I’ve lost weight since I’ve move to Sierra Leone. I don’t know how much because I’ve no opportunity to weigh myself. I know when I left the US, I was at the zenith of my weight gain, barely being able to squeeze my enormous ass into a size 20. Now I am a comfortable size 14.

Self-esteem is a funny thing. I have eaten like a pig in the last 24 hours, and feel like a whale. This is the smallest I have been in years. I look at myself in the mirror and see the same huge woman I was right before I came. Now I know that I haven’t pigged out that much since my plane landed at Heathrow. I knew that my clothes were falling off my frame. I knew that when I borrowed Rabia’s clothes to wear out dancing I felt more comfortable, just for the simple fact that I didn’t have to worry about my pants falling off my ass. But I still felt mammoth.

Today I went clothes shopping, because A) I didn’t bring many clothes with me and B) the clothes I have are too big. We went to Uxbridge and I could shop in any store I wanted. That is a feeling I haven’t had in a while. I spent around $400 on clothes and I could have bought more. I bought three pairs of bras and matching knickers, a few pants, jeans, a few shirts, and a dress. It was amazing. I still can’t get over the fact that I have pretty bras and knickers and not granny pants and sports bras.

I’m not saying a size 14 is a dainty little thing, and god knows I still feel like all tubby and gross. What I am saying is that size 14 is a relatively normal size I think, and I should feel less like whale. There is a certain satisfaction in being able to buy clothes in any store and not have to worry that you can’t go in, because they won’t have your size and you’ll just humiliate yourself. But every store I went into I was afraid I would have the same humiliation and… I couldn’t get over the fact that… yes, they have my size, and yes, I really am that size. I didn’t believe it and still don’t. I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and the dinner I wolfed down during the ManU/Arsenal game will manifest as 50lbs and I’ll be back to sucking in to put on a size 20 again.

I’m pretty sure that’s not healthy behavior.

I would like to get down to a size 8. But I feel like I should be okay with a size 14. I know I will never be a delicate little flower. I thought I was okay with the fact that I’m just a normal girl. Isn’t there any point in a woman’s life where she looks in the mirror and says, “okay, it’s not perfect, but it’s who I am, and that ain’t bad”? If I’m okay with the fact that personality wise I’m not all innocence and light, then why can’t I be okay with the physical side as well?

I understand why I used to hide in the shadows. But why am I still there?

I've joined facebook. Ugh

Life is going well.

Last week was pure shit because I had malaria. Apparently, the malaria here is one of the worst because it’s cerebral. I had it for about a week before I went to doctor, then I got into a pissing match with the doctor because he wanted me to jump to the head of the line because I’m white. Stupid doctor.

The way it works here, is you register and pay your fee, then you sit around until a nurse takes your vitals, then you sit around until you see the doctor, who asks you what your symptoms are, then you wait around for a blood test, then you sit around until the doctor tell you whether you have malaria or typhoid. The doctor never exams you, the nurses don’t triage you, you just sit around and wait. But if you’re white you get to go the front of the line? Ugh. I have an overdeveloped sense of justice.

Last Thursday my friend KK made homemade pizza for us, and I had to sit and watch everyone eat because I couldn’t stomach food. Which sucks, because… pizza! I spent the weekend on ACT, which is a medication that kicked my pansy ass. I was laid out for three days. It took all my efforts to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom.

Sunday I went down to Freetown to meet with a doctor interested in our cancer control project. I don’t know why, but I was expecting a 50-year-old dude. Instead, I was flummoxed by a freaking hotty! Such a cutie little hipster boy, I had a hard time concentrating.

My room in Freetown had rats, so I didn’t sleep. My cell phone and thumb drive were stolen out of my room. Welcome to Sierra Leone. I've lost everyone's number so don't try to call me, and email me if you need me to have your phone number again.

When I got back to Makeni, I was so wiped out that I just zombie around the office. I stayed at KK’s, and he treated me to an awesome night of vegetable schwarmas, amarula, and oreo cookies. Last night I slept like the dead!

Now I feel amazing after a week of malaria and sleep deprivation, staying at KK’s was just what the doctor ordered.

