Already Saying Our Goodbyes?

Two days ago (Friday) marked  the beginning of the countdown of weeks: One week until I leave Kailahun and explore SL, two weeks until I revisit the UK, three weeks until I am home. To call this bittersweet would be to completely understate the contradiction in emotions that I am now experiencing. On the one hand I am thrilled about the prospect of hot showers, clean sheets and my fully equipped kitchen. I can’t wait to see family and friends and catch up with everyone over yummy food and familiar surroundings. I am looking forward to starting my new job and am eager to get back to my studies. But - then there are the farewells. And, despite my best intentions, they seem to have crept up way too soon.

Kailahun is not a love at first sight kind of place. They say that when you enter a new culture that you go through these phases of adaptation where the first one is a honeymoon. Kailahun and I never had our honeymoon. I never quite fell for the work, the people or the surroundings. The experience here is one of a slow take over where the things you once hated become the things that make you laugh, and the things you swore you would never get used to, are the things that you don’t even notice anymore (bread eaten by mouse? Just take the next slice in the bag). Kailahun sneaks into your affections and just when you think you might be making some progress, maybe you have found a middle ground in this battle to settle in, it has been three months and it is time to go. Getting ready to go feels like leaving just when it was all getting started. It feels terribly unfinished- but yet, somehow, just not terrible enough.

A few updates on where things are and where they are going:
• Work: The health budget monitoring that I was working on has not gotten as far as I might have liked. A combination of poor planning, unclear expectations/intentions and the reality of working with governments has meant that I may only be able to contribute a rough and very unfinished first draft of the report. The findings have however been quite interesting and will hopefully serve to shed some light on how and why the delivery of health services is so frustratingly ineffective.
• The chickens: I had intended on dedicating a whole post to my avian friends but never got around to it. Besides, it is such a tragic story I did not want to bring you down. We purchased three birds in the end. The first one turned out to be a male and the two hens (who finally started laying after many weeks of waiting) “disappeared” within one week of each other – likely the victims of someone else’s appetite/stew pot. Our lonely rooster is still hanging around but got into a fight with another coq and now roams around with half his crown hanging off and swarms of flies surrounding him. It is quite the pathetic sight. I suspect that Matt and J. are just waiting for the vegetarian to leave so that can reap at least one reward from the whole ordeal – I am sure he will be tasty but hope that I don’t have to hear about it. Tragic, right?
• The kiddies: The neighbourhood kids (and their family members) are probably one of the Kailahun attributes I will miss the most. As someone who thrives best in environments where I can see the impact of my efforts, being part of our little neighbourhood has been way more satisfying to me than any of the “real” work I have done. I know that giving one child some food or buying shoes for another is not going to “solve the problem” but it is one less hungry child and one more child with shoes. To me, being part of those teeny tiny differences has been an absolute privilege and one that has had a lot of meaning for me. The generosity of our neighbours will also not be forgotten. They have looked out for us, been kind to us and, for people who genuinely have next to nothing, their generosity has completely overwhelmed us.
• Matt: He stays, I go. If his contributions to this blog thus far are any indication, Sierra Leone Living may soon go into hibernation. It is nice to know that when I leave my connection to Kailahun will not be completely severed but I think that is about the only nice thing I can say about leaving him here. Whose idea was this anyway?!

Tears and tragedy aside - what’s next? Well, this Saturday Matt and I head off on a one week adventure to see the sights of Sierra Leone. We go first to the nature sanctuary of Tiwai Island where we will camp among the monkeys, the tropical birds and hopefully not the snakes. Tiwai is home to one of the world’s few populations of pygmy hippos, but they are apparently only very rarely seen, so we are not holding out much hope. After that, it is some relaxing in the second city of Bo, visiting some of the beautiful beaches, a waterfall or two and a sanctuary for chimpanzees. We will end in Freetown from where I go on to England and Matt moves into Phase II.

A report on our travels and lots more photos are sure to follow so stay tuned and wish us luck (sorry no new photos this time)….

Le Weekend...

