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