Tastes Like Freedom

      As many of you probably know by now, I was very sick recently. I know I was pretty sick here once before, but that doesn’t even come close to how sick I was in the week leading up to the Fourth of July. On the Sunday night prior to the Fourth, I told Meredith that I wished we could just have one extra day of the weekend so I could lay around being my typical lazy self. The next day, as I lay on the couch feeling ill, I really regretted saying that. While I felt pretty sick that Monday, it was definitely a sickness that seemed like a passing bug. On Tuesday morning I still felt a little queasy, but I felt well enough to go to work. I had more to do that week than I’d had to do in a while and was supposed to be doing something specifically for our Country Rep (CR) so I wanted to get back to work right away. Within an hour of getting to the office I started feeling really warm so I pulled out my thermometer and my temperature was 99.1 F. That doesn’t seem like too much to worry about, but the safety policies for Ebola require you to leave the office immediately if your temperature rises above 98.6 F at all. So I ran to Sasha’s office and told him I had a fever which he was not pleased to hear. He asked me a bunch of questions about other symptoms and then told me to get a driver to take me home. Obviously we hit a ton of traffic on the way home so it took us almost an hour to get home and by the time we did, I felt like I was going to die. I literally almost collapsed as I was walking into the house. I made a beeline for the couch and collapsed onto it. I knew I should get up and change out of my work clothes and get medicine and something to drink, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up so instead of doing that I did what every adult does when they’re sick – I called my parents. I felt too weak to even hold the phone so I just alternated between calling my dad and my mom and kept them on speaker phone as I proceeded to writhe around in pain and misery on the couch. Thankfully Meredith was coming home for lunch that day for a Skype interview so I texted her to ask her to bring me home some Gatorade and/or Coke. My fever was probably up to about 101 F by the time she got home and I was so out of it. She was kind enough to get me drinks and a cold, wet cloth for my face and anything else I needed. Then Sasha called and when he found out my temperature had gone up more he told me he was coming home right away to give me a rapid test for malaria. Soon after Sasha arrived at home he gave me the malaria test. Waiting for the results was the longest 15 minutes of my life. Before he gave me the test, Sasha had said, “If it’s negative then I would be concerned.” Having had malaria is something of a badge of honor in the public health world, but that's definitely an honor I can live without. But when Sasha told me that we should be worried if it’s negative, I was seriously praying that it was malaria. Obviously there are a lot of other things that can cause a fever, but my symptoms and their progression coupled with the fact that I had been in the field the previous week and we’re in Sierra Leone and we’ve been seeing a spike in cases, put Ebola at the forefront of our minds. Quite frankly, in hindsight, it was freaking terrifying. Thankfully, at the time, I was so out of it that I couldn’t quite comprehend just how terrifying things would become if I did in fact have Ebola. I was oddly calm. When the malaria test was negative, I basically thought, “Okay. I have Ebola. I could die. That’s okay.” I felt so horrendous that I didn’t even really care at that point. I remember Sasha standing over me at one point and saying, “You’re miserable, huh?” I just looked at him and nodded. Somewhere in that time frame I Skyped with Anna Marie and EJ so they could pray with me. I don’t really remember much of our conversation, but I’m grateful that they were willing to take time to talk to me. After the malaria test came back negative, I was about ready to call for a plane to medevac me back to the US, but obviously that wasn’t something that was really going to happen unless Ebola was actually confirmed and that wasn’t an option. In order to confirm Ebola, a team would have had to come to Sasha’s house in full PPE to collect a sample from me and given my symptoms, I would have ended up in quarantine in a holding unit in a Sierra Leonean hospital until it was determined I didn’t have Ebola. That is not a situation that you ever want to be in. So instead of jumping to the outlandish conclusions that were running rampant in my head, Sasha said that we would treat my symptoms and hope that they resolved. I took Paracetamol to reduce my fever, but my temperature just kept going up. As far as I know, my temperature peaked just shy of 103 F, but it could have gone higher while I was passed out on the couch. After sleeping for a few hours, I woke up to find Sasha and Annisha at the dining room table alternating between doing work and staring at me. My temperature was about 102 F then, but I didn’t feel hot anymore because I’d gotten used to it. I was able to get off the couch for the first time and Sasha forced me to drink ORS (although I didn’t actually drink very much of it because it was disgusting) and eat some soup. Eventually, after a couple of doses of Paracetemol, my fever slowly started to go down. It was still well over 98.6 F for a few more hours, but it went back to normal after about twelve hours or so. Over the next few days, my temperature remained normal, but I still had plenty of other symptoms and I was unbelievably tired so I ended up spending the entire week at home. I probably could’ve gone to the office on Friday, but Sasha was working from home so I just stayed home too. I think I probably had a bad case of food poisoning, but I don’t know how I got it. I’m so grateful that Sasha and Meredith chose to ignore the rules that tell us not to get near someone who has even the slightest chance of having Ebola in order to take care of me. Even though I didn’t have Ebola (thankfully), I got a brief glimpse into what it might be like for people who are suspected of having Ebola. I know that what I experienced was nothing compared to what Ebola patients endure so the whole thing motivated me to finish out my last few weeks here in Sierra Leone with renewed vigor and optimism so that we can end this outbreak once and for all.
 

