Freetown

I dare not look at how long it has been since my last blog....and the phrase 'way too long' would probably be cliche. But either way.....here is my first Freetown Blog.

We arrived in this lively, colourful, busy, manic, congested (this list of superlatives could continue on and on) at the end of February, after a long sail up from Durban, SA - with a wonderfully surreal 24 hour stop off in Cape Town.

Freetown is the kind of place you don't describe, it's the kind of place you experience. In other west African cities we've been to, there are usually designated market areas. Here, the whole City is a Market, and the vehicles just have to deal with that. It can and regularly does take up to 3 hours to travel a matter of miles in a car - and more often than not - will be quicker to walk than drive anywhere. A few weeks ago we went out for pizza. We left at 5.30 pm (rush hour) and we reached our destination nearly 3 hours later. When we left, it took us 20 minutes to get back to the ship! 

Along with getting use to the uniqueness of the City, we are obviously here to work - and that so far has had its highs and lows. We held a mass screening, as we usually do, at the start of the year at the national football stadium a week or 2 after we arrived. It did not take long for the entire ship community to get a very large and painful wake up call to the desperation of poverty in this country and the heart breaking after effects of the brutal civil war that ravaged this land. There were many converging factors that took place on the morning of our screening - of which I do not need to go into detail. But there was a heartbreaking conclusion as the crowds of many thousands crushed and crammed and eventually broke down into a mass surge of people, resulting in groups of people getting trampled and injured, and eventually led to the death of one man waiting to be seen by the medical staff. Our screening had to be halted as we did what we could to restore some order and our medical staff did all that they could with the beyond limited means that they had at their disposal to aid the victims. Needless to say that we all returned to the ship in a somber mood as we had to face up to the events of the day.

However, some surgeries had been booked and we were able to begin our surgery schedule, and within a few weeks, we held another screening at a new venue and this time it all went to plan. So the Hospital has been up and running for 8 weeks now and we have already done hundreds of life changing and life saving surgeries. Our dental team have seen well over 2000 people and our eye team around the same figure. Tumors have been removed, cleft lips repaired, bowed legs made straight and club feet re-aligned. 

It is wonderful to see the changes in peoples lives and the relief on their faces as they come to terms with the knock on effects that their surgery will have on their lives. They can now work, go to school and most importantly - have the opportunity of a normal life within their community.

But it is, as always, sobering to take a step back and look at life - real life - on the streets, in the villages, in the communities of this City. Freetown has doubled in size within a matter of years since the end of the war, and the place just cannot handle that many people. There is not enough water to go around. The local government turn water on and off at different times of the week to different areas of the city, in hope that everyone has at least a chance once a week to get some water. There is not enough room for people to build homes, so the suburbs have spread up the side of the mountains that encircle the city. 

Clay houses build on clay foundations on the side of a mountain. 

Rainy season lasts a few months each year, and each year, everyone of the people who live on the mountain go to bed at night hoping and praying that their house will still be standing in the morning and that they have not been washed down the side in a mud slide. 

I've been on this ship for over 18 months now....and I still do not feel that I can yet process what I have seen. How people live here, how I lived at home. What people here are willing to do in order to get medical treatment, what we at home do when our taxes are raised a little or we have to wait a few hours. How people are happy and content that their house is still standing after the rains have come and gone to 

how we watch reality make over shows and 'wish' we had a house that cool, nice, beautiful or whatever.

I find it hard to process life in West Africa, I find it scary to think of life in the West. 

I hope that you can join me in being willing to openly live in this tension.