Trip to Lungi

The view from the Xaverian Mission House in Lungi

The school closed on the 12^th April for the holidays. It was quite an exciting time for the pupils. The majority of children’s parents arrived at the school during the morning. All the parents visited the class teachers to collect and discuss their child’s school report. At the end of each term the parents receive a school report about their child. Then at the end of the morning there was a Parents Teachers meeting. I was astounded at the number of parents who attended and all the class teachers participated in the meeting.  It was a very lively and long meeting. All the parents had travelled by public transport. Public transport here is a lorry or van which is packed with people and their belongings. Many of the mothers had young babies on their backs and had travelled for up to five or six hours. That night there was still about forty pupils left in the Boarding School but gradually over the weekend members of their family came and collected them until there was only about twenty left. Those pupils stayed on because they were due to sit national exams soon and their teachers gave them extra tuition during the holidays. 

I continued to work during the first week of the holidays but at a more leisurely pace. On the Wednesday of the following week I went to Lungi for five days’ rest. I stayed at the Xaverian  Mission House which is perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It was beautiful and there were lovely breezes blowing in from the sea. It was very quiet and peaceful and I had a wonderful rest. Lungi is where the Airport is. As we drove into Lungi I was surprised to see street lights powered by solar panels. What is even more surprising is that though Lungi has street lights they don’t have any town supply of electricity. So any accommodation that has electricity has to have their  own generator. The Xaverian Mission had its own generator, so we had electricity for a couple of hours in the morning and the evening. They also had a television. So I saw and heard the news each evening. My first since coming to Sierra Leone!!!

Though the beaches in Lungi are lovely they are spoiled by garbage. They were full of rubbish, mainly plastic. The beaches were littered with plastic bottles, plastic lid, flip flops, shoes etc. Apparently it’s all the rubbish washed up from Freetown which is opposite Lungi.

Enjoying lunch at the Mission House, Lungi

On the Friday of that week the pupils who were left in the Boarding School came down to Lungi for the day. The majority of them had never seen the Ocean. So they were all very excited. On the way down they also saw a freight train. This was the first time that they had seen a train!!

When they arrived at the mission house, we all had lunch and then we went to a beach further along the coast just outside of Lungi. We were joined there by some of the local youth. They all had a great time playing together and swimming. Afterwards they all had a picnic together before the Hearing Impaired pupils returned to Makeni.

It was a steep descent to the beach outside Lungi

I stayed on in Lungi for a few more days. One day I visited a beach at Konakridee which is further along the coast. We walked along the beach for several miles outside of Konakridee before we found a clean beach with no rubbish washed up on it. It was so clean that it was full of crabs. There were thousands of them but every time I tried to take a photograph of them they scuttled off into the ocean. It was a beautiful beach with fine white sand.

On our return journey back  to Makeni we picked up a number of pupils who lived in the Lungi area and gave them a lift back to school.

Some of the pupils on the beach at Lungi

Last week which was the first week of the new term was a very busy week for me as I was trying to  complete my work. I spent every day giving at least two workshops each day to the staff. It was hard work in that heat!!. The sweat was running off me. It was so hot and humid. Last Tuesday and Wednesday night we had two almighty thunderstorms which helped clear the air for a little while. It was so cool for a few hours after the thunderstorm. It was wonderful. I even pulled a sheet over me in bed both those nights.

Well this week has been a very emotional week for me as I prepare for returning home. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Makeni and working at the Hearing Impaired school and I’ll miss all these wonderful children but it will also be nice to be back among family and friends.

. It has been a very positive experience for me. It’s wonderful to see children so happy and both willing and motivated to learn. Despite the obvious poverty that one witnesses all around you in Sierra Leone, there is an air of vibrancy and joy. They are also so appreciative of any help that they receive.

Enjoying a tug of war in the sea

I feel honoured and privileged to have lived among this community and shared in both the Highs and lows of their lives. I’m also so grateful that I got this opportunity to return to Sierra Leone after 35years and in this capacity rather than as a tourist. Today there were a number of ‘lows’. The first was the news this morning that the father of one of the HI pupils had died. It was wonderful to witness the supportive manner in which the Director of the school, Sr. Mary broke this news to the boy and how the Head Teacher, class teacher and the boy’s peers all rallied round to support and comfort him. Late this afternoon one of the workers came running into the compound with her teenage son looking for help. He was writhing in pain. Yesterday he had been diagnosed with typhoid and malaria. Immediately staff and pupils helped out by organising transport to the hospital and comfort for his mother. This is typical of how tragedy can strike the local people so suddenly.

