Carolyn van Gurp's Sierra Leone Journal

2009-09-22T13:56:00.003Z

Well, I can’t believe it. This is the day that I had planned to return to Sierra Leone and here I still am in Halifax. Health issues (had good biopsy results back this week) and several other factors have kept me here longer than planned. Thank goodness PSI board member Clare Levin has received a CIDA internship to volunteer with cdpeace and will be able to continue with school twinning, teacher support, etc. until I return. Please take a look at Clare’s blog at clareinternational.blogspot.com. Huge thanks to Clare and all who are making her feel comfortable and at home in Mapaki and elsewhere in the two chiefdoms!

In the meantime, I am posting a letter to friends in Sierra Leone, as an update on our Canadian adventure: For the first time, this is a Canada-based blog for our friends and family in Sierra Leone. We miss you all very much and every day think about the small and big things we miss about Sierra Leone…family, friends and communities (especially our children Umar, Kadija and Helen), sounds of small children playing and roosters calling, smell of the kitchen fire and banter with the women, taste of spicy plasass and cassava leaf. Often we wish we could simply be whisked back to Sierra Leone to touch base with people for a few days before returning to our schedule. So far we’ve had seven weeks of intense travel throughout eastern Canada, and have done presentations at fourteen schools and five conferences in four provinces. We took a few days off to celebrate our wedding with Canadian family and look forward to returning to family in Nova Scotia soon. A huge thanks goes out to all who provided us with transportation, meals, a bed to sleep in and good company and inspiration. Thanks to Children’s World Academy, Springdale, the Lester B Pearson School Board, St Mark, St. Francis, St. Francis DeSales, St. Joseph, St. Joseph’s, Beaconsfield High, Adult Learning Centre, Kingslake, Parkview, Pheasant Run, Little Rouge, the Canadian Society for Studies in Education, Canadian Association for Studies in International Development, ACIC, Queen’s University, UNESCO, the Lakoh, extended van Gurp and Egnatoff families, Kathryn and Helen, Diana and Cameron, Mom, Abdul and many others who go unnamed (you know who you are!). In the coming weeks we’ll continue with presentations and plan for a week-long Peace Art Camp that we’ll be facilitating in Halifax.

Everyone has been asking Saidu what he thinks of Canada and what surprises him the most. His initial impressions are… “Canada has very unpredictable, uncondusive weather, people here eat more vegetables and fruits than carbohydrates, houses are under-peopled (huge houses can have just one or two people in them) and the network of roads and transportation is impressive. My first big surprise was when Carolyn offered me a “Hot Dog” to eat and I wondered if Canadians really eat those well-cared-for dogs they keep as pets (here dogs are treated like human beings with beddings and good care, dog hospitals and operations for things like toothaches. It was really beef). Canadians are very friendly and open and ask lots of questions….they want to know everything. In the school visits I noticed that children are bold and they wanted to know a lot about Sierra and asked many, many questions about children in Sierra Leone, what they eat, how they get along with their families, about the war (were children involved in fighting, who abducted the children, etc.) and much more. I went skating on ice (Carolyn adds “and didn’t fall”). There are many, many places that make shwarma here and in some of the schools almost all the children come from other countries around the world.”

Our plans for the next few weeks…continue with support for school twinning and schools visits (thanks Winnie and Sue!), reflect on what we’ve learned so far, and work on plans for producing and printing books for literacy learning in Sierra Leone. I hope to also be able to do some short term teaching (and twin from Canada for a change!) to generate funds for on-going work. Until I return, please remember to visit Clare’s blog. You can also sign up for an email notice to postings to this blog for when I start posting from Sierra Leone again (see top right side of the page). Happy reading and happy fall till the next post, hopefully from Sierra Leone!

2009-04-27T19:19:00.004Z

Mapaki today, my last full day here this year, lives up to its reputation as a community full of beauty, hope, life, death, wonder, pain, and mystery. It’s been a contemplative day for me as I wandered down this morning to my last year’s garden to sit once again in the shade of the mango tree and think of many things. This year’s garden (not mine) was a work of art with flowering okra nestled among the corn, potato vines, brilliance of pepper and spreading tomato. The grasshoppers seemed slightly less plentiful and not overly interested in these varieties of vegetable. The view, unfortunately, brought a sense of doom as one full side of Kafoima, the revered sacred forest, smoldered black and charred from the clearing that had recently been done (probably by the other village, often blamed when the forest is damaged). After enough time for quiet contemplation, I wandered back to discover that during my brief visit to the garden, tragedy struck at the house next to the garden, and the young mother of a suckling baby died during the brief moments I sat under the tree. No one knows yet who will care for and nurse the baby or exactly why the mom died. Oh, Mapaki and the sorrows of babies and young mothers and poor families!

Continuing on my way, I was passed by a small gathering of men and boys in some kind of ceremony that involved drumming on what looked like tortoise shells and blood on the young man in the centre of the gathering. I didn’t stop to ask questions. Rather, I stopped at the porch of my good friend, Pa Sankoh, the wisest man in the village, who had gathered around him about twenty other of the chiefdom’s blind people (I’m not sure why). This was a good opportunity to make arrangements to visit his garden in the morning before I leave, fulfilling a long-overdue promise.

I’m not sure which has affected me more…the water crisis we have been experiencing for the last six weeks as the wells go dry and pumps are locked for hours each day (lots of washing in small amounts of murky water and lining up at midnight or early morning when the water trickles back) or the internet crisis that’s been in effect for one week (our service has been migrated to another satellite but the dish not yet realigned and I’ve been virtually email-less for too long). We’ve had two rains now this week so I expect the water crisis is ending and today we are expecting a team to realign the dish and restore internet to Mapaki. Apologies for all the emails I have missed over the last few weeks. Here’s hoping I can actually post this blog entry tonight.

I suppose this will be my final posting for this year. The last few weeks have been hectic with many visitors and new and old friends from Canada visiting; the opening of the new Mathombo community school (to replace that which was burnt during the war); wrapping up school twinning; the visit of 100 ambassadors, U.N. officials (including Canada’s ambassador to the U.N.), and others to Mapaki for lunch yesterday, and preparing for my departure. The good news that came through yesterday is that, on the third try, Saidu’s application to visit Canada was approved and he’ll be traveling with me on Wednesday (I received this call at the moment of meeting the Canadian ambassador). This means, of course, another whirlwind layer of final preparations and changes. It’s been quite a month, bringing an end to quite a year and I look forward, again, to chatting with many of you in person over the next four months. Back on-line in September!

Photo - "Love is Free" poster made by Parkview students for Mathombo students presented at the new school hand-over ceremony

2009-04-12T13:01:00.002Z

With two weeks remaining before I return to Canada, my remaining blog postings are likely to be limited (which may be good as mom points out that I have lately been slacking off in this department). This morning, Easter, I am awaiting the arrival of the seven Timbo children from Makeni and am planning food. So far I’ve come up with rice (of course) with deer sauce and 24 eggs. The eggs come from Magburaka and the deer from a woman in a neighbouring village who turned up at my door with it yesterday (deer here are quite small so this one will feed our whole household for a couple of days). Sallay tells me it will make a lovely addition to a cassava leaf sauce. Remembering my last foray into cooking cassava (luckily the only one who would eat my cooking and thus suffer the cyanide poisoning was me), I think I’ll enlist the help of Mabinty in meal preparation today. I also considered simply waiting till the children turn up and asking daughters Kadija and Helen, who do all the cooking at Makeni, to help me but Sallay tells me this would be most rude as today they are my guests. Should be an interesting two days. My visiting friend Norma Jean and I have been discussing the relative merits or not of introducing a few Easter traditions to the children (most of the children are Muslim without any cultural context for our seemingly bizarre “Easter” traditions). We’ve come up with a compromise of simply dying seven of the 24 eggs and serving them for breakfast tomorrow. During the rest of the visit I plan to spend time with the children in food processing (which is how most children spend most of their days here), with kids their age in our household, in the library, and possibly going an outing to the river beach.

Receiving the deer reminded me of the conversation I had yesterday with two of the boys who hang out at my house. We were discussing what they had learned from the school twinning project, leading to their explanation of hunting practices here (the boys had been exchanging hunting and fishing stories with students in Dawson). AKT and Alpha explained how the community had come to agree to give up hunting with guns in the post-war period with the encouragement of the UNDP. As part of the disarmament process, the community was supplied with dogs and nets in exchange for guns. Apparently all agreed that this was for the best as traumatized people, still responding in shock to any sound of gunfire, would head for the bush or even suffer heart attacks at the sound of hunters’ guns. Much food for thought as I read news from Canada about debate on gun control. Also feeds my dream of seeing the launch of a worldwide disarmament campaign.

Yesterday Norma Jean and I also headed to Mathombo with the cdpeace staff (on motorbikes) to present a package of letters and amazing art work on peace from students at Parkview, Mathombo’s twin school. During this exchange, Norma Jean conducted a long interview with two of the volunteer teachers who recounted experiences of being in school on the day the rebels attacked and burnt the school, which killed six of the children. Next week we will be witnesses at a ceremony to remember those who died on this day and to hand over a newly constructed school built through the generous donation of several Canadian organizations and individuals (Green Solutions, Newport Sports, etc.). The teachers and students were very grateful to receive the Canadian children’s artwork to showcase during these two historic days. I’m sure there will be a report and photos posted afterwards.

Schools are on holiday now, which is making it easier for me to wrap up last responsibilities and tasks. My “to do” list seems to be endlessly long but I have had moments lately of feeling somewhat in control of it. Having Norma Jean here keeping me in stitches of laughter most of the time helps. Hope to be seeing many of you for shared laughter soon.
Photo by Saidu – Sharing artwork from Parkview School

2009-03-31T10:50:00.003Z

Yesterday I got married. At least I think I did. I certainly feel very married today. What started out as a plan for marriage negotiations between my family here, the Contehs and Saidu’s family, the Timbos gradually evolved into a full-fledged traditional African wedding, complete with sharing of water, a goat, kola nuts, calabash, bride price, wedding feast, dancing and drumming, palm wine and so much more. Actually, it was a wonderful day and every aspect was either great fun, deeply meaningful, thought-provoking or inspiring. The day started in the kitchen, of course, where Sallay and Mabinty and others were preparing a feast to welcome the Timbo family to Mapaki. Timbos arrived somewhat late (by Canadian, not Sierra Leonean standards) and my brothers, Kouame and Kannal decided that the Timbos would need to pay a fine for their tardiness before they could meet with me. While the family was arriving and settling in, therefore, I was whisked away to several safe hiding places…chief’s parlour, women’s store, behind the family home, etc., guarded by the village headman, my sister and mother, women of the village and sundry others. Negotiations for my release ensued, though I started to worry when the waiting dragged on long enough for the women dancers and drummers to discover and make quick work of the palm wine, which disappeared as the drumming became louder and dancing more intense. Finally Sallay and Mabinty announced that the negotiations were successful and I was allowed to join the rest of the waiting throng in the parlour of the guest house where representatives of all generations of both families assembled, surrounded by neighbours and friends on the porch and hallway. How to describe the next few hours! Well, parables and wisdom abounded from both families, symbols of life and peace and love were solemnly circulated and shared, gifts and kind words and encouragement were exchanged, the goat munched away on grass, I perched on my straw mat where I was asked if I would accept Saidu’s love by accepting (or not) the Timbos’ calabash and 100 kola nuts wrapped in leaves and bound with white thread (for peace). I said yes, to the relief of all, was welcomed and thanked by all the Timbos and then was encouraged to think of the wisest person in my family who would forever play the role of mediator, should Saidu and I ever experience strife and signify my choice by handing to that person the calabash and kola. My choice, of course, was my father, the chief, who happily agreed to play this important role in our future lives (though I can’t imagine ever calling on him in this function). More sharing and this time the Timbos thanked all who had a hand in raising me, from the babies to the aunties to the elders in the village, all of whom received a token of thanks in the form of several thousand leones in an envelope, often shared among a group (my family, all the male or female students in my household, the eldest women in the village, etc.). My “bride price” was handed over and I’m told that some of this will come back to the Timbos when the Contehs provide me with the pots I’ll need to set up house at their compound in Makeni. The rest will be used to buy bags of rice to share among the Conteh family. We ended the day with a big meal of rice, introducing the Timbos to Mapaki’s library (they were suitably impressed), chatting with and saying goodbye to friends who came from numerous locales to participate in this event, and then crashing around 7pm. Today we are comfortably sitting side by side in the library, each of us plugging away at a computer…Saidu writing work reports and me getting caught up with overdue school work. We talked a bit this morning about yesterday, and both are still not sure if we really are married or not. I think that, after consulting the chief, we will formalize this traditional wedding and register it with our local district council. Historically, few traditional weddings have been registered or formalized, but this requirement is now part of the new "gender" laws designed to protect the rights of women.

