Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fourth of July!

Today we had a cultural fair with the Sierra Leonans. Made food, some people tie-died lappa skirts and African drummers played throughout the day:) Hope everyone has a great day!

To all of the Peterson’s celebrating in Durango, having great food and watching the fireworks, I miss you lots and wish I could be there! Love you!

Here are a couple pictures from today’s festivities, the weekend field-trip coming soon is a video of one of my teachers, Ben. He is hilarious and for sure my favorite. Most the time I cannot understand him and have no idea what he is talking about. In the video, I ask him about “Water Mummies,” a superstition and actual belief  of many of the people here. From what I understand, they are like mermaids or siren’s, but an evil kind (like in the new Pirates of the Caribbean), that capture people, especially whites, when they go swimming. He always warns me to stay away from water because they will like me for my white skin and golden hair. 

Rachel and I canoeing at the wildlife reserve.

Tammie and I at the cultural fair, today.

Mark and I in front of the Lappa dyers.

Ivy and I at the Otamba National Park.

Site Info

6-30-11

SITE INFO

So, found out where my site is going to be! A town called Futa Pejeh. Population est. 1,000 or less. School name, Pejeh JSS (middle school age, mixed- boys and girls), government assisted school, 157 for roll. Distance from Pujehun (big town) 25 miles. 1hr away from closest PCV. Language I will now be learning is Mende. My house there is ready, phew! Transportation is “okay” but road may be “challenging,” I have no clue what that means. Cell service “spotty.”

I get to visit end of next week, and cannot wait! So exciting!

With that said, anyone is welcome to call me. Skype is the cheapest (that I have found) .43 cents per minute. My number here is +232078988672. Don’t forget the plus sign.

Some of the 'delish' food... I wouldn't even feed this to MyLeigh.

Lately

6-30-11

Lately

Here are some quick updates and funny things that have been happening lately:

• I set up my ‘bug hut,’ in my room, atop my bed. Good luck trying to get me now rats.

My room

• One rat was brave enough to come out during the daylight. I was looking out the window when it scurried down the screen, right in front of my face! Instinctively, I jumped up onto my tarp bed, took a single jump to the door and got out of my infested room. Prince was cracking up. But hey, I didn’t even scream. 

• Aminata gifted me two Costco sized jars of Mayo. I hate Mayo. Gave me a spoon and told me I can keep them in my room... so she thinks Americans just eat Mayo like it’s frozen yogurt?

Aminata cooking/washing dishes (everyone is always topless, she at least wears a bra) Jesse the dog is in the corner.

• We all went on a field trip to some animal reserve. The 2 hour poda-poda ride turned into a 6hr. ride there, an hour and a half picnic, and a 6hr. ride home. It was a fun bonding experience with the other PCV’s, but a lonnnnggg day for sure. It didn’t make anything better when the only animal we saw was a hippo footprint. HAHA

On the way to the nature reserve

• I had a cold Diet Coke the other day at the only American-ish place in Makeni called Clubhouse, and felt like I was going to pass out- it was very strange. First ‘cold’ thing I have had in awhile.

• At night I pee in a bucket in my room, it has a lid, because the doors are locked and no one goes outside. 

• Someone knocked on my window at about 6am, totally creeped me out. Turns out it was a pregnant lady’s husband- she was going into labor. Aminata is the area nurse.

• I came home from training and saw a pregnant looking woman sitting on the living room couch wearing only a lappa (cloth that they use as a skirt/wrap), that did not shock me cause no women wear tops here, but the big gash in her stomach and oozing blood caught my eye. Turns out her c-section stitches had came out. Aminata was sewing her back up. I am not sitting on the couch again.

• I was the assistant in preforming a circumcision to a 22yr. old baby boy. I was holing clamps, legs, flashlights (it was very dark, sounds safe, I know.), and keeping a finger in the baby’s mouth that he could suck on. Pieces of skin were flung everywhere, as was blood, iodine and pee. Again, never sitting on the family room couch. 

• Had my first experience teaching in front of a class full ok kiddos and loved it!

Me, walking to training

• Packages have came, so I am excited they are actually getting to Makeni! Send me letters :)

• Everyone is amazed by my Crest SpinBrush. Think I am magic. 

• Kids and women love feeling my arms and my hair. Tell me I am “slippery” and “fluffy.” Last week, I asked a neighbor for two french braids and came out looking like Medusa (can’t be positive since I have no mirror) with 30 loose braids all over my head.

Family Background

6-19-11

Family background (prepare yourself)

Found out some really eyeopening information about the family I am living with. So, the rebel war broke out when Aminata lived with her family (parents, two younger brothers and younger sister) a little north of Makeni, in a town called Moyamba (or something). They were forced to run into the bush to hide. Aminata saw the rebels kill her family dog, Jesse, while she was being raped by one of the lead Rebels (now every dog she gets she names Jesse). She escaped only to find her mother and sister had been murdered. She joined back with her dad and two younger brothers and they made their way through the jungle, trying to reach Freetown. Along the way, the youngest brother became very sick from all the running and “falling in the mud,” and eventually died from that. Aminata, her father and the remaining brother reached Freetown where Prince was born, 13 days after Aminata’s youngest brother, Prince, had passed away. Aminata’s dad is no longer living and the remaining brother lives in a different village. I am amazed at how close I am to a place that not long ago was such a mess. I am living with the aftermath, literally. I have no doubt that God has had a hand in helping people like Aminata, who have seen hell, regain their lives, identities and overall outlook on life. 

My walk to the training facility

Surprisingly

6-16-11

Surprisingly...

I really am surprising myself the more that I am here. I mean all the yucko things that I have had to do and seen really haven’t phased me the way I once thought.  So the bathroom situation in my compound is... kinda sick. There are these holes in the ground called latrines, where people do their business. There are no lids or covers so cockroaches and mosquitoes pretty much own this area. It gets sicker. So everyone in the compound uses this hole, 20+ people. Imagine the smell right? K so this area, ya it is also the shower zone. I’m still getting used to that :)

Next. My twin bed has a Peace Corps given thick green mosquito net over it. The other night I heard rustling, like I have been the past couple of nights, and blamed it on the malaria medicine, ‘metho dream’ is what PCV’s are calling it, but I was sure that I heard something in my room. So, I reached for my phone flashlight and as I shone it towards the celling, it caught 6 gleaming eyes. Rats. They were clinging to my net. One on the top and two on the sides. When they saw the light they scattered. One was trapped between my net and the wall and was trying to climb under the net, which he’d then be in my bed with me. I sat up, pulled my legs in and yes, I admit, had a bit of a freakout moment. I called Tammie, she calmed me down and I went back to bed, after I made sure my net was tucked in really tight. 

The pile of dead cockroaches in front of my door every morning, no longer grosses me out, but ensures my want of getting a cat as soon as I get to site. 

I had an interview with a man named Andrew, as to where I would ‘like’ to be placed and where I will be most useful, we should all be finding out around week 4, I am stoked!

It is really weird not looking in a mirror everyday. I can’t say I have forgotten what I look like, but it is certainly different not owning a mirror. I joke with Tammie that, “at least we know people hang out with us for more than just our good looks,” cause the greasy hair, no make-up, tired, sweaty ‘look’ cannot be super attractive. 

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.

Freetown Pictures

6-07-11

The view from the hotel balcony in Freetown

The visit to the Vice President, African attire and all!