new blog

it’s been a year and a half since i last wrote here
i’m no longer in sierra leone.

i’m married now
we live in los angeles
and it’s time to start a new blog
see you there!

was blind, but now…

i’d like you to meet granny jane.
she arrived at the fistula centre
almost two months ago
after spending 44 years
incontinent, because of an obstetric fistula
(see post gladi gladi day for more on fistula).
in recent years,
jane had also developed cataracts
in both eyes
such that she could no longer see.

she walked into our compound
holding her grown daughter’s hand,
wet and blind. hoping to become dry.

which she did!
a successful fistula surgery
was followed by cataracts surgeries,
one eye at a time,
at an outpatient eye hospital in freetown.
jane stayed at our fistula centre in the meantime,
first healing from her fistula surgery,
then from eye surgery #1,
and then from eye surgery #2.

granny jane likes to dance.
once she regained sight in her first eye,
she started dancing a little bit every day,
much to the delight of all the other patients on the ward.
you’d hear a chorus of ooh, granny! and eeeeh, jane! and know, it must be dancing time.

the highlight of my day today was jane
marching over to me
all by herself
biggest smile on her face
because today the eye patch from her second cataract surgery was removed,
and today, jane is dry
and can see!

after hugging me,
she went on to demonstrate her new abilities
with a rendition of
head, shoulders, knees and toes.

head, shoulders, knees…

the staff were laughing at this one, though: those aren’t your knees, jane!

a few more jane pictures:

jane, after fistula surgery but still blind, with the visiting Rotarian ladies from the UK who sponsored her eye surgeries

the day jane’s first eye patch came off, she hurried outside to join the other patients in school time. she sat down, grabbed a crayon, and started practicing her ABCs.

jane on her gladi gladi day–dance, dance, dance

wednesday

headache.  so no writing.  just a picture or two tonight.

how cool is her hair?

i just like this one, taken in town.

we found this caterpillar in the sea.  don’t know if he’s a swimmer or not.  we brought him to shore.    

last laundry night

it’s sentimental-last-week.
everything i do is a “last”

my last sunday in sierra leone
my last monday night dinner
my last time to take a shower, on a tuesday, in sierra leone…
i know, i get a little ridiculous
but it’s part of how i say goodbye to a place.

tonight was my last laundry night.
with some ceremony
almost a tear or two
i erased Morgen DNE
from the 6:30-7:30pm Tuesday slot
on our dry-erase laundry schedule.
(whoops, DNE stands for do not erase)

one last time,
put all my laundry
(no sorting colors here, i only do one load per week)
in washer #1
one last time, snaked the hose over to the machine and hooked it onto the soap drawer,
one last time, waited while the machine filled up so i could turn off the hose
and go eat dinner
keeping an eye on my watch
so i remember to return and hose-fill again for the rinse cycle.

one last time, shouted
“it’s just me, don’t be scared”
to warn sandra (same time slot, washer #2)
as i approached the laundry room.
the room is right next to the generator, so noisy-insulated
and easy to be startled
when someone suddenly appears in the doorway.

last time to stand in the doorway of the laundry room
and watch dusk fall on the neighborhood
kids carrying water home, on their heads, for the night
moms fanning cooking fires
the soccer game winding down as it gets too dark to see the ball.
bats waking up
and swooping out of the trees.

one last deep breath of:
wood smoke
trash smoke
evening-scented flowers
diesel fuel
laundry soap 

grrinternet

as in grr…internet.
inexplicably didn’t work last night, hence, no yesterday post.

so i’ll post a few pictures now, and write something tonight.

one of my little jobs is taking a discharge picture for each fistula patient before they go home. this morning, these two grannies simply would NOT pose by themselves until first i had snapped them together. one is from liberia, one from sierra leone. they did not know eachother until they came to the centre, now they are inseperable.