I’ve had some emails asking where we would set up house. Well, the plans are that we will continue living arrangements much the same as they now are with me based in Mapaki and Saidu staying where he needs to for his job (Mapaki, Mayagba, Makonkorie, and Makeni). I’ll spend weekends at the Timbo compound in Makeni, a wonderful egalitarian, shared living arrangement with Mother Timbo, Saidu’s daughter, brother, sister, sister-in-law and various nieces and grandchildren. We have a very comfortable room in the house and have as much private or shared time with people I really like as we want. Everyone helps with maintenance in whatever way they can and meals are either shared or not, depending on each person’s whim or wish. The house is situated on the edge of the town with two magnificent forested hills and a corn field as a backdrop and the market or “downtown” area a short walk away. The family has lived there for decades and so are friends with most in the neighbourhood. I’m feeling very privileged to now have a village home in Mapaki and a town home in Makeni. Other plans in the works…we are going to try to start rebuilding the small herd of cattle that Saidu kept before the war, cattle that were his “savings” for the children’s education but were stolen and slaughtered by rebels. Added to this will be some goats and sheep and all will be cared for Saidu’s uncle. My dream is to also eventually use these to produce milk and cheese, two commodities I have yet to see here. And of course, the work that I am doing with schools and PSI and cdpeace and the chiefdom will continue as before. We hope that one day Canadian immigration will see fit to open the door to enable Saidu to visit Canada, but expect that will be a long time from now. We’ll see. In the meantime, thanks to all who have sent well wishes. Photos are posted here.
Photo - Mother-in-law Mrs. Rebecca Timbo, me holding my mom, Saidu and grand-neice MJ.

2009-03-21T17:18:00.002Z

With a small cry, eight year old Saodatu crawled into my lap last night as I sat, devastated, in the dark on the crumbling mud bricks behind Pa Roke’s house. For thirty minutes Sao held me almost as tightly as I held her as we both summoned the strength to go in and visit Aminata. Saodatu had come to see her playmate, whose lifeless body had just been brought home from the hospital. Aminata left Mapaki in our ambulance just hours before, suffering from internal bleeding after a fall days earlier. Unfortunately, the doctors were not able to provide her with the needed transfusion in time and Aminata died. Sao was not quite able to make into the house and released my hand as I stepped in to sit with the family next to the tiny, lappa-wrapped body laid out in a corner of the dimly oil lamp lit room. I cried and cried last night, realized how my own illness has probably protected me from too many similar events in Mapaki over the last few weeks and reflected on how “normal” but still difficult it has become to visit small lifeless bodies, something that we just don’t experience in Canada. I thought about this as I lie in bed last night reading a description of “structural adjustment” hospitals in Rwanda, places that you pay to go to to die, as economic policies dictate that hospitals are unaffordable as places of treatment. I wonder how many small lifeless bodies have been visited by those setting economic policies and wonder if a few such experiences could possibly have any impact on the decisions made so far from these sad walls.

This morning I am in the library, typing these notes as all around me sit clusters of teachers from our twinning schools, come together to read and review the exchange of letters between their students and students in schools a great distance away in North America. We started the morning, after personal prayers for Aminata’s peace (Aminata’s house in adjacent to the library and mourners are streaming in and out as we work), by reading a letter received this morning from Canada. Grade six teacher, Angela wrote, “It is hard to believe how quickly this year has passed. I've shared your letter with my students and showed them the photos of the Mabarr school kids reading their letters. They were so excited to see a small part of themselves integrated with your students. We have put together our last letter to this group of students and I know each of my students will never forget this experience. I also want to thank you for this opportunity, Carolyn. I've enjoyed it immensely and have learned as much as my students.” Today teachers here are reading their twin schools letters, some for the first time, and reflecting on what lessons students have learned from this experience. Our hope is that students have moved from getting to know about each other to learning with each other to learning to act on the world to make it a better place for all. Over the next few months I hope to be working with a great team of Sierra Leonean and Canadian researchers to investigate the impact of this initiative. Stay posted for news on this.
Sorry for the lack of photos...internet upload issues are under investigation.

2009-03-15T15:32:00.003Z

Thanks to all who were concerned…I’m happy to report that I feel recovered now. And, yes I take anti-malarials but they are apparently only about 90% effective. It’s been a humbling experience, especially sitting in hospital next to the woman patiently waiting for treatment for leprosy on one side and half a dozen listless-eyed babies suffering from malaria staring vacantly at me from the other. Makes me truly appreciate the internal resources I have to fight off illness. I’ve also been so very fortunate to have the chiefdom “ambulance” at my service since it arrived. Our last trip made a stop at two hospitals in two towns; taking me to Makeni and a small boy suffering from malaria to Magburaka. The community is thrilled with the ambulance (a lovely used Toyota Jeep), which was formally presented at our International Women’s Day community celebration, where it was described as a child that is in the hands of the whole village where all have a stake in its safe and careful maintenance. Interestingly, the focus of our International Women’s Day celebration was on the right of girls to attend school, very pertinent here where fewer than ten women are literate and where in families that struggle, girls are often kept home to help with farm and household work. I’ve discovered through experience, though, that being literate in a predominantly illiterate country carries its own risks and dangers. Stupid me assumed that I was expected to follow the written rather than pictorial directions on my medication (they didn’t match) and I ended up missing one daily dose of medicine. Anyone I checked with here knew exactly the correct way to “read” the instruction. Another humbling experience.

In other personal news…I was lovingly nursed through my illness by the man I’ve come to deeply respect and love over the past few months. Over evenings of intense Scrabble games, working together on a research project, sifting through our library’s collection of books and DVDs on a range of world issues (oil, mining, indigenous rights, climate change, etc.) and learning a great deal about our respective worlds and cultures, teacher, cdpeace worker and former rehabilitator of ex-child combatants Saidu and I have grown very close. Today I received a formal delegation from his family (some of my best friends here), to gauge my reception to undergoing traditional “ceremonies” to mark our commitment to each other (I said yes…now need to find kola nuts). It’s been a vastly fascinating experience for me to delve into the otherwise unfathomable world of personal relationships here, which seem to function topsy-turvy to much in my experience. I’m sure there will be more updates on this front in the future and wish there were space in this blog to describe all that’s transpired so far. Love to talk over coffee or a meal when I’m back in Canada in May.

Several days ago, Saidu and I were kindly treated to lunch at a high-end hotel in Makeni by a group of generous visiting Canadians, here to support the work of a Canadian NGO (the same restaurant that served my birthday tuna sandwich earlier in the year) and I’ve been enjoying the humour that this event has sparked since then. When we returned to Mapaki, Saidu and Kouame were in hysterics both knowing the average cost of a meal (about $12) at the restaurant. Imagine spending this kind of money on a meal consumed in ten minutes! This line of joking continued long into the night as Kouame and Saidu continued with more outrageous scenarios involving lunches at this hotel and continued into the next day with other customers when we stopped to eat at a regular cookery (where meals average $1). All agreed that the cost of a meal at the hotel must include the right to walk on the shiny tile floor and look at the painted walls. I'm sure they're right.

Yesterday I also had my last “official” meeting of the year with the Gbonkolenken teachers, to read through and review the twinning letters, plan for the “peace art” the students will be doing, provide a small token to the scholarship teachers (still not on salary, unfortunately) and just to say goodbye for now. I’ll be back in Gbonkolenken over the next few weeks but may have a hard time finding students and teachers in class as holidays approach. Schools work is starting to wind down for me also as I also start to prepare for my return at the end of next month. Look forward to seeing you then!

2009-03-06T12:12:00.001Z

So this is what I’ve discovered about malaria after two bouts two years in a row. I believe the treatment leaves you weaker than the illness and day two is especially difficult when your fever spikes and you spend the wee hours of the night contemplating your mortality and the fragility of the human body and spirit. On day three you are happy to be alive and begin to muster energy to venture into the community, where all greet you with condolences and joy at seeing you hobble about on your shaky pegs. Your confidence wanes somewhat on day four (today), when the fever and lethargy return, though I’m told it’s simply because I neglected to follow doctor’s orders to rest fully and take ORS (all agree with my personal diagnoses…that I am too stubborn for my own good). Prepared after last year’s malaria-induced weight loss and intense craving for coffee, this year I’ve been sipping on cocoa and nibbling on sardines and seem to have avoided the major nutritional setback, though many are concerned that my body is reducing and that I may end up returning to Canada less rotund than when I arrived. As I’ve discovered a source of biscuits and sweets, I’ll work hard at avoiding that likelihood. I am overjoyed, in the meantime, to have two-year old Sharif and his family home after several blood transfusions from his mom and two weeks in hospital due to severe malaria and was happy to be able to spend some time last night holding several of my favourite two-year olds closely, while watching the comings and goings in our busy kitchen area where Sallay and Mabinty produced hundreds of “rice cakes” (small donuts made from rice flour) for the Bumban traditional society celebrations (the boys will soon be returning from initiation in the bush). Holding those babies was especially poignant as I’ve been struggling to cope with the recent death of another baby…a baby who I knew was at risk and whose mom I believe I didn’t push strongly enough to go to the clinic. My friends tell me not to carry this weight and that I did all that I could but still, each death, especially of the too many babies that seem to be leaving us, hits hard and leaves a hollowness that will take many hours of holding onto warm, round-bellied two-year olds to fill.

In the meantime, here’s what’s up on the national front. In the article posted in last week’s blog, I read that only about 3% of mining profits stay in the country and less than 1% in the community that produces the minerals (communities that often also suffer from the effects of the mining). I also read that the Canadian mining company operating close to us anticipates record profits this coming year. Meanwhile, about 60% of youth of the country are unemployed, leaving many concerned about a return to conditions that fueled the war. I can only imagine what a small increase in mining profit could do to alleviate youth unemployment, pay teachers and health workers and diminish the number of babies dying in their mother’s arms. This week I also heard the four words most dreaded by young mothers and wives here, spoken too often when desperate young men disappear from the community. “He’s gone to Kono,” Kono being the mining area that draws young men who believe all other options have left them. While I have not yet been to Kono myself, all I hear from there is of heartbreak and devastation and death, leaving me chilled when I heard those words spoken about a fine and respected young man from the village who has gone missing. Ah, life! Abu has gone to Kono, Kadiatu’s baby has gone to whatever place babies are called to when they leave this world, and I’m about to head back to bed with concerns about morality and the state of the world swirling in my fevered brain. More later.

2009-03-02T17:01:00.000Z

I think it’s a law of nature. Soon as you starting trusting technology and being careless about backing up your work, your computer is guaranteed to crash. As mine did, with last week’s blog, photos and various documents un backed-up. Computer has been dropped off at Fatima Institute with friends there who know more than we do (John’s final advice was “hit it with a rock”). Thanks, Mom, for reminding me that I have to find another way to post!

