Blogs from Sierra Leone, Africa - page 7

6 AM runs; fresh, organic cucumber and mango breakfasts; glorious Lebanese za'atar lunches or local bread and beans; and an abundance of mouthwatering jelly (baby coconut) or pia (avocado) as snacks! Life is good!! All is well here and my research is coming just fine. I am making some interesting progress including meetings / interviews with the Social Development Officer of Child Welfare Secretariat; Assistant Director of Junior and Senior Secondary Schools; students, principals and teachers around Freetown and just a couple weeks ago I met Sierra Leone's former Vice President! When I'm not doing interviews, traveling around town, or meetings with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), I am spending my days exploring more of the country, culture, learning Krio, and cooking African dishes. I am currently writing another blog all about the chop (food) here and a ... read more

Kusheh I am still loving my time in Salone and my Krio is, slowly but surely, improving! I am also transitioning and taking on the "roles" of a proper African. I am doing my cooking outside with a coal pot above an open fire, handwashing my clothes in a big bucket, and yelling my destination into the taxi's rolled down windows. I have yet to carry something on my head but the time will surely come! Over the weekend, I cruised around the Western Area Peninsula visiting places such as Waterloo and Tombo. Tombo is really nice but reminds me a lot of Smokey Mountain and Hapilan (two slums outside of Manila) in the Philippines. Tombo has a bit more structure though (with a plethora of well-built mosques), and is not located "on top" of the ... read more

Some shots from my recent visit to Sierra Leone. I just realized that I put these up here ages ago but I never wrote any provocative and witty text like I usually do! I don't actually have the energy for that so I will let the photos speak for themselves....if a photo is worth 1,000 words, then you should be able to come up with about 90,000 words of your own after seeing all these pictures. I was there to conduct a health and nutrition workshop and took a few field trips to visit sites where my friend Joan Williams runs a ministry called Joshua International http://joshuaintl.org//index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 . I took these photos for her. She runs Sunday schools, feeding programs and is in the process of building a regular school and medical clinics. The church in ... read more

Next I headed to Sierra Leone where my foundation (cerescf.org) is founding a school improvement program being run by LemonAid (www.lemonaidfund.org) . LemonAid was created 10 years ago by Nancy Peddle and has done tremendous work in SL. Nancy is a unflagging woman with an upbeat attitude and nearly limitless patience…and it’s patience that’s needed in abundance to survive in SL, after 15 years of civil war it exists as one of the poorest countries in the world. Basic infrastructure, power, roads, etc just really don’t exist to any manageable level- power outside the city center is rationed out, some nights you get a couple of hours…most nights not. We visited all ten schools where Ceres is founding improvement projects, improvements which range from replacing roof sand building secure library rooms, to building essentially new schools ... read more

Så er det blevet tid til det sidste blog indlæg. Vores internet virker ikke mere på Masanga, så jeg har ikke haft mulighed for at poste et indlæg før nu, hvor vi er i Freetown for at tage imod de nye medicinstuderende. Nu er der kun 17 dage til jeg lander i Kastrup, og jeg glæder mig. Det har virkelig været en fed tid hernede, og jeg har på intet tidspunkt fortrudt at jeg tog herned, men det bliver også dejligt at komme hjem. Erik bliver hernede to måneder til hvilket jeg synes er ret sejt gjort. Må indrømme at jeg savner familie og venner for meget til at kunne blive hernede 2 måneder til. Efter at have været ude og opleve verden er det store spørgsmål jo så om jeg har ændret mig, udviklet mig ... read more