I've never been happier to see 98.6 F on a thermometer

      After combating my illness, I decided to join Sasha and Meredith and go to Martin’s place  at Black Johnson Beach for the Fourth of July. I hadn’t been to Martin’s since my very first weekend in Sierra Leone back in February, but Martin has visited us in Freetown a few times. He’s weirded me out ever since I met him, but his creepiness factor has gotten significantly higher since I discovered that he’s recently taken on a Sierra Leonean wife who cannot possibly be more than 22 years old and she’s probably even younger than that. Martin is at least 45 years old. Don’t get me wrong – Martin is a nice guy and he’s got some incredible travel stories and we bonded over our shared love of astronomy, but this whole situation with his young bride makes me extremely uncomfortable. I was, however, comforted by the fact that Meredith and Annisha also find it to be really strange. His wife, Effie, is very quiet around us so it’s hard to know what she’s really like when it’s just the two of them. This type of situation is quite common in Sierra Leone, but it begs the question – what motivates a middle aged European man who’s traveled all around the world to come settle in Sierra Leone and take a “bush wife” (as Meredith puts it) and why does he make such awkward comments about the situation? But it’s really none of my business. There is one really interesting thing that was happening on the Monday after we left. They were going to have a traditional fertility ceremony. It involved slaughtering a chicken and Effie’s grandmother coming to perform a ceremony where she would rub oils of some sort on Effie and pray that she would get pregnant. Martin doesn’t really seem like the father type to me (considering the fact that he thinks he probably has multiple children around the world and has no desire to find any of them…), but again it’s none of my business. I can still think it’s very strange though. Anyway, apart from all that the Fourth was not very exciting. We did, however, have this delightful “Product of USA” to eat and I may or may not have opened the can, ate a few and declared, much to Meredith’s amusement, “Tastes like freedom.”

Sasha didn’t get us any fireworks (literally the one thing we wanted for the weekend) so we ended up going to bed by like 9pm and it was insanely hot and humid so it was really hard to sleep. We spent the next day just lounging around on the beach and hoping it would get a little sunny which it finally did. Then I had the joy of sitting under a thatched umbrella while it drizzled all around me and it was literally perfect. Overall, it wasn’t how I would prefer to spend my Fourth of July weekend (it’s amazing how patriotic you can become when doing anything patriotic isn’t really an option), but it was pretty nice...

 

