Long Day

Yesterday, I was seriously considering walking down to the ocean and just swimming home. I can’t begin to describe to you how incredibly frustrated I was. I’m sure you have noticed an undertone of frustration in a lot of my entries. I think it is only fair to express that openly right now- because frustration is a big part of justice work. There is the constant frustration of not being able to help everyone and frustration with how broken the whole system is. There is the frustration with NGOs that, though they are doing the best they can, just aren’t doing much. For me, there is a lot of frustration with men constantly asking me for my number, or to marry them (I’ve been asked three times this week already). There are the typical daily frustrations just like at home. There are plenty of frustrations that come with working and living with the same 3 people for 2 months. The fact is this isn’t easy- and not in the clichéd “no one said it would be easy” way, but it is a real struggle.

That said- I wouldn’t trade this for the world. I am learning a ton. I can’t come up with any answers yet (which is frustrating), but I am taking it all in. I am changing things- but not the way I thought I would. It isn’t nearly as easy as I thought- and while I have been able to help people… at the end of the day it never feels like enough. At the end of every day I just lay down and realize though I have helped, there is just so much that needs helping here. I am trying to wrap my head around what the heck can be done to help Sierra Leone- but I just can’t figure it out. There are hundreds of intelligent individuals in think tanks all over the world working on this, and they have no idea what the heck to do. Neither do I.

I have been doing a lot of good. Mohammed has been learning a lot of English, and it seems to be giving him a sense of self worth. I’ve been doing a lot of creative counselling with some of the men at City of Rest, which has been a good outlet for them. I’ve been able to help a lot of people buy medicine. We redid the counselling room (which wasn’t at all fit to be a storage room, much less counselling room before) at SWAASL and I am doing a great mural. I’ve made some wonderful friends both in the organizations and in our neighbourhood. But at the end of the day I’m still dying to change the world and clueless on how to do it.

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Justice?

I wrote this a few weeks ago for the Chaska Herald, and have been waiting on it to be published before I put it here. However this is how I have been feeling for the past few weeks, and the most articulate I think I could make it...

My first two weeks working to change the world have proven to be both incredibly rewarding and incredibly frustrating. The more I learn about the problems facing Sierra Leone, the less I understand what could be done to fix them. The conventional rules of development used in the Western world simply don’t seem to apply here.

The distinction between charity and justice has also become quite evident during my time here. Charity, short term assistance aim at the immediate needs of an individual person, is easy to do here. Justice, long term changes to policy and systems meant to address the root cause of the problem facing individuals, is difficult to do here. I have been able to do much charity work- helping individuals buy food, visiting HIV/AIDS patients, counselling, praying, and simply listening. As rewarding as these activities have been though, Sierra Leone needs both charity and justice.

One of the many wonderful people I have met here is Joseph. An ambitious soon-to-be 18 year old, Joseph is always smiling and always working. Joseph works with his uncle, Kaba, cleaning the YMCA hostel we are staying, hoping to earn enough money to pay for his last three years of high school. Kaba splits his salary (which, at about $50 a month, is barely enough to pay for food and transportation) with Joseph, but saving the $25 needed for one year of school fees is nearly impossible despite the fact that Joseph is one of the hardest working individuals I know. Since I firmly believe that every person has the right to an education, I was overjoyed to sponsor Joseph’s next year of school. He nearly made me cry when Joseph told me, “before my future was almost dead, but you have resurrected it. God Bless you.” I truly believe that small acts like this with great love can change the world.

However, there is a nation full of young, ambitious, wonderful individuals just like Joseph, who would like nothing more than the opportunity to go to school. Charity cannot send all of these children to school, only justice can do that. While I continue to help individuals, it is important to also ask what systematic changes can be made to help all of the individuals of Sierra Leone. As I mentioned earlier, it is incredibly difficult to formulate and execute effective systematic changes here, as all of the problems are densely interrelated. Over the next few weeks I am embarking on the daunting task of better understanding of the problems facing Sierra Leone and how our community can better help our global neighbours. It can easily become overwhelming, but no one ever said working in the least developed nation in the world would be easy, they only told me it would be worth it.

