Hello all! I apologize for the length of my last blog, and I’m going to try to compensate for that by attempting to keep this post (relatively) short.
Okay, this is all for now. Not quite as long as the last one, but not quite as short as it could have been. Next week we are in the field so I will hopefully have a lot of good stuff to talk about!
Our first week was wonderful – I actually feel like I’ve been here for a month already, but it has only been a week. Much like in Tanzania, each day feels extremely long, but then the weeks are actually flying by. We started our internship with Heifer International. For the first week, we had orientation at the office in Freetown, but every week from now on we will be sent to a different district in the field (which is awesome, because we get to see the entire country, and not just the Freetown area). The Heifer office is really nice - it was a big house that has since been turned into offices, and actually has … air conditioning! It was the most pleasant surprise to get to experience some crisp, cool air. I am really happy to be interning with Heifer - I felt really inspired my first few days when we were introduced to Heifer's work, and I am really appreciative of the opportunity to work for such a credible NGO. The people at Heifer are extremely nice and welcoming (like most Sierra Leoneans), and for the first week we also had access to their driver, so it was a big help in running our errands after work or during lunch. Speaking of lunch, we have found some really good places to eat around Freetown. There is a large Lebanese population here, and that means we get a lot of humus, shwarama, and falafel when we aren’t in the mood for traditional African food (which is also good here, but it’s nice to have a mix). I will put up some pictures of us working diligently around the office. :-)
Aside from Heifer, we kept trying to just get to know Freetown. One of the best things to do in Freetown is actually just drive or walk around. So far, we mostly drive around looking. Driving around is the best way to get snacks, because people come right up to your car with corn on the cob, ginger biscuits, nuts, grilled or fried plantains, sweet popcorn, and a bunch of other snacks that I’m forgetting right now, but it’s like a better version of a drive-thru, lie an authentic African food drive-up. Great stuff. Also, on Friday, our Heifer driver, Tamba, took us around the city, and we got to see the college, the natural history museum, and Parliament (where we sat and talked to Alie's uncle, who is an MP there).
We also spent a lot of nights down at Lumley beach. That is the beach that is closest to us (it's only about a fifteen minute drive to get there), and there are great places to eat right on the water, so we did tried a few of those places out during the week. We went out on Friday night to Lagoonda (back to the place where we had a bit of an altercation the week before), and as promised were put on the VIP guest list (which was ironic, considering I was probably the worst-dressed person there, with the worst hair), and had a great time. There were a lot of people there, and we met a lot of Sierra Leoneans who had spent time, or lived, in the US and were either visiting family back home or coming back to work in Freetown. So I have to tell this story, even though I know that I have constantly been saying how nice and friendly everyone here is, which they are, but obviously not every person in an entire country can be the nicest, and things get exacerbated at clubs. So it was the end of the night, probably almost four in the morning, and we were leaving the club, and as we were walking out, there was an argument with some people that turned into a fight (apparently it was over a girl), which turned into a brawl that not only involved the bouncers, but somehow managed to pin the bouncers against each other and it was so complicated, but hilarious to me, because it was extremely disorganized. We followed the fight upstairs and outside (not because we wanted to watch the fight, but mostly because we wanted to go to our car), and people ended up freaking out and throwing bottles, so glass was flying around. Alie ran away, I hid behind a pillar, Tim ran inside looking for Alie, and Kelly was standing on the steps outside. It was, in a hilarious way, quite dramatic, and I’m not sure why I’m telling the story, but probably because it made me feel really good about Freetown, because they keep it real. Alie doesn’t like seeing fights like that and gets a little worried, but I told him that if it was Baltimore, half of those people would be knifed and shot, and in Sierra Leone, the people who get in fights like that will be best friends the next day. Moral of the story? There is none, just wanted to tell it.
