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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.
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.