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HIV-

I took my first ever HIV test today. I went in knowing that there is virtually no way it could be positive. Still walking toward the room I was incredibly nervous. I could feel my heart beating quicker and quicker as I listened to the pretest counseling. I knew that I would be negative, but I was terrified. There was part of me that though "Oh God, what if I am positive?" Another man was also there and did pretest counseling with me and took the test at the same time I did. I can't imagine how terrified he must have been. For me it was a formality, for him it was life. That man came knowing that the result to this test could change his life forever- that took a lot of courage.

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No time!

Ahh- no time to caption! Shots from the hostel (the sunset and my stuffed animal so kindly decorated by Joseph, one of the boys who works here, and a little kitten in our barbed wire) and the beach. Carch you later.

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Oh The Irony

Again, it is raining, or rather pouring, and I am waiting for it to lighten up enough to go to work. And still, we have no water. No water to shower. No water to flush toilets. No water to wash our face. No water to wash dishes. No water. Luckily, we can beg our way into a bucket of water to wash or whatever, but no water from any of the taps. But I can only say what everyone says to me... "Annie, it's Africa."

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Life, As Usual

I just want to begin this post by noting the irony of our current situation. For the past two days, we haven't had water at the hostel. We can get a bucket from the tap if we need it, but we haven't had running water (so think showers, toilets, taps, cooking...). However, as I am in Sierra Leone during the rainiest month of the year, it has been raining nearly all day, often completely pouring. It was raining so hard on Sunday morning that we could not leave for church... yet we have no water.

So life here is settling into a rhythm. I am getting used to work, but also life here. I've been able to make some good friends, not just people who want to talk about "How is Sierra Leone? What is America like?" all of the time, but actual friend who I can just hang out with. It is really nice- it feels like life as usual. And while life as usual isn't necessarily as exciting sounding as busy saving the world, it is good. As a preface to this next statement I will say that I have met many amazing volunteers and missionaries here who this does not apply to. That said, so many volunteers/missionaries/expats here want nothing to do with the local people or culture. They live in nice complexes (though I'll say the YMCA is, comparatively, pretty nice) and don't leave, have drivers and never take a poda poda or taxi. They don't eat at local restaurants, they always go to the fancy, air conditioned, incredibly expensive foreign restaurants that almost no local could ever afford. When they do go out, they go to expat hangouts only- they go to the expensive, sheltered bars and international clubs, not to the little beach shacks that could desperately use the business. Often they have made no effort to learn any krio besides "hello" or "how are you?" and generally don't talk to the people they are supposedly here to help. There are NGOs everywhere here, and like I mentioned earlier, the country lives off of them. That said, since there are so many NGO workers, there aren't all necessarily the ones who really want to be here. So life as usual with in a real Sierra Leonean community is good. It's nice to have people to just talk with, be with, learn from, joke with. I'm seeing the real face of Sierra Leone. And while hanging out with the neighbors and learning how to cook African food isn't a huge, prophetic act saving the world, it's the little act with great love- and the more I am here, the more I realize that is all I can do for now.

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A Very Quick Update

Today at City of Rest I met a young man (just a year or two younger than me) who dropped out of school in the 3rd form and speaks only Krio (deep krio, the hardest kind for me to understand, at that). During an incredibly intense game of "snakes and ladders" (chutes and ladders, but with snakes) with 4 young men cheating like crazy and me continually saying "Yu de tif, yu de tif!" ("You're cheating, you're cheating!"), he told me that he wants to learn to speak English, and if possible to read. Perfect. I've been struggling to find a concrete things that I can do for the people at City of Rest, and what better than to teach? It will be interesting to try to teach someone with my limited krio skills, but all the more reason to learn quickly. I am incredibly excited for this opportunity! This is what I love to do.

