Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Hello Bo


Tuesday June 21st – Part Deux


Traveling to Bo wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Mohamed and I managed to find a ride with a couple who were going to Kenema and since Bo was on the way they agreed to take us…and 2 other people (24,000Le each). As I was now used to public transportation it didn’t bother me that 4 of us had to fit in the back of the SUV…however, it did bother me that the wife of the driver couldn’t go 10 minutes without requesting a stop. First she wanted to buy a stereo. Next we went out of our way (about a 20 minute ride) to get her some fresh fish – fish that wasn’t even available when we got to the dock. About 30 minutes after driving on Bo road, we saw a man on the side of the road holding up two dead animals – they looked like beavers but I was informed that they were called cutting-grass, or at least that’s what I heard. Needless to say the wife wanted both of them, so we threw them in the back. As I was slowly beginning to realize, Sierra Leoneans hold the speed limit in very low regard. Going 90mph past a sign that said 70, I was sure that the 3 hour trip would be over in no time. I wasn’t complaining either since the guy Mohamed was next to seemed to know every gospel song that came on and had no shame in letting us know although he didn’t quite have the voice to pull it off. When we finally got to Bo, Mohamed and I checked in at our uncle’s house and went straight to Bo government hospital. As it was 3pm, we didn’t plan on interviewing any women but I did want to get all the facility information that I could – with Jordan here, she and Mohamed would interview patients while I gathered data on the hospital and facilities. This usually cut our work time in half, but since she wasn’t here I realized it was going to take twice as long as usual. What made it even more frustrating was the fact the hospital tried to hide data from me. When gathering data, I’m able to check the quality of responses as high, medium, and low: high meaning that I’ve looked at an actual recorded statistic and can write down a number for myself or come up with a percentage, medium meaning that the necessary data doesn’t exist entirely but we can infer or estimate what I want based on what we have, and low meaning that the data isn’t recorded at all and somebody is giving me their own interpretation of what I want. Bo government hospital gave me a lot of lows and mediums; I had to look at the delivery books over the matron’s shoulder as opposed to taking into a corner and looking at it myself. They also got touchy when asked about the average number of deaths per month and replied with 0. Although I do commend the work that these people are doing, and I have faith that they are doing their job to the best of their ability I was sure that in the last year somebody had died in childbirth. Apparently no matter how I phrased the question, this was not the case.
Heading back to the house on separate ocadas (it was pretty much the only form of transportation available in Bo, but the bikes went a lot slower and were much more careful about running people over), I noticed how quiet Bo was compared to Freetown. People still sold food and merchandise on the streets, but the atmosphere was much more relaxing. When I got back to the house, I tried to pass out but heard country music playing outside. Real American country music. I could pretty much taste The South. I’ve never been much of a fan of country music but I stayed up and listened to the song – it was nice to have a reminder of home. I listened until I realized that the guy playing the song only had that one track and had no problem putting it on repeat. After that I passed out – tomorrow we would go back to Bo Government Hospital, this time to interview the bele uman dem.              

Goodbye Jordan


Tuesday June 21st 2011


The other day I talked about how the government is holding this country back – I can give you an example of this through what I saw today. While visiting these hospitals, I’ve been making notes about the type of access women have to care. That includes how long it takes them to get to the hospitals, how much they have to pay and whether or not the hospital is too far for them to be able to frequently attend Ante-natal sessions. Most of these hospitals have ambulances but these ambulances are jeeps that have been donated in which the back has been cleared of seats to make room for a stretcher. The most painful thing however, is watching an ambulance get stuck in traffic- people either don’t respect them the way they do in The States or physically can’t move out of the way because the roads are too small. Often times this can lead to severe complications on the part of the mother and child which in turn results in maternal death and neonatal death.

On Tuesday however, on the way to drop Jordan at the airport the presidential car and his cabinet were driving home, in the opposite direction. I couldn’t believe it when both sides of the road stopped and pulled over into curbs and into dirt ditches – not only for the president’s car but for every single cabinet car, bodyguard car, and family car that was following. It’s simple things like that which undermine efforts of hospitals in the country from doing their job; indeed community barriers is one of the key contributors to maternal death in Sierra Leone. 