N. & J. preparing our Salone meal

While the weekdays are defined by routine, weekends in Kailahun also have their rhythm and that rhythm is SLOW. Saturday is actually a quasi-work day in Sierra Leone so we tend to putter around in the morning and then go to work for about 11am where we stay until 2pm. Lately, we have instituted what I hope becomes a regular part of the routine. Our Sierra Leonean colleague N., taking pity on the pumuis and comes to the house to teach us how to cook proper salone food. What I had hoped might actually be a lesson, usually ends up being more “watch N. cook and stay out of her way”, but once in a while we learn a thing or two and we always get to eat the tasty results. The first week was jollof rice with fish stew, then came pumpkin and groundnut stew (we found pumpkin!) and most recently it was homemade ginger beer with the most ubiquitous and beloved of Sierra Leone dishes, jollah bei  (potato leaf and palm oil stew with rice).

Jollah Bei

N. sticks around and does her best to answer all of our thousands of questions about Sierra Leone, Kailahun and her life, and then it is more puttering until the power comes on at seven and we pray that there is a not-too-terrible movie on the telly.     

Sundays are even slower affairs and generally last for about 2½ weeks.  The excitement usually peaks first thing in the morning when I get to do the laundry. I know you think I am being sarcastic but I’m really not. Doing our laundry gives me a genuine activity for about an hour, it contributes to the two of us smelling less bad (I did not say good) and, it gives me a sense of satisfaction to see the clean(ish) clothes hanging on the line. The time I spend doing the laundry is when I am most reminded of where I am and how simple my life has become. I sit on the back step next to the banana tree with my laundry bowl on the ground, cold water and my locally made detergent. My hair in a bandana, I work on the clothes and commune with the ladies of the town while chickens run around my feet. I know it sounds crazy but I promise it really is pretty special.

With laundry done, so is the fun. 10am feels like it should be 8pm and Matt and I become seriously bored. Since we have few books to read, no electricity and no friends to visit, we count time while the children and/or chickens serve as the closest thing to entertainment. It has been a true exercise in “blankness” mixed with the odd moment or two of contemplation. Just think about it. Try to spend an entire day at home with no books, no television, no phone and few people. Do nothing, I mean, really nothing, for even three hours? Most of you are probably thinking "I WISH!!!"  but I promise it really isn't so easy. I dare not try to think about what this says about life in Canada or about my life in Sierra Leone it just is what it is and while I look forward to Sundays in Kailahun, they always leave me feeling ever so slightly desperate.

 C’est tout.

Weekdays in K-Town

Finding a routine in Kailahun was not very difficult, when life takes place within the confines of 1km stretch of road, there really are only so many choices. Any deviation from the routine means showering in the evening instead of the morning or something wild and crazy like that. Yep, routine is definitely the name of the game here in Kailahun and here is how it goes....

Morning for us begins somewhere between 6:30am and 7:00am. It depends mostly on how long the roosters and chickens can keep their mouths shut and how much cloud is in the sky to keep out the light. This time of day is surprisingly busy around town because the temperatures are at their most pleasantly cool so everyone is trying to get some work done before it gets too hot. For Matt and I, this is not so much the time for manual labour but the time for coffee. One of the few comforts we brought from home was a coffee press that gets used every morning so we can avoid the more readily available Nescafe. While Matt makes the coffee I might do some laundry out back or maybe try to fashion some breakfast out of leftovers from dinner or whatever we happen to have. You would be surprised how much curry fried rice can be the breakfast of champions.

If it is not too cold and I am not being lazy then I will usually shower in the morning but that is when the water is at its coldest and now that the rainy season is bringing cooler nights and mornings the colder water is contributing to “cranky Jaime attacks” so this aspect of the routine is currently under review.

Dressed and fed, we leave for work around 8:15 to be there for the 8:30am start. Our roommate usually bikes to work but Matt and I walk so we can hear the cries of “pumui” (white person) from every child we pass - believe me, there are many! Once at work, we are generally in front of our laptops for 3-4 hours before the “bread man” comes by to sell us our daily bread and give us a break from work. 5 minutes later it is back to work.