We also spent a lot of nights down at Lumley beach. That is the beach that is closest to us (it's only about a fifteen minute drive to get there), and there are great places to eat right on the water, so we did tried a few of those places out during the week. We went out on Friday night to Lagoonda (back to the place where we had a bit of an altercation the week before), and as promised were put on the VIP guest list (which was ironic, considering I was probably the worst-dressed person there, with the worst hair), and had a great time. There were a lot of people there, and we met a lot of Sierra Leoneans who had spent time, or lived, in the US and were either visiting family back home or coming back to work in Freetown. So I have to tell this story, even though I know that I have constantly been saying how nice and friendly everyone here is, which they are, but obviously not every person in an entire country can be the nicest, and things get exacerbated at clubs. So it was the end of the night, probably almost four in the morning, and we were leaving the club, and as we were walking out, there was an argument with some people that turned into a fight (apparently it was over a girl), which turned into a brawl that not only involved the bouncers, but somehow managed to pin the bouncers against each other and it was so complicated, but hilarious to me, because it was extremely disorganized. We followed the fight upstairs and outside (not because we wanted to watch the fight, but mostly because we wanted to go to our car), and people ended up freaking out and throwing bottles, so glass was flying around. Alie ran away, I hid behind a pillar, Tim ran inside looking for Alie, and Kelly was standing on the steps outside. It was, in a hilarious way, quite dramatic, and I’m not sure why I’m telling the story, but probably because it made me feel really good about Freetown, because they keep it real. Alie doesn’t like seeing fights like that and gets a little worried, but I told him that if it was Baltimore, half of those people would be knifed and shot, and in Sierra Leone, the people who get in fights like that will be best friends the next day. Moral of the story? There is none, just wanted to tell it.
I wanted to keep this kind of short for you, so I’m going to move right along into the best part of the weekend, which was checking out some of Sierra Leone’s fantastic beaches. Here’s where the idea of hindsight came in – I could probably write a bunch of hilarious antidotes from the day, which mostly included us leaving 5 hours after we wanted to, spending 2 hours getting out of the city only to turn around and go back through the city to get to the beaches, or showing up at beaches with no place to stay and then having to stay in the creepiest place ever, but I don’t have that kind of time. I will really briefly tell you that the only time I have legitimately been worried here or felt slightly unsafe was Saturday night, when we needed a place to stay and the place where we wanted to stay was booked, so the people there called this other place that was on a different beach and told them we were coming, so we went. We got there at night, so it was dark, and picked up the guy who runs the place on the side of the road. I was asleep when we picked him up, and was sleeping with my head against the door, but woke right up when he opened the door to get into the car and I went flying down (luckily I caught my gigantic head before it sent me tumbling out of the car). Anyway, he takes us to our “hotel” which was completely dark, in the middle of nowhere, and pulling up on these unpaved, rocky roads, I thought that this was it: this was the way people rob you, by brining you somewhere where you can’t drive away, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere and take all our shit. Luckily, it didn’t turn out that way at all, and the guy was really nice. But the place he took us was not even opened yet, and they had to literally unlock it and turn on the power just for us because nobody else was staying there. We were too scared to stay in separate rooms, so all four of us stayed together in one room, with no running water, a tiny light, a small window, no air conditioning, and the fans in the room didn’t work because we lost power all night. It was the most uncomfortable, stifling room I have ever stayed in. The funny part, though, is that we all slept until ten. We woke up around eight, and were hot and miserable, but all fell back asleep. I am slowly becoming impervious to my surroundings, and am finding that I can sleep anywhere, which is certainly helpful in Africa. In the morning, with the light of day, we realized that we weren’t actually in the Sierra Leone version of the Blair Witch Project, and actually were at the most beautiful, secluded beach I had ever seen. Lessons learned? Book ahead, research places to stay (even though Kelly did and still somehow this happened), and if a place is booked, you can rent a mat and sleep on the beach for a dollar, which would have been better than the place we stayed. But then we wouldn’t have gotten to see the amazing beach (which is called Bureh, by the way), so really the lesson learned is that hindsight or not, wherever you are, there you are, and you can probably find something awesome, which we did.
River No. 2 beach
This is the creepy shack we stayed in, but woke up to the beautiful Bureh beach.
These ones are from Tokeh beach
I really could write about them for pages and pages, but will spare you and let you look at pictures. Although the pictures do not do them justice. Let me just say this: Sierra Leone is the most underrated, unsung hero of beach countries. The beaches are soft, white sand, clean beaches with no people on them (actually, one of the beaches, River No. 2, is more popular and crowded, but even the "crowded" beach only has about 20 people on it). It’s like having a private island, except it costs about five dollars to experience it. Again, I could say more, and one day I will post an entire blog about the beaches here, but for now, just know that they are the most incredible, tropical, lush, fun beaches, and we will going to them hopefully every weekend when we come back from the field. I'm going to post some videos (which I hope turn out okay) and get some pictures going!
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