Closing a Chapter

Sprawling impossibly up steep coastal mountains, Freetown normally provides for spectacular ocean views, which have of late been obscured by a thick haze. With the dry season, Harmattan, has arrived - the wind that blows in from the Sahara across West Africa to as far as South America. The cool dry wind brings relief from the oppressive heat and humidity of the recent rainy season, but also dust and sand picked up from the desert, creating what’s known as Harmattan Haze.

That particles of desert sand can find themselves transplanted to the lush green hillsides of tropical Sierra Leone reminded me how truly interconnected the world is despite vast distances. I sometimes feel like one of those particles of sand, a foreign object transplanted far from home.

The decision to live and work overseas was never an easy one for me, despite my belief that we have a responsibility to each other that is not limited by regional or national boundaries. I’ve often wondered if working and living in a cultural context that is not my own was the most responsible or effective way for me to work. Recently I have taken solace that like the sand brought by the Harmattan wind, while foreign, I’m also part of a natural force of interconnectedness that has existed since the earliest of human migrations.

Here in Sierra Leone, a migration of sorts is under way for the Canadian Red Cross delegation. With the distribution campaign portion of the Sierra Leone Malaria Program finished, the supporting team members here have begun heading home. As such, the past two weeks have been busy with wrap up, including everything from consolidating finances to writing final reports to conducting debriefing meetings.

For me, the day to day work during the past two weeks has been mostly spent at the office, in meetings or running around town trying to find replacement parts for the Landcruisers. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it can be to find ‘Genuine Toyota Parts’ in Freetown (as opposed to knock off imitation parts that would nullify our insurance).

Shopping here is definitely more of an art than a science. There is no phone book, and if there were, there are usually no phones. The shops are often not well identified and usually stock such a bizarre mish-mash of things that it would take a blind guess for someone who doesn’t know any better (like me) to find something as specific as ‘Genuine Toyota Parts’.

Luckily for me I had the help of one of our drivers, Francis. Like most drivers, Francis is a source of support and assistance and someone we rely on heavily for everything from translating to negotiating. To call them drivers seems, at times, to do a disservice to all the other ways they contribute.

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to enjoy a very rare day off, which we spent at the beach. There are beautiful beaches here, clean white sand stretches out under towering palms into crystal clear water. We spend almost all day everyday in the office and normally continue to work once we arrive home in the evenings to our delegate house, so this trip to the beach was a welcomed break. My impression is that it can be tough sometimes for delegates to strike a balance between work and time for themselves and the results are often cumulative stress and burn out. As such, the few times we can go out to eat or for a walk around town are to be relished for the peace of mind they bring.

For those headed home, it was one last bit of sun before stepping off the plane in Ottawa to what I can only imagine is cold and snow. For those of us staying, it was a chance to say goodbye. I will now stay on and assist Marcy, the Malaria Program Advisor with other malaria prevention campaigns in other countries.

Like the particle of Saharan desert sand, I will gladly go where the wind takes me.

Post Campaign

I have spent the past few days traveling up country with Hlin, our finance delegate, to Makeni and Bo for regional meetings with the field officers from all of Sierra Leone’s 12 districts. We went primarily to gather data, consolidate finances and conduct debriefings, but also to listen to and gather any feedback on the campaign.

The core responsibility of the Sierra Leone Red Cross before, during and after the campaign was social mobilization. This required organizing 4,000 volunteers to sensitize their respective communities to the issue of malaria, to bed-net use, and to ensure they came out during the campaign to receive vaccinations and nets for their children under five.

The Hang-Up portion of the project finished last week with volunteers circulating house-to-house across the country to ensure nets were received by all under fives and that they are properly hung and being used.

It was great to hear the enthusiasm of the field officers as they explained how successful the program has been so far. Most felt that because of the program, there is now better recognition of the Red Cross in their communities and more interest from volunteers to continue to work on community based health initiatives.

These are encouraging signs for a country rebuilding from conflict and struggling with a myriad of health issues. Local communities now have a base of volunteers willing and able to continue with not just malaria prevention but other community-based health care initiatives, and community members are now more aware than ever that the Red Cross can provide such care.

Returning to Freetown, it reminded me again of the stark contrast between it and the small rural villages up country. There you find no more than two dozen mud brick homes with thatched palm roofs between which women pound grain, lay out laundry or cook on open fires. Children, when not balancing bundles of wood or buckets of water a top there heads, are either playing barefoot or are part of a seemingly endless procession of those dressed in crisp bright school uniforms on their way to or from school.

By contrast, Freetown is a jumble of decaying concrete buildings and corrugated tin shacks. There is garbage littered everywhere, sometimes in huge piles on the side of the road. The streets of Freetown are crowded with taxis and mini buses and people carrying oil, coal, wood, tires, everything you can imagine.

Christmas decorations and small artificial Christmas trees have even appeared amongst the street vendors over the past few weeks. You can find almost anything here, but without knowing where, you might think that all that can be bought are used clothes and mobile phones. What an amazing phenomenon that in a place with little or no electrical, water, or sanitation systems, almost everyone here has a cell phone.

As a good friend recently reminded me, it can be easy to be lured into romanticizing rural village life, especially in contrast to the chaos of urban centres, but there is nothing idyllic about the poverty in which people live. In both Freetown and the rural villages, life is hard, even putting aside the atrocities faced by most during the war; daily life is a brutal grind. There are few opportunities for employment and most people struggle to make more than a dollar a day.

In spite of the difficulties they face, people are extremely resilient. One of the dangers in trying to describe (or to understand for that matter) a place like Sierra Leone is the tendency to describe (or see) only what is different from home. The most important things often go unnoticed like the playfulness of children, the love of their parents, and the camaraderie of friends.

Here, as everywhere, there is life in all its tragedy, joy and complexity.