View on the way out of Freetown...I'm really going to miss this :-(

The hangout at Martin's

This sky made up for the fact that we didn't have any fireworks

     Donal also arrived in Freetown recently. I’m not entirely sure what Donal’s job is, but he’s Irish and he’s hilarious and that’s all that really matters. He arrived on the day I was really sick and he came to Sasha’s for dinner the following evening. I was still feeling quite sick and he was very drunk by the time I managed to muster up enough energy to talk to him (whilst in my pajamas which wasn’t awkward at all…). I had been in my room, but I heard Meredith trying to explain the Electoral College system to Sasha and Donal so I felt the need to drag myself out of bed to complain about what a horrendous system it is (although I also feel that the alternative system of a straight popular vote is bad too so I can’t win) and that obviously incited a political discussion in which Donal incorrectly assumed I’d be voting for Hillary and was shocked to find a Republican working for CRS. I am literally dumbfounded by the lack of conservatives in this organization. It’s a faith based organization. You think there’d be a few conservatives. I have yet to find one though. It’s well known that public health is dominated by liberals so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Anyway, the point is that Donal was so shocked that he asked where I was from and obviously when I said I was from Rhode Island he was even more shocked, but since he was super drunk things got off topic very quickly and he started talking about the delinquent Boston Irish who, according to him, are not real Irish people. It was pretty funny. Fast forward to last Wednesday night in which another, less friendly political conversation occurred. Sasha and Meredith volunteered to host Wednesday night dinner and we finally did pizza night!! It was fantastic. Domenic is such an awesome chef. He’s been in charge of cooking for two of the Wednesday night dinners that I’ve been to and he has done a great job both times. He apparently worked in a pizza shop in Sweden at one point so he knew exactly what he was doing. He made about 20 different pizzas, one of which had a fried egg on it which made me ecstatic. When I wasn’t hovering around the kitchen trying to grab a piece of pizza before it disappeared, I was sitting outside on the porch with a small group of people just relaxing and avoiding having to talk to a million people I don’t know. Towards the end of the night, I was sitting outside with Pat and his wife, Hawa, and an older gentleman named Roger. I was already annoyed with Pat because he had told me he hates the Queen. I can’t even comprehend that. While I’d not so secretly prefer that we have a monarchy and that we still live like the Crawley’s do in Downton Abbey, Pat is quite the socialist just like Tom on Downton. Anyway, he decided that he felt the need to tell me that I should be a democrat because I’m a woman from New England and that Bill Clinton was the best president we’ve had since Kennedy. His wife was trying to get him to calm down and stop being an idiot, but he wasn’t having it. Then Roger started telling a story about what English and Irish relations were like when he was growing up and how the Irish were always looked down on by the English. In the middle of the story he mentioned that they used to call the Irish “Paddies”. Well, Pat flipped out on Roger and started yelling at him and saying that he was being rude and he wasn’t going to sit there and let him call him that name. He told Roger not to be rude and poor Roger was saying how he didn’t mean anything by it. I refuse to let anyone insult the elderly so I told Pat that he was the one being rude and he got up and stormed away. Hawa chased after him and I sat with Roger who was clearly very unsettled and shaken up by the whole thing. Later after Pat and Hawa had left, I was talking with Roger and he said that Pat should have known better than to talk to him like that, but he said, “Then again, he’s Irish…” I guess that British/Irish relationship still isn’t great.

      Last Friday night I went to dinner at Lagoonda with Annisha and Meredith. It was delicious as usual. On the way home Meredith and I saw a guy completely ignore a “Road Closed” sign and just drive straight on up a hill that they’ve been doing construction on for ages. This is pretty typical in Sierra Leone, but Meredith was like, “Rule of law? Who needs it?!” I nearly died laughing. It’d probably be funnier to you if you lived here. Anyway, in other random funny quote news, Annisha was talking about questions that Meredith might get asked in her interview and as the questions got progressively more ridiculous and funny, Annisha says, “Tell us about a time when you tried to save the world with no resources.” This is also probably funnier if you’ve actually worked in a country like Sierra Leone or a situation like the Ebola response. The (not at all funny) point is that we never have enough resources. I was shocked when I first found out how much money we spend in a week for just one project. We are spending millions of dollars to help people in ONE district of ONE country. I certainly believe that ever person matters and that everyone deserves to live at a certain standard, but when you think about how much money must be spent all around the world on projects like this, it’s overwhelming. Sometimes it seems so futile, but when you think about the individual that you're helping, it makes it a little better knowing that your project is making a difference in their life.
     Last Saturday we had a delightfully American brunch. Sasha thought it was so disturbing that Meredith and I like syrup on our bacon and eggs. Clearly he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The rest of last weekend was pretty uneventful. I met one of our new TDY-ers, Michelle. She’s from California and she’s pretty cool. Sasha and I watched tennis (after having worked from home on Friday just so we could watch the men’s semifinals) and were disappointed that Federer lost.

