Thirty hours on land, air, and sea. It seems an endlessly long and turbulent ride, but in reality such a short trip to a wildly different world. Let me take you with me here – riding along in my backpack from plane to plane with our group of 21, past the smooth punctuality of Brussels and the welcoming grins of Salone immigration and health officials – through to outside the Freetown airport where men throw our luggage high on top of a waiting poda-poda and tie it down securely with only a tarp to cover from the rain. I stand guard like a watchdog over the two bags full of fragile surgical supplies as I repeat over and over, “this one is medical supply; it needs to go in the car.”
Let me take you past the lush tropical greenery and bare concrete buildings with bold-patterned cloth doors fluttering in the wind. Look with me through the sea-salty breeze as our ferry draws closer across the bay to a large blue-and-white hospital ship. Can you see the light shining out from your cabin window? Veer with me through the erratic traffic, and don’t forget to duck your head and hang on as we bump down the half-paved road after a brief ship visit. There is less chance of whiplash and head injuries if you just go limp and disjointed, flopping aimlessly with the jolts like a rag doll in the clothes dryer.
This place is familiar to me. The sellers call in the streets, the sticky heat presses down like an electric blanket; the dusty breeze is reminiscent of salt air and chickens and frying plantain chips and humanity. A fruit seller dressed in a lappa and lit up only by a single flame from roasting peanuts looks up to wave and smile a welcome. Well Come, Massey Sheep (welcome, Mercyshippers), welcome home.
Our hostel is tile and concrete, reminiscent of my Indonesian childhood home. It is beautiful here, with the mountains surrounding and a view of the ocean in the distance. The evenings are peaceful and dark (at least until the electricity comes on again), and the cool of the trickling showers is briefly refreshing, a reprieve from the continual sweat and stickiness. We live a few minutes drive and a thousand friendly greetings away from the village we will be working in, Yams Farm Wharf. Yams Farm is perched at the mouth of a river, with much of the livelihood gleaned from collecting wood and selling sand for construction gathered by boat from the river. Our welcome is nothing short of wildly enthusiastic as we bounce in over the potholes - serious faces light up into broad grins from adults and children alike. One little boy wearing only tattered overalls is jumping up and down outside his house, with both hands outstretched and opening and closing furiously in greeting. We pull in just down the hill from the school as a roaring crowd of uniformed schoolchildren surround our poda-poda to beat on the sides and shake hands through the windows as they run alongside. Well-come whiitaman (white man), well-come. The chant grows louder and louder as we open the door to climb out. I feel like an undeserving celebrity as I wade out into the crowd holding hands with twelve kids at once.
There is a school there already – a small one-room building for 270 children in 7 different grades. On Sunday the building doubles as a church, with the school benches and desks as pews. The décor reflects a bit of both, with a banner and lectern on the raised concrete podium and blackboards encircling the edges of the room. The chickens attend both school and church on occasion, gleaning any bits of crumbs that have fallen from our lunch, or bugs they find in the dirt floor. Out the window you can see our construction site less than 10 feet away. Over the next few weeks we will be working on building another school so that the classes can spread out into both buildings as the numbers of children continue to grow. Everywhere I look there is excitement and hope, reflected out of shining eyes and back into my own. I am excited to see what God will do over the next two weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment