For our first week of fieldwork, we were sent to the Port Loko district, which is only about two hours north of Freetown (correction: it is two hours north of Freetown after you spent an hour and a half getting out of the city itself because there is so much traffic). We were really excited to get into the field and get some hands-on experience, and were also anticipating some rough accommodations. You cannot imagine our surprise when the guesthouse we arrived at provided us with rooms that had wireless Internet, hot running water, flat screen TVs, and air conditioning. I noticed this in Tanzania, and am now noticing it here, but African countries are places of paradox. We are in one of the most rural, poor districts in one of the least developed countries in the world, but are enjoying amenities that we don’t even have on our mansion in Freetown. Does any of it make sense? Absolutely not, but I am greatly appreciative of a hot shower (taking a week off from the bucket is nice). Port Loko is much hotter than Freetown (it has been around a hundred degrees and we are in the sun all day), so air conditioning is the single greatest thing that could have possibly happened to us. (Side note: the power at the guesthouse is shut off from 7:00am through 5:00pm, so this is the only way the massive use of power is allowed during the other hours). It has also been nice to watch a little TV; we have been watching all the international friendly soccer games, and get to watch the news (which, I have to admit, I had no idea what the hell has been going on in the world – Occupy? NBA? Syria? So much stuff I have been missing out on but now I feel mostly caught up).
Okay, enough about our sweet accommodations. Let me get into the fieldwork, because it has been extremely interesting and rewarding work. We have to play more of an observatory role, simply because 1) we don’t speak the language and 2) it would not be appreciated for a bunch of white people to show up out of nowhere and start telling people what they’re doing wrong, which I would never want to do. So we get a much more satisfactory role of being welcomed guests where people proudly show off their homes, their families, and their Heifer gifts (when someone gets an animal or rice or anything from Heifer, it is referred to as the Heifer gift). I actually need to explain something here: Heifer International gives out all sorts of gifts (cows, goats, pigs, chickens, wells, seeds, all sorts of stuff), but the Sierra Leone operation is different and new, and only gives out goats and sheep, as well as seed and rice). One thing we learned is that Sierra Leoneans historically and culturally do not consume goat milk (kind of like how Americans don’t either, although that is starting to change), so the goats they receive are only used for meat. Upon hearing this, there was a big part of me that grew almost frustrated, because goat milk can be extremely nutritious, and it seems like the people who receive the goats have this huge opportunity for sustenance that they waste, but you have to reconcile what you know could be more helpful with being culturally sensitive to the people. So anyway, the goats given out, at least right now, are raised for meat, but they are trying to introduce the idea of using goat milk.
The first day we spent hours and hours visiting each of the sheds. The Pork Loko district is like a county, so within the county there are a bunch of villages to see, and it takes a while to get to each one since many of the roads are bumpy and unpaved. Each time we arrived at a new village, we had such a warm reception, that it literally felt like I was a C-list celebrity. Definitely not Justin Beiber status, but we got enough crowds that gathered around the cars and handshakes and pictures and waves that I felt at least as popular as one of the less popular Baldwins. Do you remember how in Tanzania, the Swahili word for white person was ‘mzungo’? Well here, in Timne the word is ‘apohto’. So at each village, we hear crowds of children (and women) yelling “apohto apohto apohto” and waving at us. None of this is done in a negative way; in fact, people are extremely interested in seeing us and getting to touch us and talk to us, because it’s a place where they really don’t see any white people at all. Since we are in the provinces, people don’t even really speak Krio; they speak their local tribal language, which here in the North is Timne. We have been getting pretty good at understanding Krio and speaking some phrases, but now have to start all over again with Time. So far, we know how to say hello and how are you and thank you and goodbye. People love when you speak Timne to them; they usually laugh hysterically at us, but greatly appreciate it and enjoy communicating with us in any way they can. I have found this in every country I’ve been to where I don’t speak the language, but you realize how much you can communicate and how much you are able to understand simply by body language, hand gestures, and voice inflection. I have seen this in so many countries, but every time I am still a little amazed and floored by it.
We have had a lot of funny experiences with the people in the field. The thing that is most amusing to me is that the young kids are genuinely a little scared of us. I have never experienced a child being terrified of me (although it makes sense). The older kids aren’t scared at all, and are mostly interesting in playing with us, but the really young children are very fearful of us. I had to pull out all of my best tricks and games, and sometimes even then they didn’t work and the child would remain screaming in front of me. The mothers are particularly funny, because they love taking their little babies and thrusting them at you, and then when the babies scream and cry (and by babies, I mean 1-3 year olds) they laugh kindly at them and make you take their picture. I always enjoy when parents laugh at their kids and aren’t psychotically protective of them, and I really enjoyed all of the mothers I met this past week.
Another thing in the field is that everyone wants to get their picture taken. They say “Apohto, snap me!” over and over again until they get their photo taken. Luckily Kelly is here and is well equipped to snap away (sometimes I yell over at Kelly and say “Hey Apohto, snap me!” so I can feel like a local). The best part of the whole process is that Kelly always shows them the picture after she takes it, and everyone gathers around the camera and when they see the photo appear on the screen, they go crazy and yell and laugh and cheer. It’s so funny. And it happened about 100 times in each village. It’s crazy to think that people have literally never had their photo taken, and how amazed they must be when they see their faces on the screen, captured permanently.