So here goes. I’m going to type very quickly as I’m about to start on a course of anti malarial drugs that I know will completely knock me out and if I don’t post today it will be a week before I can manage. Today we inaugurated the new chiefdom “emergency” vehicle with its first trip to hospital…with me as patient! (thank you donors!!) I started treating myself for various ailments with a Nigerian medication about two weeks ago. Then, what I should have recognized as the symptoms of malaria, I put down to medication side effects. The doctor today simply laughed…telling me the drugs I was taking would have been completely ineffective in any case (I notice many laugh when I tell them my drugs come from Nigeria, and even the goat doctor was reluctant to use them on a sick goat…he did and the goat eventually died). Sometimes a little knowledge is worse than none of all. Quite interesting hospital experience. A day at the hospital with diagnoses, various tests and a slew of medications cost about $16. A pittance when compared to Canadian costs but definitely out of reach of most (I paid the full price which few patients do). As malaria kills red blood cells, my hemoglobin is down 25%, annoying but not as bad as poor little Sharif (last post was all about Sharif), whose life hung in the balance and was saved a week ago with a blood transfusion from his mom, though he’s also still in hospital. The bets were on about whether I’d be asked to stay in hospital and I was very emphatic that the answer would be no! A hospital is no place for sick people, I figure. So I’m about to embark on several days of wooziness and weakness and chances are you won’t hear from me for a while. Hopefully by the time I recover, my laptop will also have recovered and I can tell you all about Sharif.
No photo but link to an article from today on mining policy here.

2009-02-20T10:25:00.001Z

Don’t you hate it when life imitates art? Last week I had a long conversation with the volunteer teachers at Mathombo (the school that was burnt during the war with children still in it) about the on-line peace art gallery project that Jeanette of Queen’s University is organizing and the ways that the Mathombo students could be involved. Children at Mathombo’s twin school, Parkview, have sent beautiful artwork set to music about what peace means to them and I was explaining to the teachers that different cultures sometimes interpret the word “peace” differently (remembering surprising responses in Northern Ireland) and that so far my experience has been that peace to children here means the absence of war. We talked about our respective concepts of peace and the teachers told me of their experiences. Peace to them, they said, meant not living in fear of your life, not needing to run and hide and live in the bush when rebels were near, not fearing the cobras that shared your sleeping space, not living under rain without shelter for days on end, not seeing your crops disappear while your babies cried from hunger and not living with the fear of cholera.

This last comment surprised me as it was the first mention I’ve heard of cholera at Mathombo. The teachers explained how a few years ago cholera killed many, how people died within hours of showing first symptoms and how helpless all felt in watching the suffering. Shivers ran down my back as they spoke as I recalled bits and pieces about cholera from novels read over the years. I’ve been thinking about this conversation and thinking about one of my favourite books, “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Especially after our health officer stopped by last night and told me he was concerned that my namesake (the baby born when I arrived last year) might be suffering from cholera and he was heading into Makeni to confer with the district medical officer, just in case. On going to check on baby Carol Kadiatu this morning, I discovered that her family has taken her out of Mapaki to a small village some distance away, a major concern as we have the only health centre around. I’ve just been told that her father has just gone to Malimp to bring her back and I’m anxiously waiting to hear how she is doing. Next day’s update…I found Kadiatu and a second baby in the house still violently ill (a third newborn was fine). Later in the day both babies recovered and are now doing well, thanks to the timely intervention of Lewis, the health officer.

The great goat escapade. All of Mapaki is talking of the foiled great goat heist last night. This is what happened. Round about midnight we heard a car pass through the village, an unusual circumstance. About 45 minutes later my neighbour received a call from an outlying village that a group of goat thieves had been intercepted and were headed our way. A hue and cry went up and the youth of Mapaki quickly erected a barrier. Not fast enough, though, goat thieves, vehicle and bleating goats burst through the barricade headed for the junction. More calls (the chief had been notified as well) and a second barricade went up at the junction, seven miles away. This barricade was made of heavy branches and the vehicle ensnared. Escaping overland in bare feet, the thieves ended up in Magburaka, where their lack of shoes and trousers gave them away. The goats have been returned, thieves are in lock-up and all are shaking their heads. As usual, the thieves came some distance for the heist as the vehicle was registered in Freetown. We’re not worried about our school goats as all the pens have been erected next to the houses of their caretakers in the most secure corners of the villages and the pens built with noisy zinc doors that will rattle and wake the dead in the event of an attempted break-in. Another sleepless night in Mapaki!

I read a small book this week about a project in Mozambique that transformed weapons from their destructive purposes into items of art that toured schools and communities around the world, including Canada. Last week my friend Tamara sent me an article about upcoming procurement plans of sci-fi style outfits and the latest in space-age weaponry for Canadian soldiers operating in “outposts”. Again I’m left shaking my head and wondering about the existence of evil (just finished a conversation about witches and devils) and the insanity of this world. Here we are reaping the fruits of a very successful disarmament campaign that has rid this country of virtually all weapons. I have never heard of a shooting-related incident anywhere in the country in all my time here, despite the legacy of eleven years of war. Meanwhile the language of disarmament has crept into the vernacular. “I’m coming to ‘dischair’ you,” I was told by Kannel last week as he came to borrow my chairs for a meeting. Imagine for a moment if the disarmament campaign of Sierra Leone were to be extended to all countries, starting with those, like my own, that produce the weapons. Imagine the incredible legacy this would leave to a world that spends 92% more on arms each year than it does on the entire budget of the United Nations. Perhaps an unattainable dream, but then all changes begin with the small dreams of many. Time to start dreaming and imagining a world that uses words and ingenuity and heart to solve conflicts and builds economies for people and the planet rather that production for destruction. Blacksmiths like those in each village here could go a long way in beating those swords into ploughshares and objects of art. Time to start with a children’s war toys to art project?…and maybe life will begin to imitate art in more positive ways. Photo - Students at Makonkorie school on their lunch break

2009-02-15T15:19:00.005Z

This, my Valentine’s Day post, sends love to all of you out there who have been sparked by interest in life here. I’m just back from a few days in Gbonkolenken, where several initiatives made possible by many of you are coming into fruition and I want to fill you in on some of them.

Goats. Over the past two years a number of schools and individuals have contributed money to the purchase of goats to generate income for community schools. I don’t think, though, that I’ve ever described just how this works and how the schools and communities benefit. On Monday I will go with our “goat project” person on a seven mile trek into the interior of our chiefdom, to purchase 16 young female goats which are destined for several of our schools (we’ve also purchased goats in Gbonkolenken). This purchase benefits the tiny, remote communities that provide the goats and otherwise struggle to find a source of cash. The receiving schools, which have built pens and fenced enclosures for the goats, will generate enough income per goat through sale of the kids to pay fees for students who could otherwise not attend school, buy chalk for the year, have the local carpenter repair or build desks, or contribute to a multitude of other needs. Each school has developed its own implementation plan based on local realities and many intend to increase their herd to expand the income they can generate. Usifu, the local volunteer math teacher, is designing math lessons for the schools to be carried out in relation to this project. I’m dreaming of creating a children’s book about the connections between children here and there through this initiative. The benefits to community, students, teachers, and schools are exponential.

Seeds. In most communities, it is the women who are ultimately responsible for finding the money needed to send their children to school. It is also the women who struggle to provide nutritious food for their families. Many women meet both of these needs through communal or individual planting and harvesting groundnuts, some of which are sold to pay for school and other costs and some of which are kept to serve as the base for the protein-providing groundnut soup that’s so often eaten here. This year we are able to provide at least six women’s groups with the groundnut seed they need to provide education and food for their families. Each bushel of groundnut seed we provide (all locally purchased from other women’s groups) should generate four bushels of groundnuts, enabling women to keep one for future planting, share one, and still have two to sell or consume. Thank you Aunty Iffat!

Health. In my last post I wrote about death and illness. I’m happy to report that both chiefdoms have made great strides in addressing education-related health issues. This week we’ve started discussing and implementing a teacher and student health program that will enable students and volunteer teachers to receive free health care at the community clinic and, in the case of teachers, to access information that will allow them to teach their students about health issues related to local conditions. At the same time it looks like we’re finally very close to being able to purchase a vehicle to be used for transporting health emergencies from villages to the clinic or to hospital, both thanks to the support of kind donors. Overcoming these two key health hurdles, user-fees and lack of transportation, will, I hope cut down on the despondent posts that sometimes sneak into the blog.

Peace Education. The benefits of the teacher workshops continue to be evident in many corners. This week, during a workshop in Makonkorie, one teacher thanked me by saying that up to now, teachers have been teaching by essentially bullying children, especially when they make mistakes. He said that knowing that it’s OK for teachers to let children make mistakes…that this is what helps them grow and learn… is the best gift he’s received in years of teaching and will radically change the climate in his class, a sentiment echoed by many others. At the same time, teachers from many of the communities around here continue to fill the library each day for the free daily computer lessons given by Kouame and Mabinty.

Youth Employment. This past week the youth groups of Mapaki, Rosanda, and Gbonkolenken have been burning the midnight oil to complete and submit funding proposals for youth employment projects designed to enable rural youth stay in the villages. While only 3 or 4 proposals from across the country will be selected, we are all hopeful that, given these groups’ new access to technology (all applications had to be submitted electronically), they at least stand a good chance of being considered.

School Construction. The people of the community of Mathombo, which was largely destroyed during the war, have also been burning the midnight oil as they have performed the miraculous feat of constructing a wonderful new six-classroom building in record time with little funding in place and through their own labour, usually working nights as farms need preparing and tending during the day. They are as surprised by this turn of events as we are, telling us that they never dreamed that we would be the ones to facilitate this construction as they had been promised help so many times in the past from so many, none of which materialized. A huge thanks goes to Sherry of Green Solutions and Rand of Newport Sports for making this dream a reality.

Connections with all of you. The school twinning connections have been very moving and sweet this week, as we continue to share and respond to the letters and drawings that were brought by Hetty and Thomas. While the student letter exchange begins to wrap up soon, we might move into a teacher to teacher connecting phase, as teachers here are very motivated to connect directly with teachers there. If anyone out there is interested in being part of this, please drop me a line. Thanks!

And talking about sweet, the Stone Soup cooking club seems to be heading in directions of its own and this weekend I was delighted with foofoo with fish sauce and pepper soup, a welcome diversion from the usual day’s fare. I’m waking now with the scent of the fresh basil growing just under my window (growing next to the two pineapple plants I put in today) and the ability to boil water for “tea leaf” in the morning. With the volunteer teachers in Gbonkolenken, we’re making plans for a “Stone Soup” get together where we’ll cook and celebrate our achievements and share a calabash of palm wine and probably dance into the night. Despite its sometimes unfathomable pain and hardship, life’s sweet side is so very easy to celebrate here. I hope you all find ways to celebrate this day also.

Photos - Friends in Gbonkolenken Chiefdom reading letters from friends in Canada

2009-02-08T11:26:00.005Z

The full moon peeks in the corner of this dark room where I sit with heavy heart thinking about cruel injustice. Some of our school twinning’s most poignant and pointed connections are being made right now between grade three students in Dawson and in Mapaki. This exchange will take place now without the participation of eleven year-old Yenor Thullah, daughter of Mapaki’s bell-ringer. Tonight while discussing on-line peace art galleries with Canadian teachers, the power in the solar batteries went out at the same time as the computer failed. At that moment shroud-wrapped Yenor, whose spirit had left her body just hours before, was carried past our window on the way to the burying ground. I was told tonight, while sitting on the back stoop of the health clinic where my friend Hannah lie, that Yenor’s parents had taken her to the hospital, but not being able to afford the fees brought her home where she died today of “swollen stomach”. This has been a long week of worrying about illnesses and deaths in the community (which could be dramatically reduced by removing user fees for health care) and today’s news headlines about potential foreign profit from huge new iron ore finds in the neighbouring district leave me shaking my head. Especially after being told this week of the mining devastation in another part of the country where the mines have 24 hour power and the surrounding villages, schools and health clinics have none (and the role of Canadian companies here*). Hannah, meanwhile, appears to have suffered a stroke yesterday, while she was making arrangements with sister Mabinty to access land for planting. To address the endemic hypertension that exists here (cause of stroke), I’ve started a “Stone Soup” cooking club with some of the women in my household, to try cooking local plants with reduced salt and palm oil. The first meal of potato leaves provided by Sallay, cooked with onions from Ropola, tomatoes from the women’s shop and pepper from me has just been served to the chief and the key cooks in the household. I’ve been told this could be the start of a nutrition revolution in this set-in-it-ways-of-cooking community. It was a delight for me to cook on my back porch and eat a meal of lightly-cooked, oil-less greens. I expect this will also be the start of a revolution for me.

There has been so much to write about this past week that I spin from one topic to another in the basket of half-started blog entries. Like the detailed report I got of a massive chicken and goat abduction in Makonkorie yesterday (most abducted creatures are now safely locked away and a huge mediation process is underway in the village). And the loss of a cell phone in Mapaki yesterday that was found also after a huge day-long community mediation and through the intervention of a local “miracle woman” who described exactly where it could be found (under the mattress of young suspect number one on the outskirts of the village). The conversation I had in the moonlight last night with some of the teenagers of the village who often visit and who described their dreams and hopes for the future in making a place for themselves in the village. The sweet exchanges between the older and younger students in several communities who have teamed up to glean meaning from the equally sweet letters and drawings received from Canadian students this week. The trek to the bush I took with the elder woman of our household, who went with me to gather materials to make a fishing net from palm frond fibers to send as a gift to one of our Canadian twin schools. The baskets being made for me by most serious student, Alpha, in exchange for six needed school notebooks. The teachers who came to our library Saturday to browse for the first time in their lives through books and other resources for teachers and left with the last of the donated pencils, paper, notebooks and other materials for their students. And the surprised looks on the faces of the children along our line as I zipped by this week on the motorbike ridden by the new cdpeace agricultural coordinator (same Oporto, different bike). It’s now the day after Yenor’s death, I hear that Hannah is showing some progress, and volunteer teacher Mohamed, who was suffering from untreated typhoid (he had no money for medicine but has been treated through a kind and generous Canadian donor who’s helped spark a health fund for volunteer teachers) has just headed back to his village, saying he feels much better (Mohamed is going to be teaching his students about the causes and prevention of typhoid as part of the teacher health program). And I think I’ll wander up the line and see how Hannah and Mabinty are faring. This start of a new week will, I hope, herald a more settled time as February, the month most people get sick and die, quickly slips by. Here’s looking to March!
* Ecumenical group KAIROS states that Africa is home to over 600 Canadian mining concessions worth more than $12 billion, often in conditions reminiscent of early colonialism
Photo - Headman Brima Sesay on the last "cold" day of the Harmattan, when temperature dipped to 20 degrees

2009-01-31T10:31:00.009Z

It takes a village to raise a child…and provide food for all and construct libraries and maintain peace. Cliché but so very true here. I’ve just come in from my usual Saturday morning routine (washing clothes, tending the garden, cleaning, greeting the neighbours) and am reflecting on the small scene played out in front of our cluster of houses here. Two suckling sisters in our household had an argument, and because they used abusive language in the presence of elders (not tolerated at all here) were sent to the “jail cell” on top of the hill to cool down before settling their differences. Off they went and all went back to their usual routine of pounding rice, settling conflicts on the porches, cooking, chatting, and in my case, heading to the library.

In response to a question from one of the writers of a Hesperian resource (Where Women Have No Doctor) about the lack of domestic violence here, I’ve been having lots of conversations with friends about this. This is what I’m told. The cultural climate as a whole here is geared towards peaceful resolution of conflict. Every village and many families designate one or more people to be the arbitrators of dispute and conflict and this process is extensively used. The Paramount Chief, for instance, spends much of his time resolving conflict and travels at least twice a year to all 70 villages to help resolve conflicts. Mabinty has been designated as the mediator in her family (recently helping a sister and sister-in-law settle a dispute) and I’ve been called on by friends to play this role myself.

While my experience in Canada is that domestic problems are often kept private or within the home, here where people live much of their lives outdoors and communally, disputes are generally more public and people expect that an older or wiser person will assist in helping them resolve conflict. Because the Paramount Chief is known to generally take the side of the woman in domestic disputes, men tend to tread carefully when in conflict with wives, preventing the domestic violence prevalent in so many other locales. Youth, meanwhile, know that if they are involved in any kind of physical violence, they will probably be called upon by their village headman to pay a fine, so tend to avoid this. Some people also claim that because everyone works so hard there simply isn’t time or energy for husbands and wives to argue or fight and that subsistence agriculture, relying on communal labour, can only succeed when a community works together harmoniously. Since the war there has been a strong focus on teaching people about human rights and many workshops on women’s rights and the new “gender” laws which seem to have had a strong impact. I’m told that in the past, domestic violence was a problem but is now virtually unheard of here (though we’re working on the occasional instance of corporal punishment of children). Since I’ve been here I’ve heard of only two incidents of domestic violence in the chiefdom and in both cases the perpetrators were from another area of the country (and ended up being sent out of the chiefdom).

I’m reading a collection of writings about immigration to Canada and have been thinking a lot about my mother recently, and her experience of immigrating to a strange country and slowly making that new and strange place her home. Of the time she stopped dreaming her dreams in Dutch and knew that she had finally really become a Canadian. This past week bits of my old life drifted by like flotsam and I didn’t feel the usual sharp pangs of homesickness or nostalgia that stumbling on past treasures used to bring. The pandero I was just learning to play with my Brazilian samba band friends jangled out of a box of used office supplies in the Mayagba storage space. Journal reading response entries by grade eight students Level, Kadeem, Jesse peeked out of the duotangs I dusted off to give to our health worker. Bossa nova tunes recalled from late night jam sessions with close friends are drifting out of the laptop left me by my visiting brother. And like the transformed dreams of my mother, my tempered response to these memories signal to me that I’ve probably made the shift to feeling that this, truly, is now my home.

Good thing, as I am learning more about my role and responsibility here as Nakama’s sister. Yesterday Pa Roke, first speaker of the chief and probably my closest counterpart, explained that if Nakama dies (God forbid!), I’ll be expected to take on her role until a new chief is elected (He also explained that she still needs to put in her year of initiation in the sacred bush). This morning I’ll be representing her at a meeting of the youth called to discuss the possibility of applying to UNIDO for a youth employment program all are excited about as it will enable youth displaced by the war to return home and give some youth an alternative to the back-breaking labour of the farm. As virtually all youth here were affected by the war in one way or another and the conditions leading to the war still somewhat endemic, this development is very welcome and hopeful. I suppose that, while it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a global village to redress historical injustices and wrongs. I’m so glad that you are all part of this global village and that we can connect and work together through this miracle of technology.
Photo – Kouame with 3 of 23 computer students in the new library

2009-01-25T12:10:00.001Z

Mapaki is a happening place!! Moonless Saturday night, cavern-depth dark, I’m sitting out on the porch trying to decide whether to come in to get a torch or wait for the community centre generator to provide light to the guest house. The generator fires up and presto…the whole of Mapaki is lit up by a string of electrical lights the chief has installed. With most of the rest of the village, I stroll up and down what used to be the dark main road to visit friends at the far end of the village, passing a few groups of youth huddled under a light with school notes and just beyond the last light, a cluster of friends warming their cold toes around a bright outdoor fire (temperatures dropped to 20 degrees last night, all are complaining and those who can are donning hats and jackets). “Tank-O!” all proclaim as they comment on the cold weather and console each other that it can’t last. I agree and think that I’ve finally become a real Sierra Leonean as for the first time ever, I feel the cold and also huddle under a cover at night. Meanwhile, all are amazed by the lights which have transformed life here. People now no longer need to go to sleep at dusk and are able to venture places they would before shun for fear of snakes. Visitors from the nearby towns tell us they are very envious, as we are surpassing them in services available to residents. A library, a guest house, a community centre and now lights…just like European villages, I’m proudly told by passers-by who stop to tell the chief, “Momo!”

Two weeks ago, Michael Thullah’s new used shoes were stolen and as you can’t attend junior high in bare feet, Michael was in trouble. His solution…stay home for a week to weave bamboo baskets (sold here for pennies) to earn the $4 he needed to buy a new pair of second-hand shoes. I’ve been pondering this problem and thinking one solution might be to leave at the school a box of used shoes from the market for “emergency” use by students facing similar predicaments…an idea I’ll put forward to the young people and teachers to see if it would fly. After our workshop many of the teachers are now going around asking, “But why?” and coming up with alternatives to old practices. Maybe rules about school footwear will also change.

Yesterday I had a visit by my friend Sheriff, a young man who became a child soldier at the age of ten when his community was embroiled in conflict between rebels and military. Sheriff lost fifteen years of schooling during and after the war as he fought with the rebel forces. At the age of twenty, he played an instrumental role in peace negotiations between rebel, government and U.N. forces, leading the RUF negotiation team in the North. His efforts at creating peace have been recognized far and wide (he’s been to Cote D’Ivoire for peace talks, to Belfast and Geneva to represent to voice of child soldiers and speak of peace, etc.). Since the end of the war he has devoted his life to working with ex-combatants to establish training programs, farm, teach health, life and literacy skills, and has worked his own way through literacy and a college diploma program in Population Studies. Sheriff told me that his dream is to study and write about his experiences and get a graduate degree in Peace Studies as his lack of academic credentials is stopping him from doing the work he wants to do at the national and international level. Paradoxically a number of doctoral students from abroad have “studied” Sheriff, resulting in academic credentials for them but not him. As Sheriff is an amazingly intelligent and committed person, I have no doubt that he will succeed. I’ve offered to help him find information on scholarships at universities in Canada and Northern Ireland. If anyone out there has contacts or information that might be useful, please let me know! Sheriff and I work together through the “Learning Alliance”, made up of representatives of many organizations that come together monthly to learn with and from each other, especially in the area of food self-sufficiency and empowering civil society to play a greater role in governance. Our last meeting was held at the farm and training centre that he runs with ex-combatants and I left very inspired with the stories I heard there.

Just back now from working with the boys who are helping me build a wonderful small garden plot just outside Nakama’s room, where I now stay. I’m loving my new space, though miss my old housemates and wander back for visits daily. Have transplanted the basil, which is now in bloom, and hope to plant vegetables later today. Then it’s back to school visits, which have been sorrowfully neglected over the past few weeks. If you are waiting for twin letters, they will be arriving very soon! Thanks for your patience!

Photo - Visitors stopping by as we set up the new library. First time with books for some.

2009-01-23T08:31:00.003Z

My sister, Chief Nakama Kawaleh, has left an invaluable gift to the children of the two chiefdoms, one that I imagine will go down in history. This morning as I stopped to greet the women in our kitchen, Sallay explained the new practice instituted in the schools since we held our peace education workshop last week. While previously the response to virtually all misdemeanors was flogging or caning (beating the child with a stick, a relic practice from British colonial days), the children and parents have been told that the teachers are now using alternatives to corporal punishment and that children will no longer be caned at school. This morning both children and parents were anxiously preparing children to arrive at school on time because now if a child is late, rather than suffer the short-term pain of flogging, they are asked to bring firewood the next day for the women who cook the food for the new school feeding program (cooked bulgar from World Food Program). This, of course, takes time away from the children’s work on the farm or play, meaning that all in the family have a stake in ensuring children arrive on time and thus participate fully in the day’s learning, also meaning that teachers don’t need to take time from their day for reteaching. The workshop “but why?” conflict analysis and discussions around logical consequences seem to have sparked a significant change in practice and attitude. I’ve searched far and wide in Sierra Leone for schools that don’t flog and I think these may be the first.

My sister’s departure has also resulted in a significant change in my life. As she needs someone to be “caretaker” of her new abode (one of the rooms in the chief’s guesthouse) until her return with my other sister, Susan, next year, I’ve relocated across the road, and now am able to cook more easily (using both solar cooker and clay charcoal cook pot) and have started a new small garden, close to a source of water. The new room has space for a worktable and has light in the evenings (when the community centre generator is on) so I expect to also be a lot more efficient in the work that I’m doing. Last evening a number of friends stopped by and sat around the new “parlour”, the room that had been our library until last week, dispelling my main worry about the move, a concern that I would become the lone resident in what’s undoubtedly the most comfortable living space in the chiefdom. Tonight, incidently, new computer classes are starting in the new library, taught by Mabinty and Kouame, the first “graduates” of our first computer course.

Thank goodness the people of Paki Masabong ignored my advice last year. “No, it can’t be done, money’s not there,” was my response when I was told the community really wanted to build a library to serve the needs of the hundreds of children and adults who were trying each evening to pack into the small temporary room that was serving as community library in this small chiefdom, where only about one in thirty adults have been to school.

