In Which The Road Trip Begins
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 28/Sep/2010 17:12, 34 days ago
I am supposed to be being collected at 5.30am so am up and out of my room by then, though don’t hand in my room key, just in case... It’s clearly a little earlier than they expect there to be movement, and one security guard is asleep, leaning forward on his desk while the other is face down on a pile of cushions on the floor. He jumps up guilty and then grabs the open box of Durex that’s on the floor making me wonder what I missed last night.My ride arrives over an hour late (quelle surprise) and then we have to pick up Theresa. We’re back on the road when we spot Theo, so she gets a lift too, and it’s ages before we’re out of town. So long, in fact, that I begin to wonder if claims of the wonderful tarmaced roads have been wildly exaggerated. They’ve not, and soon we’re driving smoothly, though there’s no way youwould forget you’re somewhere a little more exotic than Stockport. Whenever we slow down, hoards of street sellers appear, and we buy bread, water and phone top ups through the window, without even unbuckling out seatbelts.In Makeni, we drop off Theresa at the Northern Polytechnic, get the car stuck in a ditch we need 4 nursing students to help us out of, and then the driver and I go in search of the gas which, rather bizarrely, Bernard has driven up. We don’t find it, so instead head to the hospital and see Alex and Tash who pronounce my mosquito bites more allergic than infected (Theresa turned positively pale when she saw my arms with the decidedly unpale red blotches). We take their keys, finally locate the gas and go to their house. It’s a sprawling 4 bed, one-storey house with an open plan living/dining room, a large kitchen, two bathrooms and some rather random spaces / locked doors. I get a call to say they’re on their way, so we wait, and then drop them off at the market on the way to pick Theresa back up. It starts to rain which is wonderful as it’s beastly hot and so still.With Theresa on board, we head back into town only to spot A&T on motorbike taxis, so collect them too and we all go back to their house. Theresa has decided I will be staying here tonight, so once she has berated me for not including sheets and mosquito net in my overnight bag (“You must always travel with your sheets!”) we unload all my bags and the two of them disappear.This house has running water and a generator, but it’s out of fuel meaning no electricity, and no pumping of the water, either, for the time being. The driver won no points for flushing the loo erroneously, just to prove it worked. We sit on their back veranda having tea (now possible since there is gas to boil the water for filtering) and then they are summoned to meet the Mayor, so I relax, locate my sheets, hang my mosquito net and start to read on their front porch. They return and we have a trip out, where the local children seem to think ‘Spot the Opoto’ (white man) is far superior to the Musical Chairs or Charades we played at Saturday night’s party (no, really we did) The kids are super sweet and many jump up and down with glee when we stop, smile and wave. David Beckham may have visited Makeni a few years back, but clearly the kids’ accept ‘celebrities’ of a much minor level too, because that’s literally what it feels like.In town we buy gasoline for the generator, and essentials from the extremely well stocked, deceptively large supermarket: Wispas, Buttons, Flakes, cheddar cheese, olives, diet coke, tinned veg and chickpeas are all in abundance. I buy bug spray for my new house, as this lot sprayed their rooms last night and found a plethora of dead cockroaches this morning. In the net behind their guest room (it has mosquito netting both on the windows and on the fully enclosed veranda at the side) I find some scarily large, hairy spiders which seem to have died some time ago, but I can’t find at all how they got in between the double layers of the external mesh.Cheryl has told us of a Lassa Fever presentation, so we walk over to her office, stopping for an ice cold Sprite on the way. Bottles are much cheaper than cans here, as the glass can be refilled in country, so in a cafe it’s still only 2000 Leone (about 30p) for a drink. In the supermarket, cans cost more, and Diet Coke costs super, super more. Once we get to the DHMT (District Health Management Team) office, we meet Cheryl and her boss, who promptly takes us back (in his awesome air conditioned car) to the supermarket where we were earlier (and which we’ve just walked past). We are on a mission to buy sodas and biscuits for the meeting (some things are universal – clearly feeding doctors/nurses is one) and he insists we choose some each, so we get Ginger Nuts and Rich Tea, and Strawberry Oreos and Dulcede Leche cookies.The presentation is being made because there has been a recent outbreak of Lassa in this area (it’s Kenema, where I’m headed, that has the main centre for it). We watch a really interesting, well made film for about 30 minutes, then have a Q&A but it’s a little odd, as we all have to ask our questions first, then once a list has been written, they get answered. The main crux of the matter is Lassa is bad (duh!) and the way you diagnose is by dosing the patient up on Malaria treatment for 72 hours and then, if they don’t respond, it’s probably Lassa... Throughout the presentation, the big boss and others are taking photos – of the slides, each other, the audience (I practice my ‘look of engagement’ face). The key interesting fact I bring away is that rats are the biggest problem for Lassa, especially the eating thereof. They’ve been working with some rural groups, showing them various specimens and asking them which carry Lassa, and which they eat. The groups always point out 2 different species, but unfortunately the one they all claim to eat (or the ‘most edible’ as they rather endearingly term it) is the one thatcarries Lassa fever, not the (relatively harmless) one they’ve all been suspecting...Once it’s finished, we get a lift to a private hospital where Tuesday night is volleyball-and-dinner-night for the ex-pat brigade. We’ve missed the game, but they’ve saved us some food. It’s kinda hard eating in the dark and trying to pick off the vegetarian bits from the vast selection on the plate, but it’s good to meet everyone, including the other VSOs in Makeni like Alice, whose blog I’ve been stalking. We get back after 10pm and try to find stuff in the dark before getting under our mosquito nets. Oh yeah, I’m under a net, baby. No pillow, mind (VSO has ‘forgotten’ to supply them), and I had to unpack my own sheets, but still, at least the mossies shouldn’t be able to get me tonight...