Dropping off Jordan also sucked – she’s been a great at gathering data and an even better friend. It’s always good to have somebody you know when you’re visiting another country and I can already tell that the work is going to be much harder without her here to help me. HOWEVER, since she was leaving I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to do some things that she wouldn’t while in Salone. First being: ride an Ocada. (A little background information first though)

 As I mentioned before, the Sierra Leonean airport is actually on an island which requires the use of a ferry in order to access it. The hardest part isn’t using the ferry however, it’s getting a car to drive you 10 miles from the ferry stop to the airport. With almost 300 people riding the ferry each turn, it’s almost impossible to get a taxi once you land so you have to secure it before you go over. With the help of a homeless guy named Ali (his go to line was “I’m your man!”) we managed to meet up with a driver named Abas who promised to take us to the airport for a reasonable price. Another thing I’ve learned is that nothing is free in Salone. People want money for helping you with your bags, giving you a lift, opening doors – even when you don’t ask them to do it. People will wash your car while you’re out and expect you to pay them when you get back. Ridiculous. After we got to the other side, we drove to the airport in Abas’ car. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this was one of the most fearful rides of my life. The road didn’t have lights and apparently didn’t have a speed limit. People must’ve been going 70 – 80mph, passing each other on the left and right sides and cussing each other if people happened to drive slowly.  (i.e. anything less than 60mph)

Getting to the airport at 9pm we waited until Jordan checked in her bags at 11 while Abas went to sleep at the guest house. I had planned on staying in the airport till 7am so that I could catch the 8 o’clock ferry however when Jordan left and I felt like the mosquitoes biting me were sufficiently full, I decided to go to the guest house and catch a couple of hours of rest since I wanted to leave for Bo in the morning. I asked an old man where the guest house was and he gave me directions…only to run up to me 10 yards into the walk and offer to show me where it was. It was a nice gesture as his directions would have had me in a ditch but when we got to the guest house I realized that the nice gesture actually cost 6000Le. Nothing is free haha
.
Now Abas had told me that he was going to leave the guest house at 7am so I explained to him that I would call him at 6:45am so that he could take me to the ferry… or so I thought. When I called him I got the reply of “Man, you betta get here quick. The boat go soon lef”. I’m not going to lie, I panicked. I gathered my things, paid for my stay and ran (I’m talking about the ‘08 Nigel sprint) to the road to hail a taxi. However, the first thing that stopped for me was an ocada, or motorcycle taxi. I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, always wanted to, this was an emergency, Jordan wasn’t here, and there were plenty of other reasons I used to rationalize my use of the ocada. After covering a 20 minute trip in half the time, I met up with Abas and rode the ferry over to the over side. Waiting for Mohamed to meet me I was excited to start on my trip to Bo.

Visit to Fourah Bay College


Monday June 20th 2011


Today Jordan and I went to Fourah Bay College (my dad’s alma mater) to meet up with students and discuss the possibility of having electronic student government elections. My Aunty Lola works there as the career guidance counselor and explained to us how dangerous these elections potentially were. It seemed as though there was always a claim of cheating and a lot of outside influence from the two national political parties on the elections. There are two main parties in Salone: the All Peoples Congress (APC) and the Sierra Leonean People’s Party (SLPP). There is also myth that whatever the political affiliation of the Fourah Bay College student government winner, that the same party would win the national election. As such, there is a history of both the APC and the SLPP having serious involvement with the elections increasing tension that often results in violence on campus. The university has to spend millions of Leones in order to hire security and police officers to keep the peace. Apparently, the girl who lost last year claimed to have been cheated from it and dropped out of school in her senior year.
When we met with the students they were enthusiastic about the possibility of having electronic elections. It would insure security and would be a transparent form of counting the votes as the results would be updated in real time. Students would be the only ones able to vote and would have to register beforehand with their new voter ID. They would also only be able to vote once but more importantly would be able to do so from anywhere that had internet access. This hopefully would both reduce the tension and allow for more honest voter participation (If you know anything about creating something like this, contact me because I’d love to have input from other people as well).
While we were discussing all this though, there was a woman in the room that was silently shaking her head just dying to give her opinion. When she finally could not stand it anymore, she interrupted us (multiple times) explaining how the administration wouldn’t buy into it and that it wasn’t going to happen. She went on to say that we would be portrayed as attempting to bring ‘white man technology’ on campus which would not fly with the older generations.
Forget the administration and the ‘older generations’. It’s this kind of rubbish that comes from the seemingly educated that has this country in a chokehold. Every time a comment like that is made, every time progress is viewed as ‘white man technology’, that grip tightens. The poor and uneducated listen to views like this and go along with it; it is views like this that cause the country to move backwards. I can’t send an email to your typewriter, get a computer. Same thing for the guy who comes to work still riding a horse when the automobile came out. If we have to duel and you whip out a sword while I have my newly bought pistol, then I’m calling the wife to tell her I’ll be home early for dinner. 

