Well as I sit here and write this it has been over a week since I’ve used toilet paper, or seen a toilet I didn’t have to use a bucket of water to flush...in Freetown we have had light bout 12 hrs a day, although the people across the street receive 24hrs/day presently? Not quite sure how this gets decided. Today I treated myself to some Nescafe with powdered skim milk – the closest thing to a latte I can get here…and oooo the mosquitoes, they have found my blood irresitable & the worst has to be those darn biting ants!
But despite this my spirit is high, & my health is good so far – I have come to appreciate the small things like electricity at night so I can sleep with the fan on --- and taking a bath with a bucket of cool water to relieve my hot skin –--- it is hard for a girl like me, so used to complete freedom in my country, to need an escort for even the smallest of tasks – unable to even go for a stroll to the nearest store without accompaniment – but these realities I was prepared for…
The past week Mustapha & I traveled to his family in the provinces, to the city of Makeni ---to take public transport for the 2 hour drive the cost is 15 000 Leones or 4$ - the car we took seats 8 people Canadian style, but in Africa they fit 10 --- for the ride home we paid an extra fare so that we would not have to sit with 4 where there is only seats for 3 – it made the ride much more comfortable – I realize that money will not buy you happiness, but it will buy you comfort! We stayed only 2 days there…his mother took me out and must have introduced me to almost everyone in the town while we walked to the market…lets just say I got plenty of chance to practice my greetings in the local language of Temne – sometimes I understand how famous people must feel with the whole world wanting a piece of them, even a simple greeting… We also had the opppurtunity to check out a club his friend built in town – and I have to say it rivals any big club I’ve ever seen in Canada – we had some drinks, listened to good music & took time to play pool on a table that wasn’t quite level while using a pool cue missing its ends – ‘this is Africa’ they tell me – u make do with what you have, besides I still beat all the boys making them all very impressed with me!
My family here was very surprised to see me as most were not expecting me – it has been a great reunion – not much has changed here, except that all of Mustapha’s brothers who are over the age of 20 have all had babies – except here it is custom for the girls to stay with the babies at their parents house since the boys do not have a means to take care of the babies – also the boys don’t really spend much time with the baby, their baby momma’s come here to see the family & offer to launder clothes or other such tasks, while the boys just carry on their usual business --- this is where my cultural upbringing has trouble wrapping my mind around this behaviour, but for Sierra Leone the women accept this and it is just the way…but this is a topic I will discuss at greater detail in the future.
For now, I will leave this as a brief introduction to my time here so far...
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