Not ready yet...

28th December and time to go home? Question is what happens next? I’m happy and settled here, despite the difficulties of life and the poverty and the tummy upsets!!! Now it seems I have two homes....So this is what it feels like to be torn between two countries; two lots of friends, two cultures, two set of clothes, two bottle openers and of course two different climates!!! So off I go back to the UK with nothing sorted yet to come back, no job, no flight back booked, with much of sadness, especially at leaving the Ministry but also so looking forward to seeing my family and friends, many of them who love and miss me but don't understand this passion I have for Africa.... so what’s next?

Pictures are on the Kissy Ferry on the way to Lunghi airport and packing up my room, but unfortunately I didnt take any photos or video of the dancing dwarf!

Christmas, simplified

With a Salone family….Christmas morning starts like any other morning, at 6am with cooking, fetching water and cleaning…. Although I sorted out a small tree and some tiny gifts from PZ (an area of Freetown you can buy second hand stuff cheaply) so that everyone had something to open on the 25th. It was wonderful to see even tiny gifts costing a few pence really appreciated by kids who don’t often get very much, that was my Christmas present. OK, so I got another gift.. an African dress which I wore later to church after it had been ironed with a big metal iron heated by the glowing embers. When I say church I mean a hut with an altar and plastic chairs and an amazingly loud sound system for lots of shouting out of the gospel and singing to be spread all over the immediate area, but it’s a church in the eyes of God and the congregation!

Dinner was couscous and cow meat(!) kebab, tasty but nothing like turkey with all the trimmings, no starter (scallops at home), no pud with brandy butter but some kind of tapioca apple thing which looked like space goo but actually tasted quite nice if you dared risk it. No need to rest on the sofa groaning due to excessive food, even had space to have packet noodles for supper! I tried and failed to learn some Krio carols.

The most bizarre thing? The climate, it can’t possibly be Christmas at 30 degrees! Here’s a few photos including me cooling down with a sprite after Church and a couple from Boxing Day on Hamilton beach.

African Christmas, Snowy European New Year

So in 6 days I fly home, without a definate job... but it looks promising. I have meeting in London on 10th Jan about a 6 month contract here plus I've received 2 calls in the last 5 minutes from one of the Ministry Directors. He is submitting one of the 2 proposals (to keep me) to donors for potential funding.....

Plan A -the Ministry
Plan B - another ethically ok organisation
Plan C - Caroluccios Coffee bar
Plan D - did have one but forgotten it
Plan E - customer service training agency


And while I contemplate the many future possibilities, I also look forward to a Sierra Leonian Christmas, with street carnivals, carol singing, special Christmas food (2 kinds of rice???) and beach bumming.

I am also looking forward to coming home too and being with friends and family. I am not looking forward to leaving my cosy room at Frazier davies Drive and packing my stuff into the smelly store room! 3 days to Christmas....6 days to cheese and snow...

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL BLOG READERS AND THANKS FOR FOLLOWING MY JOURNEY SO FAR XXXX

END GAME

Yesterday was my last day in the Ministry. I was remarkably calm about this. It could be because I didn’t tell many people and sneaked off without saying goodbye…. Too upsetting really. I’ve come to know and love so many of my colleagues and I still don’t know whether or not I’m coming back. The last few days have seen lots of activity finalizing two proposals for continued technical assistance (as its called) for me to come back and finalising the brief for our new Minister of Health (a driven, committed woman, first impressions are that she was be great for the Ministry). Both of the proposals may be funded, or neither! I’ll know after Christmas, but I'm coming back to Freetwon anyway.

My colleagues gave me a lovely cola nut dyed dress with beautiful embroidery and a Thank You card ….Thank you for instilling hope in me when times were difficult… declared the front, I was very touched! Now looking forward to the Ministry Christmas party on Thursday where I'll try not to drink too much and cry!

Beach Hopping

What do you for a weeks holiday in Sierra Leone? Well there is Tiwai (an amazing wildlife sanctuary in Moyamba), Tacugama (The Chimpanzee Santuary in the hills behind Freetown), for the real explorers there’s Mount Bintumani (West Africa’s tallest peak up near Kabala somewhere!!) and of course there’s the BEACHES!!!!

So I took off for a weeks holiday and set off down the coast with a friend, small rucksack each and about £200 between us (we came back with change!). Hamilton was the first stop. It’s the far end of Lakka which is the nearest swimmable beach a few miles south of Freetown. You can of course swim at Lumley Beach if you want to risk various sewage borne diseases!!! We got public transport (rickety taxi) to Lakka and walked around the gorgeous bay to Hamilton and stayed 3 nights at Samso’s (078 764734) which is a wonderful quiet secret. Huts on the beach 120-140k Le per night inc breakfast (this about £10pppn). One day we took a walk to Sussex beach which is a 2 hour stroll through Hamilton village and then along the beach. You have to wade through the river to reach Francos (very variable food and service, from terrible to reasonable). There is also a gorgeous river behind the sea that you can float along, The nearest I’ve got to in months to a warm bath! Unfortunately my waterproof camera inexplicably let in water and stopped working after the floating! All the peninsula beach walks are so lovely with the beach and sea on one side and the forested mountains on the other, unfortunately NOT captured on film but lodging firmly in my memory.

