermic needles with each step. How nice things look on television.

             Time sped up and everything seemed a blur: being picked up at the dock by two Americans from Oregon who are kindly offering their home for us, warm wind pouring over us, streams of smoke and dozens of men chatting on the sides of the road, a cold shower, and a dreamless sleep for 11 hours.

Fountain of Mercy Agriculture Project

**For background information on the Shelter, read Jonah’s entry “Makripodis Secondary School and Fountain of Mercy Shelter.

As is the case in many poor countries, people in Sierra Leone are very much geared towards the here and now.  The majority of Sierra Leoneans live in constant survival mode, where basic living necessities such as food, water, and shelter are often hard to come by.  Therefore, their thoughts and actions are directed towards satisfying immediate wants and needs, tending only to what seems absolutely essential.  Society in general therefore, mirrors this mentality and it is evident everywhere you look.  Houses continue to be built on hills they know will slide come the rainy season, gas tanks are filled to the amount that will just barely get them to their destination, a visit to the hospital is only obligatory once the fever has reached the point of no return, electrical poles continue to be destroyed for scrap metal even though they know it will bring them electricity if they are left standing, domestic servitude or child labor is often favored over the education of girls, corrupt bureaucrats continue to pocket foreign aid at the expense of the people they were elected to represent, and on and on.  The most frustrating part of all of this for me is that I can understand (minus the bureaucrats) the motivation for this self-destructive behavior – you do what you can to survive even if the consequences are toxic.  And so, the cycle continues.

One of the more observable aspects of this culture of immediacy is the way in which people handle their money.  The vast majority of Sierra Leoneans lack any experience with formal banking services or practices, and there is little in the way of proper financial management training in their primary or secondary education.  Often when people have the money, they choose luxury items over practicalities, omitting the option all together of accumulating savings for future investments or emergencies.  The importance of savings renders useless when you’re constantly thinking about today – buy what you can now because you probably won’t have the money tomorrow – often the rationale behind such impulsive decision making.  Therefore, (more often than not) Sierra Leoneans find themselves unprepared when lightning strikes – turning what needn’t be catastrophic ordeals turn into catastrophic ordeals.  The complete void of financial planning and anticipation of such events makes dealing with them extremely difficult.  This is noticeable on an individual level as well as the societal level; it is evident in family households as well as government institutions, resulting in a debt ridden, uneducated and ailing society.

Since its founding in 2007, the Fountain of Mercy Shelter Home has been operating off of 200,000 Leones per month – a little over $50.  $50 is supposed to feed 28 adolescent boys and girls for an entire month.  Sometimes that means there is one meal a day, sometimes that means there is one meal every 2 or 3 days.   When a student is sick, Reverend Spencer puts his faith in the power of prayer to heal the child because $50 is not enough to feed 28 kids for a month and pay for hospital and transportation fees.  A proper house for the girls to live in (currently 9 girls live in one 7×10 ft. room) remains a distant dream because $50 doesn’t leave any money at the end of the month for non-essentials.  This is truly survival mode.

Makripodis Secondary School Kids

When Jonah and I first started discussing ways to help the shelter home, we knew that we had to do something that would completely change the way the shelter operates.  Given the transient and unreliable nature of donors (good-natured as they may be), they should not be considered a solution to the shelter’s problems.  If we put all of our faith in donors, what happens when the money runs out and the donations stop coming – where does this leave them?  Complete reliance on donors only perpetuates the culture of dependency which has permeated throughout Sierra Leonean society (a blog for another day).   This is not to say that donations aren’t necessary, because they are, vital in fact, but depending on them for long-term financing is a recipe for disaster.  For the shelter, we knew we had to help them become self-sustaining so that money could be generated from within, and donations could be seen as a supplement to their own income – the shelter needed a profitable enterprise.

Shelter Student, Emanuel Conteh carving an axe handle

Our goal for the shelter is twofold – the first being tangible and the second an ideal.  Goal #1 is to provide two meals a day, every day for the shelter kids.  The second is to work with the students and staff members to refocus their perspective from survival mode to a more future-oriented mentality; this would encourage savings, goal setting and a strengthened work ethic.  In order to help them find confidence in the future, however, today’s needs must first be met.  We worked on a plan that would alleviate both short and long term struggles.   Our solution was to start an agriculture project run by the students and staff of the shelter home, whereby the food grown would supplement the student’s diet and the surplus would be sold in the nearby markets to accumulate savings for future investments and emergencies.

