September 2011

We have had an interesting month here in Salone.  The container we loaded in Cranbrook in May finally arrived and was released from Customs in Freetown.  We were required to remove our vehicle in the port so the customs folks could verify serial numbers to ensure that the vehicle we brought is the vehicle we said it was.   As the port does not have a fork lift we had to remove all the hospital equipment and books by hand to get to the vehicle which we put in the container first.  After arriving at the port at about 10:00 in the morning we were finally able to leave the port at 6:00 in the evening.  Of course we did not have licence plates because they cannot be obtained so quickly so we had to use a “garage plate” but we cannot put the garage plate on in the port because of some regulation.  On leaving the port there is a police officer pulling us over because we do not have a licence plate, the typical “Catch 22” situation!!  We finally arrived in Mokanji at 11:00 at night and the only meal we had the whole day was a bread roll for breakfast.

It has been a month of firsts for visitors as well.  Our first overnight expat visitor was a student of ours while we were in Guatemala and she is now studying nursing in the UK.  Bryony stayed with us for a month and assisted Petra doing wound care, teaching and nutritional advice for the mothers and folks in the Mokanji area.

We’ve had other folks also visiting here, even the President of the mission and the Director of Development and their wives were here for a visit.  Right now one lady is visiting with the intention to see what it is like to live and work here with the thought of returning long term and next month we will be hosting one young lady and her oldest child who are slated to come in the first quarter of 2012.

Another interesting occurrence for us has been learning about the hold witch doctors and the “jiju man” has on folks here in Sierra Leone and probably most of Africa.  There are even strong young men whom you would not want to meet in a dark alley if they were upset with you who are quaking with fear over what spell a witch doctor might cast on him or his loved ones.  We have been working with them to try to allay the fears over some of these superstitions and help them know that there is Someone who is all powerful and able to squash the witch doctors and “jiju men” like a bug on the windshield of the car.

We have also moved from the dark ages with no running water or electrical power right into the 21^st century with water pumped by a solar powered submersible pump and lights and electricity all from solar panels!  We are “green” here in Africa, “greener” than most folks stateside who get their power from a generating station somewhere!  It is kind of cool to have lights and charging capabilities after nearly 4 months of living with charging things in the truck whenever we were going somewhere and running a generator when things get desperate.  So far as I know we are the only folks with 24 hour power in town as well.  I’m even able to work on the computer with the screen at full brightness because I don’t need to worry about running the computer batteries down.  Showers with running water, even if it is cold, is also a wonderful thing instead of bucket showers.  It’s becoming positively palatial here in Mokanji!  Next on the plan here is a means to heat the water via the sun as well.  I have some ideas but need to work on them yet!