     Anyway, this week hasn’t been too bad. Eve left which is sad. Annisha has been coming over after work most days because her boyfriend, Ahmed, is in Kenema for a week or so at the school he runs there. We’ve had some tasty food including Annisha's naan. I was also asked if I wanted a contract with CRS and I’ve been avoiding giving them an answer because I’m going to be really awkward when I say no. While I’m so glad to have had this opportunity and I’ve enjoyed working for CRS, I think it’s time to move on. Anyway, Sasha wasn’t feeling well today so we worked from home. Actually, I worked and Sasha slept. I was more productive today than I’ve been all week at the office. Tomorrow is the end of Ramadan so it’s a public holiday which is fantastic. I don’t think there’s anything better than getting a day off for a holiday you don’t even celebrate. Typically Freetown is like one big party during this holiday (Eid al-Fitr), but it will be interesting to see what it’s like tomorrow given the Ebola situation. What exactly is the Ebola situation right now? It’s not good. In recent weeks we’ve seen a spike in cases in Port Loko, Kambia and Western Area Urban (aka Freetown). In Port Loko the cases are confined to two chiefdoms and Operation Northern Push is hopefully working to stop the spread there, but the sudden, fairly large increase in cases in Freetown was unexpected given that we had gone 18 days without a new case here. I attended the Ebola Frontline meeting at UNDP this week and, after getting over the shock of the facilitator opening this high level meeting by having us mediate (clearly Ebola has made people a little crazy), I learned that we should be expecting even more cases. That’s not exactly surprising, but it’s a bit depressing. In addition to the increase in cases here, Liberia reported new cases after having been declared Ebola free back in May. That was devastating, but it’s reassuring that they seem to have things under control and were able to catch things quickly using their surveillance system. Sasha and Annisha are absolutely convinced that Ebola will never end here. I have my moments where I start to agree with them, but those pass pretty quickly. Nothing’s impossible. Ebola will end here. After it ends, it will likely come back again eventually, but stopping the current outbreak will be a huge achievement and when the next cases develop people will know what to do. 

P.S. I'LL BE HOME EXACTLY ONE MONTH FROM TODAY!!!!! 

Operation Northern Push

     Operation Northern Push has officially begun. This surge effort focuses on the two districts – Port Loko and Kambia – that were responsible for the large increase in cases we saw a few weeks ago. These two districts are basically on lockdown for 21 days (which we're almost past at this point because I've procrastinated on posting this for so long) and surveillance activities have been increased. We’ve brought in a bunch of new vehicles to deal with the surge and our burial teams are working harder than ever. Putting so many restrictions on movement in these two districts also means that food needs to be supplied to them which adds additional strain. It’s also started to rain a lot more so that’s bringing additional problems as well. Malaria cases will rise which is problematic because malaria looks similar to Ebola initially. The rains have also caused a lot of devastation. In addition to wiping out many of the roads we use to travel into more remote chiefdoms, the rains have also destroyed hundreds of houses across the country. The rainy season is at its’ worst in July so who knows what will happen over the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see what happens with this surge effort. It’s now official that the outbreak will not be over before I leave Sierra Leone. I can’t believe I leave Sierra Leone in less than 42 days!! Actually, I leave one month from today!! Even though I won’t be in the country (although I've been asked if I would come back so maybe I will be...) to celebrate the end of the outbreak, I hope that this surge helps to bring us closer to beating Ebola and that the country can be declared Ebola free soon after I leave.