An agricultural business seemed appropriate for a number of reasons: first, the shelter is located in an area with vast, fertile land, perfectly suitable for a number of different local crops.  The Village Chief of a neighboring community offered to donate us 10 acres of land on which to start our project (truly a blessing from above).  Not only is the land endowed with good soil, a river borders the site which will provide year-long supply of fresh water to the farm.  Second, the Sierra Leonean government has made domestic agricultural production a staple of their overall development strategy, endorsing both small and large scale farming to reduce the country’s dependence on imported food.  This has resulted in fewer restrictions on land use for agricultural purpose and increased support for community agricultural development.  Third, agriculture as an academic study is compulsory in secondary education due to the significance of farming in Sierra Leonean culture; 2/3 of the labor force is engaged in agriculture, 90% of which are women.  Both business and agricultural skills would be learned in a practical environment with the advent of an agriculture project at the shelter, an invaluable asset to students who have a limited opportunity to advance to university.  Competence in agriculture at an early stage could help the shelter student’s transition to a promising career in commercial farming.  Lastly, farming takes time, nurturing, and perseverance.  There are factors completely out of human control which can lead to unpredictable outcomes.  However, with patience and hard work, the rewards are plentiful.  I was reminded of this reading through Proverbs a few days ago.  Proverbs 13:11 says, “Wealth from get rich quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard-work grows.”  In addition to practical skills gained, the shelter students will experience personal growth and pride in ownership and responsibility; something that they can carry with them throughout their lives.

New Farm Tools!

After a few months of planning, fundraising and preparation, our ideas have finally become a reality.   The agriculture project and business plan was conceived and designed together with Reverend Spencer and a few of the teachers at the school.  After months of working with lawyers to navigate the convoluted government ministry procedures and formalities (i.e. bribe under the guise of an “expediting fee”), we were able to officially secure the donation of the full 10 acres of land through the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Department.  For the first year, we are going to clear and plant on three acres of land, which gives us plenty additional acreage to expand when we’re ready for it.  Our main crops are pepper, cassava, potato, groundnuts, cucumber, okra, and eggplant.   We have hired a farm manager, Pa Fatorma, and one additional full time laborer, Abdul Smith.  The shelter students work on the weekends and have been given personal plots to manage (growing a crop of their choice) which will be integrated into their agriculture curriculum at school.  Just last week, we were able to purchase a motorcycle for transportation to and from the farm site.  A savings account has been opened for the Shelter with close to $100 to get them started.   Reverend Spencer and the students are incredibly proud of their project, and for the first time, hopeful that the future is bright.

Brand New Project Bike!

More updates and pictures of progress at the Fountain of Mercy Agriculture Project coming…

If you would like to donate to the agriculture project or anything else at the shelter home, please click here.  We are grateful for any donations!

York Road Amputee Camp

Ashley:   Just when I thought I had seen the worst of it, the fragile clutch of my hopeful spirit took yet another blow.

After interviewing Reverend Spencer (Kissi Town Shelter founder and Makripodis School Principal) on the dismal state of his shelter home and school, Jonah and I sat, once again speechless, struggling for a way to give immediate and realistic encouragement to this selfless man.  Painfully conscious once again of the huge divide between our world and that of Reverend Spencer, Jonah reiterated the importance of telling the individual stories of Sierra Leoneans to his students and everyday Americans.  “When Americans hear about Africa, they hear numbers and statistics. Yes, they are horrible, and sad,” he said.  “This many dead, this many living on under a dollar a day.  We have to turn these numbers into names…tell the stories…make the human connection.”  He mentioned the Africa unit he teaches at the Marin School and that the main book he uses, titled, “A Long Way Gone,” about a boy soldier in Sierra Leone.  I mentioned that my senior thesis was about peace building in post-conflict Sierra Leone.  Surprised and grateful to hear that students in America were learning about his country, the Reverend replied, “Ah!?  Wonderful!  So you came here to see it for yourself, did you?  Have you visited the amputees yet? “

Perhaps the most senseless and disgusting element of the Sierra Leone war was the rebels’ tactic of systematically chopping off thousands of innocent civilians’ limbs, for reasons that cannot be rationally explained.  They went for the young and the old, sometimes amputating babies not old enough to crawl.  The result: thousands of farmers unable to work their land, students unable to write, business people unable to type, athletes unable to run.  I’ve seen many amputees since we arrived here a couple of months ago.  Mostly we see them in Central Freetown, gathered in groups and begging for change or food.  Some are in wheelchairs, others in wagons with awkward hand cranks, I guess the more affordable (and less comfortable) means of mobilization.  We met a couple of boys who played for the amputee football league, strapping, youthful, and robbed of an invaluable leg.  I have yet to see any prosthetics.  It’s pathetic.

Perhaps the second most senseless and disgusting element of the war was, and is, the government’s handling of the thousands of civilian amputees.  I became aware of this pitiful truth when Reverend Spencer scheduled us a visit to an amputee camp on the outskirts of Freetown.

The leader (or spokesman of sorts) of the amputee camp, Ishmail Daramy, agreed to us coming and interviewing himself and the other residents.  York Road Amputee Camp was built by the Norwegian Refugee Council in 2002 and has been home to 10 amputees and their families ever since.  The Norwegians paid for the construction of the rudimentary buildings while the World Food Program supplied the amputees with about 6 months worth of food.  Since then, funding from the Norwegians has ceased, food supply has been cut, and the residents of York Road have been left to fend for themselves.

As soon as we arrived at the camp, Ishmail greeted us outstretched wrists; both hands stolen 13 years prior.  As if fearful of a missed opportunity, he quickly began to illustrate the litany of injustices faced by the Sierra Leonean amputees.  “We are suffering greatly,” he said over and over again.  Struggle and frustration was written all over his face; his eyes weary and the wrinkles in his forehead deepened by years of unspeakable grief.  With a cigarette clutched between the stumps of his wrists, he asked kindly for a light.  As we spoke, he looked me straight in the eyes, as if begging for help without having to say the words.  He has begged enough and was clearly tired of it.