The Community of St. Joseph’s unite together not only to teach and support the Hearing Impaired Pupils but also one another.

In the school the teachers are keen to learn and develop their own teaching skills and it was with them and the Senior management team that I did the bulk of my work which is only a drop in the ocean of what needs to be done. So if you are thinking of volunteering, Go ahead and take the plunge. You’ll enjoy it immensely.

Some of the Highlights of my time here at St. Joseph’s has been:

• ·         The children teaching me their sign language

• ·         Participating in their school assemblies

• ·         Watching the children at play

•        Observing the children learning and communicating with such joy.

Its mango season in Sierra Leone.

·         

Easter

 

I went away at Easter for two days and it was lovely even if it was overpriced. My first time outside of Makeni since I arrived in Sierra Leone. I went to a resort outside of Freetown on Mama beach. We left early on the Saturday and before arriving at Mama Beach, we visited Kent and Sussex which are two old Colonial towns outside of Freetown. We also saw the caves where the slaves were loaded onto canoes which then brought them out to the boats which took them to America etc. These caves run far inland under the ground. The slaves were loaded down through an opening in the ground onto these boats. The caves are hardly visible from the shore. So the slaves were already half way out to the waiting boats before anyone realised. It’s awful to think of what happened in such an idyllic setting. There’s also a small holding cell there with hardly enough room to stand up in and approx. 400 slaves were kept in there. Anyway enough of that.The beach was quiet and secluded with sunbeds and shade. The food was very good and the rooms were clean and with a shower. So what more could you want? There were also plenty of breezes. As it was a French resort the sockets were two pin!! I couldn’t believe it. It must be the only place in Sierra Leone with two pin sockets and of course I had left my two pin adapter back in Makeni. However they found me an adapter. There was no Internet or phone coverage in the hotel compound even though it was advertised as having Internet. The first morning I went down to breakfast I asked them what was for breakfast as they didn’t have a menu and I couldn’t see any food displayed and the reply was ‘What do you want?’

I eventually discovered that the Breakfast Menu was: African Omelette, Plain Omelette, scrambled eggs or fried eggs with bacon and sausage. So I chose scrambled egg and I asked if I could also have bacon with it. Just as the waitress was leaving I asked ‘Do you have any fruit?’ Oh yes. So I also asked if I could have some fruit. Well the breakfast was beautiful. I had pineapple and water melon followed by scrambled eggs, a slice of bacon, two sausages and a spoonful of baked beans. There was also lovely coffee. No matter what you ordered you got bacon, sausages and baked beans with it but we were all quite happy with that. However the following day there was no bacon or baked beans available for breakfast. It was Fruit, African Omelette, Plain Omelette, scrambled eggs or fried eggs with sausages. We asked for our omelettes without sausages but were told’ No , Everything comes with sausages!! Anyway it was fine and the sausages weren’t too bad even though only a few of us ate them. For lunch and evening meal they did a variety of salads and fish among other things and it was all lovely. This was a big change for me as all my food since arriving here has been plasas. i.e. Rice with a sauce.The dining area was tables in a sandy cove under a number of trees for shade and overlooking the beach & the river which flowed into the sea. It was an idyllic setting.

 I had a lovely weekend.

On the journey back to Makenii we saw a number of processions with Devil Dancers. They were out in force because it was Easter. When you pass them you can’t look at them. If you do you get harassed by them.

 Its now the week after Easter and it has

been hot and sticky all day Saturday and Sunday. We kept expecting rain but it didn't happen. Also we all thought that we would get town light on Friday night but that didn't happen either. We had been getting town light every second night for a few hours. It didn’t happen on Sat or Sun evening either. I hadn’t had any water for several days either because there was no electricity to pump the water up from the Bore hole. During this past week I had been existing on what was left in the tank. However by Sun.there was no water left. It had all finally run out and there was no drinking water either. On Sunday evening I was so desperate for a shower that I went off with my bucket looking for water. I eventually got half a bucket which kept me going until Monday. Then members of staff carted large basins of water on their heads up from the school well and poured it into barrels. They carried it upstairs on their heads. I’ve got a barrel in my bedroom and there are barrels in the kitchen, toilets etc. So that should keep me going for a while. On Sunday I visited a number of houses. One of the teachers who had had a baby, another teacher who was off sick and an old an old lady whom I heard was looking for help. I think this was another reason why I was so hot and sticky and really looking forward to a shower and when I discovered that there was no water left for either washing or drinking it got to me but I gave myself a shake and went off with my bucket to look for water.

