Lots of new photos posted on the photo page, including some of recent trips to Freetown: http://picasaweb.google.ca/clarepoulev
We're planning a weekend trip to Outamba-Kilimi, one of Sierra Leone's national parks in the north of the country. Supposed to be great for birds, primates of various types and . . . HIPPOS! The road there is supposed to be terrible, but we're going to make an attempt. We should be back Sunday, hopefully with lots of wildlife pictures to share. So no posts for the next few days.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
In which I make a truce with spiders
At first they really freaked me out, especially because they tend to come out more at night when it’s dark. This makes them much scarier to deal with. In fact, at the beginning I even avoided getting out of bed to pee a couple of times because I could see there was a spider in the corner by the door to the bathroom. However, they are impossible to avoid. The houses and buildings here are all pretty open to the outdoors, so you can’t keep them out. If you kill one, another will just come along and take its place. Spiders do a good job here – they eat mosquitoes and other bugs that might be in your room, and they aren’t poisonous. I don’t think they even bite. No one here is afraid of spiders and they find it kind of funny that we are. I guess the fact that I am hundreds of times bigger than the spiders and that they usually run away from me makes them easier to deal with too.
All of this, plus seeing them and dealing with them daily, has made me basically resigned to spiders. Eventually I worked up the courage to use my little broom made of twigs to at least poke them out of the way of where I wanted to walk. Now I tend to pay them little attention (although if I see one, I do check if it’s still there later). A spider crawled on my hand the other day when I reached in to the cupboard to get something, and I didn’t even scream :-) Ok, so it was on the smaller side, but I’m pretty proud of myself all the same. I'm even starting to find them kind of interesting.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the “friends” stage with spiders. I still wear shoes almost 100% of the time I’m not in bed, and I especially wear them at night, just in case I step on one while walking to the bathroom. And I still shine the light on the ground to make sure one isn’t in my path. But for the most part I have declared a spider truce. As long as they don’t bother me, I am happy to let them go about their little spider lives.
Side note: I wrote this a week or so ago, before Chris arrived, but didn't have a chance to post it until now. However, seeing him see his first big spider here reminded me how far I've come since arriving in terms of my acceptance of spiders :-)
p.s. the spider photo in this post was taken in my room - it's hard to tell the size, but it was about as big as my hand.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Another trip through Freetown
I’m back in Mapaki now after my second trip to Freetown in a week. I’m almost getting used to the city now :-) Chris arrived safely late Sunday night (2 am on Monday really). Meeting him at the airport at that time was interesting. At around midnight both the cafes in the airport closed. It was very quiet and most people who were around were lying on whatever surface was available sleeping. MO (Chief’s driver) and I just sat around waiting. I read a lot! Luckily the flight came in on time and by 2:30 am we were headed back to our Guesthouse in Lungi. It’s not a bad place and I’ve stayed there before, but this time there were quite a few mosquitoes in our room and we also got temporarily locked in the room due to a broken lock, so I think next time I might look for somewhere else to stay.
I actually like taking the ferry from Freetown to Lungi. Although it’s long (you have to arrive about an hour before to get on with a vehicle, then the crossing takes about an hour), I find the people watching very interesting. Watching people and vehicles disembark from the ferry is also quite a sight. Everyone crowds the gangway, and generally people start jumping off the end of the boat and onto the landing area even before the ferry is properly docked. When people get off, they usually run off in order to get a place in a taxi or on a bus. Watching the cars try to come off is also pretty funny. There is only one gate on the ferry, so all the cars that drive on have to turn around in order to drive off forwards again (it’s very difficult to back off because your wheels have to be properly placed, otherwise your vehicle goes into the water). Usually every car is trying to turn around first without waiting for the other cars to get out of the way. Often there are 4 or 5 men “helping” the cars turn around but without watching what any of the others are doing. Even when told to wait for someone else, cars will just start trying to turn around. It’s incredibly chaotic. Chris got a good video of it I think. I doubt we’ll be able to post it while here because it will take too long to upload, but I’ll be sure to put a few videos online when we get home.