View of Freetown from the office

      In other news, the President recently announced that stores can stay open until 9pm and restaurants can stay open until 10pm and be open on Sundays!! This doesn’t apply to the two districts involved in Operation Northern Push, but it’s still exciting. Although I think it had more to do with Ramadan than anything else. As I’m sure you all know, Ramadan is a Muslim holiday that involves, among other things, fasting from sunrise to sunset. The sun sets after 6pm so if restaurants and stores had remained closed after that time, people would have been unable to go out to eat or to purchase food. While Ramadan and the related food issue has, in my opinion, been the motivating factor behind the joyful ending of the business curfew, it has also brought some very difficult challenges. As I mentioned, Ramadan involves fasting. This includes refraining from both food and liquids. For burial and ambulance teams working in PPE this is a serious issue. While wearing PPE, you lose a TON of fluids because the suits are incredibly hot. Even people just standing around in them sweat profusely. In a predominantly Muslim country, how exactly do you deal with Ramadan during Ebola? You tell people not to fast, of course. That was the general consensus at the most recent burial pillar meeting. There are exceptions to fasting on Ramadan, but after a quick perusal of Wikipedia, it doesn’t seem that any of those exceptions include “because you’re wearing PPE during an Ebola outbreak.” I’m not specifically involved in this process, but the plan has been to work with Muslim leaders to get them to make an announcement saying that those involved in the response who have to wear PPE are exempt from the fasting requirement. I’m not sure if this has happened yet though. At the very least, we are asking teams to voluntarily refrain from fasting. If they are unwilling to do that, we are asking that they at least drink lots of water during the day. If they refuse that suggestion then I don’t know what the plan is because obviously we aren’t going to fire them. We considered having them switch places with someone who doesn’t observe Ramadan and who doesn’t wear PPE, but this is problematic because only certain people are trained to do certain tasks and, in reality, everyone on these teams wears PPE at some point in the process. Despite all this, I found out that there’s a public holiday when Ramadan ends so it’s all good because I get an unexpected day off a month from now!! But seriously, pray for our teams and everyone wearing PPE during this time because apart from the typical Ebola related concerns, there are now even more health concerns involved in their job.
     It’s been awhile so here's a quick aside about some random things that have happened recently. One day one of the main stories on the radio was about the President going to Germany to receive his annual physical which he apparently missed last year because of Ebola. First of all, I think it’s outrageous that the President goes to a European country to go to the doctors when people here can barely access medical care at all. Also, can you imagine if CNN had a breaking news report every year when the President went for his yearly physical? Anyways, I also saw a dead motorcyclist in the middle of the street. There were huge crowds gathered around the poor guy as we drove by the scene. His body had already been placed in a body bag which is not acceptable because only burial teams are supposed to do that. On a totally unrelated note, I learned one rainy season lesson the hard way...don’t let the cleaning lady wash three of your four pairs of work pants on the same day because they will be wet for the next three days and you’ll have to wear the same pair of pants every day. Thankfully pants never get dirty, right? My former supervisor, Nancy, left on the 14th and Davor is my new supervisor. We went to Country Lodge for dinner on the Friday night before Nancy left and on the way we saw someone washing his clothes in the water that was streaming through the gutter. Meredith took one look at him and said, “Doesn’t he know there’s a river right there?” It was pretty funny, but I guess using rainwater is much safer than getting in a river that’s got all types of parasites in it. I’ve become the sole representative for CRS at the weekly Burial Pillar meetings at the NERC. The meetings have become very interesting lately. We began discussing the possibility of transferring responsibilities for burials to funeral homes. A burial team would still pick up the body, but more traditional funeral practices could begin again. This was done very successfully in Liberia, but Liberia is not Sierra Leone. While Sierra Leone is about 75% Muslim, Liberia is about 85% Christian. Muslims do not use the funeral homes so it is only Christians that would benefit from this new plan. This helped in Liberia because it’s predominantly Christian. Since Sierra Leone is predominantly Muslim, this plan is unlikely to benefit significant numbers of people. Either way, we don’t think we’re quite ready to make the transition to using funeral homes just yet. Personally, I think it’s unlikely to happen at all.  