Ishmail Daramy at the York Road Amputee Camp

The government of Sierra Leone has done little, if anything to assist the amputees.  The official response to these atrocities was, and is shameful.  Ishmail informed us that the rebels began amputating civilians as early as 1994 in the rural areas of the country; however, neither the government nor the international community made anything of it until the RUF made it into the capital city, Freetown, in 1999.  Only then did the amputating massacre that had ripped through the hinterland for the past five years make the headlines.

Ishmail was amputated at half past 8 in the morning on June 26^th, 1996, in his home town of Kono, the most strategic diamond mining area in all of Sierra Leone.  After his hands were severed by the rebels, he walked 15 miles through the bush to find a vehicle who could take him to the hospital.  When he finally reached the hospital it was 10 o’clock at night, his life slowly fading away.  This man was not a rebel, a kamajor, a government soldier, or a politician.  He did not pledge allegiance to any faction of the war’s many splintered parties.  He was an honest man doing honest work; a commercial driver trying to survive and support his family in the nucleus of a brutal war zone.   He was pulled from his car and given no say in the matter…his hands would be cut off and that was that.  The rebels wanted control of the diamond mines.  If they took everyone’s hands or legs, there would be no one to fight back.  This was the logic.

Once a final ceasefire was signed and the war was finally over, the Sierra Leonean government and UNAMSIL (the United Nations Armed Mission in Sierra Leone) orchestrated a large DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) program for the 40,000+ rebels who had been terrorizing the country for the past eleven years.  The rebels went through counseling, schooling and/or vocational training in order to be reintegrated into civilian life.  They were given a resettlement package which consisted of a $140 allowance, supplemented by several tools of their chosen trade to get back on their feet.  Several NGOs and UN agencies worked with former combatants after the war and numerous services have been made available to ease their transition.  Many of the former rebels are living comfortably today.

Meanwhile, the innocent people who lost one or more of their appendages at the hands of these rebels got nothing of the sort.  The government of Sierra Leone made provisions to support the amputees in the Lome Accord (the ceasefire agreement which officially ended the war), yet nothing has been seen of these provisions to this day.  Other than a few NGOs that supported the amputees with immediate (meager) assistance following the war, the ones victimized most by the rebels (who managed to survive) were the ones most neglected.  With contempt in his voice, Ishmail admitted, “The ones who did this to us, we have to sit around and watch them become rich men.  They got everything and we got nothing.  If the government is going to pay someone for being a rebel, why shouldn’t my children take up guns?”  How is that for a slap in the face?

In order to provide for his family, Ishmail has taken to begging on the streets.  Regrettably, this is the fate of most of Sierra Leone’s amputees.  All ten of the York Road amputees beg for a living.  There has been no support structure put in place by the government to provide gainful employment opportunities for the large amputated population.  Employers turn a blind eye to the men and women searching for a job with one arm, or one leg.  Yet Ishmail’s concern is not for himself.  He has long ago given up on hope for his own future.  It is the fate of his 5 children that keeps him from sleeping at night. “How can I send my children to school?  How can I give them an education so that they know better than to take up arms again?  Education is the only hope for my children and this country.  If my children don’t go to school, what is to keep them from starting another war?”  What, then, is to keep them from repeating the past?  Eight years after the war has ended, the state of education in Sierra Leone is dangerously similar to how it was before to the war started.  Ishmail’s nightmare is all too close to reality.

Residents of the York Road Amputee Camp

When asked if he was resentful to the government for their neglect, his response revealed a painful truth.  “Of course.  The government has abandoned us.  How are we supposed to survive?  During the war, who was responsible for protecting us? The government. They failed to protect me and I was amputated – destroyed physically and psychologically.  I paid my taxes during the entire war and they neglected their responsibility to my security; they failed to protect me.  Now I am amputated and begging on the streets to survive.  This is my situation now.”

I left York Road amputee camp feeling tired and angry.  This place is so messed up.

Back to Kambia

Departure from Freetown felt like a numbed and woozy escape from the dentist’s.  Freetown is situated beautifully: swooping green hills with the Atlantic beckoning.  Sadly, its geography plays the role of a disapproving older sibling to the traffic, waste…more waste.   We arrived in Kambia after 5 hours in torrents of rain in a mini-van with no air circulation.  It was the first transport in the last 7 weeks that did not result in some sort of grinding breakdown on the edge of soupy roads.  Luxurious!  I sat next to an Imam who kept falling asleep on my shoulder.  His smell a mixture of Old Spice and mothballs.  To my right a young boy happily introduced himself as Mohammed.  He read a crumpled book called The Voyage of Mimi.  The first page set the scene somewhere in New England, the father and son in pleated pants and crisp shirts, speaking with hands on hips about the wind, knots, and jibs.  Mohammed’s head swiveled around in exhaustion and Mimi’s voyage would wait to be discovered another day.  They slept for most of the trip, the Imam wrapped in a brown Nautica jacked once white, nuzzling my shoulder; Mohammed’s head crushed between his legs.

