Sierra Leone lite, for my roommates.

Dear Sajid, Will, and Jacob,

Ten points about Sierra Leone.

1. It's a great country for doing stuff. For example, the car breaks (often), we have to jump out and push it. And how do I get in and out of the car, you ask? Oh, the window. I grab on the roofrack and jump in... It's fun for someone who knows absolutely nothing about cars. Another reason that it's a great country for doing stuff is that none of the Sierra Leoneans know how to second guess the North Americans. So when we suggest something that seems ridiculous to them (like me helping to make peanut butter) they just look bewildered and make it happen.

2. It's also a good place for figuring stuff out. I found Katie's guest house the other night by noting that one street at the nearby intersection was called "Siaka Stevens" street. That happens to be the first leader of Sierra Leone after colonialism, so I figured it was a major street. It is! Of course, I still got lost on the way.

3. And it's great for hanging out. Long journeys and tons of cultural differences to spark conversation. Unfortunately I still fall asleep in the car on occasion.

4. Water comes in bags. Yep. And we don't even put it in a "what-the-water-should-be-in" for drinking, we just bite off a corner and suck it dry. I think I'll drink my milk like that when I get home.

5. I saw a cobra. Need more be said? (Yes. We were in the car, it was slithering away into the grass. The driver had a typical Sierra Leonean response: he tried to run over it.)

6. I get to pretend I can understand Krio. I'm about as good at pretending to speak Krio as I was at pretending to speak Italian.

7. We went to the north, and then CANOED with HIPPOS. Katie even listened to me be a canoe snob about how the locals weren't using the jay stroke. She even still speaks to me. Whenever I feel bad about being a canoe snob, I just remember that my grandmother was a canoe snob, and so it must be okay.

8. When someone says "White man!" I can respond "Black man!" without getting prosecuted or hurt.

9. Next year, our room is going to be a chiefdom. I want to be paramount chief.

10. There's lots more things to test my invincibility. For example, while I was chilling on the porch at Uncle Ben's a couple weeks ago, I squished a toxic/acidic bug between my shins. That resulted in nasty blistering burns that then got infected. I cleaned them out, and then my immune system did its thing, and now it's healing fine. Apparently this bug ("The Champion") likes me - it also crawled on my arm, and earlier, on my face. But neither of those were as bad. At the time, I thought the one on my face was some kind of disfiguring tropical disease. Fortunately it was not.

Cheers, Chris