So my feelings of despondency didn't last long!!!

When we arrived at this old lady's house she was bent double, the poor soul but was so happy that Sr. Mary and I visited her. She gave me a big hug and clasped me to her bosom!!! She is living in a very basic mud house in a swamp in Makeni and was looking for help to buy bags of cement to stop the rain and water coming in. The inside of the house was mud floors and plain mud walls. It looked more like a store than a dwelling. There was no furniture as such except a few stools. The first room that we went into when we entered the house had a single bed supported on a few cement bricks with a sheet on it. I think this is where her grandson slept. We asked to see the granny’s bedroom. Her room was similar but had a proper bed with a mosquito net over it. It was over beside the window which was just an opening in the wall with bars on the window. This was the only light into the room except for what came in through the holes in the roof. There was a hole in the roof just above her bed. Along the lower part of the wall you could see where the wall was crumbling. Once the rains come in earnest the water in the swamp will rise and surround her house. It will come about two feet up the wall. So it’s imperative that the outer wall is cemented to prevent the water getting into her bedroom. Recently friends from both my walking club in East Kilbride and the sett dancing club in Glasgow sent out some money. So I’ve lumped all the money together I'm using some of this money to help this old lady by buying 5 or 10 bags of cement. One of the teachers, Moses, who is very honest went with a builder on Thursday, to assess what materials are required etc. So yesterday the builder returned with the Estimate which was for Le800,000 ( £130 approx.) So I gave them the money to buy the materials and they are going to work on it this weekend. It’s imperative that it’s done quickly before the rains arrive in earnest. I walked past her house last night and I saw that the sand has already arrived. It was on the road outside her house. I’ve also used some of the money to buy resources for the school. I still haven't used up all the money I had when I came out so yesterday I also sent more rice out to the Amputee Village.

When I gave the money to Moses he said " God Bless You & Thank you very much" I told him it wasn't me who was donating the money but my good friends back in East Kilbride and Glasgow. So he sends God's Blessing onto you all.

It’s very hot and close here in Makeni and we have just had another downpour of rain this morning. Its been a number of weeks since the last one but they'll probably start to be more frequent from now on. So I was thinking of that old lady this morning when we had that downpour. At the moment we’ve got constant electricity and internet. The President is in town. I wonder if there is a connection!!! We’ll see what happens when he leaves.

School closed here yesterday for a two week break. Most of the children left yesterday but there are still a few here. Their parents have got to come and collect them. So if no-one came for them yesterday they are still here. So today we are busy trying to make arrangements to get them home.

Hope the temperatures at home are now a bit better. You should start to see an improvement from now on, surely..

Hope all is well with everyone.

Palm Sunday

 

On the 13^th March there was great excitement here in the Hearing impaired school because the ‘rains’ arrived. There was a Dutch film crew here filming the children and the staff. They were making a film about the Cluny order and the work that they do in Sierra Leone. On the evening of the 13^th March, the sky became very dark and the wind started to blow really strongly. It was like being in the middle of a sand storm. There was dust everywhere. Then one of the film crew announced that a new pope had been selected but as yet no-one knew who it was. There was a lot of cheering and shouting. The wind got stronger and everyone was running round closing windows, doors etc to stop all the banging. Then the lightning started. It was amazing to look at. It was also very hot. The electricity went out. Then, just after 6 o’clock the rain started. It was torrential but also fantastic. The temperature dropped immediately. It got so much cooler. The children were dancing around with excitement. I even saw some very young children out in the street pulling off their clothing, giggling, laughing and dancing about in the rain and washing themselves with a bar of soap. A number of people had radios out trying to get information on who the new pope was. Darkness then fell and there was still no electricity, so we had to find candles and get them lit. So it was dinner by candlelight!!! I was transported back in time to life here 35 years ago. The electricity didn't come back on until 10pm. It was fascinating watching the rain and the forked lightning. It rained a lot during that night. You could hear it pelting on the corrugated tin roofs. However the following day it was back to normal. Blue skies and warm weather. Since then we’ve had the rains twice and we had a whole week of severe power cuts but this past week has been very good. We’ve had six consecutive days with no power cuts!! The rumour is that at the end of this month maintenance work is starting at the Power Station and there will be three months of power cuts. So of course when there is no electricity we have no internet. You also have to make sure that you keep topping up all your appliances like mobile phone, lap tops, kindle etc so that when the power cut occurs you are not caught out as I was last weekend .