We were excited to see the Bangura family, our friends who live across from the AMNet office.  As usual, the mother out back by the ever-lit fire, cooking.  She hugged Ashley, and a few minutes later was removing her breast and telling her about a current ailment.   Alhasan gave us a hug, smiled, but seemed to have aged since seeing him just 3 weeks ago.  I noticed a series of shaky creases at the edges of his mouth.  He informed us that his brother Alusine had left for Freetown the day before because their stepmother was in a coma.  We stood there trying to digest the matter while Alhasan fought back the lengthening creases and a shaky voice.  

Abas arrived a while later and said he had recovered from malaria.  The boil on his leg was healing fairly well.

After numerous greetings and children running full speed into my legs, I spent part of the evening typing up a draft of Child Rights Bylaws for Kambia District.  Each district is to submit a draft of Bylaws, with (un)necessary variances, to the central government in Freetown.  Trainings for the Child Rights Act are to taken place in all 14 districts of Sierra Leone.  We participated in a Child Rights Act training several weeks ago in Kambia.  The rights are straight forward and necessary, simultaneously wonderful and disturbing that they are just now being implemented in 2009.  The Sierra Leone Child Rights Act now include the following:

1. All children have the right to life and to grow and develop.    2.  All children have the right to have a name that has been legally registered, and to a nationality.   3.  All children have the right to live with their parents and family and to grow up in a peaceful and caring environment.    4.  All children have the right to live in dignity and to be treated with respect.  They also have the right to relax and play, grow up in liberty,  and to receive education, shelter and the things they need to stay healthy, including immunization against diseases.                         

5.  All children have the right to receive a fair share of their parents’ property if their parents should die.    6.  All children have the right to be protected from war and violent conflict.   7.  All children have the right to take part in sports, in cultural and artistic activities and in other forms of recreation.   8.  All children with a disability of any kind have the right to special care, education and support, so that they can lead full and independent lives.   9.  All children have the right to say what they think should happen when adults have to take decisions that affect them. 10.  All children have the right to be protected by the Government from having to do any kind of work that is dangerous, or that might harm their health or their education.              

                                                                                                                                         11.  All children have the right to be protected from harsh torture and harsh treatment or punishment, including beatings.  The Child Rights Act does not allow anyone – including parents – to use violence to punish children. 12.  Nobody under the age of 18 is allowed to get married.

Wonderful to see these implemented!  These are Child Rights that are imperative to the foundations of any healthy community or country.  Yet, as I typed up the draft of the Child Rights Bylaws, I was overcome with a feeling of deep despair.  It was not just because of the poor grammar nor was it word usage, nor syntax, nor the strange mechanics, that would ultimately confused people.  This draft of Bylaws felt a best friend of Echo, doomed to repeat the mistakes that has trapped Sierra Leone, and so many other African countries, for so long.  Example:

The Bylaws spoke of transgressions against children such as sexual abuse, forced labor, and manipulations – crimes that need to be addressed clearly.  Yet with each crime spoken of – and with each fine to be imposed on the perpetrator – there was linked the phrase “or to be paid in kind.”  This payment consists of goods, commodities equivalent to the price of the fine.  The scales felt like they were falling from my eyes, but unlike that blessed man in the dusty road – who felt better after the fact – the process made my head ache and my sight dizzy. 

“Or to be paid in kind” is one of those frightening phrases that leave room for doubt and misinterpretation, shadows of illegitimacy.  Leaves room for people to make use of the devices the words allow:  the Gorgon head of corruption.  How many fines are actually paid and how many are “in kind” is something I’d like to know.  Kindness comes in different shapes, sizes, and quantities, both tangible and intangible, does it not?

Poor word usage is not equal to all things illegitimate, certainly.  It remains a symptom of a larger problem:  lack of attention – or intent to avoid – details that remain comparably easy to fix.  Details that would assuage a host of personal disasters.

Makrapodis Secondary School and Fountain of Mercy shelter

 

                      Makrapodis Secondary School

 

Freetown is located on the tip of a stocky peninsula that points NW from mainland Sierra Leone. Since our return from Kambia, we’ve been visiting Makrapodis Secondary School located on the Eastern edge of the peninsula. The school is located in a small village called Kissi Town, just south of the town of Tombo, overlooking the ocean below. The school doubles as a shelter home called Fountain of Mercy for middle and high school students, most of them orphaned, parents either dead or having given them up due to lack of finances.

Revered Spencer serves as school principal, head of the shelter home, and pastor of the Baptist church a few hundred meters down the road. He receives no payment for any of these jobs and stretches his personal funds to supply a meager one meal per day for children. The Reverend also acts as security, sleeping in the church with the boys of the shelter home. There are two withered mattresses for a few of the other boys, while the rest sleep on the floor or on the church benches. Meanwhile, the 8 girls of the shelter room sleep in a 10X6 room with Teresa, the Reverend’s wife. There is one double bed in this room for the 9 women; the girls unable to fit on the bed sleep on the rat-infested floor. Appalling conditions surely, but comparably luxurious to the short-lived, painful lives of children stuck on the street. Many of the children have faced the degradation of street labor, some prostitution, to make money enough to survive. The teachers at Makrapodis, meanwhile, have worked on a voluntary basis for two years, many using their spare time searching endlessly for work. Why do they do this? “The children need help,” one teacher said simply, stalwartly, and necessarily.

