Welcome to Makeni

6-11-11

Welcome to Makeni

Since my last post, we all arrived in Makeni and got settled in with our host families. There was a ‘adoption’ ceremony where the families sat together and the PCV’s sat together, then corresponding names would be called and the family would meet their new son/daughter up in the front, take a picture, hug ect. My family is a woman named Aminata and her son, Prince, who is 12 and in grade 5. 

Aminata and Prince (first time meeting them)

A 3 hour poda-poda ride, people already getting sick, meeting the people you were to live with for the next 10 weeks , being fed rice and an entire fish (from now on fish, means a actual fish. Eyes, head, tail, every bone, scale, flipper and inside parts), and sweating buckets had all the volunteers a bit overwhelmed. It was great haha. So after picking out my bags from the heap outside, Aminata tells me her house is not far.... that may have been true if we didn’t have to haul 3 bags. I have learned that Sierra Leoneans like to tell you what you ‘want’ to hear, even if it may not be entirely true. So Aminata, at about 5’3 and 200lbs, flung my gigantic blue rolling suitcase (90 lb. at least) on top of her head! I tried to stop her but she insisted. Then made Prince carry my backpack, also on his head while I was left with the smallest daypack that had my valuables, and was pretty lightweight. She waddled her way all the way through the compounds till we reached her ‘house.’ My bags and I couldn’t fit in the sitting room, no exaggeration. 

The back door of the house, with some random kiddos

I barely unpacked when Aminata told me it was time for dinner. I was not hungry at all- but  we were told it is culturally rude to decline a meal. So I walked to the front porch area, where a crowd had already gathered to watch me eat. 4 fish (the same kind as mentioned before) a plater of rice, like ‘Happy Family’ chinese restaurant style, drenched in a sauce so spicy that it made you sweat just from looking at it and 8 bananas. No way was all that going in my stomach. No way. 

The 'coal pot' that is used for cooking

The water well

As the crowd of people watched me eat this meal for 5 with a spoon (more common than forks), all I was thinking about was touching something with the wrong hand (left), and where I was suppose to spit the millions of bones. After my interesting night of sleeping on a mattress made of hay and a tarp, I was handed two Subway 6” sized loafs of bread, globbed full with Mayonnaise and packed with fried plantains and a Nalgene bottle filled with tea, a powdered milk mix and 5 towering soup-spoonfuls of sugar. Yummmm. I was not surprised when I got sick that day.