A typical day for Fee-Fee

So what does a typical day look like living in Lakka, working for EFA?

I wake up to the sound of...my mobile. My habit of waking up naturally at 6 has miraculously disappeared since I’ve been here. I guess my brain has so many new impressions to deal with that if I wouldn’t set my alarm I’d probably be in a coma for a couple of days.
The second and third sounds I hear are rather pleasant: birds and rolling waves. I remove my tie-die green-yellow-red sheet and step out from under the mosquito net (for which I must get a little sewing kit to fix!). The floor is tiled with square tiles, which is nice and cool all day, with a pattern of wooden boards on them. I unlock my bedroom door with violence. As every other door in the guest house it sounds like a 15^th century ghost house door. Heavy, wooden door and probably never been oiled in its life. All the doors have (pad)locks on them or a little bolt to slide. If it doesn’t really fit properly Samuel the caretaker takes care of it. In his way that is. He doesn’t exactly make it much easier to lock the door as he refuses to remove and replace any nails. He just beats the metal with a padlock till you can force everything into place. This sort of resembles the strong Sierra Leonean (dare I say African?) adaptation capacity. If it rains and the roof leaks onto your bed, you move the bed. I guess it’s a resourceful way to deal with lack of resources/money. However, I’m sure EFA has a hammer and Samuel could fix things a touch more sustainably.

After my morning violence locking and unlocking doors and undoubtfully waking up the other ladies on my floor (the men sleep upstairs) I get myself ready and wait for the hot water to arrive. The caretaker, Samuel, brings the water and bread every day although I’m not sure for how long. He has mentioned he’d like the weekends off and was very sad, grumpy and upset after his meeting yesterday in which he requested to have the weekends off. Everytime I ask him about it he shushes me and says it’s a little secret.
After a lovely European breakfast of weetabix or cereals I move behind my laptop and do whatever needs to be done till lunchtime. The usual distractions are: generator, dogs (7 that bark and howl at the same time, all injected against Rabies J), chit-chatting in the kitchen (which is next to my room), and general heat and fatigue. I sometimes think of myself as one of those old colonialists writing a diary when I complain about the heat...

Dear diary,

The heat has been excruciating once again. I could not bear to be outside without little Ibrahim (slave) keeping me cool. My skin is moist all day and the well has almost dried out. Johnny took me out for a stroll on the beach where we cooled down with a cool glass of gin and tonic. Alas, we have run out of it now and shall have to wait until the ships return with more drinks and entertainment. Life is hard sometimes.

(this was in no way a reflection of my wishes or desires!)
After lunchtime I feel even more sleepy and try to be strong but have to take a nap occasionally. Chani swims at around 18 but I’ve decided to go at 17 to catch some evening sun rays and cool my brain. I find I can then do a little more (productive!)work between my swim and my dinner. I'm generally still reading up on EFA to get more ideas about how to systematise the information at hand. I'm producing documents I wish to see on the website which I think are relevant for potential donors and people interested in the various different kind of programmes.

The sea water seems to be more salty than what I’m used to. There is a hard rock cafe right near our house. It divides the beach in 2 parts. So far we’ve only swam on one side and since I recently heard that the hospital nearby dumps all their waste on the other side I think I’ll stick to ‘my’ side.
Chani’s fanclub is slowly becoming mine but I’m keepin my privacy and distance...it has become an issue with the security guards that some beach boys hang around the gate waiting so they've notified the chief of Lakka to deal with the boys. We'll probably sit down all together soon (beach boys, security, chief and us) to come to some arrangements about our friendship as the boys are quite insistent and hoping for more. I just hope they don't get into trouble and start coming after us because of it. It's very strange living in a village. Everyone knows each other and us and knows about everything. The chief knew about the time we were on the beach and one boy was touching Chani against her wishes. I get the impression there's been a lot of sex tourism around here (although Samuel corrected me that it's about relationships, even though the women just leave, yes, Europen/American women). I also learned that men can be married and have girlfriends. The farther away from home you are with your girlfriend the more respectful you are to your wife. And when you don't tell, it's also a sign of respectl.

To come back to my day... If it’s a weekday I’ll be having a dinner prepared by Samuel or one of his friends for 5000 leones (less than 1 euro). Monday it was fresh mackerel with a rotten lemon, rice and tomato sauce with lots of oil. This sounds worse than it is: I didn’t have the lemon and scooped around the oil J
After dinner we either head for the beach bar, have some drinks with other guests in the guest house or check our e-mails and have an early night. If it’s a weekend day we have our dinner on the beach.

I intended to go swimming at 6 on Tuesday since I went to bed early and want to get into the habit of swimming twice a day. But as my alarm went I couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or shut and decided not to go for a stroll to the sea in the dark. The way to the sea requires some light as there are rocks, tree roots, baby chicks, crabs and frogs on the way. I’d rather not have a new kind of rash this quickly. I’m sure I’ll have plenty without tempting fate.
On a less regular day I’ll go to Freetown supermarket, a site visit or anything that comes up really!

I haven’t quite decided whether this is one of my healthiest periods in life or one of the unhealthiest.

I live near the beach, breathe the clean sea-air daily, go for plenty of swims, eat regularly (lots of cereals in the morning, fresh fish in the evening, only fruit if/as I snack) and drink lots of water (no coffee). My skin is always moist thanks to the sticky weather (something that makes the people here look young and will keep my skin like a baby’s bottom according to another Norwegian guest). I also sleep plenty.

On the other hand I swim in the same (national) sea that gets medical waste dumped into it, that gets basically everything dumped into it during rainy season, inhale cooking fumes on a daily basis, have started drinking beer, take toxic malaria tablets and have peanut butter and white bread for lunch every day. I sleep on a very un-orthopaedic bed.

I guess life is just about balancing out the opposites...

ps: I had another site visit. This one was to see EFA's work with the Governmental Technological Institute as part of their Renewable Energy Programme (REP). I got to see a class at work building solar water heaters and get a general impression of the Renewable Energy Programme and the things they do (teach, build, install: solar energy and water heating systems). I've got to get into the jargon of renewable energy and nature conservation sooner rather than later.