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Here, There, Everywhere

Today while we were going across town in a poda poda (the local version of mass transit, which is in fact nothing at all like mass transit, just an extremely old van with too many people in it), I noticed how many NGOs there are (Non-Government Organizations, mostly non profits trying to help people). When I mentioned it to Laura (who has been working at SWASSL through Volunteer Services Oversees for the last 8 months) she said "Yeah, that is the way people stay alive here." Sadly, that is very true. Some people here can get by on their own, most just scrape by with the help of NGOs, and some don't survive. As hard as people work, a lot simply can't survive alone. Many people really need someone outside of the system to help them get by- there is a cycle that they just can't break without someone from outside of the cycle stepping in. As glad as I am to step in, I've really been racking my brain for how to change that cycle, how to help people help themselves. I'm not sure how to do it yet- but I am turning it over in my mind constantly, so hopefully I'll start to have some ideas soon (though everything is still coming around the education).

Maybe you are all getting tired of pictures of the sunset over the ocean- but I feel so blessed to see it everyday (and it is always beautiful!) so I like to share. Not to mention I'm sure my mom likes it :). The other pictures are of a sweet little girl I met at SWAASL (names are confidential though). I love the hair- it is adorable. I'm planning on getting mine braided soon, so I'll put some pictures up. I love my African clothes (nerdy as I look) and, I am ashamed to say, am beginning to really like R&B and hip hop. My Krio (the local language) is getting better quickly, as is my French. I'm trying to get used to the spicy food, though that is a bit harder. I'm still a vegetarian though, so the spice is fine with me.

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Some new pictures for you viewing enjoyment. The sunset and barge are both taken from our hostel, and the rest just around Freetown. Everywhere I go children run up to me and say "snap me snap me!" (take a picture, take a picture). It is very cute, though it makes it hard to get any candid shots. There is a huge cultural difference in where it is okay to take photos, so it has been hard getting good ones, or some of the ones I want. Make sure to check out the Chaska Herald this week for my first article, and in the coming weeks, as I'm already writing next weeks. Another huge thank you to Mollee Francisco, for helping make this possible. Make sure to tell your friends to check out the blog, and thanks for all of the comments!

As we start to really dig into our work it is getting much harder. It is really tough to see so many people suffering. One of the members of SWAASL (the AIDS society we are working with) is int he hospital and very sick. Between Monday and today you can see her literally just wasting away, losing all of her weight and energy. It is tough- very tough. We just meet so many amazing people who are in such tough positions. People who can't afford food for their families, who can't find work, who can't go to school or university, who are sick with AIDS, with malaria, with typhoid, people who abuse drugs and alcohol, people with mental illness and mental retardation... and I want to save them all. The problem is I can't. I can't save everyone that I meet, which breaks my heart. I can only do the best I can, small things with great love, right?

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Little Things With Great Love

In the last post I said that I had a great birthday present (paying school fees) planned for one of the boys who works here at the hostel. I'm not so patient, so I had a friend give it to him with a note yesterday. He was so excited, as am I. He told me today that before his future was almost dead, but that I had resurrected his future. Wow. Thinking of it almost makes me cry I'm just so... it's so little. It is the least I can do. The very very least- $25 is really nothing. But that means so much to him, it gave him so much hope. Little things with great love... just lots of love.

When I get back I am hoping to link up the people I've met here who want to go to school with people in the states who want to help them. So if you are interested please let me know. When I get back home I am going to be working tirelessly at this... These kids (and young adults) deserve to go to school. So many people work so hard to get an education. So think about it. If you have $25 laying around somewhere (or even less) consider what you could buy at target with it. Then consider "resurrecting someone's future," about giving someone more hope than they could ever imagine.

By the way- watch for a Chaska Herald article this week or next. God bless- thanks for all of the prayers. Please keep praying for the people I am working with here. I have met so many amazing people who could do so many amazing things, who could change the world, if given just a bit of help.