Sierra Leone ranks dead last on the United Nations Human Development Index. The Fund for Peace has listed Sierra Leone as a failed state. Sierra Leone is suffering. Eight years after the war, the majority of the country still has no running water, mains electricity, access to healthcare, or education past primary school. Corruption is as rampant as it was during Siaka Stevens’ kleptocracy. Civil rights and consumer advocacy are alien concepts to all but the educated elite.

While the law stipulates that taxis can only carry 4 passengers, most taxis overload the car 7 or more. Taxi drivers who ferry passengers from Magburaka to Makeni will stop at the police checkpoint to have a “discussion” with the police. Money changes hands. The cars are run down, overloaded, and drive at breakneck speeds.

Looking at the this problem conservatively, if a taxi driver takes the 15 mile trip 12 times a day, charging each passenger Le 4000, fills up a 10 gallon gas tank at Le 14,500 per gallon, and pays the police Le 20,000 per round trip, at the end of the day the taxi driver will net Le 47,000 or little over $15 a day. (This is a assuming the driver will take at least one day off a week.) In Sierra Leone that seems like a lot, but if he has children in Junior Secondary or Senior Secondary, he responsible for the tuition of a minimum of Le 250,000 a year for each child. Vehicle maintenance, the healthcare of family members, food, clothing, and rent are all factor into a cost of living where the taxi driver either barely breaks even or lives in debt.

Car accidents is Sierra Leone are common, though slightly safer and cheaper than the motorbikes that zip down the dusty roads. The rules of the road are commonly agreed upon social norms not legally mandated or enforced. A driver will work for over 12 hours a day, although the actual trip only takes approximately 40 minutes, the driver will wait for the car to fill to “capacity” for several hours to justify the trip.

If the police didn’t demand a bribe, and the diver limited his load to four passengers, he would still make the same amount of money. The wear and tear would reduce from the overload of the vehicle. However, the police make around Le 150,000 a month ($48 dollars a month) less than the taxi driver that bribes them. The police officers have the same cost of living as the taxi driver.

There is also the institutional acceptance to the corruption. Officials who do not solicit and accept bribes are ostracized, inhibiting them from performing their jobs effectively. Many make a devils bargain to accept bribes in one area, to work proficiently in another. The result is the same. Hospitals are packed with the victims of the car and motorbike accidents. Locals do not trust their police force, and turn to more “traditional” ways seek retribution for a crime.

Nothing will change the culture of corruption in Sierra Leone except Sierra Leoneans. The Band-Aid solution of greater oversight or salary increase isn’t enough. Change will take generations of education and societal pressure on the institutions that support a society where anything can be bought for a price.

Last night we all watched Barcelona kick ManU’s butt as Wusum Hotel. We drank Star beer by the pool and cheered on Barcelona. Then the rains came and we booked it home before the downpour made travel impossible. I really enjoy my life here now, but I just wish I could get my lazy act together.

I have an office in the UN now. It’s a converted shipping container with a table and two chairs. It also has regular power between the hours of 8am and 6pm, steady internet access that only goes about once a day, and air-conditioning that freezes your bones. My work life is getting better.

I feel like a freaking hypocrite. I can talk a good game. I get meetings with country directors. I feel quite snotty when I say things like, “I’m going to the UN, but I have a meeting with the Chief Medical Officer this afternoon at the Ministry of Health.” What a load of crap.

I’ve made friends, a group of about 10 volunteers who live in Makeni. We meet on Friday nights for dinner, have lunch together, and go dancing on the weekends. The ages range from 50 to 22 and no one seems to care. My closest friends are about 8 years younger than I am, but oddly, here that doesn’t seem to matter.

Age doesn’t seem to translate here, because we are all going through the same thing. We all miss sushi and zippy internet. We all have boss who can’t figure how to wined their watch or scratch their ass. And we are all unmotivated fucks.

Now that I’m finally settled I find that, I’m devolving. By the end of the year, I won’t be able to feed or bath myself. Now that I have an office, in the United Fucking Nations Compound, I go to work and stare at blank word documents.