One of the teachers told me about a month ago that the person whom he rents his house from had just increased his rent again and he was finding it very difficult financially. It’s only a very basic house but each year his landlady increases his rent. His mother in law had given him a small piece of land. So he had started to make mud bricks so that he could build his own house. Each weekend he would make so many. With the first rains he lost 2000 of the bricks he had made. Last week after another night of rain he lost another 3000 bricks. So it looks as if he’ll have to postpone building his house until after the rainy season. Perhaps by then he will have managed to buy the materials for the roof so that it will protect the mud bricks. This teacher works so hard. His brother died last year so he now supports and looks after his brother’s three children as well as his own two. There is a real need here for some sort of Credit Union to help people like him financially.

Last Tuesday we had a party in the school to celebrate the school’s feast day, St Joseph. The day started off with assembly and a discussion about St. Joseph. Then later in the morning we had mass and afterwards we had a party. Despite their hearing impairment all the children have great rhythm and are fantastic dancers.  Michael Jackson wouldn’t have had a ‘look in’!!

Yesterday was Palm Sunday and all the Christians here celebrate it with gusto. They all gathered for Church at a certain destination about an hour before the service was due to begin. Some came with palms and others collected their palms from branches of trees that had been cut down for this purpose. Some of them had huge branches and others smaller branches or just palm leaves. As everyone was assembling it was like a social outing. People meeting and chatting to each other. They were also making crosses from their palms and plaiting the leaves on the branches. I even saw one person make his branch into a staff. Then the procession took off with everyone waving their palms and singing’ Hosanna’ It almost felt biblical. You really felt that perhaps Jesus would pass by on a donkey though I don’t think there are any donkeys in Sierra Leone.  I find all the people here very spiritual. They talk about ‘Papa  God’ and they sing with fervour. Even the early morning daily mass is full of singing. The mass yesterday lasted two hours and if you count the procession etc it was three hours.  Everyone came out of Church in a very happy, jubilant mood. Then tragedy occurred. One of the young hearing impaired boys dashed across the road outside the cathedral and was knocked down by a’ Dawnus’ four wheeled vehicle. ‘Dawnus’ are a Welsh firm who have the mining contract in Sierra Leone. The poor boy had got three quarters of the way across the road when the accident occurred. Luckily not too much damage had been done and the child is in hospital recovering. He is being kept in for three days for observation. He banged his head and hip in the accident. Sister Mary phoned the driver today to find out if his firm would help with the hospital bill and the travelling expenses for the mother. She came from Lungi which is a 3 to 4 hour journey from Makeni. He agreed to pay the hospital expenses but nothing more. ‘Dawnus’ are a huge Welsh company involved in the mining here in Sierra Leone and making a lot of money.

 As it was also International Youth Day yesterday, there was a Youth Rally and they climbed one of the local hills. I joined them for the climb. Though steep it was a short climb. The worst part of it was the heat. There was a great party atmosphere with singing , dancing, drama and praying. It was nice being among so many enthusiastic young people. However I was exhausted at the end of it all and I slept like a log last night despite the humidity. I think It’s  building up for more rain.

Eating out in Makeni

The Waterfall at Bumbuna

Eating out in Makeni

I’ve now been here seven weeks. Time has passed so quickly. Now that we are into March it has got a lot hotter. The mornings have been lovely especially early on but as the day progresses it gets hotter and hotter. However yesterday and today it has got considerably hotter and even this morning at seven o’clock it was hot and humid. The temperature at 8am was 35 degrees and it felt as if it was over 43 degrees because of the humidity factor. This is the first day since I arrived here that the sky hasn’t been blue. It’s dull and cloudy. Reminds me of home without the heat!!!