Kissi Town is predominately a fishing village. Recently the government passed a law against catching fish below a certain size. Environmentally-friendly, surely, but due to the quick implementation of the law – and no options for other employment – many local fisherman have now lost their one area of reliable income. Enormous, long-tail boats now sit stranded on the beaches; fishermen stitch their nets with sad eyes, hoping their next haul will meet government standards. Rev. Spencer informed us that some fisherman, in order to thwart certain starvation, fish under the cloak of night to avoid being caught by authorities, often-times lying on the bottom of boats for hours at time. Many of the shelter children’s parents were/are fisherman and are no longer able to provide.

local beach/fisherman

The Rev. Spencer, several teachers, Ashley, and I walked around school/shelter property. He pointed out with humility – and gratitude for – the substandard structural facilities: leaky roofs, chalkboards like reptile skin with scabs, cracks in the concrete walls, elevated holes in the ground with four claustrophobic walls that serve as toilets. Blessings, all of them, considering the vacancy of adequate funding, and nowhere else for the children to go.

I asked the Reverend about the reasons for his dedication to these projects, to these children, and the communities where they struggle, to which he answered, “If I don’t, who will? Someone needs to take that step.” His ‘step’ is an ultra-marathon with no windbreaks along the way.

As we walked around the school, shelter, and church property, teens approached and introduced themselves with kind, cautious smiles, said “Nice to meet you” and “Thank you for your help,” while thumbing through yellowing pages of books, holding and swinging their peaceful hands. To see a child who you can tell wants to smile widely, but holds back, only doing so with a tentative flicker of the lips, fearful that moment of joy will be swept away by an avalanche of despair as it has so many times before – it is a crushing gravity.

128 students are currently enrolled at Makrapodis Secondary School, 20 of them full-time shelter live-ins. Being that the school is private, government funds are non-existent despite being required to be registered with the government and having to meet numerous standards. Money is said to always “Be coming soon.” Teachers have to do with what materials they can find in the nearby village of Tombo, or, if they are lucky, get a ride to Waterloo for better choices (Freetown is a non-option because of the high cost to get there, about 2USD). These ‘materials’ consist of such items as one copy of a paperback entitled “Basic English Grammar” for use with all students. I spoke with the literature teacher who uses this personal copy as the basis for his grammar instruction. In addition, he teaches literature – somehow – with no copies for any of the students. Teachers spending endless hours copying lessons by kerosene lamps for students. Their fingers scraping the chalkboard along with the nubs of chalk.

Still, four block classes are taught per day, the following subjects alternating every other: Mathematics, French, Integrated Science, Business Studies, Agriculture, Social Studies, Literature, Government, RME (Religious Moral Education), History, Health Science, Financial Accounting, Cost Accounting, Economics, Business Management, and Physical Health Education.

This year students of Makrapodis Secondary School boasted the highest scores on the BECE (acronym pronounced Be’ Kay, Basic Education Certification Exam) of all schools in the rural district on the Eastern Peninsula of Freetown that includes Waterloo, Tombo, and Kissy Town. The BECE is a make or break test for youths in Sierra Leone and many are, accordingly, enormously anxious about the exam (Although the school is private, its students must take the BECE exam; the government still, therefore, regulates indirectly but gives no funding) First, they have to be able to pay to ‘sit’ in the exam. In most cases, parents cannot afford to pay the $6 required to take the exam: children discontinue their education, the cycle of uneducated youths continues. If students can afford to take the exam, they must choose an area of focus, whether it be science or art (literature, social studies) or math. They are thus funneled into a specific area of interest, eliminating the opportunity to take classes prior to the BECE outside of their field. From this point until the completion of their secondary education, they must take classes in one area of focus; it is incredibly difficult, time consuming, and expensive to retake exams if a different focus is chosen at a later date. A backward, antiquated, disheartening system that pigeonholes already-marginalized youths with little idea if they will get to eat that day or not, let alone their area of ‘specialty’ for the rest of their lives. The exams are terrifically outdated, Soviet-like in their standardization, a certain benchmark for failure, not success for many struggling youths in Sierra Leone.

Still, there are many who make it work. The students of Makrapodis make it work: orphaned, malnourished, and damaged. They receive high academic marks, the school receives glowing reviews by the Sierra Leonean government who wonders how this is being accomplished. The staff and students of Makrapodis have learned that education and hard work is the only way out. They have learned the most important of concepts. No student has been placed on an individualized learning plan. No student is able to cite his or her ADD as the reason for not completing last night’s homework. Incomplete is not an option. No student can place some obscure blame on someone else for a lack of proper test preparation. There usually isn’t a ‘someone else’ in their life. No student has the help of the limitless knowledge within computers. No student has the chance to say, “I couldn’t find it,” after a few seconds on Google. What these students could absorb in those brief moments with such a fantastic tool of technology, what they would give to be able to do so. No student can study by the comfort of electricity. No student is guaranteed of anything other than love, support, and care. The teachers at Makrapodis also make it work: with no materials, no pay, by most peoples’ standards, no anything. The teachers don’t attend workshops, are not learned on recent pedagogies, are not part of a union, are not versed on what is politically correct and what isn’t, are not skilled in matters of project implementation and ‘best practices,’ do not have an office (or permanent home for that matter), are not tethered to what periods when they are free and when they must actually work…because is all work. All the time.