Here we are, one year later, preparing for the big feast planned tonight to thank the many youths who donated their time, labour and local materilas to make this dream a reality. A beautiful, spacious, well-stocked, solar-powered, internet-equipped library which is the talk of the country (the only village-based library of its kind in Sierra Leone) is about to officially open its doors (we expect the President to be here for the opening). And this dream is the result, not of the initiative of a well-heeled, well-funded NGO, but rather the determination and hard work of the people of this small community and their visionary Paramount Chief.

All this started two years ago when a visitor to this community (me), seeing no books in the schools but observing four teenage boys each evening poring over a decades-old dog-eared Shakespeare book, sent over several boxes of books which were then set up in a room designated as community library in a just-built “guest house” in the village. Lit in the evenings with a single bulb powered by a donated solar panel and battery and staffed by a volunteer teacher, this became such a popular and crowded place that each child in the village had to be limited to one visit to the library per week and there was no room for adults to squeeze in.

That’s when the Paramount Chief and elders intervened. “We need a library…we need a place where both adults and children can come and read and study and learn about the world.” Unable to envision a source of funding such an undertaking, I was skeptical. The community, though, knew it had to and could be done and at a community meeting called to discuss the library, two families came together to donate prime land in the centre of the village for its construction. The youth, meanwhile, organized in three work brigades representing all sections of the village, started making the mud bricks needed for walls and footings. Each day school children would stop on their way home from school to carry endless buckets of water for the youth who sweltered in the hot dry season sun to make enough mud bricks for a large four-room library. Just in time to cover the walls and protect the mud bricks before the rains came, the community received a small grant to purchase zinc roofing and cement and the outside shell of the library was completed. Over the ensuing months, the youth of the village developed hands-on experience and training in carpentry, masonry, wiring, painting, board-making, and woodworking as they volunteered their time to complete the library.

And what a library it is! Housing an amazing collection of hand-picked culturally-relevant visually-rich books about people, animals, plants and the planet and stocked with several laptops and digital video and still cameras donated from Canada, the library has a donated satelite internet connection which has been put to some very unique uses (ask about our Skype wedding, agricultural research, discussions between youth here and in Yukon, video postings, etc.). Staffed by two volunteer teachers living in the community, the library will be hosting classes for adults and chilren in health education, computer basics and functional literacy, workshops for teachers on a wide range of topics and will serve as a chiefdom “lending” centre for learning materials for community schools.

The community has asked me to pass on thanks to the many people and institutions who have come along on this journey and contributed to making this a place of pride for all. A huge thanks to Friends of Sierra Leone in the USA, Centre for Development and Peace Education and Peaceful Schools International, staff of Halifax Film, Green Solutions and the kind and caring individual donors who have contributed in various ways.

We hope to follow the lead of the people of this community and contribute in whatever way we can to this collective endeavour. We hope to raise funds for staff salaries ($150 per month), transport for a bookmobile to visit outlying villages ($50 per month), upgrading electrical needs ($500 for an additional battery) and purchasing additional resources to be loaned or given to schools. Ideas of funding sources are most welcome!

Photo - Mabinty and Kouame in the new library

Oh, Carolyn (H---y's Posting)

2009-01-13T18:19:00.003Z

Since starting this blog, Carolyn has captivated a large reading audience with colourful and touching descriptions of her life in Sierra Leone. I anxiously look forward to each new posting and I am never disappointed. Some stories are funny and others are sad but all of them are poignant accounts of the realities of life in this poor but beautiful country.

Carolyn usually writes about the people she meets and the places she visits. Being a modest person, she does not write much about herself so she has given me permission to write a few lines about her.

Wherever Carolyn goes, she is surrounded by adoring children and greeted by adults who all seem to respect and love her. “Seke…mo-mo…tante krue…yo”…these greetings are exchanged with the people we encounter as we walk through the village. Everyone who passes by offers a handshake and these words of greeting. No one is too busy to walk by without stopping to say hello and everyone – young and old – has a warm smile and a handshake for Carolyn.

From across the ocean, it was difficult for us to imagine Carolyn’s life in Sierra Leone. Having lived her life with electricity and running water, how could she adapt so easily to such a different way of life? Now, after two weeks here, I understand. Life in Mapaki is full of warm interactions, laughter and sharing. The villagers of Mapaki, working in collaboration with Chief Kebombor who is nationally and internationally celebrated for his wisdom and conflict resolution skills, have created a model community.

One major accomplishment has been the establishment of a new community library and learning resource centre. With people who believe in sharing resources and working together for the good of the community, establishing a community library was a matter of enlisting willing youth volunteers to make the mud bricks and start building. Now, the library is about to open officially with a large area for reading tables, many bookshelves for the wonderful book collection Carolyn has assembled and several small rooms for study. A few NGO workers came for a visit today and their tour of the almost completed library left them speechless.

Last evening, we sat with four young girls who were anxious to complete a homework assignment. Prior to Carolyn’s arrival, there was no light in the evenings for the youth to study or complete homework. The library, powered by solar panels and complete with internet access, is a first for Sierra Leone. Children will be welcome every evening to read, study or learn to use computers. What a difference Carolyn is making in the lives of children with great potential but limited opportunities.

I received my first chicken today (we named him Joe). During a visit to the village of Maso, birthplace of Thomas Turay, we were given a bag of just-off-the-tree grapefruit and a chicken. Every day, Sallay, the Chief’s wife cooks for us. Usually, our meal is rice with some sauce on top. From cassava to ground nut stew, the food is flavourful and highly spiced. Cooking happens in a communal kitchen where pots simmer all day long. Early in the morning until late in the evening, children are lined up at the water pump with their buckets. Sierra Leoneans believe that children should work hard and that elders have earned the right to relax. Elders are treated with the utmost respect. Oh, it’s good to be among them!

Yesterday evening we talked with Usifu, one of the volunteer teachers here in Mapaki. Usifu and his fellow volunteer teachers were anticipating being paid as of January and had just learned that this was just a rumour. Even without a salary they show up at school faithfully each day and take their teaching assignments seriously. Such injustice is almost incomprehensible. This experience will certainly have an effect on my tolerance level for grumbling when I return home!

Being here with Carolyn and Gerald has been an inspiring experience. Gerald spent a lot of time learning as much as possible about the health care system. He left with many ideas percolating and I am sure will have some sound recommendations in the weeks ahead. Just being with Carolyn as she lives her life here as a member of the Mapaki community has helped me understand the reason why she feels so comfortable and welcome here. She is loved by all and is involved in all aspects of village life. Carolyn’s wonderful sense of humour serves her well as she jokes with her friends and deals with issues in a light-hearted but sensitive manner. I am very proud of Carolyn and have now seen for myself the impact she is making, in her quiet unassuming way, to the people she now regards as her family.

H---y (a.k.a. Nakama Kawaleh)

2009-01-04T13:36:00.003Z

Nakama Kawaleh. Nakama Kawaleh If I repeat it often enough I think I’ll remember. I have already been told that I own one cow as a fine for calling the new Obai (Chief) who used to be known as H---y, by her old name. My sister is now custodian of the land of Paki Masabong, upholder of tradition, and ambassador from this small part of the world to all beyond borders far and wide throughout the world. Despite involving everyone from all far reaches of the chiefdom and many from neighbouring chiefdoms, I had no idea this was planned. My brother Gerald (known here as Joe), my sister Kawaleh and I arrived at Mapaki after a very eventful airport pick-up, around midday yesterday. It was obvious from some distance down the road that something was up. Traditional dancers I have never seen before, women and men from the Limba, the Temne tribes, students, chiefs from all over and everyone from many villages around had taken to the road, which was packed for as far as the eye could see. After being welcomed with hugs and song in the middle of the throng, Kawaleh was whisked away and disappeared from our sight, to reappear shortly after, swinging in a ceremonial hammock borne by four of the young men of the village, fanned by another and shaded from the sun by a canopy of muslin Around me all was still a pandemonium of welcome, song, hugs, dancing as I struggled to near the hammock which, by this point, was veering from the road up a hill before stopping under one of the older trees between the mosque and clinic. This is where the women chiefs, all dressed in white and still dancing, robed Kawaleh in a white lace dress, cap and head wrap, and from there, danced her into the village, where the real crowning took place. From there we wound our way to the community centre where representatives from all sectors of governance and others (traditional chiefs, elected politicians, women, teachers, students, family, etc.) talked and thanked and praised and sang and danced and planned throughout the afternoon. By the time evening rolled around we were quite ready to roll into our mosquito nets and hit the sack. Tonight Kawaleh is resting up for the initiation she expects to undergo tomorrow in the sacred forest and Joe is entertaining all with a soulful repertoire of Leadbelly, Daniel Lanois, and Jobim Gilberto numbers.

So, back to the airport, which was a pandemonious experience of another kind. Despite departing Mapaki at 5:30am to make a 6:45pm flight arrival, unfortunately we experienced not one, but all three possible reasons to miss a flight…major vehicle breakdown, the concurrent arrival of neighbouring dignitaries which threw all schedules into disarray, and the later ferry being too full to accommodate the repaired vehicle. Kawaleh and Joe’s arrival turned out to be sandwiched just between the arrivals of Libya’s Mohamar Gadafi and the junta leaders of the recent military coup in Guinea. Freetown was filled with trucks full of soldiers and police whirling around corners and dark-tinted jeeps speeding through intersections. We decided that it would be best to split up to ensure that at least one person got to the airport on time and, after taking a walk-on ferry ride and a dollar shared taxi trip to the airport, I arrived in plenty of time to greet my siblings. Unfortunately for Joe and Kawaleh, I’ve become so used to relaxed and civil village life that my shocked reaction to what I felt to be an incident of police and driver collusion in negotiating transport back to Freetown, resulted in us also missing the ferry back and we ended up spending much of the night sitting on the ferry terminal dock, which is where we rang in the new year. Kind of nice, actually, as we had a chance to unwind and visit with each other before heading upcountry.

Since then, it’s been in a whirlwind of activity, visits, investigations in health, discussions, organizing, photographing, etc. and I really have not had time to write for the blog. Sorry, Ward and others who have anxiously been waiting for word! I hope to post photos this afternoon.

2008-12-27T14:56:00.004Z

On Christmas morning, after a long motorbike trek, after fording seven rivers and scaling the mountain, we finally made it to the village of Nerekoro, accessible only by climbing one of three steep and narrow mountain trails, home of Abdul’s second wife and family. We had left the motorbike at the last road-accessible village long before we came to the almost waist-deep final river to ford, which, nestled at the foot of the mountain, fed a patchwork of soft variegated green beds of groundnuts, an idyllic place for a little house, I thought. After the summit of the final climb, we stepped into what seemed a magical oasis. Nerekoro. A village which itself is nestled among several other smaller mountaintop villages. All day people from the surrounding villages climbed down their mountain trails to come and welcome the strangers. And what a welcome it was! Between The-Tallest-Man-In-The-Village (who also played the largest drum), the chief, Mammy Queen, and drummers and singers of all ages, we were well cared for and entertained. All day and all night. The highlight for me was the evening illuminated by lightening bouncing off all the surrounding peaks spent listening to the itinerant blind man who wanders from village to village with his homemade musical instrument (like a large thumb piano) providing haunting music to all who will listen. I wandered off to sleep as the third drumming group was just returning and listened to the music (which stopped only once when the heavens opened and rain poured) while drifting in and out of sleep. I was very sorry to have my camera batteries die especially after I climbed the last peak with Abdul to see and hear the sounds of the village from afar and look forward to seeing what Kouame has captured. We left next day with a rooster (named Bad Breeze after a new friend) safely tucked under my arm, accompanied by many from the village as far as the first steep incline. Just before we left, someone showed me the handful of gold that he had panned from the river the preceding week. Seems that this is a gold producing area and the villagers who pan the gold take it to be sold at the closest town. As I’ve heard from a visiting American miner that people get a pittance of what gold is actually worth, I’m investigating possibilities of a “fair trade” arrangement with Canadian jewelers. While the village has been teaching its children since 1959, it still lacks a school building and profit from gold sales would go a long way to purchasing the needed zinc roofing and cement. I’m also very curious about the social benefits provided (or not) by the Canadian gold mining company located one mountain away, but still in the same chiefdom section. Lots of talk in the village about the gold, iron and bauxite being mined there and rumours of the mining moving closer, probably not a great development for the community.