________________

and these guys never cease to amaze me: the amputee football team. they practice on the beach we drive by each day. to play on the field, one must be missing a leg. to be a goalie, one must be missing an arm. they are phenomenal.

i should have asked the car to stop, and taken some better pictures. but you get the idea.

river’s edge community church

r.e.c.c., my church home in sierra leone.
i didn’t expect to have a “home church” during my time here
just chalked it up as one of the things i’d give up
for a year, six months, five months
(getting married has considerably shortened my original timeframe)

BUT, this little church has been such a welcome surprise!
only 11 months old (a church plant)
not actually at the edge of any river,
it’s named after a church in michigan.
we meet in a green-walled community center
on a hillside
in regent village.
(turn up the steep road
by the sign for the Hot Sweet and Jumpy Relaxation Spot)

the congregation–diverse: illiterate to professional, farmers to businessmen, doctors, internationals…
every week, first-time visitors stand up
and then everyone else gets up and shakes their hand. welcome!
the week we got engaged,
after the normal new-people hand-shaking,
the pastor had rankin and me stand up
and everyone came to shake our hands!

it’s a place where babies get passed around during the service
(one fell asleep on my lap after the service today)
the singing: top-of-our-lungs. fantastic.
the preaching: solidly from the Bible.
the view: breathtaking. tops of palm trees, a valley, and across the valley, green mountains.

today was my last sunday, and i am thankful for the community and nourishment i have experienced at this church.

this little guy wanted to pose with his Bible for the camera.

sunday school meets outside under the trees

portrait time devolves into chaos.

haircut time

not for me, not yet
(that will be december 18 at 1pm, if you care to know)
but i do find myself from time to time
giving haircuts
especially here in sierra leone.

here in sierra leone,
haircuts for whiteman are a little hard to come by
“your hair is too slimple“
i’ve been told.
this from a mother explaining how she had attached the wig to her two-year-old’s head
(“i sewed it to her hair. you can’t do that, your hair is too slimple”)
slimple means slimy,
or i prefer definition #2, slippery.

anyway, i have some scissors
and some experience with slimple hair
so it’s haircut time every few weeks or so.

yesterday i cut terri’s hair.
looks good, but i forgot to take pictures.

previous masterpieces:

the luzanne
    
we had fun with this one! during, during, after

the susan 
 
before, during
a haircut on the porch. see the barbed wire in the background?

the helen 
  

i get paid in currency like chocolate or hummus

and i take no responsibility for this one, but here is the two-year-old with a wig sewn to her hair:
 

nine, nine, nine

it’s shocking but true, dear reader
i have only 9
nine
days left in sierra leone.

therefore, i propose:
9 posts. one for each day.
i want to have my eyes open
for the remaining days i’m here.

i have been inside a blessedly cool
(read: with electricity)
apartment for almost two weeks now.
sleeping some, working some, going back to sleep…
finally starting to feel better, i think.

but i haven’t done much sierra-leone-living,
even observing, recently
and now i’d like to get. to. it.
more posts coming soon.

p.s. any other old watchers of the late Square One TV (80s children’s math show) might have, like i do, the nine song running through their heads now: nine, nine, nine, fantastic number nine, times any number, you will find, it all comes back to nine! two times nine is eighteen, eight and one is nine…
what a show that was

sick

haven’t written for a while
i’ve been a bit under the weather.
last weekend i had a fever which means:
time for a malaria test!
dr sandra (my friend and next-door neighbor)
went to the clinic and brought back the tests,
rubber gloves,
finger-prick-thing,
alcohol wipes…
and turned my bedroom into a little lab.

dr. sandra demonstrates the finger-stick with a smile

here is my test:

negative! do you see the little darkish line towards the right end of the red line? that’s the control. if there were another line to the left, i’d have malaria. but only one line for me means malaria-free.

so it’s not malaria, but i do have swollen lymph nodes in my neck. like jelly beans under the skin. i keep reaching up to check if the lumps are still there, and also thinking of this scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding:

Spanikopita!

i am drinking plenty of fluids and resting.

did you want to see a picture of him?

well, here we are

we call this one “lean into him, darlin’,”
which is what the photographer said to me as he was snapping away.
just after asking, “wait, you’re not brother and sister, are you?”

there’s a longer and more awkward story, but suffice to say this was the most physical contact we’d had up to that point. this leaning.