I finished the summer fundraising appeal and organized the donor data. In the “real” world, this should only take about a week to do. I’m on day 46, and I just finished it yesterday. I’ve cultivated a list of 40 foundations to research for writing this Cancer Control grant, but I can’t be bothered to research the foundations or write the grant.

I have a partially written scope of work, a case statement, and crappy outline, and a blank word document. I’m not ready to write it yet.

You would think the lack of TV or any kind of passive entertainment that I would be a workhorse, but now I just stare off into the middle distance thinking of nothing. I would feel horrible about this, but I’m not alone. Everyone feels this way.

But I have a good social life and a proper working environment. Now I just need to prove that I deserve to be here.

If I only saw Lakka Beach in Sierra Leone, I would think this place is paradise. This idyllic fishing village just west of Freetown is magical.



Tony Blair came to visit a few weeks ago to praise Sierra Leone for its economic development in the tourism industry. He opted for one of the UN helicopters (that sometimes fall out of the sky) landing on the sandy more affluent beaches of the west side, rather than take the hour long ferry ride across to the poorer east side of Freetown. He visited Lumely beach, the more popular of the beaches because of its easy access off the highway. It is full of trash, beggars, and tourists. It is easy to get a slanted picture of this country is all you see if tubby Europeans lolling around in the sun drinking star beer.



We opted for the more adventurous trek up the bumpy muddy road past the enormous houses in Aberdeen to Lakka, where we were the only “tourists” there. I’m told the place is livelier on the weekends when all the NGOs take a break from inland, but we came on an overcast Wednesday to visit a one legged boy born in Makeni .

John is 16 years old and living on the beaches of Lakka selling small hand-woven baskets to the tourist for $6.00 a pop. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure if you were to buy one of his baskets at Pottery Barn they would be at least $30.00.



Today he sold one.

John wanted to talk to me because he heard that we are raising funds for junior secondary and senior secondary school scholarships. In Sierra Leone, the government will pay for primary school, but if you want an education past the 5th grade, you have to pay.

After hearing John’s plea for a better life, I asked him to write it down for me so that I can tell others. I think I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story:

My age is 16 years old.
I was born in Makeni

My main purpose writing you this letter is just to tell you my problem. I was going to school in Makeni, but the war makes me leave school for some time now. But I’m looking for people who will help me. I came to Freetown to look for person that will help me. I stop going to school for three years now. My school level is JSS 3 [8th grade]. The war killed my family and cut my leg too, and I was staying with my uncle but I leave him because he was very bad to me and I come to Freetown to live in the street for over two years now with no help and no food. Sometime I get hungry and my freind feeds me, but no one else is caring. To go to school for three years is Le 1,800,000 and you have to buy uniform, books, pens, pencils, and a
shoe.



1,800,000 Leones is around $567 US dollars. I used to make that in a week and complain I was poor.

I would like to say that John’s story is shocking. But it isn’t. Since word has gotten out that I’m raising money for children to go to school, every day people come up to me to tell me they want to qualify for a scholarship. Every mother, father, uncle, schoolteacher, grandparent, shop owner, everyone I run into knows me as the girl who can send a child to school.

I want to send them all.

I would like you to meet A. K. T., asophomore student at the J. S. High School in Mapaki. High School in Sierra Leone cost $25 a year. That’s what most of us spend on dinner out with friends, but to A. K. T. it is his future. Every boy or girl who graduates high school in Sierra Leone is a little boy or girl who will give back to Sierra Leone. It’s such as small cost for a sustainable future.

Let me know if you are interested in providing a high school scholarship this year for the students of the Paki Masabong Chiefdom. Every little you give helps!





Centre for Development and Peace Education
Mayagba
PMB 290
Makeni
Sierra Leone
Cell (804) 338-5111
Skype – indar_chandra
hdavis@cdpeace.com
http://cdpeace.com/

The matchboxes in the bar at the Heathrow Crowne Plaza Hotel warn, “Danger – Fire Kills Children” with a stick figure representing an immolated child. It’s a bit more on the nose than the US version of “don’t play with matches”

I traveled sort of kind of with my father this weekend. I say sort of kind of, because we only shared one flight, and he flew in business whilst I was in economy plus. Papa likes the day flight to London when traveling so that he can adjust to the jet lag. The downside of traveling this way is that it takes freakin forever. My preference is just to get it over with in one fell swoop. Dragging your flights out over two days is torturous. You clear customs twice, check your bags twice, go through security twice, deal with other people flying constantly. Who needs it?