Something I never expected to have happen on this trip was to fall in love. With goats. And to learn more about them than I ever could have imagined. First of all, I think goats are the cutest things ever. They are really soft, and sweet, and the baby ones are snuggly. So I decided I want to have one as a pet. However, there is a dark side of goat life in SL, and I need to tell you about the sex addiction, rape, abortions, and prostitution that is heavily prevalent among goats here. (The radical Christian right could have a freaking field day here.) I hope you don’t think I’m joking, and I will take you through the cycle of sex addiction-rape-abortions-and prostitution that goats deal with here. Okay, first let’s talk sex addiction. Apparently for every one male goat, he needs to mate with fifty females to be sexually satisfied. Fifty? Really, goats? That’s a little selfish, but that’s the way it is I guess. What happens when they don’t get their sex on with fifty females is that they go crazy with the females they do have access to, and they end up literally repeatedly having sex with them. Now, if the females they have access to are pregnant, then the repeated goat sex actually causes them to lose the baby. The solution to this? Male goat owners lend their goats out to have sex with other females, to keep them sexually satisfied and to keep the females safe, effectively pimping out the males. So there you have it, a vicious cycle. Luckily it’s all part of nature and it’s happening to goats and not people, but it’s a more dramatic life than you could have imagined! On a more serious note, not that any of this wasn’t serious, there are legitimate problems with seemingly healthy goats that drop dead all of the sudden, and it’s because of PPR, a virus that gets passed around and contaminates all the livestock. It’s really unfortunate when the Heifer participants lose goats, because the entire system is dependent upon raising goats and breeding them and passing off their offspring to other families. Getting access to medicine, vaccinations, and veterinarians is extremely difficult here, and Heifer works hard to try to keep the animals as healthy as possible as often as possible. That’s why they visit the sheds, which we did on Tuesday, every two weeks. They inspect the sheds to make sure they are clean, dry, and raised off the ground, and make sure there is enough clean food for the animals. So that was the bulk of what we did in the field on Tuesday.
Wednesday was a really cool day, and we went to just one village for the Participatory Self Review and Planning meeting, which happens every quarter, and is essentially the group’s way of assessing where it stands and coming up with any necessary plans of action and ways to move forward most productively. Some groups are more contentious, but this group was very cohesive and mostly on the same page, so we didn’t get to do much conflict resolution-ing. However, it was nice to see such a united group of men, women, and children. One of Heifer’s cornerstones is that they don’t give gifts to a person, but to a family who collectively nurtures the gift. It is also about building the capacity of the whole community, and this group has really managed to do these things well. When we pulled up, we were greeted with a song, and the men and women sang to us while we made our way to the meeting area, and then the children all ran over, joined in, and then sang us their own welcome song. It was really nice. The meeting started with two prayers; one was a Muslim prayer, and one was the Our Father. I liked it because it demonstrated the open-mindedness and appreciation of both the Muslim and Christian religions, and it’s something that has consistently impressed me in this country. Anyway, the meeting got underway, and after introductions and welcomes, people voted. I like the voting system here. In true democratic form, each person gets one vote (for each of the areas on which they vote, and there are many), and they cast their vote simply going into a room one at a time and placing their stone into one of three boxes. Essentially, for each topic area, they vote to say whether or not that area has been unfulfilled, almost fulfilled, or fulfilled. It takes a long time to do, but is worth it because each vote is counted, and even if the vote is 26-1, the 1 vote gets a discussion, so essentially, everyone’s voice is heard and discussed. At the end of the voting on each topic, people get to raise any general grievances that they have, and a few people explained that many of the animals they received had died, which obviously effects everyone there. Their problems were heard, discussed, and an action plan to quarantine the animals and send a veterinarian out was implemented, as well as the next meeting time. During the course of the meeting, we sat and observed, and I noticed that we don’t really need much translation of the Krio anymore (the Krio was also translated into Timne, which we obviously don’t understand at all), but Krio, once you realize how similar it is to English, is actually quite easy to understand. There are certain nuances and words I can’t pick up, but I didn’t need a translation for the majority of it, which was pretty cool. Also during the course of the meeting, the kids would come running over, so from time to time I would get up to play with them. People also came up when they got up to vote to either say hi, or, sometimes, to hand me their baby. Typical.
Our last day in the field was the least exciting, but probably our greatest contribution to Heifer. We spent the whole day in the office and generated Excel spreadsheets to organize data that Heifer collects from its groups. In some ways it was tedious, but we actually enjoyed looking at the data collected and getting a better idea, on paper, of how much (or really, how little) the people in Port Loko have. Many households have at least 10 people (we saw households with up to 30), men have multiple wives, there are usually a few children not going to school, and when we put the data across spread sheets, you find that most people are eating very little other than rice. There is also a level of frustration that comes from taking packets of information and needing to transpose them onto spreadsheets; there is a definite lack of cohesion in responses, none of the data complements each other or points to any clear trends. It is definitely frustrating, but we are hoping that we helped out a lot in organizing records for Heifer.
I wrote a lot again, and I want to post this before I lose Internet, so I’m ending it here. We head back to Freetown tomorrow, but are only spending one night and then heading to the BANANA ISLANDS for the weekend before going back to the field on Monday.
Have a good weekend, everyone, I'll leave you with some videos of the kids we met this week.
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