On The Road Again...

As most of you know, Sierra Leone is going to the polls this weekend, August 11th (HOW RUDE IS THAT ON MY BIRTHDAY?!), for the second time since the decade-long civil war - it is the first election that will not be supervised by the United Nations or by international forces. So far, there have only been a few fairly minor incidences and most were upcountry. Most people are being cautious, but are not overly worried about any major resurgence of violence in the country. If there is any trouble, it is likely to be upline, in the provinces, where people's living conditions are worse, they are less educated and they have a lot more spare time on their hands to make trouble. Many people just want trouble to create instability, so they can loot. Hopefully, it will all go well without any problems.

In the mean time, security in our compound is beefed up and we have a huge supply of water and food and BEER/WINE, just IN CASE anything should happen and we end up cooped up for days. I can't sit in a compound for days on end without alcohol now, can I? We are going to skip 100 metres down the road and stay at a friend's house on Saturday night, so we can celebrate my birthday with some close friends over pizza and groundnut stew. I am not expecting any trouble, but we are being cautious anyway. I am registered with the british high commission so no need to worry about me. I feel very safe in my surroundings.

The West Africa office and ward have been closed for a week now and will be for another two. The girls all wanted to go home (even those who are not operated) so they could cote in their constituencies - absentee votes etc. are not available - you must be at your own polling booth when the day comes. They have promised to get back in touch to return for treatment when the elections are over and things stabilise again. We are also doing renovations on the building during this time. So, besides hammering and welding noise, it is very quiet up here at WAFF and we have very little to do! Dr George is supervising the only two remaining patients who are safely staying in our ward at the government hospital in the east end of town, while the medical director, Dr. Lewis is away in Texas on a scholarship, gaining some experience in a big hospital in America for three months.

I will not be online, as I won't be coming to the office until next week, so if you want updates (which are hard to find unless you know where to look), you can check out the following sites for local newspaper articles (some are great, but they can be very sensationalistic and silly, so take them with a grain of salt):

http://www.awoko.org/

http://www.thenewcitizen-sl.com/

http://awarenesstimes.com

http://standardtimespress.net/

And for a more international, less biased view, the ever reliable BBC World:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

They also have some really interesting new photos of the slums in Freetown:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/africa_sierra_leone_slum/html/1.stm

Talk to you next week! Hope everyone is well xoxo

Hi everyone,
Sorry it has been a while again. For a while there was not much news to tell. Everything going smoothly.
There has not been much going on at work. Surgeries stopped for a while because the operating room was being used by indian doctors from rotary providing free specialist services. I have been busily updating the patient registry and putting it onto the computer. I am up to October 2002, having put in a whole day so far - yikes.
I have become involved in an anti-FGM taskforce, where I represent the West Africa Fistula Foundation. Whilst FGM is not a direct cause of fistula, it has been found that the more severe forms of FGM (type 3 and 4) can cause obstructed labour and hence also fistula. However, personally I am also very passionate about FGM being stopped. About 2 weeks ago, the goverment of Sierra Leone passed a bill on Child Rights and ommitted the circumcision clause, so now it is being taken as state-sanctioned. In one area, the paramount chief actually issued a statement that the government has no problem with it, so carry on and ordered all the anti-FGM activists and NGO's out of the area! On Wednesday, we are going as a delegation (incl. Amnesty International, Unicef among others) to see him in one of the districts to offer him some agricultural projects in exchange for better cooperation with NGO's working in the area on FGM. It is a pilot project, but certainly appealing to his greedy side will be more effective than to his sense of human rights! It has been great getting involved in this dynamic little group and it is exciting to see how active and passionate they are. They have really reinforced my sense of wanting to change things, no matter how small the start is.
I have a had a fairly rough month in terms of Sierra Leone rearing it's ugly head. Living in Tommy's beautiful compound, in my beautiful little flat with my lovely boyfriend, I forget sometimes that I am in the third world. You get so used to the street scenes and the daily hiccups, you forget and you get slack with your own safety. There have been two incidents recently that really jolted me back into reality, that life to some of the people here is disposable, that white people represent money and that I am not as safe as I like to think. This weekend, a friend of mine from Australia was assaulted and mugged in a taxi outside the bar we go to. She is fine now, but has a very bruised face and is a bit shaken. Needless to say, we are all rethinking our habits and ways of getting around, especially at night.
In my defence, I have to say, I am very careful about these things and spend most of my time with Danny, so no need to worry!
Elections are now less than two months away. Did I mention they moved it to my BIRTHDAY?!?!? The 11th of August!!!! So I will be having a private party locked in the compound! Oh well, how many people can say that!?!
Had a lovely day meeting Skye properly a few weeks back. We spent a day at the beach for her birthday. We totally hit it off and I suspect the love was mutual, seeing as she saw me two weeks later and came running up to me and jumped into my arms. How GREAT is that!?
Must be off. I have taken up swimming in the local country club. Who woulda thought I would end up a country club member??!! Yikes.
I will try to update more regularly!
Lil xoxox

Hiya,

I am going to try and keep it short, even though it has been about 3 weeks!

Work is going really well. I am quite busy and we finally have internet in the office, so I am not short of entertainment between work! We lost one patient a week ago, which was terribly distressing, especially telling the poor family. She was HIV positive, but based on her counts, she should have been fine. Alas, she wasn't. At least she passed away in comfort and not of AIDS, suffering fistula, ostracised by her community. Still, it wasn't nice.

The weekends have been awesome. It is like a mini holiday every time. I love it. Saturdays, we hang around Freetown and Sundays, we head to one of the beaches. By Sunday night, we fall asleep at 8. You feel like a new person after the weekend. Completely relaxed. I am loving my life here.

