Work and Play

 

My duties at the hospital have changed over the last couple of weeks. Since my Krio has slowly been getting better, I’ve begun interviewing patients for their medical histories. When a patient is admitted into the hospital, we need to know many things about them, such as allergies, whether they’ve been in the hospital before or not, their family medical history, stuff like that. Some people speak English, many speak Krio, and some only speak the local tribal languages. My Krio lets me understand and be understood more. I’ve also begun teaching the student nurses about how to take medical histories and doing head-to-toe assessments. I’ve taught student nurses before back in the States, so it was nice to do something I’m familiar with.

 I needed to take some time away from the hospital this past week though. Since it’s nearing the end of the rainy season, the change in the weather has caused many people to catch colds. Me included. The temperature in the area hasn’t gotten colder like it does during our flu season. If anything, it’s gotten warmer. The high is about 89 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite that, it’s common to see people outside wearing puffy, fur lined snow jackets and beanies. The gate watchman even asked me for some boiled water to make some tea. Meanwhile I’m sweating, sneezing, and coughing, and achy all over. I didn’t leave my house for about a week. It was kind of nice just relaxing. Nighttime was always fun.

 There are a lot of thunderstorms right now and it’s fun to sit on my porch and watch the lightning dance through the sky. At sunset, sometimes the sky is a soft, cotton candy pink and the lightning is a bright, electric blue. Gorgeous.

 My health has gotten better, and I have been able to return to work. The weekend after I got better was especially fun. There’s a group of young people from Italy staying in the guest house here at Stocco. They’re a lively bunch. They’re always playing soccer or teaching Italian folk songs to the local children. On Sunday, they invited me to join them for mass and afterwards we all had lunch together. Most of them didn’t speak English so we had a hard time making conversation. But they played Christian music from Italy, and we had no problem understanding that we all liked that.

 Later that evening, I went to a “Henna” party. It’s basically like a bachelorette party. Another one of my coworkers is getting married! All the female staff at the hospital was invited. We all wore the same fabric, except the bride, and had dresses specially made by a tailor. My dress was the same as Deputy Matron Lamrana’s. She was the one who invited me. We held the party at the hospital. There was so much dancing. In the beginning of the party, we all formed a tunnel for the bride to dance through while we danced around her. Then we all sat at a picnic set up on the ground and watched the bride dance. She was holding something called a “calabash”.

 

When I asked what a calabash was, the women told me it’s the symbol of Africa and all brides received one.

“Ok, but what is it?” I asked.

 “It’s tradition,” the women told me.

 “I understand that, but what is a calabash?” I continued to ask.

 “It’s for cleaning,” they said.

 “Cleaning what?” I asked.

 “It’s to separate what is dirty and what is clean,” they responded.

 “I know what cleaning is,” I said. “But what is it that you clean with a calabash?”

 “Many things,” they said. “It’s to represent the role of the bride in her new household.”

After a while of this, I decided to consult Google. Google says a calabash is a hollowed out dried gourd that you can use to store food, collect water, clean food inside of or be used as a musical instrument. So, it’s basically a multipurpose bowl.

After the bride danced with the calabash, we started the games. I’ve been to a few bachelorette parties. There’s usually a common theme. And it’s just to make us all laugh. It’s all good fun. And it’s the same here in Sierra Leone. But they don’t have special shaped lollipops like they do in the States. What they do have are bananas. And one lady from every unit (not me) was elected by that unit to represent them in the “eating” of the banana. Each lady ate their banana with a lot of enthusiasm. I truly don’t know who won. The bride was supposed to select the winner. I didn’t catch who she chose. I was too busy laughing.

The next game was a competition to see who would represent the different tribes in a traditional dance. One member from each tribe would be selected to dance around the future bride in celebration of her future marriage. First was the Temne tribe. It’s the most common tribe here in Makeni. Next was Mende, then Limba, Fulla, Kono, Krio, Mandingo, Loko, and Soso. I represented tribe “Amerikin”. I was the only “Amerikin” there, so I didn’t have to compete. Once all the winners were chosen, each representative danced around the bride. Everyone was so thrilled that I danced. They didn’t even care that I wasn’t even any good. They were just happy to dance with me. It was such a fun night!