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Figuring Things Out

As we start to dig into our work and into the culture of Sierra Leone it is becoming obvious that changing things here is harder than expected. So many things here- especially economics- just don't function the same here as in the United States. The normal rules of supply and demand just don't apply. The more I think about the problems here, the more I learn, the more I realize they all have one thing in common- education. AIDS, drug abuse, gender based violence, crime, poverty, all of it is wrapped up in education. So the big question is what can we do? Part of me feels that even education wouldn't be enough- because people here with education often can't find that great of jobs, but at this point (on my very limited knowledge) it is definitely what I see as the best way of fighting these problems. There are so many children here who want to go to school, who value it so greatly, but who can't afford to go. The thing is though- it's really not that expensive. Well it is incredibly expensive here, but for us it is nothing. For one year in high school it is $25, but there is just no way for an average family to afford that here. Again, it is one thing to know people can't afford to go to school, it is another thing to know those people. There is a young man (17 years old, his 18th birthday is this month) who is incredibly smart, want to become a lawyer, but has no way to afford school- 75,000 Leones is just way way way too much for him, even though he is working now. He has 3 years left of school, but doesn't know right now if he can continue this coming year due to lack of money. Let me just say that I have a great early birthday present planned for him. Still- that is one person, but I've met so many people who want to go to school... It feels so good to be able to help one person, but it is easy to get hopeless because so many people need help. I'm not hopeless now- but it's going to be a struggle to keep my hope. The people I know are all so amazing though, so there is much new hope to be found.

Pictures here are a huge pain, so I apologize for the low quality. The first pictures is the hallway in our hostel as the sun was setting, the second is of David and I (sorry for the blurry picture, he would only sit still for one, which happened to be our of focus) and the last is a typical building in Freetown.

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Pictures maybe?

Formatting this is impossible here- but here are some pictures- hope you enjoy! The sunset picture is from the hostel- you can see the sunset over the ocean every night- very beautiful. The others were all just taken around Freetown. I really liked the graffiti because I literally haven't gone a day here without hearing the song "Love is Wicked."

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David

While internet connection hasn't been too much of a problem, it has been hard to find the time and energy to write, much less the words to express what has been happening.

Our first week of work has gone pretty well. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy it. I've been trying to learn some krio (the local language) which has been going surprisingly well. The people at City of Rest (the drug addiction/mental health facility) have been great so far in helping to teach me. It is also a great conversation started to hear some of their stories. It is amazing to hear what some people have been through, surprising to hear how normal everyone is, and made me resolute in finding some way to work on these problems long term. Our work with Society for Women and AIDS in Africa, Sierra Leone Chapter (SWAASL) has been kind of slow, but I had one very moving moment...

A little boy named David, who was just under 5 years old, was sitting on my lap, drawing pictures in my notebook. David is HIV+, he was born negative but received the virus from a blood transfusion when he was 3 years old. He is healthy and doing well now, but Laura, a volunteer from the UK who has been here for 8 months who works at SWAASL, told us that 1 in 4 children here don't reach the age of 6. So I had this precious, beautiful little child on my lap, a wonderful little boy just coloring, talking to me in krio (which I didn't understand at all), smiling, and it just hit me. This child probably won't ever grow up to be my age even. This child may die. It is one thing to see the WorldVision commercials and hear that children die of AIDS, it is entirely different to hold that child, to have him in your arms and know that he has this virus, from a blood transfusion nonetheless, and may die. It was.... it made me question. Question a lot. We really need to do so much more to fight this, to help people here. There are real children dying, children just as real as the ones in our church, in our neighborhood... It is hard- it is a lot to deal with. But I need to deal with this pain if I ever want to help change it.

So right now I am brainstorming and scheming, trying to think of what it is that we, as a community, can do.

I'd love to put up some pictures, as I'm sure you'd like to see, but it just takes too long here. I may try again later, but I doubt it is possible at the moment. God bless- I hope all is well with you guys!

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