 However, I was extremely pleased when the students shut her down time after time. They explained that any such change would only profit the University and would hopefully be an example to the rest of the country.   If change had to start somewhere it should start at the University – I’m hopeful that other students share such views and have a vision of change in Sierra Leone. I’m also hoping that these students grow up to be the politicians, lawyers, doctors and professionals of the country so as to direct this change first hand.

Some Random Thoughts
1. I don’t know why Africans put so much damn pepper on their food here; the country is hot enough as it is. Now I can’t eat breakfast, lunch and dinner without breaking a sweat.

2. Soccer is the most versatile sport. Period. I’ve seen kids here play in the street, play in the fields, play in front of shops, on hills, in ditches. I’ve seen soccer balls made of rubber bands – I’ve seen stones substituted for balls – pretty much anything that will roll (no matter how unevenly) can be used for sport. These kids here are also pretty damn good at soccer; I wish I could recruit them and build a soccer team in the U.S.

3.People say don’t take things for granted. i.e. regular food, running water, electricity. I’m going to add one more thing to that list – the ability to use the bathroom wherever/ whenever you want. One evening I went to see my grandmother, uncles, and aunts. Saw a ton of family and as such I drank a lot. It wasn’t till we were knee deep in traffic that the 4 beers, 2 sodas, and cup of water all came back with a vengeance. I’ve never had to pee so badly in my life. Wanted to pee so badly that I had to ask my Aunt to pull over as soon as possible so I could take care of business. Had to pee so badly that I could barely walk to the toilet when we finally stopped the car. Were this America, I could stop at any gas station or restaurant I wanted. Sierra Leone doesn’t have that luxury- heck; most of the houses don’t have toilets that flush. It’s just the reality of the situation, but it’s one that I won’t soon forget.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Tell God Tenke

