In Which People Talk The Talk But Still Nothing Gets Done
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 02/Oct/2010 21:19, 34 days ago
There is a massive spider in my sink this morning, and while it doesn’t seem to like the insecticide I lob at it, it takes a scary amount of time to stop twitching fully. Then, to be on the safe side, I drown it in a vat of water, before scooping it up and chucking it out of the window. Reason # 2 why the windows all need wire mesh on them (the top reason, of course, being so I don’t die of, y’know, Malaria, in case I’ve not mentioned that enough yet. Seriously, it’s a little troubling since the main symptom is a high fever, but I feel permanently hot here anyway).I unlock my 5 million doors and head out, seeing Junior on the way. I think, since I didn’t let him sleep downstairs, he spent last night at his house across the road waiting for me to walk past. I head into town, going up one side of Hangha road and down the other. I see one of the many mosques and the clock tower and the post office, which I have to take a picture of for Jo. What Idon’t see, however, is the food market. The two supermarkets are fine, but sell nothing fresh, and while I’ve passed lots of people with bananas and bread balanced on their heads, I simply can’t track down anything in the way of vegetables. All the stretches of market are different, and I passthe clothes/shoes one and the toiletries one (toothpaste is very big over here) before getting to the homewares where I fail miserably at any attempt to haggle over the price of a bucket, but since it’s only 8000 and has a lid it doesn’t seem too bad. Then I throw in the towel and go to Choitrams. It’s air conditioned, it has neat aisles, and everything is priced. Here I get a plastic basket thing to store stuff in, some coathangers (I’m optimistic a wardrobe will show up at some point in the next 12 months), pegs, chocolate croissant (for breakfast in the morning), some biscuits andjuice. I’ve tempted by some of the fancy Swiss rolls but although they’re labelled in English, I have no idea what flavour one of them is supposed to be – it looks like green beans, but that can’t be right...I stop for bread for lunch and get the fluffier, sweeter kind I got in Freetown, meaning the stuff I’ve been eating for the last couple of days is not just an inferior upcountry version. Then I head to Leader Price for some other bits I’ve only just remembered I need, though it takes me ages to find the salt since it is next to neither the pepper nor the spices but, less ovbiously, next to the shampoo. Junior sees me and leaps out of his house to carry my stuff and berate me for not buying a mop. I don’t ask why he cares (though I really want to know) and instead show him where it was on the impromptu shopping list I’d written on my hand, explaining I’d not been able to find one.Back home I unpack and have lunch. I give the humous a second go, but even with the addition of newly acquired salt and pepper, it’s mingin’, so in the newly acquired bin it goes. I try a faux-yogurt/cream-dessert thing which is ok but not worth the money. I need to learn that if something in the supermarket’s unpriced, it’s probably not worth buying.I am waiting for Mr Barry (again). He does not show up (again). At 3.30pm I send an email to Daniel in the VSO office, copying in Kpanga and Theresa, listing my‘concerns’ about the place. I focus on the healthy living aspect, and ask how they expect me to remain well with nowhere to prepare and cook food or boil water for my filter, and where half the windows don’t shut securely, and even those that do still need mesh as well. We shall see what response, if any, this elicits. Then, since it’s sunny, I go to sit on my balcony, hoping the wrought iron railings don’t lead to too funny a tan line. I’m reading the new Emily Barr (which is awesome, though she needs to leave India and France behind and write about somewhere I’ve lived) when DrS, the District Medical Officer who lives opposite, returns. He calls up to me to ask how my day has been, and I explain I have been waiting for the landlord. I don’t say it in any agitated manner, honest, but once I go down to see him he asks for Theresa’s number and promptly gives her an earful. It seems that the trip she cancelled so she could stay here and sort out my house yesterday had something to do with him, so he's miffed, to say the least, that I am still not sorted...I go in to eat, and because I can’t stomach any more bread (yes, you heard right) I have cold chickpeas, and improvise a tomato sauce with a tin of puree. Then Maria comes over and as I go down to let her in, Junior comes flying round the corner to say he and Mr Barry came with the carpenter to measure my windows, but I was inside. He says they tried to ring me. They didn’t – my phone is on, and no missed calls. I ask why they didn’t knock on the gate and he says because he thought I might have been resting. At 6pm. On a Saturday. Not to mention the fact that the carpenter was supposed to be making the mesh fittings first Thurs, then yesterday, then today – and NOW he decides he needs measurements? After a glance and a tut which I hope convey the annoyance I’m feeling in a way my limited Krio cannot as yet, we go inside. Maria is a darling. She has thoughfully come bearing ice cold sodas (diet for me, regular for her) and some Dairy Milk. We’re just catching up when there’s a rumble outside, and a truck comes and dumps lots of big stones outside my house. Mr Barry is back, but makes no attempt to talk to me, enter the house, or explain this latest development. However, Dr S, in his ‘garden’ onhis laptop, sees him and beckons him over, to give him an earful too. I’m not quite sure what happens, or who triggers it, but the next thing I know my phone is ringing and it’s the Country Director (who Ireallywanted to copy into my email, but thought to so at this stage would be a bit inflammatory). He is full of apologies, and offers me a hotel for a couple of nights...but my stuff is here, and I don’t really want to leave it. Plus a hotel would only really solve the mossie issue (and, seeing as this is Kenema, it might not even manage that). But still, it’s a nice gesture. Not quite as nice as a promise things will be sorted within 24 hours, but still, pretty nice.I finish the day helping Maria put together a photo collage for the appalling local VSO newsletter I would only want to be involved with if they’d let me edit the crap out of it. But I think we do a good job, and it will be interesting to see if they use it. Then we wait for Maria’s pet Ocada driver to send a bike for her (he can’t come as he’s 'not driving tonight') and I lock up again, and head back to bed. At least you can’t say the days are monotonous here.