Mabinty returned to college just hours before we returned (the teachers had been given two days off for Christmas). Seems the scholarship students are struggling. Turns out that the fees quoted by the college did not include the cost of “pamphlets” provided by instructors and most of the students can’t buy what they consider required materials. This is somewhat contentious as the college does not approve of instructors selling pamphlets, a long-standing criticized practice which supplements instructors’ salaries and which seems endemic at all learning institutions. I believe there is a meeting at the college to resolve this issue today. Seems the students are caught between tradition and the current climate of the country trying to control what is seen as corruption. I’m hoping the students’ needs and college policy wins out. Mabinty tells me how the students gather late in the evenings with rice and a borrowed pot behind the residence to cook a communal meal for themselves and how few left the campus to return home for Christmas as they lacked transport fees. We are all hoping that the promised salaries for community (volunteer) teachers will actually materialize in January to prevent similar strain next term. Not that this will be a complete solution. On Christmas Eve, one of the salaried teachers who lives in another village but teaches here told me he would not be going home as his salary had not yet been paid and he was too embarrassed to appear before his family with no food or new clothes for his children. Ah, Sierra Leone!

Meanwhile, last night Mapaki hosted another “jam” or dance. I think this has been seven straight nights of all night music for me…I resorted to ear plugs and slept very soundly through it all. So soundly that I missed the trauma of the night. For the second time since I’ve been here, there has been an incident of violence by a man against a woman, and in both cases the perpetrators were people who come from other parts of the country. Each time this happens, it reinforces for me the value and importance of local traditions of peace-keeping, which seem to prevent any violence among or by youth who were raised here. Last night’s incident was sparked by jealousy and has ended with a young man being taken to custody in the neighbouring town after it seems the whole village interceded and decided what should be done. All are shaking their heads today and wondering why he didn’t simply choose another woman if this one didn’t want him.

In four days my sister and brother will be here to visit and learn and do workshops for a few weeks. All the chiefdom leaders have gathered in Mapaki today to plan for this, while I sit back and see how things unfold. Can’t wait for them to get here!

Photo - About to leave Nerekoro. More photos posted here.

2008-12-23T20:53:00.004Z

The men of Mapaki are grumbling today about their loss of human rights after the women were out in full force all night…24 hours of non-stop singing, dancing, and drumming up and down every road and path in the village. As this was secret society business, the men and uninitiated girls had to stay in the houses overnight. This morning when the women of my household asked why I hadn’t joined them in the dancing I explained that I’d join in after I undergo initiation, sending all rolling into laughter and telling me my mother would never consent to this. They’re probably right.

Four new babies arrived yesterday, one of them to one of the girls in our household. I think this is the sixth baby to arrive in our household since I’ve come. Meanwhile the young toddlers are starting to pick up bits of language and Baby Kebombor, sitting at my feet this morning, looked up and said the first words I’ve heard him speak, “Momo, Kadiatu.”, or “Thank you, Carol.” He’s probably picked this up from young Abdul, who thanks me for everything, “Thank you, thank you for working, thank you for eating.”

Today the sixteen teachers we’re sending to college left for their first term. Mabinty, who is among the sixteen, left me in the capable hands young Fatu Fatu, who stays with Mabinty as a daughter since her own parents have died. As children here really raise themselves and do much of the household maintenance, Fatu Fatu is taking care of me more than needing caring for herself. She comes round to greet me each morning, collects my pans and brings me my food, cleans the library, fetches water, and generally looks out for anything I might need. It is almost tempting to get used to such treatment, which I’m told is simply the respect that elders (which I am here) receive to compensate for the long years they served others. Who am I to argue with such sound reasoning?

Today I also harvested the first meal from my miniscule backyard garden….a salad comprised completely of basil leaves. Interesting to see what grows well here and what doesn’t. Both years basil has done phenomenally well while parsley has barely poked though, lettuce is a complete write-off, carrots are questionable but beans are fine. Probably has a lot to do with the fact that this year I’ve shamefully neglected to water (water is precious and I’m reluctant to use our well drinking water for the garden).

Next day…death and tears and trouble. About two weeks ago I wrote about a young boy who went to hospital with a stomach problem no one understood. Last night he made his final journey home. Word of his death arrived before his body came home and the road was filled with mourners crying and friends and family in tears late into the night. Just before this, our resident very sweet “bad boy”…basically a good-hearted young man who doesn’t always make the best choices, had too much to drink, became rowdy, and was escorted to the village “jail” (a room on the hill) for the night, along with his buddy. Today Abdul was buried and the boys lay sheepishly low while occasionally chastised by a passing elder.

I’m rereading Ishmael Beah’s “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” and having a very difficult time with it. My first read was from a comfortable distance while in Canada. Here though, it’s all a little too close to home and actually imaginable. It’s reminding me of stories heard as a child of the holocaust and as a young woman about death squads in Central America. I suppose that the ultimate lesson from all of these is that all people are capable of positive change, a sentiment that I see and often hear expressed here.

Well, we’ve had winter solstice, yesterday was Hanukah, and tomorrow Christmas Eve. Here, while there is no discernable sign of celebration or holiday, there is a slight tingling of relaxation in the air. Children are not in school, the harvest is in, and people have a bit more time to relax. Seems to be a tradition to find something new to wear this time of year and many of the students have been trying to gather leones to purchase something at the second-hand clothing stalls at the junction. My friend Alpha has been making beautiful, large bamboo baskets which he tries to sell for about twenty cents each. In town, life proceeds as normal, and I have a meeting with the local college principal planned as well as a trip to see the progress of construction of a new school at Mathombo (one of the many villages destroyed during the war). Then it’s off to ride and hike to the mountaintop village to visit a friend whose second family lives there. Family and friends in Canada are sending tales of winter storms and power outages and mounds of snow to shovel and I smile and think of you all. I’m sending you all best and warm wishes and hope for peace as another year melds into the next. And of course, lots of love.

2008-12-19T09:33:00.003Z

After ten years away, Thomas Mark Turay has finally returned permanently to the chiefdom…and what a return it has been! His history here is a story in itself (one of three surviving children of eleven who lost his parents at an early age, raised by various relatives, sole family member sent to the local mission-run school, first from his village to get an education, known here as the “father of development” for the many innovative community-based programs he initiated and piloted for the whole country (this was the initial site of many on-going successful health and agricultural programs), ended up in Canada during the war on scholarship, most recently teaching at Coady and St. F.X.U.). The people at the village of Mayagba, site of the cdpeace headquarters, lined the highway with drummers, dancers, performers on stilts, children, elders, and the entire chiefdom cavalcade of motorbike riders to welcome their son home. Speeches, more singing and dancing, delegations from all over, rice for all, and all repeated today at Mapaki, headquarter village for the chiefdom and tomorrow at Gbonkolenken. The Limba dancers and drummers from the inaccessible far reaches of the chiefdom walked and danced the many miles to Mapaki today and the roads were packed with our women drummers providing the beat for the men drummers who drummed for the best and most powerful dancers in the chiefdom. It was an awe-inspiring event.

Meanwhile, this was a chance for me to greet teacher friends from all over the chiefdom who came to welcome TMT home and to share a tasty treat with any takers. Three days ago, the first of this year’s dried concho (bean) harvest was brought in. Proudly bringing my plate of fresh, just-right bean sprouts around to friends and visitors today, as usual the people who bravely accepted my offer were few and far between. This might have something to do with the fact that last week I told people I would be making them “oncho” (rather than “concho”) soup. Turns out I was offering them “river blindness” not bean soup. One of the reasons, I tell people, that I stay unmarried here…I have my reputation as the world’s worst cook to maintain.

On to Gbonkolenken, the second chiefdom where we work and home of Mary Hawa Turay, cofounder of cdpeace. Here the stories of TMT’s past also flowed. Mr. Koroma advised the tightly packed community meeting to heed any advice given by TMT and then related the story of how, after some reluctance, he followed TMT’s advice fifteen years ago and put aside some of his treasured land to plant trees. This year his three daughters came to him to ask for assistance to attend college, and thanks to the three drums of oil he harvested from the trees this year, he was able to pay their fees, otherwise an impossibility.

Next day. Reading news today from Canada has sparked me to do a little research on Niger, a neighbouring country that competes with Sierra Leone as being at the bottom of the Human Development Index. And on Canada’s role in this country. Not something to be proud of. From the little I read last night and this morning, it seems that the government is in conflict with the Tuareg, a nomadic people whose ancestral land is also the site of a rich uranium deposit, mined mainly by a French company. Canada, meanwhile, is involved in open-pit gold mining south of this region and sells arms to the government of Niger, arms which seem to be primarily used in conflict with Tuareg rebel movements. With increasing pressure on the world’s scarce resources (in Niger, the scarce resource is water), my worry is that Canada will increasingly be exacerbating conflicts rather finding ways for all of us on this fragile planet to preserve and equitably share the world’s limited resources. I really hope that I am proved wrong and hope that this twinning work we are doing contributes in some way to a positive role for Canada in this world (especially in Africa, which holds so many of the scarce resources wanted and historically taken by the “lands of too much”).

That’s a long-term goal. In the meantime, I find ways to share my small space with both biting ants who don’t listen to reason (an unexpected surprise while bathing in the dark last night) and with small children who delight with warm hugs and laughter. Every now and then I peek, though the internet, into the world I left behind and wonder if I’d ever be able to fully return. Having friends like Thomas and Mary, who also straddle two worlds, returning to this fragile land of hope makes life in the long-term here much more likely. Time will tell. For an update on Sierra Leone's development progress, click here.

Photo - Thomas, with women dancers , holding soil of the chiefdom.

2008-12-12T18:33:00.005Z

Recycling, Sierra Leone-style. The metal tube hanging from the tree next to Zainab is the Moria school bell, fashioned from the exploded shell which destroyed part of the school during the war (still not repaired). The shell was dropped by rebel forces. We checked the inside to try to find out where the shell was made, but other than a model number, it had no identifying marks. Interestingly, after leaving the school (students here are writing about peace with their USA twins), I spent the morning with a former child combatant, taken into the rebel forces at age ten, moved on to become leader of the rebel forces in the neighbouring district and now a prime campaigner for peace and reconciliation. He has developed some very inspiring programs that bring together young people from all side of the conflict to work hand-in-hand on community income-generation, agriculture and peer education programs. I imagine how useful it would be to do the same with children in countries that suffer from and that perpetuate wars through arms trade, though suppose in some ways that’s what this school twinning project of ours is doing. The teachers at Moria meanwhile, chuckle over the incongruity of their small recycling effort. And small statistics like these keep coming at me (3% of global military expenditures is needed to meet the goal of eliminating world hunger, Canada exports weapons to over 70 countries including countries subject to arms embargoes, and the USA to 174, etc.)

This week I’ve been caught between two worlds as teachers in Mapaki and the rest of the chiefdom struggle to fulfill an impossible mandate given to them. Schools here struggle to manage without buildings, teacher salaries, chalkboards, chalk or books but have been told that, in a country without electricity or access to computers, all primary schools must submit student exam data through computer-generated database software, backed up with printed documents. And have one week to do so. Using four partially working laptops, a half functioning scanner and borrowing use of a printer in Makeni (that only works when the office generator has fuel), Kouame, several teachers and I have been burning the midnight oil, burning up the road between Mapaki and Makeni, and burning out our solar panels trying to complete this herculean task for five schools. Disks and printed pages were handed in under the deadline today despite many setbacks, but will probably need redoing as the software (or we) didn’t quite function as expected. Apparently the radio waves are filled with schools pleading for this program to be scuttled or postponed. During all of this, it’s been next to impossible to find fuel in the district as the fuel sellers are in dispute with the government over pricing. We had to beg for a liter of petrol to get the motorbike to Makeni, where we heard a rumour that one filling station was selling fuel for an hour or so. Long lineup and pandemonium. Actually, lack of access to fuel seems to be a common occurrence and many a time I’ve expected to be stranded on the road with a dry fuel tank. Today, after two flat motorbike tires on the road home, fortune and the kindness of strangers kicked in and we got home safe and sound. As we seem to average about two flat tires a month, I think I’ll start carrying a pump. Happy to report that I’m starting to learn a lot from experience about motorcycle maintenance and operation.