After Hamilton, we took motorbikes to River No2 beach and from there hiked down the next beach and waded across the river to Tokeh…another beautiful and deserted white sand palm fringed beach, 2 nights here and then another local taxi to Banana Island. We stayed at Daltons run by a young Greek chap called Gregory. He is in the middle of major renovations and its going to be a great place to stay very soon (076 278120) basic en suite rooms 50k Le plus 12k Le for breakfast (Omelette and chips!!!) but there will be a cheap sleeping hut and also camping very soon. Gregory has devised a hot shower system which is a large metal barrel with a small fire/smouldering embers under it so amazingly I had a hot shower and without scalding myself too! Banana island is lovely and worth hiking around to explore the island and its many lovely beaches and quiet spots. Greg also is going to start dive courses. He is a master diver and has all the equipment. Also it is beautiful to snorkel around the rocks, lots of lovely fish.

So after a 6 day trip, it was back to Freetown via… 1 boat, 1 Poda, 2 walks and 3 taxis! Four hours later I was home again…. Back in the frenetic life in Freetown and those empty beaches suddenly seemed very far away!

Mami and Pikin Wellbodi week, World Aids Day, I cant keep up!

Mother and Child Health Promotion week was launched actually last week by the President, 3 key things are happening: 3 million Malaria nets are being distributed to all households in the country (so a tiny challenge then!), Vitamin A for all children and deworming medication (Albendazole) for all. I have a net, I take multi-vitamins, but I'm due for the 6 monthly mass genocide of the small pets living in my colon!!! these campaigns every 6 months do seem to have an impact

I cant believe that its 1 December tomorrow.... count down to Christmas and World Aids Day. There is a big event happening at the back of my office to mark the day (I know because of all the tents, chairs and red ribbons banners!) and we health workers are required to 'March' ok saunter in this heat from Victoria Park in town to somewhere else (not sure where yet). This is a lot easier than a previous sporting activity I undertook on 1 December 1989, which was to throw myself off the top of Fazakerly Hospital (a mere 14 storeys high) with only a rope for company... abseiling apparently. I raised enough money to pay for the post traumatic stress counselling needed for the next 5 years! I'm assuming the March will be less scary.

The photo is of some kids who will benefit this week I hope... plus an animal called a 'grass cutter' which is a delicacy but whose sweet taste I've not had the privilege to try yet!

Shocking

One of yesterday’s Freetown papers has a story about a young man caught stealing an old pair of shoes. Members of the Leicester Road community (up the hill behind the parliament, on way to Fourah Bay College) cornered him and its alledged that he was beaten and stoned to death by this 'mob'. There was an awful photo of him in the paper, naked and bloody. The paper intimated that he deserved to die, more or less saying that it was a lesson he would never forget and a warning to others.

I know this community are plagued by repeated robberies but this is an atrocity and should be treated as such. People taking the law into their own hands is not how a country grows and progresses. Members of the same community and the people who own and write for the paper will go to church on Sunday and I wonder what they will pray for.

The Awareness Times does a summary online of the latest local and national news in Sierra Leone, although it wasn’t the paper who reported this in such an irresponsible way it does cover the story in its summary: http://news.sl/drwebsite/publish/cat_index_037.shtml

From New York to SL

Monday 24th November 2008. I was half way through a short 4 day trip to the Big Apple, taken on a romantic notion and never regretted! Wednesday 24th November 2010 (location Freetown!) and I’m fondly reflecting on that trip only 2 years ago and started comparing Freetown to New York in my head. Here are a few highly subjective similarities in a random order:

· Chaotic traffic and enormous jams (but there are no bulldozers randomly taking the front of buildings off so the road can be widened!)
· Yellow taxis (although most of the NYC taxis don’t have smashed windscreens held together with Man United stickers and back axles scraping on the ground or scary sounding clunks as you drive along)
· Able to buy things day and night (although the choice here is severely limited)
· Friendly people
· Massive inequity between rich and poor (the relative differences I haven’t economically assessed)
· Buzz, pulse, beat, however its described – the pulsating life of a city that both NYC and FT have but lots of cities don’t have
· Some great food!
· Lots of people living in a small space
· Creative ways to make money, lots of entrepreneurs!
· Surrounded by sea
· Dirty air and Noisy (all kinds of sounds, including music everywhere?)
· Amazing hairstyles and clothes
· Areas that aren’t safe at night (but you could say that of any city)
· Some good places to have a beer!
· Lots of religious buildings!
· Lots of languages spoken

There are lots of differences too. There’s the obvious developed v under developed massive differences for people; levels and access to education, health care (although in both places, many poor people still have to pay for their health care), life expectancy, housing etc. But my comparisons are, well, a little less heavy in this blog! Freetown is hilly and wooded and there are hardly any tall buildings, no proper shops, overstretched and underdeveloped telecommunication systems, most buildings are not maintained, no proper public transport infrastructure and almost no galleries or theatre but it does have amazing countryside and beaches less than an hour away. Both towns have that essential life blood which makes them interesting, fascinating and exciting places to live. Freetown is definitely the Big Apple (or should I say Mango, as all apples are imported) of Salone and despite the fact that its not New York. I still love it.

In true Carole style, these photos have nothing to do with the blog but the 1st is the Taiama workshop photo taken with my colleagues last month (note I am the only women, hence the opening phase by the permanent secretary.... good morning Lady and Gentlemen!) and the 2nd is the kids in Peter's (Ministry Driver) village waving us goodbye!