It is obvious that – no matter the country or demographic – the parents, mentors, role-models, adolescents and children who embrace fact that nothing replaces hard work are only then to be the juggernaut of progress, support, and growth they are meant to be. Such is diligence. Acceptance of a situation and the ability to overcome. Hope. Being steadfast. In light of, and in spite of, the certain ‘arrows of misfortune’ that have occurred and are bound to strike at some inevitable point in the future.

From Here to There

Saturday:

6:45 a.m.: We leave our home in the Western part of Freetown, a small apartment in an area called Babadorie. We are staying with a Nigerian man named Michael. We walk 1/2 mile to Lumley Junction and catch a cab.

6:48: Cab runs out of gas. We get out and hail another cab.

8:00: We secure a mini van at a Shell station on the Eastern edge of Freetown for the trip to Bo, Sierra Leone’s second largest city. Before we depart, I buy a bottle of water from a man who looks like he is suffering from psoriasis; his water-selling partner collects the money, but then refuses to give me my change. The first man looks disappointed, and the second, upon further review, looks drunk. An argument ensues between the two men, I’m stuck in the middle, and soon there are about 15 men standing around trying to get a glimpse of the action. There is a tussle between the two original men, and others get involved in the pushing and pulling, most of them, it seems, out of boredom. I’m standing there amidst the chaos, wondering what will happen next. The tussle between the sober and drunk guy is a sad affair of rubbery limbs and spit. I finally get my change from the sober guy and get in the mini van.

10:00: Soon after the pavement gives way to a dirt road, our mini van breaks down in a village submerged in palm trees: the gear shift is stuck in park and will not budge. Driver hits gear shift with his fist several times to no avail. One scruffy passenger mentions “fuse box.” The nearby bustling market sells firewood and palm fronds for roofing material. We wait thirty minutes before a young man from the village appears with an assortment of wires; he rapidly strips a few of them, fashioning new fuses for the car. Happily on our way.

10:45: Mini van makes grinding noises and comes to a halt on a bright orange dirt road in the jungle. A naked boy pees on the side of the road and looks on with mild interest. Out comes the piece of wire we were given previously, more fuses are made, this time by a tall passenger man who looks a lot like Lawrence Fishbourne. We are soon again on our way.

11:30: Arrive in Bo. Exit mini van and hail motorcycle taxi for ride to Bo city center. Ashley disappears up the street. My motorcycle taxi runs out of gas. I help the rider push the motorcycle to a little stand that sells fuel in one liter bottles. The girl who sells us fuel looks about 10 years old and is wearing a pink shirt that says ‘Little Angel.’ Her hair is tightly braided in a star pattern that culminates in an exploding tuft on the top of her head. We fuel up and soon arrive in the center of town.

                                                                Bo

1:30 p.m.: Diamond offices line the street in Bo. We want to see what they are like inside, though we know entrance is probably unlikely being that they sell only to licensed traders. My heart feels heavy thinking about the destruction these tiny rocks caused in all of Sierra Leone: turned men into animals. We pound on the door of one office, hear several bolts being undone, and are greeted by a swarthy, greasy-haired man who asks us what we want. “We’d like to see your diamond store,” I pipe up cheerfully, stepping in the room. Beyond him several men lean over a table with magnifying glasses and eyepieces. They all look up menacingly, though a bit like greedy children upset that we are ruining their little game. “You can’t see any,” the greasy guy drawls.” “Well, how can I buy any if I can’t see any?” I venture. “You have to have a diamond license,” he oozes. He pushes his hair out of his eyes. “Ooh, I see,” I reply. He stares at Ashley like a ravished wolf eyeing a bunny. “Well, guess I can’t buy any then,” I smile. “Guess not,” he responds. Greasy guy ushers us out and I feel like I’ve taken a long shower in iniquity.

3:30: Bo to Kenema: Ashley and I cram in the back of a taxi with two large men (Ashley on my lap), and a man with a woman on his lap in the front passenger seat. The guy sitting back left introduces himself as J-Bez, tells us he is a comedian and voice actor. Car starts to shake uncontrollably several miles outside Kenema. The driver stops the car a few times and looks under the hood. Shaking subsides, we arrive to Kenema under steel gray skies. Rain pours. J-Bez takes a liking to us and walks us to Star FM 98.4 where he does voice work. En route men of all ages yell out, “J-Bez!” Seems he is quite famous in Sierra Leone for his comedic renditions of the various tribes. The radio station has an extra rooms with a foam mattress on the ground.  Best digs we’re likely to get in Kenema.  It ends up being our accommodations for two nights.