At 2:00pm, the generator at work is given a break so we go to take our lunch. Over our lunch break we usually walk the 10 minutes to the market and buy any supplies we need for dinner that night. We might then buy something to eat – usually one or more of roast corn on the cob, bread, avocado, boiled egg, groundnuts ( peanuts) or fried cassava. We will also engage in a little requisite complaining about how uninspiring our choices for lunch. Now that there is a new “restaurant” in town (bringing the total count to 4) we will sometimes splurge and eat there instead.

Local kiddies looking at books on our front porch

Lunch ends theoretically at 3:00pm but they are sometimes slow in turning the generator back on so the staff generally converge under the mango tree in front of the office for a bit of a chat. By 3:30 we are back in front of computers where we will generally stay until 6:00pm.

After work, we walk the 15 minutes back home and spend some time playing with the neighbourhood children before getting started on dinner. I must report that we have had considerably more success on this front though not so much thanks to your comments on my previous post (blender, cheese and vermouth - really?). We eat a lot of stew-type concoctions on rice but have managed bean burgers, egg dishes (frittata = good suggestion!) and even fajitas on one occasion thanks to a recent trip to Freetown. On weekends our roommate makes delicious chapattis. At 7pm our generator comes on so dinner is usually eaten in front of the television where you can find us until about 10pm when the generator goes off and we go to bed, fall asleep and do it all again the next day.

Matt with neighbourhood kids 

Next post: The titillation of the weekend!!

Canada Day in Kailahun

This is a bit late being posted but I believe it is the thought that counts.

Canada Day this year brought no long weekend or fireworks for us this year but it was a lovely celebration nevertheless!

To celebrate the sort of birth of our fair nation (yes it seems VERY fair from this vantage point), Matt, me and our housemate (THE other Canadian in Kailahun) threw a party for our colleagues. We decided not to try to be culturally appropriate, and just throw a party like we would at home. This meant no mountains of rice, no opening prayer, no agenda and a serve-yourself policy – all things that are unknown to the Sierra Leonean work function. We served the only foods that we could think of that use local ingredients but that you still might find at Canadian table – guacamole, bread, banana pancakes, and doughnuts (courtesy of our neighbour). Incidentally doughnuts are one of the few food items that straddle our two cultures and in Mende (the local language) are known as “doughnutty” - ha!

In addition to providing a rather strange collection of food, we decided to submit our colleagues to some party games including a special “how much do you know about Canada/Canadians” quiz. We broke the fifteen or so guests into three groups and had them answer a range of general knowledge questions about Canada and their Canadian colleagues. The results were pretty funny. None of the teams knew that Canada is the second largest country in the world nor could they identify what to do with snowshoes; but they all knew that Canada was a British colony and they knew which one of their Canadian colleagues most likes the local food (definitely not Matt or I). The best answer of the evening was in response to the question “what is Canada’s favourite sport?” One team was vehement that the answer was “snowball”. We had to break their hearts and tell them they were wrong but this has definitely gotten me thinking about our sporting priorities. Why isn’t snowball a recognized sport?

After a very animated and competitive quiz won by the team that drew the best Canadian flag, we played a round of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. You would not believe how much people LOVED this game! Absolutely everyone took a turn and many of them spent significant time devising their strategies. Days later people are still talking about it and wondering when we are going to play again. I think that PTTOTD might very well become a key component of all future office meetings.      

Between the games we enjoyed music and a lot of dancing. Even Matt danced without having to be coerced.

While things are generally very quiet here in Kailahun, Canada Day was a nice change from the usual and hosting a party is definitely something we will do again.

The winning team concentrating hard on their answers during the Canada Quiz.

A competitive round of Pin the Tail on the Donkey

Group shot of us and our guests (all the people we work with)

Where We Live....

Now that we have been in Sierra Leone for a whole month, perhaps I should tell you a bit about where we are living.

We are in the chiefdom of Luawa, in Kailahun Town, in the district of Kailahun (pronounced Kye-lown) in the Eastern Province. While Kailahun is the principal town in the district, it is still quite remote and very basic in amenities. The town is estimated to have a population of about forty-thousand people but it occupies about the same amount of space that a town of about two to three thousand people in Canada might take up. There are a lot of people live in a pretty small space. 