In the harbour where the ferry docks in Freetown, there are several old metal wrecks of ships (comforting, isn’t it?). I had noticed people in the water swimming out to these wrecks but wasn’t sure why they were out there. On the ferry trip from Freetown to Lungi someone told me that they swim out to break off metal parts of the ship. They do this by hand, with hammers or some other hand tools. Then they swim the pieces of metal back to shore to sell as scrap. Pretty incredible.
I also had an interesting experience at the immigration office in Freetown on Monday. I had to go there to renew my entry stamp. I have a visa for 6 months which allows me to enter and leave the country, but when you come in to the country you only get a one month visit permit (this is what allows you to stay in the country). I had no idea this date would be different than the six month visa I already had. Various other people I talked to here also had this same problem. Anyways, by the time someone told me about this and I actually looked at my stamp, it was already expired. Luckily, Chief has a nephew who works in the immigration office. His nephew advised Chief to write a letter explaining that I was staying here as his guest and requesting that the permit to stay be extended, and he also talked to his boss in Freetown (head of the foreign nationals section) to tell him I was coming to get this issue resolved.
So on Monday morning, I took this letter and my passport to the immigration office when we arrived in Freetown. We went there around 10:30 am, after breakfast at Crown Bakery (delicious!). When we got upstairs to the office, there were about 10 staff there. Most of them were sitting around, appearing to do nothing. One person was sleeping. The TV was on and a few were watching football. I spoke to one of the immigration officers, explained the issue and showed him the letter. He told me I’d have to come back tomorrow since the boss who needed to approve the extension was away at a meeting. I explained that I couldn’t come back tomorrow since we were headed back to Mapaki, so he advised me to try later in the afternoon.
This gave us a couple of hours to kill in Freetown. While it was a pain to have to hang around, we decided to go to the beach (Lumley beach), so at least we enjoyed ourselves! The beach was beautiful and almost deserted. We put our feet in the water and sat in the shade on the sand for a while. Then we walked down the beach and met a guy who asked us to bring some gold dust back to Canada with us to sell for him. Interesting. We decided to stay on the safe side and politely declined :-)
Finally we were able to pick up my passport around 2:30 with the extension granted and headed back to Freetown. It was around 6:30 by the time we got back to Mapaki. Chris is getting adjusted to life here and settling in. We hope to do a couple of small side trips over the next week or so, but will be staying based in Mapaki so I can continue to work.
I actually like taking the ferry from Freetown to Lungi. Although it’s long (you have to arrive about an hour before to get on with a vehicle, then the crossing takes about an hour), I find the people watching very interesting. Watching people and vehicles disembark from the ferry is also quite a sight. Everyone crowds the gangway, and generally people start jumping off the end of the boat and onto the landing area even before the ferry is properly docked. When people get off, they usually run off in order to get a place in a taxi or on a bus. Watching the cars try to come off is also pretty funny. There is only one gate on the ferry, so all the cars that drive on have to turn around in order to drive off forwards again (it’s very difficult to back off because your wheels have to be properly placed, otherwise your vehicle goes into the water). Usually every car is trying to turn around first without waiting for the other cars to get out of the way. Often there are 4 or 5 men “helping” the cars turn around but without watching what any of the others are doing. Even when told to wait for someone else, cars will just start trying to turn around. It’s incredibly chaotic. Chris got a good video of it I think. I doubt we’ll be able to post it while here because it will take too long to upload, but I’ll be sure to put a few videos online when we get home.
In the harbour where the ferry docks in Freetown, there are several old metal wrecks of ships (comforting, isn’t it?). I had noticed people in the water swimming out to these wrecks but wasn’t sure why they were out there. On the ferry trip from Freetown to Lungi someone told me that they swim out to break off metal parts of the ship. They do this by hand, with hammers or some other hand tools. Then they swim the pieces of metal back to shore to sell as scrap. Pretty incredible.