Thanks to a certain lovely Irish guy for showing me the real New York and inspiring this blog (you know who you are)

Its a dogs life

Two weeks ago I met 3 female vets at Balmaya (one of them starred in a previous blog!). That day they had neutered 279 male dogs! Talk about being on a mission, impressive eh! I didnt ask how, too much information. But this is totally necessary. There are dogs everywhere and they almost all look the same, beige with white socks, the gene pool must be very limited! They breed and breed, leading to more canine misery as most of the dogs are homeless, thin and hungry. They fight alot and howl or bark continuously at night. Most of them have bits of their ears missing, wounds from the endless fights for food.

Although I am totally in agreement with this mass neutering, sometimes I wish these committed lady vets were removing the larnyx instead of the other bits, as I havent had a single nights sleep which hasn't been interrupted by bloody dogs barking and howling!!

'Dumbo' stars in the photo, an extremely skinny dog who lives at Hamilton Beach with abnormally large ears (of course!)

(Lack of!) Future Plans

I have decided to stay on longer in Freetown after my VSO placement ends at Christmas, for another 6 months or more. However I have to overcome some minor problems: (1) I have no job yet (2) I will have nowhere to live in 8 weeks time! I still have no idea whether I'm going home for Christmas or not and the flights are getting booked up! Mmmm... well at least I have started to look for a job and even applied for 2 but no luck yet. Plan A is to get funding to stay in the Ministry (easier said than done). Plan B is to work for a partner agency here but I'd prefer the Ministry in order to put the last 8 months to good use. Plan C is to give up on health and open a good italian coffee shop, with great coffee, paninis and cake! I even have the name..... Caroluccios! Watch this space!

To blog or not to blog?

I’ve decided that I should really only blog when I have something interesting, useful or pertinent to say. However life carries on here much the same as it does in the rest of the world. However, its been a month since I blogged! Things do pop into my head sometimes ‘that would be a good thing to write about’ and actually as I sit here, the reason I decide to blog has frankly escaped into the ether! So… I’ll just talk a little bit about my last month here.

I have been upcountry twice. Once to a workshop with the top Docs in Taiama (near Bo). It was an interesting day, a topic I knew a little bit about and could contribute and the place was nice (aircon and hot water now make me feel totally spoilt!!) however, my driver, Peter drank some dodgy water and ended up on a drip in the nearby clinic. Never have so many Drs tended to one patient! The poor CHO (Community Health Officer) was overwhelmed! They did have some drugs but no electricity (or running water, in contrast our hotel 500m away)), so I had to hold Peter’s hand in the dark while he slept. The poor chap was a bit pathetic and therefore this was the source of major teasing for the next week! The next day he was a lot better and off the drip and I got to drive him almost home (from Moyamba Junction to Waterloo). We stopped just before the police check point and swapped over (I am unsure about all the legalities here, like insurance etc!!)

The next time I went up country was to Makeni for 5 days. I was facilitating a workshop with Patricia, my colleague. We were developing a Community Health Worker national programme and a number of representative from NGOs and donors were there. It was hard work but by the end of the week and lots of group work and discussion, we had a draft training manual and programme. I got to know Makeni a little better. I’ve been there at least 5 times but never spent this long there. I stayed with some of the Makeni VSOs and discovered that they also have a good social life which is centred around eating delicious food! I put on weight! Thanks Alice, Kim and Angel.

Work has therefore picked up a lot since I came back from the UK and I’m quite busy. Just over a week ago, I facilitated the Ministry retreat with John and Nathan (Tony Blair guys).On the second day I did most of the facilitating and I enjoyed it. We came out with useful plans to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how we work in the Ministry and some have already been put into place. That evening there was a big dinner, hosted by the SL Medical and Dental Association (a bit like the BMA here) and it was all incredibly familiar. Men dressed in smart suits, ladies in beautiful outfits (the Salonean women know how to dress up!) but the only difference was that the main meal was served at 11.20pm and the speeches finished at 12.30am and then there was the dancing…. I sloped off about 1am and cadged a lift from one of the Drs who is also a Reverend. He had a sermon to do for the next day!

Socially there is always loads going on. An irish bar O’Caseys has just opened here! One of the new VSOs (Beth) does yoga lessons. We had a party last Friday and loads of folks came. Apparently it was a good party, photos to come. This weekend I’m organising a beach trip to Samso’s (named after Samso in Jutland Denmark, the guy lived there for a while) on Hamilton Beach.

For some reason I cant load photos anymore. The internet disconnects! Its probably a salonean bug! My USB stick is so infected that I don’t like touching it… I’ve lent it to John instead. He does the equivalent of sticking it in dettol every couple of days…. So no photos for a while. I’ll try again soon.

So sorry for the rambling blog but I'll try and remember what I was originally going to write about! Its a muslim holiday today (hence time to blog at 7.30am!) and there is going to be a big carnival in town later. I'll try to cover that! I'll also cover the massive road building programme and the interesting technique of simply bulldozing the front of people's houses if they are in the way. Folks just rebuild a front wall and live in a smaller house! This is a topic where photos tell the story....

I've had better weeks

I wrote this blog a month ago (around 20th October) and couldn't decide whether to post it or not but it was how I was felt at the time so here it is.....

Sometimes I think that my skills and experience are simply not noticed, recognised or utilised….its been a frustrating week so far. The bureaucracy of external funders, the fragility (or lack of) local health systems and skills, overload of so called expert consultants doing piecemeal and (in my opinion) sometimes unsustainable work, The lack of processes at every level. Sometimes the workload is mundane (I write a lot of letters) and the constant learning curve to understand things in a totally new context can leave me exhausted and sometimes dejected. You think you are getting somewhere and then there is some big setback. Might sound a bit familiar (friends in the NHS?)?