First few days of work have been great - I came here with the intention of interviewing at least 50 women and I’ve already interviewed 30. A typical day starts at 7am when we wake up, bathe, eat whatever we can and leave by 8:30. Depending on traffic and the location of the hospital, we usually arrive at the hospital between 9:30am and 11:00am. At the first hospital, we had to wait forever to see the Medical Superintendent before being told that we would have to travel to the Ministry of Health in order to get authorization to carry out the questionnaires.
The way I collect data is by travelling to maternal facilities in Sierra Leone and reporting on the medicines, staff, equipment, and utilities available at each of the facilities. In addition to this, I interview women who are at the facility and who have given birth to find out what their experience was like, their socioeconomic information, their living conditions and I record an extensive history of previous pregnancies. This information creates a map that can be used to note trends and changes since the free maternal healthcare policy was passed by the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health.
Frankly, believe that the Sierra Leonean government is actually holding the people back. Going to the office, we waited 15 minutes to see the Deputy Minister of Health. After explaining why I was here and what I wanted to accomplish, he gave permission for the letter to be written (a letter that was quite similar to the letter of consent I typed and would read to each patient). However, from the time that he left and told the secretary to type the letter (the letter couldn’t have been more than 1 paragraph), to the time that I actually received the letter, was about an hour and a half. During this time, I waited and waited and waited and watched as Ministers came into his office to talk about their day, as secretaries stood around drinking tea and talking and as people who needed to see all these people waited outside in the heat. There was no urgency, no sympathy for us, and if I asked what was taking so long I was considered rude and sent back outside. It seems as though the people in the high offices do little more than what is required of them to help those that are struggling in the streets of Salone. Nonetheless, that day I managed to interview 7 women at Kingharman Government Hospital. I love interviewing the women because each one has their own story to tell. My Krio isn’t up to speed yet so I have Mohammed translate for me, as many of the women don’t speak English. One time, I tried to administer the survey on my own; the woman I was interviewing could barely answer the questions due to how hard she was laughing at my Krio.
The sample is an interesting one however; many did not go to school and many more live in poverty. Most don’t own a toilet that flushes and don’t know that they shouldn’t cook outside in the vicinity of the pit latrine. When talking to the pharmacists they are so passionate about the work they do, but discouraged because they do not have the help they need. When working without constant light (no one says electricity in Salone), they cannot do their jobs adequately and when there is no air conditioning they fear that the drugs will denature and be rendered useless. There is also a lack of space in most of the hospitals – a couple has converted neonatal wards into delivery rooms that also serve as storage rooms for the medicines. From what I’ve seen though, the Free Maternal Healthcare policy is doing a great job at convincing women who would normally give birth at home to give birth at a proper clinic or hospital. The challenge remains twofold: (1) to regain the trust of those who continue to visit Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) despite having access to free care, and (2) to help support the hospitals so that they are able to provide for the increase in patients without losing quality service. This of course requires money that Sierra Leone does not have, or if it does, has not allocated for this purpose.
So far I’ve only been in the city of Freetown, but next week I’ll be travelling to Bo, Kenema, and Makeni to interview women in the rural regions and to gather data on the facilities out there. Those are the frontlines of the maternal mortality war as accessibility to advanced healthcare facilities is extremely hard. The roads make it nearly impossible to transport women from villages to the nearest emergency hospital and before the Free Healthcare policy was passed, women were discouraged due to the cost of transportation and the fee per service. Hopefully though things have changed in those regions, either way I’ll find out sooner or later.
ALSO,
On our way to Princess Christian Maternity Hospital we travelled through some rough parts of Freetown. The first obstacle was the cab driver who recognized that we were foreigners and attempted to charge us double the fare even though we had travelled half the distance compared to the other passengers. Mohammed blew up over this. We backed up traffic as Mohammed told us not to pay him the extra money and called, excuse me- shouted, that the cab driver was a criminal. If Jordan hadn’t put the money into the cab driver’s hands then there would have been a brawl (I’m sure Mohammed would’ve whipped his legs though). Anyway, passing through to get another cab we noticed a mob forming on the other side of the street. Apparently a thief had tried to steal somebody’s bag and didn’t make it away fast enough so the people were exacting justice on him. Sierra Leone Police officers are few and far between and the crowd clearly knew this as they were going to work on this kid. In the middle of the crossfire, a stone hit a car and the driver got out and got involved in the brawl. I saw at least 3 sucker punches as other teens who weren’t even involved wanted to fight as well. We tried to move away but the mob literally picked up the thief so that he couldn’t move and continued to whip him down the entire street. About 10 minutes into the fight and 30 yards down the street we saw A SINGLE POLICE OFFICER attempt to break up the 20 man mob. Obviously this failed. We lost track of the mob as we got into a cab but I’m sure if the cop hadn’t come they would’ve killed the boy. From the minute I got to Sierra Leone people have been telling me to watch out for thieves and to make sure I always wear my bag in front of me and to make sure I don’t take out anything nice in public and to, essentially, put all my money between my buttcheeks. Poverty drives people into crime, and in Sierra Leone there is an abundance of both.