I also had an interesting experience at the immigration office in Freetown on Monday. I had to go there to renew my entry stamp. I have a visa for 6 months which allows me to enter and leave the country, but when you come in to the country you only get a one month visit permit (this is what allows you to stay in the country). I had no idea this date would be different than the six month visa I already had. Various other people I talked to here also had this same problem. Anyways, by the time someone told me about this and I actually looked at my stamp, it was already expired. Luckily, Chief has a nephew who works in the immigration office. His nephew advised Chief to write a letter explaining that I was staying here as his guest and requesting that the permit to stay be extended, and he also talked to his boss in Freetown (head of the foreign nationals section) to tell him I was coming to get this issue resolved.
So on Monday morning, I took this letter and my passport to the immigration office when we arrived in Freetown. We went there around 10:30 am, after breakfast at Crown Bakery (delicious!). When we got upstairs to the office, there were about 10 staff there. Most of them were sitting around, appearing to do nothing. One person was sleeping. The TV was on and a few were watching football. I spoke to one of the immigration officers, explained the issue and showed him the letter. He told me I’d have to come back tomorrow since the boss who needed to approve the extension was away at a meeting. I explained that I couldn’t come back tomorrow since we were headed back to Mapaki, so he advised me to try later in the afternoon.
This gave us a couple of hours to kill in Freetown. While it was a pain to have to hang around, we decided to go to the beach (Lumley beach), so at least we enjoyed ourselves! The beach was beautiful and almost deserted. We put our feet in the water and sat in the shade on the sand for a while. Then we walked down the beach and met a guy who asked us to bring some gold dust back to Canada with us to sell for him. Interesting. We decided to stay on the safe side and politely declined :-)
Finally we were able to pick up my passport around 2:30 with the extension granted and headed back to Freetown. It was around 6:30 by the time we got back to Mapaki. Chris is getting adjusted to life here and settling in. We hope to do a couple of small side trips over the next week or so, but will be staying based in Mapaki so I can continue to work.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Off to the airport again
Heading to the airport again today to pick up Chris. Woo hoo! Back some time tomorrow.
Visit to Gbonkolenken Chiefdom
On Friday, we (Jane, Nancy and Vaughn, the visitors from Canada, plus myself, TMT, Pa Fornah and Sallay) spent the day in Gbonkolenken chiefdom. I had a lot to do there in terms of work – teacher workshop, meetings with the women and with teacher training scholarship recipients, and delivering the PSI flags and certificates for the schools there that have become members. Jane, Nancy and Vaughn also wanted to visit Mathombo school, which is twinned with Parkview school in Ontario where Jane’s children go to school, and deliver some of the health supplies that they brought with them (the supplies were divided between the two chiefdoms, some to Gbonkolenken and some to Paki Masabong).
It was a good, although very long day. I’ve posted some pictures. The children at Mathombo school were singing as we arrived at the school – a very nice way to be welcomed! The last time I visited Gbonkolenken, school hadn’t started yet, so it was good to see the kids in class this time. Mathombo is a community school and all of the teachers there are volunteers. It’s quite inspiring to see their commitment to the kids, especially in the area of peace education. I could see when visiting the classes that the teachers there were practicing some of the alternatives to corporal punishment that they have learned, especially in terms of providing encouragement and praise to students for participating in class and getting answers right rather than punishing those who got answers wrong.
The teacher workshop we did was the same topic as the one in Paki Masabong last week. We had an excellent turnout – over 30 teachers and a few elders from the area as well. We started the workshop with a review of a previous workshop on alternatives to corporal punishment done by Carolyn, Hetty (van Gurp, founder of Peaceful Schools International) and Thomas. During this review, when I asked the teachers what they remembered from the workshop, one of the elders recalled the story of Hetty’s son Ben (Ben died as the result of an act of bullying by another child at school) and told it again as a reminder why it is so important to build peace at school. I thought it was very touching that he remembered her story.
