Another couple of Days in Freetown

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Monday I spent the day in my hotel room.  Jim went with John Blackie, site monitor on this project, and Jonathan Cobinah who had to drive.  The Carley’s ate some sausages from the USA that were obviously spoiled and got food poisoning.  They were out of commission Sunday and Monday.  Because we didn’t have enough time to wait for them to recover, Jim hired Jonathan to drive him, who was here to see us with his family, but also had some business to take care of.  He postponed his business so that he could take Jim around to finish up checking out the old Freetown project, which consisted of latrines, wells, pipelines and spring boxes that fell apart during Ebola like everything else.  We retrained, fixed some things, and are here to check it out and close it out.  Finally!  It has been a long time.  The only part of the project where nothing was working was the pipelines.  When China came in to widen and pave the roads, they tore them all out—thanks a lot…

I usually have lots to do, but Monday, not so much.  I did manage to do all my wash, which as you know makes me very happy.  After that, then what?  I had no reports till Jim came home with his report, and then I stayed up till 1 AM finishing them.  Otherwise, Jim had brought some Skip-Bo cards and even though I remember liking the game, I had forgotten how to play.  So I broke out the cards and read the directions and played a game with myself and one imaginary friend (pathetic, right?).  Luckily, I and my friend came out even—we each won two games.  I even loaded a game, Free Cell, onto my phone, and previously I have had none.  I think I will delete it after this trip.  I read my book, watched a movie on TV (no commercials, cool), and watched my clothes dry.  It was an exciting day, broken up with an ordered bowl of soup. 

I am always interested in food in other countries.  The other day I ordered minestrone soup.  Yesterday I ordered vegetable soup.  I was asked if I wanted it to be cream soup—no.  So, someone brought the soup to my room—it was identical to the minestrone…  After Jim got home and we ate our dinner, we later went back to the restaurant to order dessert, strawberry cheesecake.  It was I think some not delicious frozen yogurt, still frozen, with a tiny dab of strawberry jam on top, with a crumbled cookie underneath.  Also on the plate with crumbs underneath, was one scoop of strawberry ice cream.  The next night we order the chocolate cake—in contrast, it was very rich and there was one scoop of vanilla ice cream and it was really, really good! 

     

I have become quite a vegetable these days—between my bad neck and Jim’s brain, I think we might one day consider retirement.  I said, hey, maybe another couple of trips and then maybe we’ll see—he said 5 more years—I had to laugh.  By then I’ll be wearing a permanent neck brace and he’ll be, well, dumbfounded--not sure…ah, the golden years!

Today was better.  I met Sister Carley in the office and we visited while we worked on our reports together and I helped her with the church’s program on an Internet site where they keep all humanitarian projects. This is so that anyone working on them in the future will know what went on when they take over a project after a couple leaves and the next one takes over.  We enjoyed our day visiting and I learned some interesting things.

This concerns the mudslide that the government said killed about 1,000 people, but as I mentioned before, people here think it was more like 5,000 even though no one probably knows for certain.  But many hundreds of people were displaced.  The Church does emergency relief and so they were working with other organizations to bring help to the victims.  One of the areas was near one of our spring development projects.  Brother Thomas, the site monitor, helped them with all the people that were truly involved in the mudslide.  Whenever there is any giveaway other people show up that have nothing to do with the disaster, thinking that they might get some free stuff too. Brother Thomas identified 105 people that qualified for the relief.  They were given a mattress, a bucket full of clothes, eating utensils, a large bag of rice, baby formula, and many other essential foods that were needed to sustain them.  Afterwards a large crowd had gathered hoping to get stuff too.  Nope.

Interestingly enough, as this was taking place, some government official came around demanding that the Church give them the money so that they could give the people what they needed (interpretation: keep all our money for themselves at the worst, or at the very least, give a little something to the people so they can look good, but keep most of the money).  Lucky for us, there was a policeman there that knew about us, so he defended the Church and didn’t let the official interfere.  He told the man that the Church members donated that money and they could spend it how they wanted. He even put a few policemen around to protect them during the handout.  You see, the Church was in the midst of doing something for this policeman and his group, so he knew us and what we do.  This was a very satisfying project for all involved.

What was not satisfying was this: there were a number of orphaned children and widows who had no place to stay after the mud slide.  The church with partner organizations found a building and they were going to refurbish it so as to house 150 women and children there for a few weeks till they could find a place to live.  They were going to provide medical care, health training, food, etc.  As this project was being developed, the government stepped in and stopped the work, saying that these women and children would be too close to their embassy and refused to allow the work to continue (terrorists for sure), and they were only going to be there for a few weeks.  Governments!  Ours is not great, but the countries where we work are beyond our imagination.  I keep thinking about what I read in the scriptures about how we treat the poor and the widows and the fatherless and how God feels about it.  These mudslide victims are going to be kicked out soon from where they are hanging out (school?)—where on earth will they go?  I hear in the news every day about the corruption that grinds the faces of the poor in many of the countries where we have served, and it eats at my heart. 

The mudslide area.  It saddens me every time I think about it.  So much suffering in the U.S. lately and all over the world.  Are we ready for our Southern California earthquake?  It seems like it might be coming.  I don’t think we are truly ever ‘ready’ for something to happen.  We only find out when it happens if we are prepared or not.

This is one of several Bio-Fil latrines.  It is an interesting system where they put natural bugs that eat the waste, not need to ever pump it out.  This bus stop latrine was so successful that they added even more 'digesters' as they call them so as to meet the needs of this busy latrine.  It is well kept, very clean in and out.  We did not think this spot would work so well, but it has proved to be a wonderful project.

The man in the blue shirt has taken charge of his gift.  He collected some money from others, donated some of his own money and deepened the well himself without the help of LDSC.  He put tile on the apron floor to preserve it for a long time.  It was very clean and in fact he kept his flip flops at the gate and didn't wear them in the well.  Another awesome man who appreciates this great gift of clean water. 

          

This young man was so proud of his tool kit.  He has repaired the well many times.  He ought to be proud of what he has done.  Is another rare person that loves the gift he has been given, not expecting anyone to take care of it but himself and others in his community.