Wild pig rummaging in the town of Bumbuna

This past week there have been a number of expats visiting and staying at the school. So last Sunday I took a complete day off. I did no work and all of us went out to a waterfall which is at a place called Bumbuna which is outside Makeni. Though it's not too far away it took us about an hour and a half. The road in parts wasn't good. However once we got there it was beautiful. Nearly as nice as Scotland!!!. We had a picnic at the waterfall which was lovely. Two of the younger members of our party went in for a swim. I refrained. There is river blindness here so I wasn't taking any chances. There is a huge dam there and that is where both Makeni and Freetown get their electricity from. We had intended to go for a drive round the dam but weren’t allowed to do so because there was a security issue. Apparently the workers at the dam have not been paid for over two months, so at the moment many of them are on strike.  It takes four days to walk around the dam!!!

Santos the Carver

Last weekend some VSO's visited the school and did Games, Drama and Art work with the children who are boarders. They had great fun. These VSOs are all very young about 18yrs old and they are here for six weeks to work with the Youth of Makeni. We also had a visit from a carver who is also one of the Amputees who lost his hand during the civil war. The rebels cut off his right hand and he had to learn to carve using the stump and his left hand. He brought us some of his carvings for us to look at. His work was very good. Towards the end of the Civil War, some Cluny nuns came across Santos. They found him sitting under a tree chipping away at a lump of wood and were very impressed with what he was producing. They helped him and he is now selling carvings to visitors. He had a big bag full of his carvings and as he was bringing them out to display to us something jumped out of the bag. It was a mouse!! Well I jumped and all of us screamed. However the mouse was like a bat out of hell and I think he must have kept running because thankfully we haven’t seen it since.

The VSO's working with the pupils of St. Joseph's Hearing Impaired School, Makeni

Picnic at Bumbuna

On Tuesday evening as there were only two of us at home we decided to go out for a meal. We had heard that there was a rooftop restaurant in the centre of town. Its amazing how your standards readjust!! I was sorry that I didn’t have my camera with me. We found the restaurant without too much difficulty. We went up an outside stairway reminiscent of my childhood in the Gorbals and entered the restaurant. All the tables were covered in oilskin table coverings and some had a vase with artificial flowers but it had a roof closing it in. So we looked for the rooftop and saw a narrow wooden staircase in the corner. I went over to it and started to go up it but as I approached the top all I could see out of the opening was a drop downwards so we turned back. A waitress then came out of a room at the back and we asked if they had a rooftop and she pointed to the stairway that I had just come down from. So once again up we went and when you went through the opening at the top there was a narrow ledge that you could walk along and then you turned the corner and it opened out onto a rooftop. Beside it was another rooftop a bit higher up which was the rooftop of the restaurant. So we climbed up onto that. The view was good and there was a breeze. The rooftop was all higgilty, piggillty with various levels. We were on the highest level beside the satellite dish. There was a clothes line with all the washing on it. They brought us up two chairs that we could sit on. I then went down and got two warm star beers for us to drink while they prepared the food. Its safer to get a beer and drink it from the bottle rather than getting a glass. I don’t know if they even had any glasses. While we were drinking our beers a woman then came up from the rooftop below us to take in the washing. As she took each item off the line she folded it and put it on top of her head until she had the whole pile of washing on top of her head then jumped back down onto the rooftop below and disappeared into a hovel erected on the roof. What a pity I didn’t have a camera with me. I ordered a Chicken Schewma which is a chicken wrap and Catherine, who was with me,  ordered fish and jollof rice. They brought the meal to us on a tray. I was a bit dubious of the chicken that was in my wrap. Catherine’s fish was lovely except that it came with its eyes winking up at you. The jollof rice was also lovely and spicy. So all in all my first jaunt into eating out in Makeni wasn’t too bad and it was certainly entertaining. It was certainly a far cry from Cordon Blu but then I didn't come to Sierra Leone expecting to find any restaurants here!!! Most of the expats are leaving this weekend and I’ll then be on my own. The other lady, Monica who was here when I arrived, left last week. However I’m sure it won’t be long until there are other people passing through the Host Accommodation at the school.