Lisa is doing well. She has a new boyfriend, who seems to be lovely. We still see a lot of each other, especially on the weekends. She is hating her work, but hopes to find something new soon. I hope she does too. It is a terrible NGO. Disgraceful.

I had a small run-on with the house boy 2 weeks back, when I found photos on my camera of him masturbating in my room when I wasn't there. He is 16, an ex-rebel and a bit dusturbed. Anyway, I was pretty upset and he was sacked. A week later, the neighbours appealed to my boss and her husband and they took him back. Danny has replaced my lock, but I still feel really horrid when I am at home. I ran into him the other day and he gave me this knowing grin. I almost knocked his block off. Luckily I spend most nights of the week with The gorgeous Boy, so I needn't worry too much. It is just the nights when I have to go home that I hate, like tonight.

Danny has moved into Tommy's compound, which is entirely beautiful. In a town with not much in the way of gardens, he has beautiful land with massive banana, frangipani and mango trees. It is actually more like a park. We sometimes go up and sit with Tommy and have a beer and I swear it is like being back with my grandfather in Cairns. Bizarrely strong association. Danny's place is really sweet, but pretty small, we are doing our best to keep it clean and relatively tidy. I think we are about the same in our levels of tidiness, so I am don't feel too bad. I will try to take some photos of the gardens soon.

Anyway, I will get some photos up now.
Take care all xox

This week I am continuing working on my literacy program. I have not shown the girls any of it yet, that’ll be the true test. These girls are not only illiterate, but they also mainly speak temne and mende (the two local languages more common upcountry), not even krio. So I am teaching them english as well as literacy and I have never really taught before. I have tutored but not taught. Mum, you taught german. Any suggestions? Like number games or something? I dunno. Feeling a bit lost with it all. At least I am only developing the program, in the end I will not be the one teaching it, unless I love it of course, in which case I won’t give it up. But the plan is to develop the program to a level that other volunteers can come in and teach it. I need to develop a few things like it too, so that we can bring people over to help. Leesa is bringing her 16 year old son over and I would like Rob and Manu to be able to at least do a day or two to give them an idea of what it is all about and so they can meet everyone, including the patients. You will not ever do anything as rewarding in your life. I have never believed in true altruism, because you always get a good feeling from helping people. My belief has never been more acute than in this job. We had a discharge ceremony at the ward at PCMH the other day and they were all singing and dancing and telling their stories. They presented the visitng surgeon Dr Smith with a plaque and he presented them all with new clothes and gifts for their return home and they sang lots more songs. I got all teary. If you are ever here for one, you must attend. It is so sweet and you can see such a difference in them from the moment when we pick them up to when we return them. They are new people. Literally. When we bring them down, they are quiet, they rarely meet your gaze and they usually look down. They are physically fragile, often very unwell and timid. When you return them to the provinces, they are active, laughing, singing, dancing, they are sooo grateful and most importantly THEY ARE DRY, sometimes for the first time in 30 or 40 years. We have grandmas, aged 65 or 70 having fistulas repaired that they sustained in their 20s or 30s. They all treat us like their saviours, which I guess in many ways we are. Many of them return to their communities and through some mystery will often report that their husbands have fallen in love with them again and they are together again. Thank god, we offer free C sections to any of them who fall pregnant again, because most likely they will rupture everything to buggery again if they deliver through the birth canal!

On a positive note, all the bypass surgeries performed during the surgeons visits have been successful and the girls have recovered with no complications. The new procedure seems to be very successful and easier to perform. The doctors are now working on a staging system, so that rural doctors can assess the gravity of the injury and give a prediction based on outcome, so they can repair some and then give us the worst cases (stages 3 and 4) to us. We are getting much more complicated cases now that we have put the word out that we will do complex cases and will not discriminate. The worst cases (stage 4), the success rate is something as little as 0-10%, but the surgeons still try. It drags our success rate on paper right down, but that is not what is it about is it? We believe that everybody deserves a chance to get better. I think we probably have the worst success rate in the country because of it, but we are doing the right thing by the girls, which is all that matters.

Anyway, otherwise all is well here. We have two long weekends in a row, with Mohammed’s birthday and then easter and I am loving the three day week. The hash yesterday was a laugh, a great run, and next week it is at Charlotte Falls which is meant to be stunning. Danny and I are starting to do real couple activities now, all very new for me, and tonight we are going to dinner at Ziad and Ionie’s house, friends of his. They are an awesome couple and I get along really well with Ionie (she is 27, has been here 5 years and is from the UK). It is nice to meet a really nice and laid back girl. You don’t come by many expat girls here and a lot of them aren’t too much like me. They don’t like going camping, going out on the boat fishing and hanging out with the boys. She also laughs a lot. I don’t like the small close-knit expat community too much – sometimes it is nice to hang out with them, but not all the time – I prefer to mix into the culture rather than make myself comfortable and avoid it. I have met some nice lebanese girls, but again a very different lifestyle and also quite a closed community. Then there is special courts or UN, but many of them are ex cops from the UK and a bit too girlie and silly even for me. I have nice contact with all these people, but they are acquaintances rather than friends. Ashley, Lisa, Joanne, Kerrie and now Ionie I could really see being really good friends. Having a good group of girlfriends is more important than anything!

Anyway, I have to do some work on this literacy project. I am happy and well and will report back anon. Oh and also Abdallah has offered me a part time job in his cafe! If I can manage it beside work it would be awesome and would mean I could save some money towards a car! YIPPEE!!!

I hope next time I write, it will be bucketing down rain! The rainy season starts soon and it keeps getting really overcast and not raining, but I am REALLY READY FOR SOME SERIOUS RAIN NOW, THANKS! It is stinking hot here!

Sorry about the lack of photos. Everytime I try to load them the generator goes down or the internet crashes. I will keep trying in future.

All the best,
xox