I met Yusef on my original visit to the school. He's in 3rd grade and I was surprised when he spoke English to me. This is quite a feat for a third grader considering this is his third language (most of his village speaks Temne, which is very difficult, at least to me, it took the entire two days for me to master "thank you" "momo" and "you're welcome" "yo"). Anyway, he and I clicked. He was the only kid that would smile in photos, and who was really talking to me that much.
Yusef is blind in his left eye. On my first visit, I didn't pay much attention to it. Not that blindness is something to sneeze at, but in a country with two major hospitals, no national healthcare program at all, and several natural diseases that cause blindness, I just assumed one of these factors had been the cause. After school that day he came and found me. He kind of climbed up the porch I was sitting on and I motioned him to come sit so we could chat. A bunch of older girls had already gathered and were giggling intermittently at me, we were going through the take your picture, show you, you laugh, now we're friends routine.Yusef and I got to chatting and since he was wearing an Italy Soccer t-shirt I (so stupidly) asked him if he liked to play football. He pointed to his eye and shook his head. I asked him how that happened. I think he was explaining it to me in Krio because I caught the word mother. At this point I had scared away the girls because they were being kind of mean to Yusef. (Adult authority is an absolute, no need to make any verbal sense, loud noises and hand motions work fine). There were some grown ups gathered around the porch including Osman (the husband of Memuna, Albert's sister, I would estimate he's around 50) who speaks Temne, Krio and English. I asked Osman (pronounced Os like the o in yous, man like man) to translate and as he and the men on the porch listened to Yusef, they actually gasped and hung their heads.
Before Osman translated it back to me, and by this time I was nervous to hear it, he paused and took a deep breath. He said that Yusef and his younger sister were the children of the second wife who had been killed. The first wife, had been angry with the husband (still not clear as to if this man is Yusef's actual father or a step dad due to translation issues), and took it out on Yusef by putting cleaning fluid in his eye, blinding him.
Yusef was just looking at the floor. I was stunned and horrified, as were all the men on the porch. To be clear, this isn't commonplace. Osman, who is a fine example of what it means to be a man, went on to try to explain to me some of the complexities that can arise from having multiple wives (he only has one, he's just speaking on behalf of others). This is something I'd always wondered myself, after a handful of proposals in Egypt and India (always as wife #2 or #3) I not only refused, but would question my suitor as to how it would be that wife #1 really truly wouldn't get kind of P.O.ed at that situation. Not that it would justify unfathomably wretched child abuse, but even in the best case, I would agree with Osman's assessment that a lot of jealousies are going to erupt. That's in addition to the financial burden and other practicalities.
At that point I was having a difficult time not kidnapping Yusef and his sister (yes, Madonna-style). But since I am not Madonna, they technically have a father (even if he's a huge butthole), I would get arrested, I cannot properly raise two kids right now, who knows the multitude of implications taking them from their village to downtown San Francisco might have, and that I'd likely get arrested and thrown in a prison in Freetown (that doesn't sound fun, I bet there are really big spiders in there), I decided against it. For now, through a complex system of generous couriers, I am going to try to write him letters and send him things. I am also going to pay for Secondary School (like high school, but it isn't free here) for him and his sister. Not that this is some hugely expensive task, it's less than $500 USD for the whole thing per kid. Let me know if you are interested, lots of families can't afford it.
But, I still wish I could kidnap him. He's just a smart and kind little boy. And I am pretty sure that story will haunt me forever.
Getting back to the brighter aspects of my visit...a little later Memuna took me on a very long walk through the main street of the village. We were followed by a herd of pickins (children) and I felt a bit like the pied piper. We greeted everyone with good afternoon, which I could probably say but cannot spell, in Temne (oooh 3 words now!). Most of the houses are bafas (walls made out of stick frames, with mud walls and thatched roofs), but there are some made of cement, we passed the chief’s house and the bafa under which town meetings are held. Then we crossed a stream to Mamaka 2 (Mamaka 1 is so large that it has become 2 villages).