Monday, June 13, 2011

My Introduction to Salone Life

A lot has happened in the last few days; I’ll try my best to sum it up but I’m sure I’m going to miss out on some things. On Friday, I got to see some of the government buildings and spent the day in Freetown walking and taking in the daily life. First of all, Sierra Leoneans know and understand the hustle. Walking through Victoria Park (which is a strip with stalls on both sides), literally someone from every single stall approached us saying; “Eh, Friend/Sista how di bodi? Please, come look whetin we get fo sell. Yu nu haf fo buy, but please come look eh?” Once you went over and looked, they attempted to put merchandise on you, explain to you how good you looked in what they were selling and even offered to lower the original price. Victoria Park is about 200 yards long and we were stopped at every single stall. No exceptions.
I also managed to get a cellphone – a throwback Nokia. I think I’ve spent much more time reliving my childhood by playing Snake than actually calling and talking to people. I’m not ashamed to admit it; it’s one of the greatest games of all time.
 In the afternoon, we went and surprised my Aunty Feyi at her restaurant. Great thing about restaurants in Salone is that to me, the food is all home cooked. That being said, eating Jollof rice and stew in a restaurant was a new, and delicious experience. Clearly, I’m her favorite nephew so we got the food for free.
Going back to the part about Sierra Leoneans knowing how to hustle, when we were traveling through Victoria Park I saw a lot of the necklaces and chains that I used to wear as a kid. I got these necklaces from my Aunty Feyi when she came to visit me in England. Now, the necklaces were being sold on the street market for about 1000 Leones. To give you some kind of context, $1 = 4000Leones. When Aunty Feyi came to London, she brought a ton of those necklaces with her – she gave me one and I wore it to school and of course all the other kids asked me about it and also wanted to know how they could be more like me. I told Aunty about it and Aunty Feyi then began selling the necklaces for £1 (British currency, £1 approximately equals $1.50 so essentially a 600% markup) every day after school and made bank. It’s what I call true hustler’s spirit.
Anyway, on Friday night I had my first near death experience. My Aunt has 4 dogs and of the 4 the meanest one is named Lucky. He doesn’t take kindly to people he doesn’t know trying to pet him and the only way for you to get on his good side is to give him some of your own food. I had only been there for a day so I really hadn’t gotten the chance to offer my bribes to Lucky. Anyway, that night I planned on making some food around midnight thinking that nobody would be awake. Where my room is, I have to go outside to get to the kitchen and it just so happens that Lucky loves to sleep in front of the door that leads into the kitchen. I didn’t know this, but I do now – my midnight cravings are going to have to wait until I get back to America.  As I came up the stairs and turned the corner I saw Lucky laying in front of the door but didn’t think anything of it, he definitely had an issue with me though. First he growled (but his eyes were closed so I just thought he was dreaming), then he got up and looked me dead in the eyes and started to charge. It had rained earlier so I had an umbrella with me and I opened it up and started swinging (I read somewhere that you’re supposed to make yourself as big as possible when getting attacked by a mountain lion, so I guess in my “flight or fight” mode this is my default course of action. I wonder how I would’ve done this without the umbrella). He backed up and I backed up and I decided that I wasn’t even hungry anymore and that I could’ve taken him if I wanted to but I just didn’t want to of course. Needless to say, Lucky and I haven’t really spoken to each other after The Incident - we’re more polite than anything. Hopefully we can turn over a new leaf but until then every time I need to go outside after 9pm I carry a big stick with me. 
Saturday morning while at breakfast, Mohamed (the caretaker of my dad’s land) came to see me. I wasn’t expecting him and so said good morning and didn’t pay attention to him when he walked in the kitchen until he walked up to me and introduced himself. When I was younger, my dad purchased land in Sierra Leone and started developing the property. It’s hard to build and develop when you’re not actually in Sierra Leone so he hired a caretaker to help him and to help guard the property. As a child, this man was named “Mr. Mohamed”. In all actuality Mohamed was probably 15 or 16 when he started working for my dad so we were a lot closer in age than I actually knew and so it was a shock to put a name to the face. Anyway, that morning when he came we dropped everything and went to see my dad’s land. It was my first time on the property even though I’ve always known about it and it was amazing to see it in person. The land is beautiful and overlooks the city. It’s a small hill, and on the top of the hill is our house. Mohamed took really good care of the land and I could tell by the way he spoke to me about what he wanted to improve and build that he had a real passion for the place. I think now that I’ve actually had a chance to see the land I too can help my dad to work on it – hopefully it’ll be completely developed in 5 or 6 years such that whenever we come to Sierra Leone we’ll have our own house to stay in.
Saturday night brought a taste of Sierra Leonean nightlife. My cousin’s friend threw a Moroccan themed birthday party. Now the better part of the day had been spent with my cousins as they tried to find something to wear for this party. I didn’t need to buy anything ‘Moroccan’ because I usually can come up with something creative with what I have. Wearing blue jeans and a black polo to the party, when we got to the house we realized it was going to be an outdoor party. The setup was amazing; there were candles everywhere and mini tables around a dance floor with cushions to sit on the floor – there was even a Moroccan styled bed. However, it is the rainy season and about 20 minutes into the party it began to rain. Heavily. The party was ‘protected’ by a tent made of trash bags so about 25 minutes into the party, the ‘tent’ caved in. Luckily, I had noticed that it was about to give way so Jordan, Namina and I moved to where we wouldn’t get hit by the downpour. After about an hour the rain stopped and the party continued. All in all the rest of the night went really well; highlight of the night was a Muslim guy who got so drunk that he faced east and got on his hands and knees and began to pray in the middle of the dancefloor. Pretty sure he didn’t make it back that night.
Sunday it rained all day so we just watched movies and chilled. If you’ve never seen A Time to Kill you need to reevaluate your life and hit up Netflix or your neighborhood blockbuster. Jordan introduced me to that movie and I owe her my life for it.
Monday morning means I start my research – I’ll be heading to the Sierra Leone School of Medicine and then to Connaught hospital to begin data collection and my first set of interviews. My first 3 days in Sierra Leone have been a great introduction to what I think will be an amazing chapter of my life.

