|
|
Sunday, October 9, 1977, 10:00 pm, Day 621
I am writing from Moiba's house in Koidu now. I came down from Kamiendor this morning and dropped my things off here. Then I went out to check out the new Peace Corps volunteers in the Sefadu area. They have been hera a month or two and I hadn't as yet had a chance to meet them. I went out to Tumbudu,, but as usual no one was there. One kid said that they had gone to America, but I thought he was talking about kathy and Nancy. I asked around some more and found some other kids that said they had gone to Kayima.
I believed that okay, so I left and decided to try the one at Yengema Secondary School. He wasn't home, but I was able to locate him at one of the other teacher's houses on the school compound. He took one look at my Tshirt and said, "San Jose State University, he's a friend of mine." His name is Clay, and it turns out that he went to Santa Clara University. He then introduced me to his teacher friend, explaining how San Jose and Santa Clara were right next to each other, and then to both our surprise, the Sierra Leone teacher says, "Oh yes, I have heard of San Jose." It turns out that he is a member of the Society of Rosocrutions, whose international headquarters are based in San Jose. He then dug out a bunch of brochures and magazinesput out by the Rosecrutions, and they were full of pictures of the buildings at their headquarters in San Jose.
Clay also informed me that there is a new female volunteer in Jaiama-Nimikoro, which is still in the Kono District, but over further toward the west, away from me. He says that she is from San Francisco.
Monday, October 10, 1977, 10:00 pm, Day 622
I am in Royema now. I left Makeni at 6:00 this evening, and I guess it took me about 2 hours to get here. I think that I will probably like it here. They say that there are only about 50 houses in Royema, but the town seems full of people. The people are all out beating their drums and other instruments, and singing and dancing. It looks like they might go on all night. The people seem to be very helpful and eager to please.
Tuesday, October 11, 1977, 12:00 midnight, Day 623
I had quite an eventful day today. It was all centered around my getting to take the Puegeot pickup truck and go into Makeni to buy supplies for Royema. This morning we went to start the truck, but nothing happened when you turned the key. We tried to push start it, but it still wouldn't go. We added some petrol and tried pushing it again. It finally kicked over for the first time when I happened to be at the wheel. All the other times before, it was someone else trying to start it. We decided that the car was working good enough to make the Makeni trip, so off we went. They had fixed the fanbelt yesterday, and we found that it was still a little bit loose. We went with it anyway, because it didn't look too bad.
A ways down the road we were flagged down. We were told there was a very sick woman there, and she needed to be taken to the hospital just a ways down the road. I agreed, and the sick woman climbed in, followed by about half a dozen other women and children, supposedly all family and friends. We took them to the hospital town and while stopped there, I decided that the fanbelt was getting even looser, and that we should try to fix it.
Friday, October 14, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 626
I got tired and fell asleep last time, and so never got around to telling all that happened. I'll try to finish it up quickly this time.
We reached Makeni. The fanbelt was still a bit loose, but it wasn't causing any problems except a squeeking when we were idling. In Makeni, we had alot of shopping to do. We ended up having to push start the car about ten different times before we finally got done. We had the battery charged while we were there but nothing changed, so the problem must be in the wiring someplace.
We started back to Royema a little after 4:00 PM, and when we were about 10 miles out, a funny thing happened. The 4 bolts that hold one of the rear suspension springs onto the back axle all broke, allowing the spring, with the car body attached, to fall down and drag on the ground. It dragged for about 200 to 300 feet before I finally got around to stopping. We got out and looked at it, and all I could think was "What else can go wrong?".
Luckily, there was a person riding along with us on a Honda 70, who was also going to Royema. We sent him off with the message to tell them to send the LandRover back and pick us up. We then had a long wait in front of us, because it was then just 5:00, and it would take about 4 hours for the LandRover to get back to us. We went to the nearby village to wait, and they gave us some rice chop. While eating, I got to thinking of how I would just have to leave the car broken down on the road like that. I remembered back to my lorry ride on the Kamiendor Road and the fact that the same type of thing happened to that lorry as just happened to my motor car. I figured that if they could fix theirs, then maybe I could fix mine, and since we had all of this time to wait anyway, it wouldn't hurt to try.
I was able to obtain some wire in the town, so we went back to the car. We jacked it up and took the wheel off. With the wheel off and the car jacked up, the axle and spring were up against each other again, and so with the wire I just tied the two together as best I could. We then put the wheel back on and took off the jack. Sure enough, it worked!
Instead of going on to Royema, I left one person there to wait for the LandRover, and then drove the car back to Makeni, in firstgear all the way, so as to go slow enough to make it over the bumps okay. After an hour or so wait in Makeni, the LandRover showed up, and we were in Royema by 11:00 PM.
Training seems to be going pretty good. They're into surveying now and seem to be comprehending.
I haven't had the chance to get to know the village people hardly at all so far. I came to Royema with grand thoughts of being able to sit down with the people and peel granuts with them or something. Just really groove with them. I haven't done that yet, mostly because I can't find the time. Also, there is the language barrier. The people here like to speak Temne, and at the moment I only know 3 words of Temne (for hello, good morning, and good afternoon).
Tomorrow all of the big men are supposed to come and there is to be a big celebration, including a soccer game and a dance. The soccer match pits us against the town people, so it ought to be good. The dance ought to be good also. They had one here a few nights ago, which I failed to go to, at which they said the girls were even doing the asking.
Sunday, October 16, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 628
I've been able to get in better with the people now. Yesterday night they had a dance with amplifier and records. Before I went to that one though, I spent an hour or so dancing at another dance in town. This one was a native dance with the music being drums. The drummers would be bunched together in a small group, and then all of the people would be doing a shuffle-like dance around them. You would be moving along at about a half mile per hour rate as you danced. I had a good time at that, and it helped to break down alot of the barrier between me and the people. When the other dance started, I went to it and danced just about all of the time, going for about 4 to 6 hours total. I finally got off to bed at 3:00 AM.
I only had maybe two dances with a real grown up woman. The rest of the time I mostly with this one girl, probably about 14 or 15 years old, who didn't really have much, but what she did have she was presenting nicely, so she was quite enjoyable to dance with. Any other dances left over, I was either dancing with the kids, or by myself.
The good effects of the dancing carried over into today. This morning I cut some survey pegs and went out, pounding them in and clearing the line of sight to prepare for surveying up to the water source. When I was almost done with that, I was invited into the farmthat was there, and sat down with the people for some time. I drank about a quart of palm wine while I was there, which I enjoyed emmensely, being that it was fresh and I was hot and tired from all of the bush clearing.
I watched the man prepare a new boulie. Looking at the boulie, I couldn't help thinking about, if anything shows how much God is providing for us, the boulie sure does. It grows on a tree and gets about 8 to 10 inches in diameter. They have a hard outer surface about 1/8 inch thick, and is filled inside with a white soft glob. The man cut a hole in the boulie and scooped out all of the insides, which he just threw away. After it dries, the boulie works great for holding liquids, and is used especially for holding palm wine. Here was the perfect container, just there for the picking.
After I finished the palm wine I went back and finished the bush clearing on up to the dam. By the time that I had finished, I was really feeling good and feeling loose. Going back through town again, I was really enjoying greeting the people. The palm wine might have relaxed me a bit, but it was mostly just getting out and doing a good bit of honest work for the people that gets one feeling good towards himself and then in turn, feeling good towards other people. I was also hearing the word "momo" alot being spoken to me. It is the 4th Temne word that I know, and it means "thank you". They were telling me "Thank you for the work which you did.", which I appreciate.
|
