A sample daily report

I have never kept a diary, detailing aspects of what happened in my daily life. I never ever thought I would actually but I figured today I would give it a try.

It is 2.50pm here in Freetown. I jave just finished work for the day and am about to set off for home. I usually try to leave around this time because otherwise it will take me almost forever to get a taxi home. I am currently sitting at my work desk, wooden and varnished. There is my PC, a Sabil 1.5litre mineral water bottle, my Sony Ericsson phone (which I think is beginning to really fall apart), a red pen, a desk calender for 2008 courtesy of Royal Air Maroc, an office tray with assortment of papers and newspapers from days before, an empty bottle of Fanta which I need to return back to the street to get my 2000 Leones back and a couple of flyers. There is no music going on right now. The office is situated on Howe Street and housed together with staff from a church I think. Well, least we got God's blessing right under our roof. But the walls between the offices are so thin sometimes you feel you are part of a conversation you were not supposed to be in. There are 3 other ladies working with me today - Elisabeth, Daniella and Hawa. All Sierra Leoneans and all my favourites.

I came to work today via a cab from Spur Road (that's the main road from where I reside) and paid 2000 Leones (which is less than a dollar for a 15 mins ride). The sun is scorching as usual. Tim went to work earlier. I think there is some sort of a budget presentation today. So I couldn't get a ride in his 110 Land Rover Defender. So far today, I have eaten: a bun with sauce (onions, stewish sauce with plenty of oil and spices), a piece of chicken, an egg (it all comes together with my bun), and a small piece of fried plantain. I am quite hungry but too lazy to venture out into the crowds of the streets. It can feel suffocating sometimes.

3.50pm - I just went out to get lunch. White rice with fish and beans at Stop Press Restaurant along George Street. It's a restaurant when you can also get the latest political gossip in town. The meal costs me 85oo Leones. Plus I bought a 10 stick Gold Seal menthol. Oh and a 15000 Celtel top up card (that's worth about 5 dollars - way cheaper than what I used to pay in Australia, 30 dollar Optus recharge). The traffic today was exceptionally heavy. Cars, podas-podas, lorries, 4WD, motorbikes all honking.. people running shoulders with other strangers along crowded streets... I admit it was very claustrophobic! But I wade through it all and made it back to the office. By the way, there was an explosion yesterday along Free Street, very near to where I worked.

I am almost done for today. Christmas is nearing and you can feel the vibes and excitement in the city. I am getting exhausted staring at the computer.

Wear Palettes

I discovered this site while browsing and I am convinced we should all dress according to palettes. See more colours on Wear Palettes and also click on The Sartorialist.

For those ever interested to know more about Sierra Leone and the happenings around here, you could read one of the many (and I mean MANY) newspaper around here AWOKO NEWSPAPER. It is a pretty fascinating read...

sights from Freetown

From top to bottom: 90kg of luggage at Gatwick, to the first sights of city life in Freetown, to the beaches and to a picnic with my fellow countrymen. enjoy! more to come...

Present location: Freetown, Sierra Leone.

All went smoothly and we arrived safely.
Our bags are slowly unpacked. Our bodies getting used to the prickles of the tropical heat.
Well, at least for me the weather has been good.
The scene is welcomingly different and sometimes difficult to understand.
But mostly pleasant.
Only pictures will speak a lot more than my mere choice of random words.
The streets are always crowded, peddlars of all ages and kinds. Name it, you'll find it.
People have been kind, generous and amazingly helpful.
God bless their soul.
Our house is not great but not too bad.
And we badly need the car to arrive soon on top of the fact that I need to learn how to drive.
Which I will, despite internal morbid fears. I shall prevail, so I think.
Work is coming soon, for both of us. Him sooner, me hopefully soon enough.
I didn't come here to laze about. I came here with a purpose.
In all, we are well. Good. Slowly and surely absorbing, tasting and indulging in every detail we see, hear, touch and smell. Our insights will be enriched, our lives possibly changed.
You will see in time.

ps: pictures will come soon enough. I hope you remain patient.

Yesterday I read an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (every Monday, I get to read article selected from The New York Times for the above-mentioned newspaper) on the lack of painkillers in much of the developing world. The article entitled 'Lack of Painkillers and Fear of Addiction Leave the Poor to Suffer' goes on to illustrate how people in the developing world have no access to the use of painkillers because often these people who are suffering simply cannot get morphine. In that regards, many are left to die in unimaginable pain and agony.

In Sierra Leone for instance, it is not so much the poverty or the lack of supply. It's the fear of addiction. It seems doctors are afraid that by providing patients with painkillers like morphine, there is the potentiality for addiction. This is in turn creates the possibility for a cycle of crime, addiction and so on. Indeed there is a grey line between the need for morphine for pain relief for those suffering and the potentiality for addiction. Still, it is almost inhumane to deny painkillers to someone who is clearly suffering every single day.

The article also interestingly pointed out how much of the world medical narcotics are consumed mainly by those in developed world like the U.S, Britain, Australia and Germany. It seems they consume about 80 per cent of the world's medical narcotics while those in the developing world consumed slightly about 6 per cent.

Thing is, morphine is neither expensive not short in supply. But it is routinely denied to most poor countries. There is also the tendency to believe most of the developing world are only ravaged by diseases such as AIDS, malaria and so on but what we tend to forget is that equally as many are suffering from diseases cancer and the equivalent. And in places like Sierra Leone with only about 100 qualified doctors, most diagnoses are discovered in the late stages. In cases like that, death is almost certain.

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me and
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Christina Rossetti