Friday, June 10, 2011

2 Days 1 Post

Wednesday June 08

Today was spent in transit flying from JFK airport to Casablanca. Accompanying us on this journey were some of the most badly behaved kids I've ever seen. All of these children needed to get their legs whipped. Most impressive to me was the 3 or 4 year old moroccan boy who cried for his dad when he was with his mom, but as soon as his dad took him he cried for his mother. Runner up went to the girl who managed to scream for 5 hours straight on the flight. Honestly, she must have amazing lungs. No doubt she'll make a great swimmer one day. Overall, I didn't expect much flying with Royal Air Maroc - the food was ok, they gave us complimentary socks, and apart from the bathroom lock being open regardless of what it said the flight went smoothly.  I did have a slight issue with the rated R movie that was in Arabic. Although I will say that the explicit scenes did quiet the children down a little bit.


Thursday June 09th 2011

My first day in Sierra Leone was an interesting experience. We arrived at Lungi Airport at 5 o'clock in the morning where we were greeted by a family friend, "Uncle Sesay". With Uncle Sesay's help, we got through customs, got our money exchanged, and received a ride to the ferry (Lungi airport is on it's on a small island and a ferry is needed to travel to the mainland). Uncle Sesay is actually a policeman on the island and was sent with another sergeant to provide us with 'protection'. However, during the 3 hour wait for the ferry, our protection fell asleep so we did what we could to protect ourselves...from inside the truck of course.

 The ferry ride was my first real taste of Sierra Leonean life - entertainers danced for money, women prepared food to sell on the boat, and teens constantly tried to hustle/ sell calling cards, and change money using their own personal exchange rates. The ferry ride took about 45 minutes, and when we got to the mainland we were welcomed by Freetown locals. Led by a boy who managed to carry both our suitcases (50lbs a piece, Jordan's probably weighed 60) on his head we grabbed a taxi and headed to my aunt's house. It seemed as though we had managed to take the way that showed us all of Freetown - we passed stalls selling everything from tires, to cellphones, clothes and even a roadside barbershop. The roads were a difference experience. I was impressed by the ability of those who were driving to be honest...there is no way I could navigate through Sierra Leone where some places had no concrete  and without traffic signs.

When we finally reached my aunty's house we were greeted by my cousin Namina, the household staff, 4 dogs and 1 cat (Mr. Whiskers). I finally got to see my cousin Malik, I can say with confidence that the kid is destined to be in the NFL - He practically picked me up and he's only 1 year old. The day was spent getting ourselves settled in, familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, and trying to not pass out from exhaustion. There was a lot to get used to however as Sierra Leone is  a far cry from Buford, GA. After 3 unplanned naps, we took a trip to a nearby roadside food joint where we ate the best pepper soup I've had in a long while (Not to knock my mom's pepper soup, just that I haven't had it in a while). We passed the time talking, chilling and enjoying the Sierra Leonean environment. There's something different about the environment here, something different about the way people interact with one another. Frankly, from the outside it's hard to imagine why one would give up the luxuries of America and move to Sierra Leone. After being here for just a day I'm starting to understand why. Jordan phrased it perfectly; Yeah they don't have everything that we have, but there's also a certain freedom here. They don't depend on their laptops, blackberrys, and tvs but they're still happy." She said this in her Jamaican accent of course-we've banned her from attempting to speak Krio.

Point is, I'm in a completely different environment -  I don't feel the need to check my email, or to refresh my facebook page every 10 minutes. It's a good feeling actually.


P.S
Just found out about the Miami Heat losing 2 games in a row...what the hell?! I leave the country for a couple of days and everything goes haywire. Tell the Heat to tighten up.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Are we there yet?

My journey to Sierra Leone will force me to grow, to find my roots and to test my own mental and physical boundaries.

Before all that, I have to go through airports in New York, Morocco and Liberia including an 8 hour layover in JFK terminal. Luckily I have Jordan with me, but airport chairs don't make the most comfortable of beds. Regardless I'm excited for what these next five weeks have in store for me. Stay posted.

Nigel

P.S.
Whenever someone travels to Sierra Leone the rest of the family asks them to carry stuff over for them...Mom, that chicken seasoning caused me so much trouble. TSA thought it was cocaine at first and so I had to go through a number of substance tests and then due to the bulky nature of the container, it took me 10 minutes to try to fit my carry-on into the overhead compartment. I ended up taking it out of my carry-on and just dealt with the stares as I put "Maggi, Chicken Flavor Bouillon" under my seat. Never again.