Aw di body, pet?

OK, so I left the UK without too many tears and I arrived in Freetown about 10 days ago and it’s taken me this long to get started with writing my blog just because it’s all been a bit mad…

There are about 20 volunteers who arrived at the same time as me, and about another 20 already in country coming from UK, India, Canada, USA, Kenya, Uganda, Phillipines and the Netherlands (I think that’s all at the moment!) Probably around half of us are based in Freetown, the others are in other major towns across the country. So far we have spent our first ten days in training with VSO Sierra Leone, which has included getting acclimatised to life over here as there are many things that are different… travelling, money, language, living without electricity, oh and yea, the heat. It’s pretty warm (for warm read boiling!), but I have not got burnt yet, the factor 50 suncream is working well! I have freckles on my arms that I never knew I had before and I am slowly changing colour… I’m not quite as fluorescent white as I was a week ago!

So everyone wants to know my first impressions of Sierra Leone… well it’s just awesome. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, I live just a couple of miles from the sea and I can see it from my house. I’ve been to the beach a few times already to see the sun set (which happens around 6.30pm) and is amazing, it’s a really peaceful place to be. I spent several days just in a state of shock really that I was actually here… I think it took about a week to sink in, although who knows maybe it still hasn’t!

OK, despite all the talk of tropical sunsets, I have also never seen the kind of poverty that I see everyday here and I think that mix is what I am struggling to articulate. About three quarters of people here live below $2 a day, so it's everywhere. I live in a pretty nice house, I share with 3 other (lovely!) VSOs. We have running water (for most of the year apparently) but we don’t have electricity. Well we get it occasionally (about 2 hours since I got here!) when there is a mad dash to plug things in to charge! I’m getting used to spending candlelit evenings and to cooking in the dark, and never leaving home without my flashlight. On my street there are houses who can afford to run (very noisy) generators for almost 24 hours a day and there are also people who sleep in tiny metal huts. Poverty is something that is in your face everyday here, and it’s really made me realise how privileged we are in the UK.
At the same time though, life here is fun. People are friendly and welcoming and greet me every morning as I walk to the office. Although English is the official language here, in Freetown it is predominately Krio that is spoken, which is a pidgin English. I’m starting to learn it, so far I can manage to buy vegetables at the market using a mixture of Krio and English and I understand more and more everyday. (I’m listening to Krio radio at the moment too, but they’re talking about football, which I don’t understand that well in English so…!) When I start work on Wednesday I will hopefully get more immersed in it (Krio and football, as my office is right near to the national stadium!)
There are so many things that are different about daily life here, most of which I’ve probably not even found out yet, but I do feel like I’m settling in and adjusting to life here. I’m even getting used to the massive spiders and the cockroaches. I expect there are hard times to come yet though, as it’s still very much a novelty at the moment and the idea of not seeing people from home for more than a year is pretty unreal at the moment. I think the first hard day will be Wednesday when some of the other volunteers leave to go to their placements in other parts of the country. I’ve become pretty close to these guys in the last week or so and it will be strange without them, but also I’ll be starting work, which means new friends to make! And I already have a couple of plans to visit my friends up country (you know me, always a plan!)

So, I think that’s all I’m going to write for now, no pics to put up yet as I haven’t taken my camera out with me yet but I’ll try and start taking some soon. I’ve put up my cell phone number and my postal address on my facebook page in case anyone feels like writing, which would be cool. Post is quite inconsistent here so letters may not arrive but it would be nice to get the odd one (probs best not to try and post stuff tho as it prob won’t arrive). Laters…