July 21. Keep Moving On

Monday! After spending a long weekend, I am ready to go to the office. As usual, I go outside to wait for a World Vision (WV) vehicle. I could have just waited at home, but I just wanted to do my favor for a driver. To get to home, there is some unpaved dirt road from the main road, and there is a gate where security guards check every vehicle and visitor. If a vehicle gets in through a gate, a driver has to turn a car the other way around to get out of a gate. If I go outside and wait a vehicle on the main road, driver and I can quickly leave for National Office.

Unpaved road, closed souvenir shop,
gate and barbed wire, and a security guard

There are many WV drivers and anyone of them who is available at this morning comes and picks me up. That means I do not know everyday – commuting in the morning and evening – who would collect me from my home and from the office. I feel uneasy that nobody might come this morning. It happens often. But I decide to wait for 20 minutes. Strangely enough, souvenir shops pack along this short unpaved road, between a gate and a main road, and merchants tout for business during daytime. I must be a good target for them, but no one begins working from this morning. When I pass this area, the other funny scene happens; I am bothered by many motorbike/taxi drivers if I am just standing on that main road. They honk a horn to me and give me a glance, implicating “Where to?” Motorbike drivers stop right in front of me and say, “Let’s go!” Despite the fact that I look like a desperate White Chinese man who wants to go somewhere on the street, I just want to wait right there, passed a gate and an dirt road and hear the hectic sounds in the morning. The Gate… It is originally for protecting resident in home. But for me, I feel like I cut adrift from a real society. For my safety, I would want to say “Thank you, gate! Thank you for your service, security people!” but for my liberty, I would want to say “I feel really uncomfortable this boundary. Treat me as a same person, so just leave me alone!”

Living life just like Sierra Leoneans might be my baseless greed. Even if I try to eat all kinds of Sierra Leoneans food and live without light and water, I may not feel this place just like my real home. Living here in itself under the shadow of a gate and security guards obviously tells everyone outside from a gate that “I am different. I don’t have to see you and my vehicle is always ready to collect me!” So then, should I abandon all kinds of fancy stuffs – antimalarial pills, insect repellent, insect-killer spray, air fragrance, vitamin, air conditioner, running hot water, light – and start living in a mud hut with nothing? This is the irony of circumstances; I have always wanted to understand people’s life here and feel the same way as local inhabitants do, but I might a coward enough to draw a invisible gate line between me and local inhabitants. It is also an inconvenient truth that I cannot be exposed to any kinds of diseases that inhabitants are suffering – Ebola, Lassa fever, dengue, malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and so on – so I do need a gate – antimalarial pills and clean water and so on… endlessly – to protect myself from those threats.

So, I am standing on the main street. Right across this street, there is a Family Kingdom Hotel, the place I stayed for the first week in Freetown. I tried to find what positive thinking I can have, while ignoring or declining blowing horns courteously. Morning is a busy timing to everyone; people like to carry big basket on the head to sell stuff, some businessman with backpack wears a helmet and sit on the backseat to hurry along with motorbike driver, female merchants get out of a taxi and open a trunk to take out huge basket containing big fish, and Doreen from Family Kingdom Hotel has just finished her night shift and get in a taxi on the opposite side of the distant road. We wave hands to each other gladly with smile and without saying anything. The time is 8:20am. Something is going on; drivers may forget to pick me up. I have to call to remind a driver I am still alive and wait for you here. I call Frankyln and say, “Good morning, I’m waiting!” He says, “Let me check!” Then I wait again. I am tired of standing with heavy backpack, so I sit on the brick, near to the sidewalk. Zambo has been sitting here a long time since I got here at 8am, so I decide to become his company. He is working for exchanging money. All he has is a small bag wearing casual wear and hat, and wait anyone who needs dollar or leone. So I ask, “What is today’s exchange rate, dollar to leone?” “Today’s rate is… 4,500 leone [per doller].” Wow, it is a really good deal to me, but I only have 2 dollars. I try to understand how he actually gets some profit from exchange, but I do not get it. I know nothing about banking…

A driver has finally come at 8:50am! Sieh came to pick me up. I was late for today’s morning devotion. When I got devotion room, almost all staff joined today’s devotion. Devotion was followed by announcement. As always, Ebola issues comes on at the end of announcement. I was ignorant of Ebola news during last weekend. It must have been getting worse; I didn’t have to hear it to estimate it. As expected, oh no, more seriously, the situation has become truly uncontrollable. A person who diagnosed with Ebola positive ran away. I didn’t even catch well what staff emergently brief Ebola incident, but the gist of a story was that a person who was from Kenema area came to Mattru and met his friend, and his friend had contacted with him and died of Ebola a few days later, and he got Ebola positive result and ran away to anywhere. What is going on in this country? I have just left Mattru last week. Alex who was in Mattru also came back to Freetown last Saturday because of Ebola threat in Mattru. Michael said to me, “Now, I am really worrying about Ebola.” I was seized with fear all of a sudden. What if I die tomorrow suddenly? What if I am already in the incubation period? What if people around me are Ebola patients? I am lost in worst thought for a while. From this point, I will really avoid shaking hands. What about taking a taxi? Passengers jam in the backseat in a car, and they are rubbed by others’ skin. I talked with Kevin in Uganda hurriedly through Skype, “Kevin, some Ebola patients has escaped!” He asked me, “Have you talked to Magnus?” AIM-Health project coordinator, Magnus, was in Skype online. I was anxious that what action I should take from this week. Magnus said that I would be relocated to Tanzania as early as possible: Tanzania where my fellow Denice stays.

At this point, all I have to do is to keep moving on. Whether I am in Sierra Leone or Tanzania, I have to complete AIM-Health mid-term evaluation. All I can do from this point is to meet health facility interviewee as many as possible before I leave. Interviewees also come back to Freetown or any alternative place with urgency to avoid Ebola affected area. Anyway, Freetown is already one of affected areas. I cannot even make an appointment with them because they themselves do not know their time schedule in this urgent situation. Let me keep my patience. It is time to put my patience to the limit. Everything should be OK. It should be.