We also had a very sad health-related experience in Mathombo. Since both Jane and Nancy are doctors, one of the village elders in Mathombo asked if they could examine his wife who hadn’t been feeling well for a few months. The woman was frail and elderly (I find it very hard to tell people’s ages here so I won’t hazard a guess), and was obviously in some pain. Jane and Nancy did the best they could to examine her, asking questions and checking her stomach, which is what was bothering her. In the end they thought that she likely had cancer and that a tumour in her stomach area was causing her the pain. They encouraged her to go to hospital (Mathombo is in Tonkolili District, so the nearest hospital is in Magburaka, about a 45 minute drive), but she said it was not possible because of the costs. All we could do is leave her a bottle of ibuprofen in the hopes of offering her some relief from pain. It was difficult to see someone in obvious pain and distress and not be able to do more to help.
The costs of treatment and the distance to health services are both major barriers to care for people here. However, even if she could get to the hospital, I’m not sure what they’d be able to offer in terms of treatment or pain relief/palliative care. I know that the hospital in Makeni can’t perform any surgeries requiring general anaesthesia for example. I suspect that unless she was able to go to Freetown it would be very difficult for her to get the care she needed. Unfortunately, the inability to access care is an all too common problem for people here.
It was a good, although very long day. I’ve posted some pictures. The children at Mathombo school were singing as we arrived at the school – a very nice way to be welcomed! The last time I visited Gbonkolenken, school hadn’t started yet, so it was good to see the kids in class this time. Mathombo is a community school and all of the teachers there are volunteers. It’s quite inspiring to see their commitment to the kids, especially in the area of peace education. I could see when visiting the classes that the teachers there were practicing some of the alternatives to corporal punishment that they have learned, especially in terms of providing encouragement and praise to students for participating in class and getting answers right rather than punishing those who got answers wrong.
The teacher workshop we did was the same topic as the one in Paki Masabong last week. We had an excellent turnout – over 30 teachers and a few elders from the area as well. We started the workshop with a review of a previous workshop on alternatives to corporal punishment done by Carolyn, Hetty (van Gurp, founder of Peaceful Schools International) and Thomas. During this review, when I asked the teachers what they remembered from the workshop, one of the elders recalled the story of Hetty’s son Ben (Ben died as the result of an act of bullying by another child at school) and told it again as a reminder why it is so important to build peace at school. I thought it was very touching that he remembered her story.
We also had a very sad health-related experience in Mathombo. Since both Jane and Nancy are doctors, one of the village elders in Mathombo asked if they could examine his wife who hadn’t been feeling well for a few months. The woman was frail and elderly (I find it very hard to tell people’s ages here so I won’t hazard a guess), and was obviously in some pain. Jane and Nancy did the best they could to examine her, asking questions and checking her stomach, which is what was bothering her. In the end they thought that she likely had cancer and that a tumour in her stomach area was causing her the pain. They encouraged her to go to hospital (Mathombo is in Tonkolili District, so the nearest hospital is in Magburaka, about a 45 minute drive), but she said it was not possible because of the costs. All we could do is leave her a bottle of ibuprofen in the hopes of offering her some relief from pain. It was difficult to see someone in obvious pain and distress and not be able to do more to help.
The costs of treatment and the distance to health services are both major barriers to care for people here. However, even if she could get to the hospital, I’m not sure what they’d be able to offer in terms of treatment or pain relief/palliative care. I know that the hospital in Makeni can’t perform any surgeries requiring general anaesthesia for example. I suspect that unless she was able to go to Freetown it would be very difficult for her to get the care she needed. Unfortunately, the inability to access care is an all too common problem for people here.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Road trip to Lungi
I'm back from Lungi, arrived in Mapaki yesterday evening just as it was getting dark (around 6:30). We had a pretty uneventful journey. Our Canadian visitors, Jane Gloor and Nancy and Vaughn Wellington all arrived safe and sound on Tuesday night. We stayed in Lungi that night and took the 8 am ferry over to Freetown the next day. I enjoyed taking the ferry in the daytime (when I took it before when I arrived it was night) - great views of Freetown from the water. I'll post a few pictures. Had breakfast in Freetown (mmmm, Bliss cafe!) and picked up some groceries (among the treats I got are jam, raisins and some chocolate! No nutella though, which I was disappointed about), then met with cdpeace Board Chairman Peter Koroma and headed out of town.