There are no paved roads in town (or anywhere in the district) and no central electricity provider. Very few homes have running water or stoves so residents are always seen around town carrying water or firewood on their heads. Most people are involved in subsistence farming of cassava, sweet potato, and rice but there are also a number of palm and cocoa growers. Those with the best jobs are employed by NGO’s whose offices and vehicles take up a lot of the local landscape.    

Matt and I live in a guesthouse that is rented by the organization we are working for. There is one other Canadian living with us and the three of us make up what we believe to be the entire population of Westerners in town. We are lucky enough to have a gas cooker and a generator that gives us electricity for 3-4 hours a day. We have our own well that gets pumped into a water tower behind the house and provides the “running” water in the shower and the kitchen sink. We also keep large buckets of water from the town pump which is used for cooking (we drink bags of purified water). Although we have way more conveniences than almost anyone in town, it is still quite basic. Warm showers are a thing of the past and we wash our laundry by hand. Air conditioning is unheard of and without electricity, we cannot even run a fan while we sleep. Our home is host to all kinds of critters including ants, lizards, mice, and rats, and there is very little that can be done about it except to have the occasional meltdown.  

 Despite a somewhat difficult adjustment, I am now settling in and can appreciate some of the best things that Kailahun has to offer:

• Jungle surroundings that are incredibly lush and absolutely beautiful

• A yard with banana, orange, avocado and mango trees as well as numerous pineapple bushes (so far we have only had bananas)

• It is very safe – although we definitely attract curiosity everywhere we go, we are seldom harassed or hassled

• Neighbourhood children who come to play on our porch and who know our names and get excited every time they see us

• Raising hens (hours of entertainment if not yet also a food source)

Some photos….

 

              The crazy dirt road to Kailahun District

 The view from our front porch during a storm

The road from our house to work

Leaving Comments

It turns out that some of you may have been having trouble leaving comments on the blog. I have changed the settings so it should be easier now.
Cheers!

Some Pics!

I have managed to upload some photos! Yay!

                   


 The beach in Freetown (a long distance from where we are now)                                     










Our home in Kailahun



  

Our brand new hens living it up in "chicken palace". The one standing up is Penny. The other has yet to be named. No eggs so far but hope is not lost.

What am I doing here?

One of the questions that Matt and I least enjoyed answering before we left for Sierra Leone was, “What will you be doing there?” It was difficult to effectively respond to this question when we didn’t really know the answer.  We knew that we would be working for a local NGO and that I would be working on “budget monitoring” and Matt would be working on “women in governance” but what that meant exactly was rather unclear. We tended to fumble a half-hearted response and remind ourselves each time that “we should really come up with a better answer to that question!”Finally, after two weeks of “doing what I am doing” I can now (sort of) come clean about what I am up to.

The work I am doing is with a network of civil society organizations that monitors government activity in order to push for greater accountability in public service and development. My assignment is to support an investigation into health budgeting and expenditure as it relates to three main issues – 1) maternal health, 2) child health and 3) Malaria/TB/HIV/AIDS and other infectious disease.

Since 2004, many government responsibilities in Sierra Leone have been devolved to the district and municipal councils. Our report will be focusing on three districts and two municipalities which are the areas of operation for the network. Unfortunately, none of these districts is the one where I live.

Right now, my work consists mainly of gathering information and producing a literature review that will help guide the investigation. One of the biggest challenges to holding leaders accountable in SL is that it is often so unclear who is actually responsible for what. If we don’t know what someone is responsible for, then how can they be held accountable? In many cases, these issues have never been defined but even in instances where they are defined, it can be very difficult to get hold of the documentation that clarifies the matter.

That said, the situation of health services in Sierra Leone is so dire that there is a real sense of urgency in pushing leaders to do a better job. Sierra Leone is consistently at the bottom of the UN’s Human Development Index. A Sierra Leonean’s life expectancy is less than 50 and rates of maternal and child mortality are among the highest in the world. In Kailahun, where we are staying, the only hospital has no running water, restricted electricity and has limited, if any, regular supply of safe medications. Yet the district council recently purchased 12 satellite televisions for the hospital in order to “help patients feel better”. It is not hard to see that something is going wrong.

