November 4th
So, today has been a day full of interesting, albeit not always
good occurrences. I got up this morning and tried to feed
Hunter, he didn’t seem hungry but he drank a little bit, so I
just figured it was too early since I had woke him up when I
got him out to feed him. After breakfast I headed over to the
school to be there for something called the “march pass” all
the students gather at the school in order to march in big long
lines from the school through Kamakwie 1,2 and 3, and about
four miles there and back, but it took two hours because the
lines kept slowing down as kids dodged out to pick up water,
oranges, or anything else they wanted as we marched past all
the vendors. I spent most of the time speaking with Daniel Issa
Bangura, an English teacher at the Junior Secondary School. He
is in the progress of finishing his teaching certificate, when he
finishes he will spend the next few years teaching at the school,
it’s mandatory apparently, then he wants to go back to university
to continue his education and maybe get into politics. It was
kind of amusing, we were talking about female heads of state
and I mentioned Germany’sChancellor Angela Merkel, and I
proceeded to spend the next several minutes trying to get him
to say chancellor, instead he sounded like he was saying
chanshellor. When we started the march pass there were
probably 50 or so Senior Secondary students, but when we
finished there were at least double if not triple that. As we
marched around all the kids who were late kept joining us.
Several of the Africans have told me that here they run on
BMT, black man time. This means that if someone tells you
something starts at 8am don’t bother going until at least 9,
because they won’t be there till then. Anyway, the march
pass was fun and it was a cool experience. But I got home
and found heartbreak. I went to get Hunter to try and feed
him since he hadn’t eaten yet and he was lying listlessly on
his side, barely moving and his breathing was very labored.
Try as I might I couldn’t get him to even sit in my hands, he
just kept rolling over, so I sat with him for a while but I
couldn’t take it. I think the worst thing is that he seemed
so well yesterday and I had decided that it would be safe to
let my guard down and not be expecting the worst. I had to
go downtown to get Karen some sandals since she accidently
spilled black paint all over the ones she had, and I ran into
a group of my SS2 students, I talked with them a bit and they
helped me find a pair of sandals that fit, I was looking for
some because walking long distances in flip flops is
uncomfortable. It was a pleasant distraction and then I ran
into some of my SS3 students and then walked around the
town a bit, they were trying to find the things they will need
to cook their meal tomorrow, each class (SS2 art, SS2 science,
SS2 commercial, and the same for the 3s) has to prepare their
own food as part of the school 50th anniversary celebration
(they were founded in 1961 so it’s technically next year but
don’t try to tell them that). Then I ran around like a mad man
trying to finish some errands before dinner, burying Hunter,
helping the Mahr’s with their “new” well used bikes, they are
pretty iffy at best, trying to help get some things done for the
showing of the Jesus film, I didn’t even finish. We hosted the
Mahr’s for dinner tonight which was good, a big 9 person
dinner is always fun. After that I headed with the projector
over to the school where they were going to be showing the
film. I must admit I read through the movie because listening
to the Krio makes my head hurt. That and there were a ton
of people there, so many you couldn’t even hear it at the
back of the group, so that was pretty cool. The people spent
the whole two hours standing because there were pretty
much no seats. Just a couple chairs. So now I sit here, I think
other than losing Hunter today was a pretty good day. I think
that losing him now is better than in several months when I’d
really become attached. Anyway, Karen leaves tomorrow
morning to go to Freetown to pick up Tom and the team. That
means I won’t have internet until Saturday night, which won’t
be too bad. But write me anyway, I love to hear from people.
You guys get to read what I’m doing here but no one blogs
about life in little Fredericksburg or wherever you may be.
By His grace,
Ryan Brooks