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!