To add to my work and other frustrations this week was when on my way to work I discovered an injured dog in the road, with taxis and podas driving around it. I see human suffering and misery everyday which is hard enough and so I have learned to blank out the suffering in the animal kingdom, but not on this morning. With the help of a press-ganged passerby, we gently pushed the dog out of the way of oncoming traffic. It clearly had a head injury and broken bones after being whacked by a car once or maybe two or three times? It was 8.30am and according to the person working at the house next to the road, the dog had been there for some hours, but he had left the dog in the road to suffer and had done nothing. He got the dog some water (I kind of gave him no choice) and I went to find my lovely and resourceful neighbour Joe. I had no idea that we were literally about 300 yards from an animal rescue place, but Joe did and they stretchered the dog there, sedated him, examined him and agreed that there was nothing that could be done for him. A British vet was there, who had arrived 2 days before to volunteer her services for 2 months, brave woman. She concurred with the local vets diagnosis. I put my hand on his head and said goodbye.

Last Sunday I had a long chat with a rather good looking young man who sells locally made bags outside one of the cafes (Bliss). His grandfather makes the bags and he sells them for a living. I’m going to buy a bag next week from Ibraheim. He has no hands, being one of the many in Freetown who were victims of the war atrocities. There are also people who were so badly beaten that their limbs no longer work. Every day I am confronted with a row of wheelchair ridden young people (mainly), begging for food outside my office. Sometimes I give them money, sometimes food. But often I also walk by. I buy medicines for the lower paid staff in the office and I often bring in food. Government drivers earn approximately £45 per month and that’s sought after position in a country with mass unemployment. I haven’t even started to talk about the Freetown slums or the opportunities (or lack of) for the young, especially if their family cant afford to send them to school. People somehow manage to live by selling cucumbers (and a massive array of other things) on their head’s, so its hard to justify getting so upset over a dog in this context. But then again all living creatures feel pain and suffering.

I’m pretty sure that things are improving, we are slowly seeing this in the health sector, especially after the launch of free health care, but sometimes the enormity of the task is quite overwhelming. I have every respect for my Sierra Leonian colleagues, who simply keep going, despite the slowness of progress and the complexity of everything. This makes my frustrations pale into insignificance.

The crack in the pavement

So I’m in a taxi coming to work last Tuesday and thinking about the fact that (a) I was a bit late for work (b) I hadn’t blogged for a while and what on earth could I write about? (c) The sun newspaper never printed anything about Sierra Leone in July so I couldn’t be a VSO with 15 minutes of fame (or should I check yet again on the website??) and (d) why had I STILL not joined the UN gym (for the outdoor pool!) when half the latest group of VSOs were already members in less than 4 weeks and I’d been here 7 months (and I live closer to the UN than anyone and dented pride! else!!!). So I had lots of really important stuff on my mind.

The only thing I made a decision on was that it might be amusing to do a summary blog of all the daft things I had thought, did and said, since I arrived thus demonstrating how much I know now and how far I had come in this challenging environment in the last 7 months!!

So decision made, I started to mentally list the ridiculous incidents, like thinking that the previous occupant of my room was too lazy to fix the two giant holes in the window nets but had just covered them with wood panels instead, Whereas in fact these were covering the holes that you are meant to use to put your arms through to actually open and close the windows!! Anyway, I arrived at the Youyi Building (my work) and jumped out of the taxi whilst continuing to write the blog in my head, then took a step straight into the sewer between two flag stones. I was lucky not to break my leg and get away with only cuts and bruises. But no gym joining for a couple of days! The moral of the story… look where you are going of course and never think that your own stupidity reduces with age and experience, it doesn’t!

Birthday Bash!

Last Tuesday I turned 45 years old which means I am half way to 90 and can look forward to arthritis, memory loss, repeating the same stories continuously (have I written this blog before??) varicose veins and droopy boobs. Interestingly as soon as I reached this age, I discovered a rather large vein beginning to stick out of my right leg! Does the fact that I know myself fairly well and I’m a little wiser and knowledgeable than in my 20s make up for this slow deterioration? No it bloody doesn’t!!







Anyway back to 28th Sept 2010 and celebrating my Birthday in West Africa. In 2009 I was in the UK, 2008 I was in Miami, Florida and can’t remember further back than that! On 'B' day was at work and didn’t tell anyone, but in the morning I was in a meeting with most of the senior ministry staff and they all sang Happy Birthday to me which was nice and a bit bizarre! I had some calls from home which was a bit emotional including from my Mum and Grandma and Otto. Gran just wanted to know when I was coming home.
The working day was therefore OK but ended badly when I couldn’t get a lift home and couldn’t get a poda or taxi either. So, I walked home in a strop which quickly dissipated as I watched people sell things and greeted passers by on the way. Also, the storm that threatened did not materialise. Later I went to Senegalise (an African restaurant on Wilkinson Road) where 19 of my closest friends (!) had turned up to celebrate with me and this even included chocolate cake, a candle and singing (and prior to this an outstanding baracuda kebab!)!! As no-one can really send me a card here, I had a small but perfect collection of 6 cards, from home and friends here but the dearth of presents and cards hardly mattered as I had a great night. Thanks especially to Natalie for organising it and to John and Allie for the lift!