Another challenge to this work is that the network that I am working with, while passionate and serious about getting the job done, is lacking in resources and capacity. The work requires balancing the need to produce results while mentoring staff to be able to conduct this work on their own. Obviously this is even more difficult when I am not even in the same town as any of the staff and internet is completely unreliable if available at all. I definitely do not want to “do it for them” but time and resources to really make this a learning exercise are simply not available. I find myself in a rather uncomfortable situation of doing the work without passing on the skills. Hopefully this will improve in July when I am scheduled to meet with the team and begin travel to the districts.

  Updates on that are sure to come…..

A Culinary Challenge for You……

Now in Kailahun, we are starting to get settled into rural life and the joys and challenges of simple living. Since Kailahun is remote, by even Sierra Leonean standards, food supplies are limited and the vast majority of what people eat is grown within a short distance and sold at the local market. This is at least the case when it comes to fruits and veg. The limited supplies have presented me with a welcome* cooking challenge.

Since we have had some time to meditate on life (i.e. do nothing and do it slowly) and talk to the two other Canadians who have been here for 2 months, I have brainstormed a few ideas of things I could cook up. But then I thought- why do this alone? You could help me!

A challenge for you dear reader – I am looking for recipes/ideas of what I can cook and eat using what is locally available (listed below). If you would like to help me, please remember that recipes should be vegetarian and keep in mind that we have neither refrigeration nor oven (two gas burners are what do the trick). I am looking for “quick” fixes that would ideally keep well at room temperature for at least 2 meals. Dessert recipes also welcome!

Here are the ingredients, please leave your thoughts/ideas in the comments section:

Pineapple

Pawpaw (papaya)

Bananas

Lime

Oranges

Avocado (though less soft and creamy than the variety I am used to)

Plantain

White sweet potato (starchier than the orange variety and even potatoes)

Eggplant and a similar vegetable called “garden egg”

Okra

Onions

Garlic

Ginger (though sometimes difficult to find)

Fresh chilies

Tomatoes (not reliably available – a few small ones if lucky enough to find them)

Some dried beans though limited in variety

Rice

Groundnuts (peanuts)

Eggs

Dried Thyme

Bay Leaves

Tomato Paste

Pasta (sometimes in tiny little bags with 10 mini shells)

Bread (it’s pretty good)

Baking powder

Palm Oil

Salt and pepper

Thanks!

* Welcome or not the alternative is to eat at one of three “canteens” in town where the one meal on offer usually consists of dried fish, mystery meat and oodles of palm oil - actually relatively tasty but my vegetarian soul and western palate just won’t have it. 

We are HERE

I thought that my first post in SL would be all about first impressions and a general description of our whereabouts but first impressions are difficult to capture when you arrive in a haze of exhaustion following 20 hours of travel.

We arrived in Freetown airport on Sunday evening.  I am no urban planning expert but I do suspect that perhaps something went wrong when those in charge of establishing the airport set it across the bay from the capital city. To reach Freetown from the country’s only passenger airport can be done by water taxi, ferry or helicopter. Theoretically it can be done by road too but you would have to have your own vehicle and it would likely take you about 8 hours. The boat rides reportedly take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours and only travel during the day. We arrived at dusk and opted for the easily arranged and rather glamorous 7 minute helicopter ride. After two hours waiting in the airport - and despite the fact that it was “broken” when we arrived, the helicopter eventually whisked us off to Freetown where a car was waiting to take us to the hotel in the rain.

A funny thing happened in the airport that seemed perfectly normal at the time but now seems more extraordinary. While waiting for our transport, we started to speak to the woman who was sitting next to us. She was arriving from the UK but is a Canadian who grew up in Ottawa. It turned out that she and Matt went to the same high school and were only a year apart. If I hadn’t been so tired, I probably would have realized what a coincidence this was but instead I just shrugged - “small world”.

I fear that this post is a getting a little tedious – too much to cover and not knowing where to begin have conspired to help me produce a rather disjointed start but I promise more (hopefully) interesting and thematic posts ahead.

We are HERE – I think that was the point I have been trying to make. We are HERE!