There are moments in your life when you are smacked in the face with the reality that you are not always a good person. That smack typically comes to me during travel. I used to date a boy with dogmatic devotion to what he perceived as the proper way to do things. A major reason why we are no longer together, it’s annoying when I find myself acting the same way. I have an ever-growing list of do’s and don’ts when getting from country A to country B

Go straight to your gate before doing anything else
Don’t leave the airport on a layover less than 24 hours
Never pack more than you can carry yourself
Children under five shouldn’t travel. They don’t enjoy it, we don’t enjoy it. Find a sitter
Don’t cut in line, we all have connecting flights
Don’t walk slow, we all have connecting flights
Don’t joke around with customs officials
Don’t sing or whistle.

I know this last one makes me a curmudgeon. Lookit, I too know what is like to jam out to your iPod. Music is an emotive experience begging for full body immersion. I’m down. I get it. You are still an annoying twatwaffel when you sing aloud. You aren’t as good as you think you are. I don’t want to listen to your off-key, out of synch rendition of Kathleen Turner Overdrive’s Greatest Hits Vol 1: A Nick Hornby Tribute. Do us all a favor and shut the fuck up.

My flights were as expected: gut wrenching fear until we clear the clouds, followed by butt numbing boredom, and then right around the time my legs atrophy, another dose of gut wrenching fear as we head back into the clouds. You would think by now I would be past the whole fear of heights thing, but it’s called an irrational fear for a reason.

This time the cab driver was blasting Debbie Gibson on the stereo. What is it with Austrian cab drivers and their shitty female pop stars? For me speaking German is like staring at a Jackson Pollack painting, after a while I abandon all hope and stop. Because I’m not that bright, I keep trying do both over and over again, thinking this time it’ll be better. Despite my crappy language skills, I got the hotel.

Once in my room I discovered that my Dr Bonner’s Magical Soap busted lose from its plastic bag during the flight. Now 50% of my stuff is cover is minty goo. I was able to rinse out most of the stuff and lay it out on the bathroom floor with no damage to anything electrical. Now I have to buy more soap, but that’s not the end of the world. I can do it in London next weekend before my flight to Freetown. Still, three days in a row with less than five hours of sleep is not how I like to roll.

Well, at least I’m here. Let the games begin.

Okee-dokee, folks. My flight is at 930 tomorrow. I'll be in Austria for a week with regular access to internet, and then I'm off. I don't know how often I will be online, but I'll try to keep ya'll updated with pics and stories when I can.

For all my worry about packing, it came down to just two bags to check, two bags to carry on, and my guitar. Enjoy the running water and TV, kiddies.

I'm moving to Africa.

We are in the final count down. The Richmond gang is coming up for the weekend, and I'm going camping the weekend after that. Ask me if I feel like I'm moving? The answer is no. Despite the fact that my regular consumer life has been drastically scaled down. You can live without a lot of stuff. Two more weeks...

I need to take a shower and get ready for the day. I feel oddly blank. Its as though everything in my life is in a holding pattern, waiting to see if it's really going to happen.

If the airport is any indication, the Danes have a great sense of style. I feel like I’m in an EQ3 catalogue. We arrived over an ocean so clear you can see straight to the bottom. It was like looking through the looking glass at an alternate reality… with fish. Part of me hoped we could keep circling in the air so could stare at the boats and ocean, but my ass is really happy we landed.

Last week on my way to work, I got a call that one of my colleagues died. Sadly, I’ve know the dude for several years and he was tasked with setting up our spring conference this April. Out of the blue a blood vessel burst in his head and he died. So I had to scramble to get a flight and settle the last few details. I wanted to come up to Austria anyway because I’m a control freak. We were having some communications issues and I wanted to be physically present to deal with the outstanding issue. Some people just don’t answer their emails, and that’s cool. Those people don’t work for me.