Sunday:

9:00 a.m.: Our new friend DJ Master P (real name Sylvanus, who works for Star 98.4 – name taken from the mid-90s rapper most memorable for catchy refrain “Unnnnhhh, na na na” in one of his songs) hires a motorbike for the day to take us to the Gola Forest. Tire is flat. We take bike to repair shop. Throngs of late teen/early twenties type men stand around the oil and fuel-filled air smoking with an expectant, hungry look about them. We fill tire and depart.

10:45: Master P drives Ashley and me at excessive speeds through 40 miles of the densest forest I’ve ever seen. Vines curl and crush tree trunks and leaves bigger than my torso reach for the ground. I worry about Master P’s skills on a motorcycle. Hairpin turns and swift adjustments second after second. We arrive at Gola Chiefdom where Master P’s father is paramount chief. Discover that we cannot enter the forest because we do not have proper documentation, despite being told, in Kenema, that it wasn’t needed. We sit with several old men outside mud huts in silence. They are all dressed in traditional one-piece African outfits that brush the ground when they stand. Little children squirm and make faces. The wind is cool but heavy. An imam washes himself on the far side of a hut, preparing for prayer. One of the older men asks me where I’m from. “America. Oregon.” “You got ID?” he inquires. “Uh, yes, I think…” “I have ID!” he interrupts, and ducks into a nearby hut. I’m feeling strangely nervous, like I just got pulled over. We hear rummaging sounds and he emerges holding a Texas state ID card. He proclaims: “I have green card, too. I can come and go as I please…to America. Texas. Big.” His smile is so wide and genuine I want to hug him.

                                                                                                                                      Sylvanus a.k.a. Master P and Ashley

12:00 p.m.: Flat tire half way back to Kenema. Remnants o f a slash and burn forest – making room for rice and ground nut crop – encroach on either side of the dirt road. Hundreds of blackened, sharp sticks thrust up violently from the ground, machetes having made quick work of an enormous swath of land. 15 minutes later, the sky is clearing and shooting down arrows of heat. Master P flags down a passing motorbike. The two haggle for about 5 minutes, then Ashley and I board with the new rider who takes us to a village called Geima. Master P beings to follow us, slowly, with his flattened tire.

 12:20: Ashley and I arrive in Geima. We buy ground nuts from a young boy who sits on a rickety bamboo bench. We wait with the wind through the trees. One little girl makes concentric circles around me while I perch on a tree stump. Her orbits are distinct, methodical. She laughs, and then growls from time to time, good-naturedly, as only kids can do.

1:45: Master P arrives with a fixed tire and winning smile. Explains that he decided to go the other direction instead to get the tire fixed, some indistinct place “deep in the forest.”

3:30: Rain threatens as we fly down the road to Tongo Diamond Field. Master P navigates monstrous potholes with effortless flicks of his wrist. Motorbike heaves a sigh of relief – me as well – upon reaching the town of Tongo Field.

3:50: Policemen stop us just outside the mine field, point out that the motorbike is not registered properly. They begin to explain that this is a big problem and I feel a familiar attempt at a bribe coming on. One of the officers, the supposed Sergeant, regurgitates several times that they are only there to “serve and protect life and property.” We are told to go to the Mine Office for permission to enter the fields.

3:52: We arrive at the Mine Office 200 yards down the road. It is closed. A man across the road asks us what the problem is. Master P explains the policemen will not let us enter the diamond field. The plainclothes man says, “Dey don know what dey talking. I’m de Sergeant, nodda dey! Jus go!” Seems there’s some confusion as to who is, and isn’t, the Sergeant.

3:55: Arrive back to original police officers. Although they have no jurisdiction over the area, Master P has to beg the police officers to let us pass, just so we can avoid the inevitable payment. They give off the air as if we were just given a map to El Dorado. They step aside and let us pass. Master P kicks up dirt and we vanish.

4:44: I’m sitting with a man named Emmanuel on a dirt mound above one of the innumerable diamond pits. He has been working in the mines for ten years, seven days a week. His body is coated in sweat; muscles unimaginable ripple when he moves ever so slightly. He tells me this work is making his life “tired,” and “difficult to manage.” I’m feeling smaller than the tiniest grain of sand.

                                                                  Tongo Diamond Field                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Monday:

 8:00 a.m.: We meet Master P at the ancient clock tower in the middle of town. A man with no legs shuffles along the sidewalk on his knuckles. We walk to the motorbike repair area and Master P bargains for use of a bike for the day. He secures a bike, we board, and Ashley is sandwiched between Master P and I on the bike, our familiar traveling combination.

                   Kenema                                                                                         fish market

8:03: Flat tire. We return to the repair area and share a loaf of bread with Master P while we wait for a new tube. A dread-locked man across the street scratches mysterious symbols on the sidewalk with charcoal.

8:45: We secure a guide at the Gola Forest Preserve office. Ashley will ride with Master P while I’ll be on another motorcycle with our guide, Finando. Finando is wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a chimpanzee that says, “I’m 98% human. Don’t shoot!” I get on back of Finando’s bike and the extra space is wonderful. Ashley smiles while Master P revs his engine and gives me the thumbs up. I turn on my iPod and The Flaming Lips pump in my ears as we exit the office grounds. I’m smiling.

8:46: Finando stops and looks inquisitively down along the side of the motorcycle. Fuel leak. I stop my iPod. Wind up the headphones and put them in my pocket.