After the stream we got to open clearing. It's hard to describe the landscape of Sierra Leone. In many ways it reminds me of Florida, only less flat and the palm trees are nicer here. To the left there was a large pond with lily pads and tall, perfectly straight palm trees off in the distance. To the right there was a larger grassy clearing dotted with more beautiful palm trees. On the way back we saw men just emerge from the forest or the side of the road carrying hoes, they were done with their work day and coming home for dinner.Just before twilight set in, Memuna asked me if I wanted to see Magbondo Village. Heck yes! Magbondo is about a 30 minute drive deeper into the, forest?, from Mamaka. They are in the midst of completing an application with SLVP for a Primary School as well. So Osman, Memuna, me, the Chief of Mamaka Village and Alie (the brother of another board member of SLVP, Willie) and the Chief's 2 year old son (who luckily was no longer scared, like, ready to cry scared, at the sight of me) jumped in the 4WD and drove deep on the one way dirt road to Magbondo.
We first arrived to find their school, a bafa similar to the one that Mamaka had originally constructed. I photographed away, as it was growing dark. Several grownups were running up to us, the first to reach us was an impressive teacher, the second was the headmaster (principal) who was filling out the application. Then they took me on a tour of their village too. It was beautiful, just like Mamaka. Magbondo is situated on a river and has a natural resource in the river's sand, which they not only use to build but are able to sell or trade to neighboring villages.
Their river was really beautiful. When we came upon it there were a couple of teenagers using a hollowed out tree canoe to transport a bike across the river. She was topless, but not facing me and far enough away that I could photograph them and not be rude. It was a classic bizarre phase of development photo. They also had a kind of baby palm tree forest where they were keeping the piles of sand they'd pulled up from the banks. You'll see the photos, it was really beautiful. Then I emerged from the baby palm forest to see most of the village elders (the whole village is 1,000 people) assembled. Yikes, um, am I supposed to say something? We haven’t even seen their proposal yet and we are now about 5 projects deep and I feel like I could drive in any direction and find 100 projects. Ok, smile, relax, and pretend they are an un-named large high tech company who's account I used to work on, who's "chief" was a big-time yeller.Actually, it was fine. Memuna helped me out by showing the headmaster another application that we have in for a school that is similar in size to the one that they need. I explained to them about the working in partnership part, made sure they didn't think Osman, Memuna or I was getting paid (common misconception) and that the money comes from private citizens who are donating it. They were so grateful, that they gave me a goat! Here is where I made a large error. I couldn't help it, my goat was totally cute. I was so touched by the gesture, that I was working hard not to cry. While I did manage not to, we said our goodbyes and put the goat in the back of the 4WD and drove back to Mamaka in the dark.
As I was thinking of the goat that was pretty quiet save for a few bleats when we went over bumps, I decided to name him Kevin. To Kevin Luther, this is not meant to be personal, I've always liked the name, and I wanted to give my goat a nice Irish name. Just as an FYI to everyone, if someone gives you a goat as a thank you, it's probably best not to name it. I awoke the next morning to the sound of Kevin being dragged outside to have his throat slit. I quickly got dressed so I could say goodbye and of course, photograph the whole thing, I know, I'm sick. That was also a stupid move because I was then later offered an entire pot of pepper goat stew. I could only eat a small bite. The photos are pretty cool though, if you have a strong stomach, or would like motivation to become a vegetarian.One more note on that evening and then I should go. Tomorrow we are leaving on a longer trip to visit 4 villages I don't think I will be back until Monday. After dinner that night on the porch one of the adults was shining his flashlight on the ceiling to deliberately watch the festival of insects going on. Very Temple of Doom. I felt my heart rate go up so decided I should remove myself from the situation and look at the stars. I've never seen so many stars. I've been on
safari in South Africa, to remote parts of Mongolia, and India where I thought I'd seen a pretty decent night sky. But I just stood there like an idiot with my mouth open for about 10 minutes before Osman came over and had to ask me what I was looking at. I think we were both perplexed. How had I never seen these many stars, several in different colors and shapes (no, I hadn't had too much palm wine). I think I’d just never been that far from a big bundle of lights before. I bet it looks even better with palm wine though, am looking forward to testing this theory.
Talk to you when I am back from "up country,"
Maureen
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