More Than One Fr. Gabriel

 

After living here for so many months, I thought miscommunication might not happen to me as much. And I was very wrong.

 

Two Saturdays ago, in the middle of the night, I was sitting next to my window, watching Mamma Mia on my laptop with my headphones on, minding my own business and I hear a very loud, “Sally!” over the song Dancing Queen, and I turn and see Sister Peace staring down at me outside my window. I’ve never seen the movie, “The Nun”, but a nun staring down at you from the darkness is scary whether you’ve seen the movie or not. After I got my adrenaline back down to a normal level, she told me that Father Gabriel had invited us to go to the bush with him to attend mass at a village. I said I would love to go and she said she would meet me in the morning.

 

After I got ready for mass the next day, I saw Sister Peace getting into a vehicle and she yelled out, “Father Gabriel will pick you up and I’ll meet you there!” So I waited on my front porch and Father Gabriel drove by and waved at me and kept going. So I yelled out, “Father!” And he stopped, backed up and he said, “Kushe, Sally! Where are you going to mass today?” And I replied, "I thought I was going with you, Father. Sister Peace said you had invited me to go to the bush.” He said, “No I haven’t talked to her in a while. But you’re welcome to come with me.” So I got in his car and went with him. Turns out, Sister Peace wasn’t talking about the Father Gabriel who lives next door to me and has been teaching me Krio all this time. She was talking about another Father Gabriel who I have met maybe twice since coming to Sierra Leone. Here’s a helpful tip about Sierra Leone; Gabriel and Mohammed are very common names here, and you should clarify with people about which Mohammed or Gabiel they are talking about before you make assumptions.

 

That day, Father Gabriel took me and his assistant, Gabriel (like I said, it’s a common name), on an hour-long drive through the bush. The rainy season has made the roads even worse than during the dry season. It’s very easy to get stuck in the mud or get caught in a flash flood on the roads. Luckily, that didn’t happen to us. I actually think the miscommunication was a blessing in disguise. I love being out in the bush, surrounded by trees and foliage, seeing farms and people living surrounded by nature. It was as close to “touching grass” as I’ll ever get living here. We arrived in a small village called Mabinki (I think) and were greeted by children chanting “Fada! Fada! Fada!” They love it when Father Gabriel comes to the village for Sunday mass. Father Gabriel showed me around the village. He showed me the village lime and banana trees. 

We also discussed the difference between the African way of telling time and the Western way of telling time. According to Father Gabriel, Western time is all about being on time. But African time is all about the event itself. It doesn’t really matter if you get to an event on time or not, it’s about being able to get there on your own time. For example, let’s say you say you’re going to have a party at 3:00 on a Friday. People will show up on Friday, it just will be whenever they decide to show up.

 

The village church was so cute! I’d say it was the nicest looking church I had seen since coming here. The Cathedral is nice, inside and out, but this church has character. It was called the Church of the Holy Family. The paintings inside were by the same artist who I had admired in another village I went to with Father Luigi. Everyone was very happy to see a “Porto” at the service. The whole mass was done in Krio so I didn’t understand everything. After mass, Father Gabriel and Gabriel had some palm wine with the chief and the other elders of the village. I politely declined. I don’t really like the taste of alcohol and didn’t want any on an empty stomach. After we arrived back in Makeni, Father took me out to lunch at a restaurant he knew which was nice.

 

The Sunday after that, we had Thanksgiving! Apparently, the people here have a Thanksgiving too! I had no idea! It’s not like our Thanksgiving. I don’t think they have turkeys or cranberry sauce here (although they do have sweet potatoes). This Thanksgiving took place after mass at Conforti, which is the church that’s closest to my house in Stocco. When mass was finished, everybody went over to a community center next door. They had music turned up to the max on some speakers. Then a bunch of people started talking on the microphone. Hearing Krio spoken over a microphone is like trying to listen to the “old coot” from Blazing Saddles and understand what’s being said. It’s hard. After that, food and sodas were passed around. It was a bunch of different kinds of fried foods. The only thing I could identify was chips. I ate everything, I just had no idea what I ate. It was all good. I hope one day I’ll actually understand more about what’s going on around me. Until that day comes, I’ll just go with the flow and enjoy the experience.