I haven't been in Freetown since I arrived. It's so crowded and the traffic is so terrible. Makeni seems very pleasant and quiet by comparison :-) I did find that Freetown seemed much more manageable to me this time around than the first time I was there though, which I think is a sign that I'm adjusting well to life here. Looking forward to spending some more time in the big city with Chris when he's here.
I have heard from other ex-pats about having trouble at checkpoints on the road to and from Freetown, but we were waved through every time, probably because we were driving in the cdpeace vehicle rather than taking public transport. The journey was a little crowded with 6 passengers and the driver and 6 suitcases (some full of medical supplies to be donated to clinics here) and a few bags all packed into the truck, but we survived just fine :-)
Yesterday we stopped in Mayagba to meet the community there before coming to Mapaki. There was a death in the village just the day before, so rather than doing a big community welcome, TMT asked us to come and "greet the burial" - paying our respects to the community who were gathered because of the burial. It was a neat experience to participate in that. You give your greetings and show support by giving a small amount of money (we gave Le 20,000) or if they didn't have money, many people would bring food items. The villagers were very surprised that we white people came and participated in their custom, but I think they appreciated it.
After visiting Mayagba we made our way to Mapaki. In Mapaki the new guests settled in and had some supper. Then there was a big community welcome for them, with dancing and drumming of course. Today they are just resting and exploring Mapaki.
It's been neat to receive people who are visiting for the first time, to be the one who knows the country (at least a little bit by now) and can explain things and help them settle in. I remember what it was like for me when I arrived, how overwhelming everything seemed the first couple of days, so I hope that I helped smooth the way a little bit for them. It was also a good practice run of picking someone up at the airport since I'm heading back there to get Chris on Sunday night. Yay!!
This afternoon I am participating in a skype videoconference presentation to Carleton university. This is part of the public engagement activities that I need to do as part of the CIDA grant that funds my internship. I'm a bit worried about the quality of the internet connection, but I'm crossing my fingers that it all goes well.
Tomorrow we are heading to Gbonkolenken chiefdom to visit the school in Mathombo and the clinic in Makonkorie. I also have various other things to do there (meet with the women, visit the other schools, meet with the teachers receiving scholarships for teacher training and do a teacher workshop!). We may stay over night and come back on Saturday, but I'm not sure about that yet.
I haven't been in Freetown since I arrived. It's so crowded and the traffic is so terrible. Makeni seems very pleasant and quiet by comparison :-) I did find that Freetown seemed much more manageable to me this time around than the first time I was there though, which I think is a sign that I'm adjusting well to life here. Looking forward to spending some more time in the big city with Chris when he's here.
I have heard from other ex-pats about having trouble at checkpoints on the road to and from Freetown, but we were waved through every time, probably because we were driving in the cdpeace vehicle rather than taking public transport. The journey was a little crowded with 6 passengers and the driver and 6 suitcases (some full of medical supplies to be donated to clinics here) and a few bags all packed into the truck, but we survived just fine :-)
Yesterday we stopped in Mayagba to meet the community there before coming to Mapaki. There was a death in the village just the day before, so rather than doing a big community welcome, TMT asked us to come and "greet the burial" - paying our respects to the community who were gathered because of the burial. It was a neat experience to participate in that. You give your greetings and show support by giving a small amount of money (we gave Le 20,000) or if they didn't have money, many people would bring food items. The villagers were very surprised that we white people came and participated in their custom, but I think they appreciated it.
After visiting Mayagba we made our way to Mapaki. In Mapaki the new guests settled in and had some supper. Then there was a big community welcome for them, with dancing and drumming of course. Today they are just resting and exploring Mapaki.