Two worlds… Two nights ago the women’s traditional society had an all night round-the-fire, dancing, drumming, singing session just outside our house. As I still can’t tell the difference between secret and public events, I stayed in my bed again. Last night, though, was different. The youth headed off to town to collect a generator and music set and the locally recorded music kept us kicking up dust and dancing under the moon and stars till the wee hours as the village celebrated the sixth anniversary of the chief’s crowning. All the teenage girls and boys from the house and neighbourhood turned up, many with their babies strapped to the back or toddling at their side as did the motorcycle riders from the junction (roaring their bikes into the middle of the dance ground). Despite some worry about prematurely wearing out the soles of my good plastic shoes and thinking that maybe I need to monitor the comings and goings of the teens (we have plenty of babies in the house already) I had a great time. The perfect semi-circular moon cast shimmering moon-shadows across all and I’m sure I saw a shooting star as I wandered home.

Whoa! Just minutes ago, all the women and uninitiated non-Limba men in Mapaki streaked faster than you can imagine into the closest dwelling. While I was already safely in my room, all of my housemates banged on the door and told me to hide anyway. I’ve heard what happens to those who intentionally peek when the secret societies emerge from the forest and will not be taking any chances.

Tonight I’m quite worried. Young Marie, who lives in the front of my house with her mom and brother, developed a number of large boils on her head, and no one seems to know why. This puts me in mind too much of Baby Madfa’s poor late baby and the Mapaki baby that, very sadly, died this afternoon. Marie is one of the gang of two-year olds that welcomes me home each day with a huge warm hug. Actually, I think I’ll sign off and go home now to see how she is. Tomorrow Thomas arrives and I expect that the next week will be a whirlwind of activity, so it might be a while before I’m back.

Update…they tell me at the house not to worry…Marie’s boils are the ordinary kind. Relieved, I headed down the road to sit with Fatmata, mother of the six month old baby that died today. Left the smoky fire behind her mother’s house to step into the biggest, brightest moon I’ve ever seen, tinged with orange from the dust riding in on the Harmattan winds. This night, though, misfortunes are happening in threes. In front of the chief’s house, many of the village were gathered to sit with a young boy I’m told is dieing (the lack of the equivalent of about $30 was stopping the family from sending the boy to the hospital). When I left, the chief was making arrangements with the doctor to see the boy on an IOU basis and arranging transport to the town hospital. I’m happy about Marie but am going to spend the rest of this last full moon of the year hoping for the young boy’s recovery.

2008-12-04T10:56:00.003Z

So…two days after the mobile eye clinic turned up in the chiefdom and on the Moria “bookmobile” day, when I sit in the village barrie and read, wearing my all purpose reading glasses, the young man in the photo turned up with his own glasses, carefully fashioned from grass. Oh, there is so much we can learn about a community from the way children play and imitate adults! I thought about this after my friend Tamara recently sent me an article about the banning of “war toys” in Iraq, making me reflect on the fact that I have never seen a child play guns or war or play fight here.

Students at Westwood School sent drawings and paintings to class four Moria students on what peace means to them. Moria students responded with, “This is what peace means to us. During the time of the war we had to run and hide and sleep in the forest and caves with wild animals and sleep under trees. Now we enjoy going where we want and are able to work on the farms to sustain our lives. We suffered in the war but now we feel so lively and happy.” Recording correspondence between children living different yet connected realities is a theme in the books I’m reading now. I usually drift off to sleep with a book in hand and wind-up flashlight slipping off my shoulder (the solar light system I rigged up for my room has failed me). A few excerpts from this week’s reading of children’s books…”But war, like almost everything else humans do, is a choice. Creating weapons is a choice. Allowing a child to go hungry or to drink poisoned water is a choice. Sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing to stop something that’s wrong in a choice.”…from Deborah Ellis’ “Three Wishes; Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak” (another fascinating read is “We Just Want to Live Here” letters between an Israeli and Palestinian teenager). Then, the last lines from an old classic by E.B. White (author of Charlotte’s Web), “As Louis relaxed and prepared for sleep, all his thoughts were of how lucky he was to inhabit such a beautiful earth, how lucky he had been to solve his problems with music, and how pleasant it was to look forward to another night of sleep and another day tomorrow, and the fresh morning, and the light that returns with the day.” These two quotes seem to reflect my thoughts as I drift off to sleep most days, somewhat frustrated by choices that hurt so many on this earth but looking forward to a new day of beauty and problems solved by music. Thanks to you, all eighteen eye operation people will also enjoy waking to beauty as we’ve raised the money to pay for all operations. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Any extra money that arrives will go to additional eye operations (we expect more requests) or into a cdpeace health fund.

I’m now heading back to Makambray with the almost finished book the children there are writing about a palm-wine tapper who dies of snake bite. This sparked me to pull out our library copy of Where There Is No Doctor and reread the section on snake bite which I’m bringing to Makambray to share with the students, as this seems to be of great concern to them (no mention of black snake stone in this book, curiously).

This week the students in Mapaki have been fascinated by the various photographs that they’ve received from twin schools. The older students compared their own fishing and fish smoking methods with those of students in Dawson, Yukon and talked about their biggest challenge in hunting (catching large animals that fight back) as, due to disarmament, they hunt without guns. Class two students (who still go to school daily without a teacher after Mr. Koroma died) saw photos of and heard about snow for the first time and commiserated with their twins, wondering if everyone dies early in Canada because of the cold.

By now, I suppose, many of you are experiencing the cold and snow of the north. I thought about this yesterday when I was invited by a friend to go spend Christmas in a tiny village that’s located on the top of a mountain several chiefdoms away. This is a village that is difficult to reach and can only be accessed on foot (involves an overnight journey by bike and foot). It is also a village that’s located on a gold seam, providing some on-going income to the residents who pick and pan the nuggets and dust. Happily, its inaccessibility also protects it from big-time mining operations, the bane of many communities around the world. While you all will probably spend the day shoveling snow and picking ice, I expect to be panning and picking gold and cooling in the stream. Can’t wait! Have my mosquito net and can of beans ready!

2008-11-30T11:18:00.004Z

As many of its communities lie close to the fast-flowing Rokel River and many suffer from river blindness here, all week the radio waves have been humming with calls to the blind and visually impaired in Paki Masabong to gather at Mapaki yesterday for a visit by a mobile eye clinic. Which they did in droves. 114 people turned up, were assessed, received basic information and education on eye care, and any who needed it received treatment/medication. Eighteen were referred for operations. All of this was done at about the cost of a good cup of coffee per patient. The money that was sent by generous donors last year will be used to operate on six of the eighteen prospective patients. If we are successful in coming up with the remaining cost ($650 or 13 people contributing $50 each), operations could probably be done on everyone right here in the chiefdom, eliminating the need for a long journey to the country’s mission-operated eye hospital at Lunsar (surgeons would come here and the guest house converted to a makeshift hospital). If you are interested in helping with this, please get in touch with my sister, Hetty, who is coming in January and will be able to bring any contributions with her. Operations that we can raise money for will probably be done in February, thanks to the cdpeace health fund. Hetty can be reached through the Peaceful Schools International website. We’d love to have all who need it operated on. Maybe this can be a December “Gift of Sight” on behalf of a family member or friend? Thanks if you can help!

After a sudden and productive day journey to Freetown and back (my first this year), the chief and I and M.O. found ourselves on the Makeni highway last night headed home in a thirty year-old vehicle with headlights that finally gave up the ghost. Not so much fun. Living in a country with virtually no electricity means, though, that we were well-stocked with flashlights and the rest of the journey was dimly and shakily lit with my light held through the roof window and the chief and M.O. holding theirs out of the side windows. It was a slow trip home passing the occasional surprised sheep and Mapaki was a very welcome sight. In Freetown I was very happy to discover that it is possible to buy solar panels and pleased to meet with the director of the library board, who is interested in coming to see what we are up to up country. I also managed to find, through the library director, a “book trust” and came home with an armload of books for the class one teachers to borrow. Also managed to buy a can of peas, a can of carrots, and a can of beans and….a Mars bar which was quickly devoured as it turned to melted mush in the hot sun!

Today the big find in Makeni was…three canned chickens! Apparently there has been a big shipment of canned chickens from Italy and the cans are everywhere. Turns out that this is also the food that the Maso teachers were lamenting about and, happily, they finally did receive their consignment. Mabinty has already distributed her dozen chickens to the various women of the household and the Mapaki teachers are now the only ones left to lament. Hopefully theirs will arrive soon.

Tonight, a Saturday lit with an orange sliver of a low moon and stars that really do twinkle, I spent some time sitting in the growing dark with the women who were out cooking late over the five or six fires that were in various stages of burning and dieing down. Through the smoky fire-lit dark, I could see three young boys carefully roasting a few roots of cassava they found, a rare sight in a community where few men cook. Abdul, a small boy from Freetown, told me that he really does like to cook and offered to help me next time I venture in this area again. As the fires died down and women and boys headed off with kerosene lamps and bits of burning wood to various sleeping places in the compound, I headed off to share some Saturday-night palm wine with Mabinty. Have just left Mabinty and am now holed up in the guest house for the night, as the latrine for the house I share with a dozen or so others has been overtaken by millions of flesh-eating ants and I don’t want to risk becoming a late-night snack for a gang of ants. C'est la vie!

Photo by Kouame - Heading home from the eye clinic

2008-11-25T15:27:00.002Z

Baby Madfa’s baby died last night and I cried again. Baby, who lives in an abandoned adult training building on the edge of Maso, gave birth, all alone, to a tiny baby boy about a month ago. Teachers who turned up to work in the adjoining abandoned administrative building the next morning heard Baby call out for someone to call the midwife but really it was too late, the baby was already in her arms. Returning to Mapaki that night in amazement, teachers told us all the tale of the miraculous birth. I stopped to visit Baby and her child the next day and marveled at the tiny warm delight nestled in my arms. Ah, life! As usual, no one is quite sure why the baby died. They say his skin sank in and he developed boils on his head. Baby’s sister took the child to the clinic (Baby, who suffered from polio as a child, doesn’t walk) but it was too late and nothing could be done. So, along with all the others gone before, Baby’s child now lies buried in the burying grounds and Baby has not stopped crying.

Each day is filled with sorrows and joys here and life seems to just go on. Today streams of young men returned from the upland rice field with sacks of fresh threshed rice on their heads, headed for the village grain store (storage area). This is truly a joyous sight. It means the rains did not spoil the crop and it lends some sense of food security for a while. We can cry our pain and sorrow but life goes on.

For the past two nights no one slept in this part of Mapaki and there are some grumblings (mostly by me) about taking those responsible to the elders to be fined. Two nights ago we were woken by a woman with an ill child who was loudly and at length accusing neighbours of witchcraft. Last night it was the traditional society from Malimp which arrived at Mapaki in the wee hours and drummed and sang songs of praise in front of the chief’s house and then Baroq’s house (both my neighbours) for hours before the long journey back to their village. As I’m never sure when the societies’ night activities are secret (in which case you definitely don’t venture out of bed), I stay safely tucked under my bednet and listen to the drums. It will be an early night for me again tonight.

It’s a good thing that everyone here seems to have a healthy sense of humour. Two days ago oncho tablets, which rid people of the worms that cause river blindness, were delivered to the village. As river blindness is very common in the chiefdom, almost everyone took the tablets and for the past two days there has been much joking about the many people whose faces immediately ballooned and the torsos that developed nasty itchy rashes as side effects of the medication. It seems that before the war people were offered the opportunity to be tested for worms before taking the tablets. This opportunity is no longer available so people take the tablets, shut their eyes tightly, and hope that the side effects will pass them by. As it takes many bites over an extended time to develop symptoms, I’ll wait till the opportunity for testing arises again before taking my tablet.

