Bud & I walked down to the “mother” church this morning. This is the Wesleyan Church we attended when here in the ‘70’s; it has “mothered” a couple daughter churches. We enjoyed sitting right under one of the six ceiling fans in the sanctuary which made it quite pleasant through the service. The bell rang for service about 10:00 am, and service actually started at 10:10. There is always lots of singing, often led by different people or groups who come to the front and lead. They had four different offerings this morning; however, neither Bud nor I understood the significance of their difference. For one offering they passed the “plates” (actually small wastebaskets), the next was a march offering participated by about everyone in the church. The men go up on one side and the women the other and each places their offerings in the respective receptacles. The next offering scattered people throughout the congregation went to the front and dropped their money into a container held by a young man. The next offering container was placed on a table at the front of the sanctuary, and again, a few scattered people walked to the front and contributed while the choir sang. One of the church mothers preached this morning; it was preached in Krio and translated into Limba. We could understand a great deal of it; she was appealing to us to decide on whose side we will stand. We need to decide if we are going to stand for Christ or stand for Satan. It was well done.
One thing that fascinates me are all the sounds of Sierra Leone. Early in the morning (between 4:30 & 5:00), we hear the Muslim call to prayer; then we start hearing a bird calling and perhaps a mate answering. I’m uncertain what kind of bird this is, but have heard the same sound in both Zambia and Hawaii. Soon after that, the community wakes up, and one hears people talking as they walk from place to place; they are often carrying loads on their heads. Next, the children are heard playing and talking as they slowly make their way to school. When I am home during the day, I often hear footsteps outside the window and go look to see if I’m getting a visitor…as it turns out, most often the visitors are a bunch of sheep with a few goats intermingled. They seem to be the Kamakwie version of the lawnmower. They do keep the grasses around the house trimmed back J. During lunch and after school, there are always children outside chattering and playing and trying to knock the fruit out of the trees. When one of us walk outside the house, we hear choruses of “hallo” “hallo”. Each one wishes to be greeted. The children continue to play at various places on the hospital compound throughout the evening; sometimes, they come up on the porch and peer in the windows as well. Throughout the day and evening, the sounds of motorcycles are heard as they drive on the compound and on the side of town closest to the compound. Another sounds that one hopes NOT to hear is the ambulance siren, especially in the middle of the night…that always means the drivers are going out to a village to pick up someone who has been in an accident, or more often it’s a woman having difficulty with childbirth and who needs to come to KWH for a C-section.
As evening comes and darkness falls, one begins to hear the music and drums from down in Kamakwie. The Galaxy must be open late into the night and plays very loud music which is easily heard in our house. We have been slowly learning to tune it out and not pay any attention to it. It must be very loud when you are actually in the club.
We have completed two full weeks of our NA class, and the students seem to be adapting to our style of teaching and seem less fearful of taking a chance to answer a question when not certain of the answer. They had their first test this past Friday with varying but not surprising results.
Four of the medical students are headed back to U.S., and Karen and Tom took all seven of the med students and went to Freetown for a few days. They plan to have some shopping time and beach time before the four leave and then they will wait another couple days to pick up a surgeon and a mason who will be here for about two weeks. The other three medical students and the surgeon and mason all leave together, so it will seem strange with so few people here for a few more days before the next team arrives. But it will give all of us a small break from meal preparation for larger groups (of course, Ya Posseh cooks our company meals and does a wonderful job J) We are fortunate to have her working for us.
Till next time….