Also thanks for the 50 or so messages on Facebook and numerous emails! I might be far away but I was very touched at how many folks remembered, makes turning 45 almost bearable!!! Thank you.

There doesn't seem to be any photos of me, so here's the cake instead!!

Creature Discomforts

Last week another group of victims (new VSOs) arrived and I jointly delivered a talk on ‘Everything you need to know to survive Freetown’ (but was afraid to ask!). One of the slides was of course about keeping healthy and kitchen hygiene. Jo and I recommended a number of tasks including wiping down all surfaces with a dettol/water mix, treating rooms regularly with bug spray (aptly named TOX in Krio, its pretty bloody toxic) plus brushing your teeth with drinking water. These are a number of methods to reduce the likelihood of marching ants, rats, mice, cockroaches and water borne parasites from becoming too much of a presence in your life!

Its all well and good being able to control your home environment, but everywhere else is another matter. The rainy season washes up all kinds of things and I stood on a dead rats tail the other day! And continuing the rodent theme, at work a rat has chewed through the air conditioning wire so no aircon for 3 weeks and counting! Combined with the cockroaches (alive and dead although you rarely see any live ones), some who lived in the office printer after emigrating from the stapler, plus the ants recently marching across my desk (this might be partially my fault as I eat breakfast there!) , wires across the floor plus a kettle at my feet (which I have flatly refused to allow it to be boiled there unless I’m out of the office), makes the office a bit of a health and safety nightmare! Oh and I almost forgot that there is often 6/7 people and 4 desks in a space that would be cosy for two! So… Samura (the messenger/cleaner) kindly sprayed the office. This has made some difference especially in the ratio of live to deceased roaches. I try not to think about previous spacious offices with a meeting table and fast computers with consistent internet access! However, the Ministry is full of friendly, committed people and interesting characters so you can forgive the occasional bug, cant you?

The photo was taken at the VSO health programme workshop in Makeni last week where I ran a couple of sessions, unrelated to the bug theme of this blog!

Foolish Food Follies

How many VSOs does it take to figure out what is and isn’t milk? Jo and I really needed a brew so we decided treat ourselves at Balmaya. A nice big pot of tea arrived with a milk jug delicately covered with a cotton doily thing with beads on to keep the flies out (juice arrives in the same way). Great proper milk! Not the powdered stuff, not condensed/tinned milk but white stuff from an actual cow! But alas no, it was a kind of beige pinky colour. Jo immediately decided she couldn’t drink tea with that liquid, I bravely tried it, but Jo was right. We sent the tea back, much to the dismay of the owner who informed us that it wasn’t condensed milk (our first guess) and she only liked tea with pigs milk. She didn’t serve tea with cows milk or powdered milk as not many people liked it (hard to believe when you are surrounded by ex pats!) so we had to beg to differ and vowed never to order tea again.
I was silently wondering how difficult it actually was to milk a pig and also how come the milk was approximately the same colour as a pig? It’s the only live animal I have seen in Freetown (down at the Bay slums, by Connaught Hospital), well apart from the poor unfortunate sheep that was baa-ing away outside Monoprix supermarket last week. I had just bought some cheese from the butchers counter next to several hanging carcasses, so I knew its fate. I dread to think how a supermarket humanly slaughters! Anyway back to milk. So Jo and I were relaying this story to friends a few days later and only to be reliably informed that it was ‘Peak’ milk (a kind of tinned milk) and it dawned on me that I had actually believed for about 3 days that people really did milk pigs!!!

Yesterday I bought two large snappers and today I put them on the chopping board and realised that I had totally forgotten how to gut and bone a fish! A skill I’d acquired at 11 sea fishing with my Dad, but I certainly don’t have it anymore! This is why fishmongers were invented! Having a fridge has made me more adventurous with food but having spent half an hour fighting with the slimy things and being totally grossed out by cutting their enormous heads off and impailing myself on their sharp spines, I’m not sure that its worth it although the fish was very tasty. In future, I'll stick to massive tiger prawns (12 for £1!).

Kids Stuff and Fundraising

Two weeks ago I was unpacking my 40kgs (exactly) of luggage, most of it consisting of books, clothes and toys given to me by friends to bring back for local children here. But there was so much donated I’m trying to arrange the free shipment of the rest of the stuff through a very kind construction company. My cunning plan to bring stuff back was neither cunning (random requests for thing from the people I met and would see again who had kids) nor a plan (end up with about 50kg of stuff!) Otto was brilliant and helped me to sort all the stuff out and decide what to bring with me plus of course driving me to all the way to Heathrow too of course via Scuzzy's 2nd home ... huge thanks!!!

So... later this year I’m going organise more coordinated approach to donating stuff... a can feel the need to write a list! Gavin, Alice and I are also trying to get out some essential antenatal equipment too which Gavin has collected. I am also going to be asking all my friends to donate money to local charities here (I'll check them out first) instead of buying christmas cards for work colleagues, so dear blog readers, please let me know if you are going to support me in this (carolergreen@hotmail.com)

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Its about 7 weeks since I’ve blogged so apologies to the faithful handful of followers (Mum and Rosie)! I’ve been back in Freetown for 2 weeks after a rather frenetic time at home and its good to be back, actually I’m very happy to be back, but feeling somehow like I have two realities!