This morning I took the motorbike back along the upturned roads, down fishtail hill, past road workers who called to me to stop and join them for chop (food), to the village of Makambray where the children are working on a story about their forest (it’s kind of sad…the palm-wine tapper who doesn’t get medicine in time dies of the snake bite in the end). We read Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” today and the children told me that they liked the fact that the tree showed love for the boy. One very thoughtful boy also commented on “The Great Kapok Tree” which we read last week, saying he liked the fact that, since all living things are dependent on each other, it gives a message about the need to take care of things in the environment.

So, on taking care of things and people in our environment, I think I’ll plan to go to Maso to see Baby tomorrow and sit with her and mourn with her the little bundle of love she lost. And to all of you who are helping take care of Daniel and the other volunteer teachers, I’m happy to report that we’ve raised enough money to cover Daniels’s tuition for three years plus send an extra woman volunteer teacher to college this year and next. Thanks all!!!
Photo- Searching for the elusive giant cotton tree at Katekeah

2008-11-20T13:57:00.007Z

I forget, sometimes, about the unbelievable beauty in the land around me. Last night Joseph, Mabinty and I walked through the deepening dusk through forest, stream and village to the open hilltop cassava farm that Joseph carefully tends every day after teaching, and witnessed on our arrival the most spectacular, could only be computer-generated, shimmering in a million shades of pink, sunset sky. Very humbling. On the way home Mabinty and Joseph were discussing the box of food in Makeni being offered to teachers who could afford transport to collect it, breaking out in Bob Marley songs as they realized their's would be the only school that would have to forfeit this offer. We sang our humour and sorrows all the way home through the dark, passing clusters of curious children returning from the farms with their loads of firewood and threshed rice on their heads.

After three days in Gbonkolenken I’m back in the Mapaki library tonight with its solar light and wonderful collection of books and study area for the junior high students and kids immersed in favourite books in all parts of the room. Spending the last three nights going to bed at 7:30pm because of lack of light and having nothing to read and seeing children with no place to study reminds me of how far things have come in Mapaki in just one year and how similar life in Mapaki was not so long ago. Bringing my backpack of culturally-relevant non-fiction picture-packed books into the classrooms of the villages in Gbonkolenken and seeing the wide-eyed and intense response of children who have never before seen or handled books also reminded me of tremendous potential there is to make a huge impact with very few resources. When I left Gbonkolenken, the community was gathering sticks and rocks and palm fronds to start construction of their own library too. I’ll be investigating sources of solar power here and funding for books to provide whatever support we can offer to help get this initiative off the ground soon.

While visiting class three and four in Makonkorie, I chatted with the teacher and asked how he came to be teaching in the school there (he’s originally from Paki Masabong). This is his story. Daniel was a boy caught in throes of the war that engulfed the country during the 1990s. While much of the north was under the control of the rebel forces, options for young boys of the north were few. Either you were captured by rebels and forced under drugs and intimidation to fight, you joined because you were displaced and starving and they provided the only source of food, or you were one of the few who found some way to resist and escape. Daniel fell into the last category. He was persistently pressured to join the rebel forces by friends who used various tactics to force him into their camp. He resisted until he was finally captured, forced to act as porter and then escaped. At the time, there was no real safety in the North, except for in Gbonkolenken, which was ringed and protected by the Kamajor (local militia). After escaping from the rebels, Daniel made his way on foot through forest and river to Gbonkolenken, where he met up with his mother who fell into tears, assuming that her son was either captured or killed. While in Makonkorie, as well as scratching out a living in whatever way he could, he would spend time at the school until one day the headmaster asked if he would formally sign up as a volunteer teacher. For the past six years Daniel has been teaching as a volunteer and dreaming of the day that he could go to college and become a qualified teacher. Daniel was one of the 34 teachers who applied but was not fortunate to receive a cdpeace teacher scholarship this year. He is determined to start his education in whatever way he can, and when I offered a workshop for volunteer teachers on “how children learn” Daniel was the one teacher who asked to stay through two consecutive sessions, hoping to glean a little more knowledge from this opportunity. My hope is that we can extend the scholarship program to include teachers like Daniel (we’ve already offered 12 three-year scholarships this year, six times what we had originally budgeted for, thanks to the support of friends abroad). I’m writing about Daniel, not because he is exceptional, but because I think he represents so many of the volunteer teachers at the schools we work with. So many have come through and still live precarious lives yet manage to find the reserve energy and hope to be able to keep coming to school day after day, teaching without books or materials and no expectation of reward beyond the knowledge that they are helping their community…leaving school daily to engage in the back-breaking work that’s involved in providing food from the land for yourself and your family. In case anyone else is interested in helping Daniel or others, one year’s tuition and materials at the local college is $200, the program starts in one month’s time and runs for three years.

Other experiences from my time in Gbonkolenken… I spent one morning with the class of about sixty grade nine students and shared several letters from Canada with them. Again there was wide-eyed wonder as they heard their Canadian friends’ perception of Sierra Leone and pondered the possibility of their war-torn country serving as a model of peace and unity and understanding to others around the world and their own valuing of education as something to be envied by their Canadian friends (they are so used to hearing themselves described as the poorest of the world and most in need of “saving” by others that turning the tables on this concept seemed revolutionary but very welcome). Also a very interesting experience to try to explain Santa Claus and the Easter rabbit and hockey and Halloween (they had asked the Canadian students about celebrations) to a group of young people whose only experience with the world is their direct interaction with their direct environment…no mediating TV or movies or books or magazines or pictures to tell them about anything outside of their immediate environment. A very challenging task that made me realize how bizarre our world must seem (welcoming a witch into homes with children, walking on dew with knives on your feet, sending your children to beg at neighbours...).

Other experiences… Baby Thullah, the class two teacher, invited me to walk to her village of Makura after school one day, which I did. The road was long and hot and we were tired but the children who skipped along with us and the passing villagers who stopped to greet us and the occasional coolness of overhanging trees kept us going until we reached the tiny village nestled at the base of a nearby mountain where I cooled in the shade of the thatched roofs with the elders, savoured the sun-warm oranges freshly picked for me by the children and….got to cook macaroni over the three stone fire! Baby had bought and was saving a package of spaghetti (here known as macaroni) for just such an occasional and the whole village watched as I boiled the noodles and cooked up a sauce of two onions, palm oil, salt, pepper and two eggs. Like the loaves and fishes, the macaroni was passed around, shared and enjoyed by all.

And on eating oporto food, last week someone from Freetown who can't believe that I can happily exist on local food turned up with....bread, a dozen eggs and imported weiners, bacon, two kinds of sausages, butter, coke, cheezey crackers and...a Snickers and Dairy Milk bar. My new friend is working on a bio-fuel project that will be supplying Europe's ethanol needs. I had a million comments and questions but politely restrained myself as I wiped Snickers crumbs from my bacon-greasy chin. Next time! So how do you cook and share bacon and eggs with a guest and the twenty hungry under-fives and four teen suckling moms and five elderly women and assorted other school children and friends who are all silently watching and waiting and sniffing the unfamiliar scent at the fire's edge in this hungry and curious household of fifty-four? Not easy! I packed one plate for me and the guest and left the rest in the capable hands of the eldest women. Mabinty tells me the kids were embroiled in a riot before I turned the first corner.

Other bits and pieces. The night before leaving for Gbonkolenken, there was a conflict in the village between a school boy and girl which left me vexed with the young people and in tears in the dark in the library thinking about the role of by-standers in situations near and far, small and global (bystanders in small conflicts, in genocide, in a world where power over global economics leaves the vulnerable without the means of producing food and others with too much). I had a long talk with the young by-standers in the morning before leaving and since I’ve been back, most are bending over backwards to step forward and offer support where they see a need. Had three young boys offer to fetch my water this morning and two others fill water bottles for me. This situation was the first time I have felt any annoyance with anyone since being here (annoyance which disappeared overnight when I put all in context) and the first time traditional conflict resolution processes seemed to falter (perhaps because the chief and other elders have been away). While I hope it will be the last, it was a good opportunity to have a long talk with the young people, who I really do hold in great respect, and good to see that even in this community, which I hold in such high esteem, problems need working out. It also makes me realize how much a part of the community I am now, with the children coming to me to resolve the issue and feeling quite in my rights to sit the young folk down for a talk. As the Gbonkolenken people are lobbying hard for me to spend 50% of my time there as are the Mayagba folks, it might become a challenge to continue to feel like a true community member (the first to pay my taxes) here. We’ll see.

Photo…humour, Makonkorie style (with my new motor-cycle helmet)

2008-11-13T20:25:00.004Z

Life in Mapaki was unsettled last night. An unexpected wind and rain storm whipped up dust and tore leaves from the trees, the full moon drenched the village with an eerie pale light, an alleged itinerant witch was in lock-up, the community was reeling with the sudden death of our grade two teacher (twin with Granville Ferry’s grade two), two of the boys of our household were sorting out a conflict, and we all wondered what would happen with our tragic-accident-survivor who had gotten himself into hot water (long story) . I’ve been learning more about the impact of the war on the young men here and how the community has come together to heal and forgive. The boys in conflict did a great job of sorting out their problem on their own, people seem quite sympathetic towards the alleged witch, I believe the tragic-accident-survivor is addressing the not-too-wise choices he made, and the teachers from surrounding communities are here to find a way to support the dead teacher’s family. The moon is waning, the storm has passed and life continues.

But now again I’m in a bit of shock. Tonight I decided to take a walk to the old broken-down, vine-encrusted hidden colonial “castle” on the hill (I’m searching for a little oasis of solitude to visit occasionally after my trip to the northern forest). On the way I passed the house of a woman whose baby I’d promised to photograph and on seeing her empty arms asked where her baby was. Her response was, “Dead, he died Tuesday”.

Malaria. Of course. Again. Although she took him for treatment it was either not enough or too late. She puts this down to “God’s will.” I’ve been thinking about this. Last week I tried to buy some malaria medicine for myself (had given my emergency medicine to Mabinty) at a couple of pharmacies. Being unsuccessful, I headed to the hospital but even there could not find the ACT that I was looking for. I told this story to a friend and was told that it might be because there are no imports coming into the country now because there is a shortage of American currency because the IMF did not approve an expected grant because “conditions” had not been met. And somehow the dearth of teachers is connected to not meeting “conditions”. Hmmm… teachers die, volunteers who want to be approved as “real” teachers wait vainly for years, community school applications for approval go no where. No teachers, no IMF grant, no imports…no ACT malaria medicine, babies and teachers who die? Seems like a self-perpetuating circle. Perhaps a stretch, but a link is certainly possible….and disturbing. Hmmm…. To read more on this go to "Confronting the Contradictions".

So, some friends have been asking for a birthday report. Few people here keep track of birthdays or know how old they are (have heard some pretty wild guesses from both adults and children). I celebrated today’s birthday yesterday with a visit to Makeni where I splurged on a tuna sandwich I found at a recently opened hotel, visited a new friend I met, read a very interesting NGO analysis of Mapaki while spending several hours at a roadside mechanic getting the motorbike fixed (and watching a massive assemblage of truckloads of soldiers and police gather on the other side of the road), and came home through the storm. Came to the library this morning at 5:30a.m. where I found very sweet birthday cards and email messages from Mabinty and Kouame. Celebrated with two pieces of very stale bread I bought from Hawa, which, dipped in cocoa powder, almost tasted like chocolate croissants (it was exactly a year ago that I thought I was dieing from malaria and believe it was a craving for chocolate croissants and coffee that kept me alive). Have been nibbling on pineapple, bananas and oranges all day; managed, while working on a funding proposal to play my favourite music on an old laptop that I got working again; and this evening, have been treated by the children to the seeds of cacao pods, which I plan to ferment and turn to cocoa powder. Spent some leisurely time visiting with the chief on his porch for the first time (seems that either he or I are too busy to chat most of the time), weeded my garden, peeked through the rapidly progressing new library, and sampled the pepper soup and river crabs made by Sallay. A fine day all round! Thanks for asking, friends and family!

Photo - Two of my daily watching-the-sun-set friends on the first hill