"Nor Pis Ya Dortyman" sign near the office

     I was in the field last Wednesday, but on the previous Wednesday we went to Martin’s for the weekly Wednesday night dinner party. The theme was Latino Night which wasn’t really my favorite. I’m dying for pizza night. I did meet a lot of cool people including a couple – Helen and Peter – from the Netherlands. Helen has given me some helpful hints about non-touristy things to do while I’m in Amsterdam in August. I also met an older couple – John and Mary – who are from New Zealand, but who have lived all over the world since 1995. John works for the brewing company here. They only just arrived, but they’re so used to adjusting that they can find the positive in just about anything. I loved hearing all of their stories about their time in Thailand, Myanmar, the Netherlands, South Africa and Nigeria. Their kids moved with them when they were younger, but they were living in Papua New Guinea when the kids started finishing started finishing primary school and apparently everyone in Papua New Guinea goes to Australia for boarding school when they get to secondary school age. John and Mary’s kids ended up going back to New Zealand for boarding school, but got to visit their parents wherever they happened to be a few times each year during school vacations. It was really fascinating to hear all about it. On the way home we came across a roadblock. I’m not usually out late enough to experience these in Freetown, but when I am, we usually just pass right through. Not this time. The police officer stopped us and shined his flashlight in our faces and started asking Sasha for money. Once his partner heard what he was doing, he walked away and then things started to get a little tense. I was getting a bit nervous, but several minutes later we drove away safely and without surrendering any money.
     Last week I went up to Makeni for a few days. Davor and I went up together and we stopped in Port Loko for a little while on the way up. The Command Center in Port Loko is a completely different place than it was just a few weeks ago. With Operation Northern Push heating up, there are a lot more British military personnel (they had left a while ago, but they’re back now) and there are tents sent up everywhere. There’s a lot more going on and hopefully the effort will help bring the case numbers down. When we finally arrived at the hotel in Makeni, Davor and I walked in and Elijah, one of my favorite Mena Hills staff members, said hi and then asked, “Do you still want this room?” He was pointing to Room 6 and Davor said, “Yeah, yeah that’s fine.” What Davor didn’t realize is that Room 6 is my room. It’s my favorite room and the staff members know that so when I come they make sure to reserve that room for me. Anyway, when Davor replied, Elijah just laughed and said, “No, No. I’m talking to her.” It’s the little things. Unfortunately, things haven’t been going very well at Mena Hills. John B., one of our favorite employees, was fired because “he was messing with the money.” Now some people may think that he deserved to be fired, but there’s always two sides to the story. At most, John B. took a couple of Cokes and a little money. Everyone here does stuff like that. Just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it okay, but there are other things to consider. John B. is an orphan. He has been raised by the pastor who owns Mena Hills since he was a very small boy. I’m sure the pastor knows that everyone takes some (“small small”) money here and there. John B. just happened to be the one who got caught. The pastor wasn’t making much of a profit so he started looking into things and this is when John B. got caught. The pastor told some of our staff that he “wanted to make some money during Ebola” so he needed to make an example out of John B. That doesn’t seem like the way the pastor should be treating a boy he raised as his own and it was very disheartening for us to hear that his main motivating factor was money. Being the awesome people that they are, our staff members who stay at Mena Hills have tried to help John B. out by giving him some money here and there and there was even talk of hiring him as a messenger for CRS. I’m not sure if that happened, but I hope it does or that the pastor reconsiders and rehires John B. because he’s really a standup guy. I also finally got to go with John (our staff member, not John B.) on his nightly walk. Every single night he walks around Makeni for about an hour. As we were walking, everybody was waving to him and inviting him to come dance or have palm wine with them. That’s the type of thing that makes being in the field way better than being in Freetown. John returned to Sri Lanka permanently this week and I was extremely sad to see him go. When I first arrived, Annisha always told me that John reminded her of her dad and I can see why she’d think of him as a father figure. He was always looking out for us. The first time I went to the field, he was the one making sure that I stayed far away from the burial team members and gravediggers, asking the staff to get me a mosquito net when my room didn’t have one and ordering food for me when I didn’t know what to ask for from the staff at Mena Hills. I think John is the type of person every CRS employee, or every person in general for that matter, should strive to emulate. I look forward to seeing him again when I travel to Sri Lanka someday.

View over Freetown from Hill Station on our way to Makeni #lookingood #rainyseason

UNICEF tent set up outside the Port Loko CCC for Operation Northern Push

     One of my favorite things that happens here involves crossing the street. The streets of Freetown are insane. Okada (motorbike) drivers ignore all the rules (okay, there aren’t actually that many rules here, but they certainly ignore common sense), much like obnoxious cyclists do in the US. There are no stop signs or traffic lights. It’s basically pure madness. There are also tons of little kids on the streets. Unlike in the US where people have gotten arrested for allowing their kids to walk to school alone, kids here are pretty much always walking by themselves. One thing I’ve seen that I absolutely love is little kids crossing the street. If they’re still pretty young, they sometimes get nervous about crossing the street because of all the crazy drivers. When this happens, they will look around with a look that screams “Help me” and a random adult will take their hand, stop traffic and take them across the street. In the US, kids are taught not to talk to strangers, but in Sierra Leone, everyone is like family. As I traveled back from Makeni last week, one of the most outgoing and friendly national staff members, Aminata, traveled back with me. While we were in the car, we stopped at a bunch of different points along the way to buy fruit and whatever else Aminata needed. At one particular stop, everyone was calling her “Aunty” (the term of respect people use here) and trying to get her to buy from them and when we pulled away she was just laughing and asking me if I’d ever seen anything like this. We soon drove by a group of school kids who were walking home and they all started waving and saying hi and I mentioned how much I love when they do that because that’s not typical in the US. Aminata told me that she had taken her son to NYC last year and when they were there she had to tell him, “Don’t do what you’ve been doing in Sierra Leone. Don’t say hi to everyone. Don’t open the door for everyone.” How sad is that? It would be so nice if we could say hi to everyone on the street with being looked at as if we had four heads or if children could open the door for every person who knocked and invite them in without having any reason to be afraid. Sierra Leone has us beat there. On a different note, every time I travel with Aminata we seem to be transporting something outrageous. Note to self: don’t look at what we’re transporting when we drive back from Makeni. Last time I came face to face with a live chicken and this time I ended up sticking my face in a box of cows feet which is really a misnomer because the feet were still attached to what appeared to be a recently severed cows leg. Lesson learned.