My visit home also included London, Birmingham, North Wales and Anglesey, Solway Firth (Carlisle), the Lakes, Derbyshire (various places including Chesterfield… funny that crooked tower!), Liverpool, Manchester, Warrington, Preston and various parts of Cheshire! No of course I didn’t work my way logically up/across the country. I visited people in a half random order consuming lots of diesel in my little car!

So I’d best continue the roll call from 5th August…..Andy Bacon and his lovely wife (to talk ‘development!!’), The crowd at Fran and Colin’s annual Sutton Coldfield BBQ (Annie and Nigel, Caroline, Angela and the badminton crowd!) the rest of my family (Simon, Linda, Cara and Thomas), Vicky Hogarth who I was at school with and haven’t seen for years, Kathryn, Steve and Imogen, Aziz and Ingvar, Barbara and Richard, Penny, Caroline Lambert, Andrea Campbell, Then it was my BBQ party on 14th August and lots of folks came, already mentioned as well as Emma, Angel and Elizabeth, Margaret Hughes, Catherine, Mark and Bethany, Mandy, Mary Bell, David B and his girlfriend, Nick B and other from Macc.

Sue came all the way from London to spend a couple of nights with me and helped me to shop for torches and other essential Freetown items! The Wales trip included Wendy (some shopping) and Nigel, Sam and Laurie, Bernadette and family and Alison. Then SOLFEST with Rosie which is always fun and fab weather!! Elaine and Steve, Pauline and Laurence (finally to drop off Scuz in Chipping Norton on the way to LHR)….Phew!!! Next time I think I’ll be at home a bit more as it was rather exhausting!

But… I loved being home (apart from the Smokey Martini hangover acquired at Kuckoo in Preston, courtesy of my lovely Sister and the rather gorgeous bartender!!). At least imanaged to catch up with Amanda and Sarah before trhe alcohol affected my memory!

The trip highlights, apart from seeing lots of good friends, was definitely Solfest (see photos on FB) nice hikes in the beautiful countryside and eating!!!!

Mainly humans and a few animals

Its 7 days exactly since I arrived on UK soil. My week has consisted of lots of eating, sleeping and generally feeling cold (so lots of lying about under blankets and watching the TV!) However I have also managed to see quite a few folks. Thanks for taking the time to catch up with me and hopefully I haven't bored you too much with my African stories.......

Cat and Mike, Richard, Matt and Justine, Jerry and Jules, Mum and Tony, Rosie, Lucy (my Gran), Terri, Nicky, Paul, Emma and Charlotte, Marcus (and the Kings head crowd, including Larson the dog) Nicky, Beckie and Alex Knowles, Otto, Heather, Carmen and Steve, Richard Heathcote (ok he’s actually my dentist but he had a lot of questions), Pauline Brookes, James Rose, David Bracegirdle, Bernadette, David and Jessica, Anne Marriott, Steph, Jim Britt, John Wharton, Nick Armstrong, Jan Todd, Jackie Morris, Fiona Boyle, Marie Rice, Enid, Eddie, Lisa, Annette, Dot and little Chris (old Sefton crew), Wendy Aspin, John Billo, Jacqui Candy, Rob Wall and others from Sefton, Norma Hewitt, Ged Timson, Alison Rylands, Justin McCarthy and my cat of course, he’s back for a holiday too. There are still lots more friends to see this week and please dont forget my Barbeque on 14th August!

Here is a picture of me and my god daughter Charlotte at her Christening a week before I left for Sierra Leone and I am amazed at how much bigger she is now!

Home Straight

I’m 28 hours into my trip back home and I'm at Euston waiting for this flashy Virgin train to take me home and into the arms of my mum and sis. I had lots of advice about how to handle ‘re-entry’ into European society but its difficult not to talk about being in Africa when everyone asks you about it. I’ve already made some stupid or thoughtless comments and which make no sense of course, apart from to me or can be misinterpreted! It’s lucky that I have amazingly tolerant and caring friends who don’t really care how freaky I am and are just glad to see me (Cat, Mike, Justine and Matt, thanks, especially for the sausage butty and veggie risotto). Also thanks to Jerry and Jules who threw a great party last night for Matt and Justine, who move to NYC next week…. Good luck and I’ll be visiting!

There are many things that never reach this blog because they are too private or distressing to write about or more usually I just forget!! Blogs are inevitably a little sanitised for public consumption. So now I’m watching the lovely English countryside go by (very fast) and I am really trying to be honest about how I feel at the moment....but I’m lost for words. There are times since I landed yesterday when I been close to tears due to feeling overwhelmed to be home and times when its all felt incredibly normal, like I’ve never been away. I’ll write more soon when I’ve figured out what’s going in my head and heart!!!

Guns and Toilets

Yesterday morning we walked into town over Parliment hill and it was a truely beautiful day, all day. And of course I needed to pee, so my Sierra Leonian friend negociated with one of the police officers at the guard post of one the government buildings for me to use their toilet explaining that I needed to 'go ease myself''.

So the office leads me into the guard building and I'm bracing myself for the inevitable state of the toilet. However not only was it relatively clean, it actually flushed (most toilets just have a bucket of water next to them, if you are lucky!!) but the most shocking thing was the stack of automatic rifles in the corner of the toilet!

I suppose I should blog a bit more about my work??? I haven't left Freetown for a while but things have picked up a little. I am working on the Global fund round 10 proposals and I am writing a proposal on strengthening Leadership and I've stolen the NHS Leadership Qualities Framework as a guide (see photo). Also I'm helping with negociations and providing contracting expertise with the non-governmental hospitals so that they also can provide free health care to the target groups.... and a few other things. In 5 days I come home but apparently I'll still be working on these things from the UK, according to my colleagues!!!