I wasn’t planning on going with less than a week’s notice and drop everything to get up here. I booked an afternoon flight from Dulles to Vienna via JFK but the wind had a little something to say about my flight plans, and as the flight was delayed half an hour by half an hour, it seemed increasingly likely I was going to miss my connecting flight. While in the lounge I befriended a young NASA analyst on her way to the UN. She was looking for internet access to pay her credit card bill, and I obliged. She sat in front of me on the way to JFK and we were supposed to be on the same flight to Vienna. So naturally when we missed the flight I apparently took on the responsibility of seeing that she get to Vienna safely as well.

I’m not a mother, but I always tend to collect little broken birds who need mending. It’s kind of a drag. United gets a us a later flight to Vienna via Frankfurt. Yea two layovers!

At long last I arrive in Austria and hop in cab driven by your stereo typical cab driver both blasting Dionne Warwick and the heat. I had no problem with the heat; Austria is not warm in February. I’m filled with this weird feeling of being home and not. There is something so comforting and absolutely true about Austria. The unselfconscious way they float through life completely free of irony. At a café I see an old geezer with a full white beard dressed head to toe in vibrant red. Does he think he looks like Father Christmas? Hell, no. Red just looks good on him. The stereo type of the teutonic man candy is also true. But, you see so many good looking men that it is like working in a ice cream store. After about a day you just roll your eyes, “Great! Another handsome man. Ho-hum.”

My meeting is originally at 10am, but with a delayed flight, I don’t arrive until 2pm. I ask her if we can postpone until tomorrow because I’ve been up over 36 hours and my brain doesn’t function. She tells me she doesn’t work on the weekend. Yeah? Me either, but here I am anyway. Have a freaking heart lady! But I don’t say that, and she doesn’t. Therefore, we meet until 6:30 and my brain slowly slips out my ear.

The rest is as you would expect, just another weekend in a foreign country. They are boarding my flight now, and I’m crossing my fingers my sister is standing at international arrivals when my plane lands. Somehow in the last 5 years, but my life has become very… strange.

I'm stealing this from Dave. Later, I will bitch about being in Vienna, but first have some pretty:

Did you guys know I'm a lefty? Who knew!

My Political Views
I am a left moderate social libertarian
Left: 3.78, Libertarian: 2.92


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -3.47


My Culture War Stance
Score: -6.09

Political Spectrum Quiz

My daily dose of corporate caffeine is this place called Caribou. They are my anti-starbucks. The coffee isn’t burnt and you don’t need an insulin shot with your latte. More importantly, they have fair trade coffee and dang it’s good! Yummy caffeine and liberal guilt, custom built for me! Yeah!

Most corporations right now are giving to some charity. You can buy coupons at the grocery store to donate food or a book at the bookstore for shelters. Between November 1st and January 6th, it is almost impossible to find a store that isn’t giving to charity. The list of causes that will take your money is long and never-ending.

Give to the arts, schools, a conflict/disaster zone, support gay rights, animal rights, ethnic rights, worker rights, find a cure for AIDS, lupus, multiple sclerosis, increase adult literacy in prisons, stop George Bush from speaking in public, and take more public transportation. For every cause there is a non-profit with a website, magazine, and another non-profit vehemently opposed to their beliefs. They all want your money and time. Pick a cause ladies and gentleman, tis the season for tax deductions.

On this bandwagon, Caribou is raising money for, wait for it… our troops.

Really?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m positive on the military. Unlike many of my colleagues, I have a kind of willful naïveté that can be only be found in my little heart and 1970s porn. Despite their many attempts to prove me wrong, I still look at these kids in uniform and believe they are the good guys. But even I am not so foolish as to think they might need a little charity.

Our military is rolling in the dough! The budget for 2009 is around 600 billion. That is a number so large it doesn’t even have meaning any more. That is almost what every other country will spend on the military combined. Now we far and away outpace the rest of the world in general when it comes to spending, and the DoD budget is only about 20% of the pie. It’s still six hundred billion fucking dollars! If you put 600 billion of something end to end you have a lot of somethings going someplace for a very long time.

Of all the places Caribou could have given assistance, of all the places and people that need help, they choose “the troops”? What the fuck, dude? You care enough about fair trade coffee, how come you’re phoning it in for season of giving?