9:15: A new motorcycle is secured and we are speeding to the Gola Forest gate entrance, 27 miles away, Finando in the lead. I can feel Master P close behind, all efforts focused on holding back. Later we are to find out why he is such an extremely fast – and precise – driver: “Mi fade teacher me how to drive fast so when ad rebels come I could taka mi family into the bush.” It all makes sense: the speed, the letting loose, the horror.

3:35 p.m.: Finando, Master P, Ashley, and I are sitting in the depths of the Gola forest, quiet, sharing crackers and cheese. Finando tells us that the Gola was a major trafficking route for rebels during the war: arms and drugs from/to Liberia. Finando fled to Guinea where he lived for two years as a refugee. I take a breath in preparation to ask about Kenema, knowing it was devastated by the rebels. Finando anticipates the question, looks up slowly at the spread of greenery overhead and sighs: “You can’t imagine what a person can experience. Disgraceful.” The roar of insects is deafening.

6:00: We are giving Master P a hug at a gas station in Kenema. He thanks us for the “great great journey.” He’s driven us over 200 miles in a few days on the back of motorcycles that weren’t his. Bad roads, breakdowns, haggles, asking nothing in return. Still, he is giving us that wistful look that wishes we were going 500 more. We board a mini-van for the short trip back to Bo. Babies are handed in through open windows. Master P grins, waves goodbye, and weaves quickly through the busy streets.

6:45: Flat tire. I count the passengers: 18 adults, 3 children, and 4 babies (not including the money collector who rides on the back bumper). Men get out and urinate. Babies are handed from woman to woman, no concern about whose is whose, just looking for comfort, respite.

7:15: We are dropped off at an area of Bo called New London. I spy a Toyota 4X4 that we soon discover is going to Freetown. It looks more than road worthy! I urge Ashley to be quick about buying corn on the cob, packets of peanuts, and water, the only available food in the jumble of machinery and oil on the side of the road. And yes, there is room for us in the Toyota! We climb in and are off! Two skinny teens are crouched in the back of the car with the luggage. Their teeth are glowing in the dusk.

7:50: The Toyota has been vibrating for some time, every time the driver steps on the gas. It is now making a horrible screeching sound like a Skilsaw trying to cut sheet metal. The driver stops the car. Men get out. A grumbling passenger pushes his way to the driver’s seat, takes over. Everyone climbs back in. The new driver gives it gas and the car now sounds like it is going to explode or crash. I’m frantically trying to put on my seatbelt and telling Ashley to do the same. A screeching, whining, painful noise. The car stops.

8:00: A Land Rover pulls up behind the Toyota and, it appears, there is some familiarity between the passengers of the two cars. The driver of the Land Rover, a large Lebanese man, looks at the Toyota like a disapproving father. We get back in the Toyota and the Land Rover follows us and our ear-splitting wretchedness for several miles. Shapes emerge from the jungle and hold their hands to their heads.

8:20: The Toyota barely reaches a turnout with a lighted shack on a small rise in the road. I’m exasperated. I promptly get out of the Toyota and march to the Land Rover and ask the driver, “Can you take us to Freetown? We can pay.” The man looks me up and down while I envision us never really making it to Freetown, just getting infinitesimally closer with each successive breakdown, machine after machine after machine. “We might have room,” he smiles.

8:45: We are skirting potholes with ease in the Land Rover. The two Lebanese men in the front seat joke loudly throughout the drive and exchange brief arguments with a woman in back row. She is sitting on Ashley’s right and watches ‘Paul Simon: Graceland in South Africa’ on a portable DVD player. Two men are smashed up against Ashley on the left. Everyone speaks in Krio, so it is a bit difficult to understand, but manageable. The men up front speak of diamonds and prices with two men who sit in the back. I sit in the far back with the two skinny kids. I put on my iPod and The Flaming Lips start midway through a song. The kids next to me see the screen and try to hide their shy smiles. I take my earphones out, teach them how to use the amazing machine, that works effortlessly, and they bounce and weave their heads the rest of the way to Freetown. They really liked Michael Jackson, of course, enjoyed Moby, even Interpol, and the older of the two said “So good” when tapping on the screen at James Taylor. Who would have thought?

11:30: The driver of the Land Rover introduces himself as Samir. He’s a Lebanese diamond trader and construction manager in Kenema. He is dropping off in Freetown, about 100 yards from where we are staying. When we offer money for the ride, he politely declines, gives us his card, and said we always have a place to stay when we go back to Kenema.

Tuesday:

8:00 a.m.: Ashley and I are walking in downtown Freetown, stepping between wheelbarrows full of grain and granite and women with enormous loads on their heads. More men peeing on the street. Ladies selling flip-flops out of buckets. A grizzled imam looks at me and winks. I’m getting a little annoyed at all the jostling and the constant pushing when suddenly I’m face to face with the Lawrence Fishbourne look-alike guy who remedied our fuse problem a few days previously. He beats me to the punch: “Bo, Bo, Bo! Freetown, Bo!” with an imploring look that hopes we remember. The stampede of feet moves on around our island of calm. We three stand and stare at each other and can’t contain our smiles.