One final thing... did I mention the fridge? Its one year old and purchased from Frankie and Howard, ex VSOs still in Freetown. Howard told me it was the only household appliance he had ever hugged. After living for a year in a VSO house and managing on the VSO allowance, with the only kitchen applicance being a 2 ring gas burner, then I can fully understand why hugging was involved!!! However despite keeping walking into the kitchen to look at my fridge and smile, I havent felt the need to cuddle it. It even has a freezer compartment but of course the only item in there is a bottle of Vodka!

Can you force yourself to buy the Sun on 27th July?

Well I hope so... because my boss and the Free Health Care initiative in Salone will be mentioned in an article as part of the follow up to 'Make Poverty History' campaign. Spoke to Charly, the comms lead the other day who told me that the Sun journalists were impressed with me, something which I should find rather disturbing! But you never know, I might get a mention in the paper too. Is that good or bad???? Last time I was quoted in a newspaper it was the Sunday Times!

I searched for an appropriate image for the Sun to go with this blog and it just had to be this one!!!! Also found these links which make interesting reading!

http://www.the-sun-lies.blogspot.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sun_(newspaper)

A load of old rubbish!

I keep meaning to take a photo of the rubbish tip on Old Railway Line. Its a very new tip in that its surrounded by a breeze block wall with the words ' Please dump inside here' painted on one side and 'Do not dump against this wall' on the other side. Maybe its my juvenile sense of humour but I smile every time I drive past. Old Railway Line is actually a road, but it used to be a railway, in fact there are bits of railway in a few places upcountry, all disused now and parts missing as the sleepers were melted down for metal during the war. Maybe one day trains will return to Salone but I just hope they arent red with the words VIRGIN written across the side, this also might offend here!

Back to rubbish. There is no dustbin collection here and you have to carry all your rubbish to the nearest tip. Ours is just a few minutes away across the main road (amusingly actually called Main Motor Road), next to the Mosque (the one whose call to prayer has a habit of waking me at 5am every morning, if the howling dogs havent beaten the caller to it). So ours isnt a 21st century tip, like the one described above (ie having got instructions and walls and everything!!), this is literally a massive pile of rubbish. The routine is that you walk down there as far as you possibly can before the stench turns your stomach and then you throw the rubbish towards the huge pile, hoping you dont mis aim too much. However, this doesnt really matter because people hang about there to go through your rubbish to see if there is anything worth eating or keeping and a white women's rubbish might be more lucrative, so its usually picked up before I've got back up to the main road. Interestingly the tip is next to a food market (and my dept at work is in charge of environmental health for the country!!).

Two good things about today.... (1) I've been offered a second hand fridge for a good price and (2) Its another crazy Phillipino party tonight so I'll no doubt be singing on the Karoake and line dancing all at once. Although the lighlight is always Reynaldo's adobe chicken.... to die for. Happy Saturday!!!!

Happiness can sneak in through a window you didn’t realise you had left open….

Francis, the smiley IT guy in the Ministry was trusted with my precious but poorly laptop today. I must admit to being highly sceptical that anything good would come out of this and when I saw him attacking the back of it with a precision screw driver ….well…. was this one high risk decision too far??? A couple of hours later I was presented with my laptop, now working and with the spare hard drive fitted (thanks to my incredible foresight(!!!! didnt back anything up) and Adam’s ability to magic a spare one from nowhere at the last minute). However, Francis tried and failed to retrieve my files so the tiny cloud in the silver lining is that the damaged hard drive will be coming back to the UK with me in the vain hope that my photos and documents can be resurrected!!!

So the proverb for today on the BBC World Service is the title of this blog, submitted by a lady called Isatu of Freetown! To be honest the only thing that gets through the netting and bars covering my windows, is rain (sometimes) and the occasional mosquito, but I suppose she didn’t mean it lierally! Didn’t I mention the bars? All windows have them, I assume so you can leave the windows open without fear of theft. However, some creative thieves use rods and coat hangers to extract items and so its best to leave things out of ‘fishing distance’.

However Isatu was right, I didn’t think such joy could be gained out of the fixing of an inanimate object. Although offering to marry Francis was probably showing my gratitude too much!

The only photo I have of an open window is with my much missed cat (Scuzzy) staring out over the Oxfordshire countryside, when he first moved with Pauline and Lawrence. He is probably wondering where the hell I'd disappeared to and is what this strange place... a bit like me when I first arrived in Freetown.

Broken Lifeline

In retrospect, yesterday obviously went too well. If you are an eternal optimist like me, then statements like this should never apply, apart from about yesterday. So I was about to host my first dinner party. I nipped home to get my laptop (its last ever visit to the office) and came back to the office. On this trip I managed to buy all the fruit and salad for the dinner… apart from apples (nowhere to be seen). I was looking out of the window contemplating the sea, thinking of my lack of apples and writing a letter on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone to the Chinese Embassy about a topic I’d known nothing about half an hour ago... all at the time same of course! Then a lady appeared out of nowhere, never seen her before, selling rosy shiny red apples and like Eve I could not stop myself from being tempted to buy, not one but three lovely specimens.

I left work early in a good mood passing by the biscuit lady (peanut brittle and sesame snaps to go with the fruit salad) and the bread seller who had lovely fresh rolls at the office entrance (for garlic bread). By this point I was feeling very pleased with myself and my ability to buy everything so easily and in time and went home looking forward to putting together all these lovely ingredients into a sumptuous feast!