It's been neat to receive people who are visiting for the first time, to be the one who knows the country (at least a little bit by now) and can explain things and help them settle in. I remember what it was like for me when I arrived, how overwhelming everything seemed the first couple of days, so I hope that I helped smooth the way a little bit for them. It was also a good practice run of picking someone up at the airport since I'm heading back there to get Chris on Sunday night. Yay!!
This afternoon I am participating in a skype videoconference presentation to Carleton university. This is part of the public engagement activities that I need to do as part of the CIDA grant that funds my internship. I'm a bit worried about the quality of the internet connection, but I'm crossing my fingers that it all goes well.
Tomorrow we are heading to Gbonkolenken chiefdom to visit the school in Mathombo and the clinic in Makonkorie. I also have various other things to do there (meet with the women, visit the other schools, meet with the teachers receiving scholarships for teacher training and do a teacher workshop!). We may stay over night and come back on Saturday, but I'm not sure about that yet.
Monday, October 19, 2009
The work has begun
I gave my first teacher training workshop this past weekend, on Sunday. First of all, the date was originally planned for Saturday, but on Thursday afternoon we discovered that donors who built the two new schools in Maso and Makambray (from Plan) were coming to visit on Saturday. With half of the teachers attending the workshop coming from those two villages, we had to reschedule, so we moved the workshop to Sunday. Unfortunately, this conflicted with attending church services for some, so the turnout was a bit lower than it might otherwise have been. However, we still had 22 teachers attend, so I'm pleased with that.
Overall the workshop went well I think. Rather than focusing on training on learning methods (since I am not a teacher myself, I didn't feel comfortable offering that kind of training), the workshop focused on peace education and classroom management. It was really a follow up to a workshop held by PSI and cdpeace here in January. That day-long workshop focused on eliminating corporal punishment in schools (now illegal in Sierra Leone). The workshop I did yesterday offered a quick review of the key items learned at that workshop and then checked in with the teachers about how things are going in terms of the goal of eliminating corporal punishment. My role was as facilitator rather than expert, which was exactly what I wanted.
I'm generally very impressed by the teachers here. Even though many of them do not earn salaries (our work here is primarily focused on the volunteer teachers), they are always eager to learn new skills. Some of the teachers who attended the workshop walked 5 miles on a Sunday afternoon just to be there. Teachers seem very dedicated to improving their teaching and creating a more peaceful classroom and community. At the end of our session we brainstormed about ideas for future workshops that cdpeace & PSI might offer. Among the subjects mentioned were child-centred learning techniques, using local materials as teaching tools, agricultural training, training in activities like games, sports and music, human rights training, and record-keeping and computer training. Classroom management is a major issue as well, especially with the huge class sizes here (for example, my neighbour in Mapaki, Fatmata, teaches nursery at the school in Maso and has 75 children in her class, ranging in age from 2 to 5 years old). There is obviously a great need for ongoing support for teachers here, and PSI and cdpeace are both working to meet that need in whatever way possible. It is also inspiring to hear the teachers talk about what they can do to help themselves without waiting for outside support (e.g. from government) that may never come.
Also on the work front, I have done my first few interviews for my research. I have started with interviews with my key informants - people in the community who are knowledgeable about women's health and are in a leadership role. Already some interesting findings and ideas have come up, and I am really looking forward to starting the interviews with local women themselves, hopefully later this week. Lots of typing to transcribe interviews is ahead for me!
I will be out of touch for the next two days. Tomorrow morning I am heading to Lungi (where the airport is located) to pick up three visitors from Canada arriving late in the evening. The visitors are Jane Gloor and Nancy and Vaughn Wellington. Jane is a pediatrician and the parent of a student at Parkview school, one of the schools in Canada that is twinned with a school in Sierra Leone (Mathombo school). They will spend a week in Paki Masabong and Gbonkolenken chiefdoms visiting schools and clinics and then are planning a week of holidays.
On our way through Freetown to the airport I'm also planning to stop in to the grocery store. I'm inordinately excited about this, especially the prospect of getting my hands on some real cheese and maybe some nutella and/or some jam :) I'll report back on all my food goodies when I return to Mapaki on Wednesday.
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