June 9
Today we got lost. It happens, especially when the streets are not straight, maps don't exist, and you've only walked the pathway once before. Nonetheless, it set off some cartographical aspirations – we're going to make a map of Koidu Town. Or at least those parts that we use to get to and from the clinic and Sunshine, my new favorite eatery.
So we started late on our morning of health education. Jalloh and I were going to set off to finish all the houses in Domah, but no one was home. So we trekked down the road back past the clinic to Koyou-1.
"You know, in Kono, de people dey always walk with dere eyes down." The Krio accent sounds very cool.
"For diamonds?"
"Yeah, for diamonds, cause you never know, you never know. Maybe I'm a lucky man, maybe I find a diamond."
"Huh. Maybe,"
"Before, before the war, you could just walk along a road like this and find diamonds, just right dere. But den de rebels came, and dey took everything."
"Oh... they traded them for guns, right?"
"Yeah, dey did."
Silence, walking, hot. The sun is really hot. There's not really any shade near the clinic, which was nearby. We were walking at 'Africa speed' – just a step per minute short of breaking into a sweat.
"You know, my family, we used to spend a month every summer, at a big lake two hours from where I live."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, it was so big you can't see across it, it looks like the ocean. And there's a big beach, too, kind of like the beaches in Freetown. On the beach there are strips of rocks, and once some guy told us that we should look for rocks with holes in them."
"Rocks with holes in them?"
"Yeah, holey rocks. They're really good luck, apparently. So at first we never found them. But eventually we got really good at seeing them, and it's the same, we were always looking down, looking for holey rocks."
Jalloh laughed.
A bit later, Jalloh bent down and picked up a little pointy speck of glass. I'm pretty sure it was glass; he thought it was a diamond. Maybe it is a diamond. I'm no expert.
Eventually we got to Koyou-1. Katie and Ahmidu were sitting, surrounded by a small crowd of Africans. We skipped over them and went to the furthest house. Koyou-1 is very much in the middle of a larger community, but it's only six houses. We sat down with an old woman, a single amputee. We shook hands in the African way, grip, change the grip upwards, grip again, squeeze as you pull away, and then place your palm firmly on your heart. "Me nem na Sahr Christopher." I mostly introduce myself with my "Kono name." Most people laugh; unfortunately this lady was just confused.
"Me nem na Jalloh."
"... nem na Kumba." She mumbled, but it wasn't a senile old-person mumble, more of a wary, suspicious, no longer strong but whip-smart mumble.
I explained to her in halting Krio, with help from Jalloh, that we were there to talk about some health education topics, and that I was trying to learn Krio but that Jalloh would translate for me when it was necessary. Then I launched into the module – the malaria module – that I had memorized the night before. I'll post it as its own blog entry.
"Me na student, we commot amputee clinic... How for stop malaria, you fo sleep unda mosquita tent... I wan ask two-three question for know if you done understand..."
At the end of the malaria module, a young woman, Maryam, came and sat on the corner of the porch with us. As she sat down she pulled her little girl out of the fabric-tie-snuggly and held her in her arms. Most kids are absolutely fascinated with my skin; they touch me and then quickly pull back their hands and look at them, to see if the white rubbed off. But teenagers are apathetic (what a surprise) and very small children are terrified. Sometimes slightly older kids will torment the smallest ones by dragging them near me. I like to see that, it puts things in perspective. By that I mean, the children here are not the starving stills with soulful eyes that you see in WorldVision ads; they're mean and cute, curious and sweet, playful, loud, messy, excitable.
Again we explained the nutrition module very carefully, finding out all about the woman's daughter. The daughter was 16 months old, and completely terrified of me. Fortunately she overcame her terror and fell asleep, and then when she woke up she seemed not to remember that I hadn't always been there.
All of sudden everyone stood up.
"Stand up." Jalloh told me softly.
I stood up. My mind was suddenly racing. Some women, dressed in magnificent colorful African dresses, were walking slowly down the side of the road. Rebels? Soldiers? Procession? Should I be scared? Run? What's going on?
The woman in front was holding a mat, rolled up.
"A baby has died." Jalloh spoke softly.
I guess the baby was in the mat. They passed slowly, and I was struck by one young woman at the end. Her cheekbones were very bony, and her hair was pulled into tiny tight braids. She wore a brilliant blue dress with orange and green patterns, and her face was wet; perhaps with tears.
Eventually everyone sat down again. "Where do they take the baby, Jalloh?"
"To the cemetary, jus down the road."
We continued with out modules. The attendance fluctuated; we were only briefly interesting to a group of schoolchildren in green uniforms, and then interesting for a bit longer to a talkative, smiling woman and a man wearing a UN AIDS shirt. The woman asked, "What do you do when you know your man has not been faithful, but he refuse to wear a condom?"
Uhh... I said something meaningless, I forget what.
"No, I mean, does the woman have the right to abstain?" Wow, cultural minefield. How do I answer without alienating her, without her thinking that I know nothing about her situation? It was hard; I knew almost nothing about her situation. Well, Jalloh is a good filter.
"Yes, you have the right. But you have to be smart. It's like when an employee is bad, you have to go to the boss. So you have to convince his family he is wrong, you have to go talk to doctors at the clinic, you have to get his friends to convince him. You have to be strong and smart."
The woman was momentarily satisfied; I'm not sure if I helped at all. The man in the UNAIDS shirt thought it was a good answer. I hope he wasn't the man in the question...
Later, the young woman in the brilliant blue dress returned. Her named, it turned out, was Elizabeth. She was carrying a bunch of cloth in a bowl on her head, and the infant's mat in her hand. When we introduced ourselves she smiled at us, and I couldn't figure out how she had fit into the procession. It seemed important, especially given that the precise section I was discussing was the "Family Planning" module, wherein we try and convince the amputees and their dependents of the economic advantages of small families.
Some people here think that AIDS is a white man conspiracy to prevent black people from reproducing. So you can understand why, right after the death of an infant, I was a bit uneasy about stating the advantages of small families, especially in front of someone directly involved.
In the end, Elizabeth waved goodbye, in the middle of one of Jalloh's translations, and she walked away. The bowl never moved a millimeter, and the mat was gathered under her arm.
We made a map of the route across Koidu Town from the clinic to "Uncle Ben's Guest House" where we are staying, using a compass, clipboard, and pen. Soon we will time the sections to get a more accurate sense of scale. Near the end of our walk home, which takes about an hour, we were being followed by four kids, for about ten minutes. They were just following us and saying "White man." in thick Krio accents. I once heard Allan respond to someone calling him "White man" by saying "Black man!"; I like that, and I've used it a couple times. No one seems to notice. When the kids were following us, after I noted that they really had nothing else to do, Katie said with a smile, "Well, it's like if you saw a purple man. Would you trail him and shout 'Purple man!'?"
LOL@"Fortunately she overcame her terror and fell asleep, and then when she woke up she seemed not to remember that I hadn't always been there." Good one!
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