Well the evening was a lot of fun and I went to bed feeling content, full, but still sober! However at 3am I’m wide awake, tossing and turning and eventually decide to answer a few emails as my laptop is lying in the corner of the bed. There’s no power and so very dark. I switch on the laptop and squint at the keys immediately realizing what a silly idea this is! So I switch it off and slightly push it out of my way to continue the serious business of sleeping and push it straight onto the tiled floor. So if I couldn’t sleep before I certainly couldn’t after smashing my laptop (it no longer works) and the sentence ‘just how stupid can I possibly be?’ going round and round in my head. I remain hopeful that somehow 4 months of photos and documents can be retrieved

As luck would have it, my work computer was fixed yesterday (yes the day did go well) after 2 months. I had switched it on one day and the button disappeared into the machine and … well, that was that! So today I have some access to the outside world in order to tell this sorry story and also to write to the Chinese Government!

So what are the morals of this tale? Never buy apples from strangers in case your laptop breaks in a freaky bedroom accident? Or maybe don’t try and cure insomnia by answering emails, just drink horlicks instead? Whatever it is, remember to back up important stuff that’s for sure!

Did I mention the football? And a bit about African meetings

Probably not! But I have to admit to being slightly interested in the whole affair, especially how Saloneans make every match into a big occasion. There is really no need to watch or listen to the match. I could just sit on the balcony and listen to my neighbours etc and figure out what's happening. The whole country was behind Ghana in the quarter finals and Freetown let out several big community sighs, that I'm sure could have been heard upcountry, when those penalties were missed. I listened to the match on the radio. I love the BBC World Service Africa, especially the quote of the morning which often are quirky and dont make sense but never mind! I'll have to write a few down for the blog. So is it Holland or Spain? I have no idea who the locals will support but I'm guessing Spain.

So I'm hosting a dinner party tonight for 7! Its a bit of grand title for pasta and salad, buts the first since I've been living alone and majorily spruced up the flat and here are photos as promised. Its a bit difficult turning a cavenous flat with hardly any furniture into a cosy place, but I'm trying (please admire my homemade cushions!!).

At the moment I am experiencing with a slight amusement (because I went through the same thing) my new UK colleagues settling into the Ministry. Yesterday I went to a big workshop for all Districts for well over 100 people. It was supposed to start at 9am. We arrived 7 minutes earlier and there were only 4 other people there and none of them were the organisers or speakers! It eventually started at nearer to 10am and we were encouraged to take our seats on account of it running a few minutes late!

Meeting etiquette makes me smile. As well as usually starting late, the meetings themselves can go on for an age. The minutes are often long winded but can be quite entertaining! I was once in a meeting with the Vice President just before Free Health Care was launched and it went on for 5 hours without a break! Some people dont ask questions but get up and make long statements. On occasion, some folks openly sleep, others speak on their mobile phones whispering in Krio, 'I'm in a meeting, call later I'm in a meeting'. Making note of actions (who, what, where and when) has got noticably better and somehow things seem to work, not sure how sometimes. Like this workshop. I wrote the programme and it was finalised less than 24hrs before the event, but it wasn't my role to brief the speakers but somehow everyone turned up prepared, with powerpoint presentations!

BLOG requests! Sometimes I struggle to know what to write about so happy to take suggestions! carolergreen@hotmail.com More after the weekend....

A Weekend of Huge Contrasts

There is a great place to shop in Freetown called 'Big Market' on Wallace Johnson Street ( a famouse Salonean who not only has the street named after him but a statue too, which is a bit of a funny colour). Downstairs there are baskets, paintings, etc and upstairs batik, gara, jewellery and ornaments. Its a major tourist attraction.

So I am major 'nesting' mode and I'm buying ceramic candleholders downstairs when there is a commotion and some men, dressed up, start marching through the middle of the market right past me and in their midst, there is a man totally covered in blood, naked from the waist up with traditional dress and his face partly bandaged and something large and bloody stuck on the outside of his left eye. He was less than a metre from me and I looked right at him and thought what the hell is this, how scary...damn good fancy dress. I was immediately told that the thing on his face was his eyeball and this was part of a secret society ritual from upcountry. The local people kept apologising. I went outside to get air in case I was sick. Apparently they put the eyeball back in its socket later and use traditional medicine to heal it. I could you tell more gruesome stories relayed to me by both locals and NGO workers, but I wont!

Animals dont fair much better and are regularly beaten and often have chewed ears that attract flies....that morning I saw 2 new born puppies in the sewer in the alley by my house on my way to town. They were crying and trying not to drown. I asked the local carpenters to either look after them or kill them. They weren't there later that day.

That evening I went to Faye's leaving party at her neighbours house. This place was seriously posh. The car park easily held 20 cars. It had a huge bar area and pool. The Salonean owner is the CEO of a big company here. There was free food (inlcuding a whole pig and a massive grouper) and drink all night. I left after 3am and the bar was still flowing with all kinds of alcohol. I even had a glass or two of champagne. I have never been to a party like it, great music, amazing food and full of beautiful people of many nationalities.

So that was my first Saturday in July. Life, death (?), suffering, local customs, poverty and wealth. I am still wondering what to make of it all. I spent Sunday recovering physically and emotionally and yes I did have a big hangover, which isnt very surprising!