Food, glorious food!

I am super excited about this blog!

Over the last 7 months while living in Freetown I have been brave enough, as some would say, to try almost every type of food I have found being sold on the street.  And this blog is a rundown of some of my favourites!

The first thing I discovered to buy on the streets were these:

Plantain chips.

If you have been to Africa or maybe South America, you will probably know what these are.  Actually you can buy these from Trader Joe’s too (in the USA).   Plantains are grown in the more tropical areas of the world and are a very common food here.  We see them sold as a whole fruit, very similar to the banana we know, but often picked and cooked unripe so not sweet to the taste like a banana.  After the plantains are peeled, they are thinly sliced and deep fried, bagged and sold as plantain chips.  YUM!

The next most common favourite for me is the popcorn.

It is sold by the bag, options of sweet or salty and only 500 Leone (about 25c).  It stores quite well too, so a little stock in the cupboard never goes to waste.

The most common food sold on the streets, carried on plates balancing on ladies heads, are these:

Peanuts, or ground nuts as they are known in Krio.  You can choose between peanuts in the shells, roasted nuts in the skins or skinned and bagged.  They are also very cheap to buy and a yummy snack!

During my field service in Freetown as part of the Gateway program I attended in Texas for Mercy Ships, some of the girls became obsessed with Nutella.  When we found these:

Delicious ginger nut biscuits, with a real ginger aftershock, they quickly became the naughty, tasty treat to be dipped into the Nutella jar!  And only 1,500 Leone to buy!

A few more favourites, not just shared by my opinion but also those of my friends are the few that follow:

African doughnuts- when you find them fresh are relatively soft and nice to eat, although very oily!  But also good with Nutella!

 African shortbread cookies are found in containers also balanced on ladies heads.  I think they are made in mass production and sold to whichever individual who wants to sell them, because some days you see them sold everywhere and some days they are nowhere to be found.  They are a nice sweet treat.

 

African scones are nice with a cup of tea or butter and jam.  Similar to a scone from home, but not as light and fluffy!

Coconut cup shells are another nice crunchy snack.

A staple in the diet of Africans is white bread like this:

 

You can eat it plain as it is baked fresh every day or you can choose to have a filing, honey or something savoury like fish.

My all time favourite are these:

Sesame seed snaps.  Roasted sesame seeds all stuck together with a sweet sticky honey.  YUM!

And lastly my newest favourite:

Ginger bread!  Chewy ginger bread with strings of real ginger!  SO GOOD!  But so far i haven't seen them sold on the streets of Freetown!  I will definitely keep my eyes open for them!

And for a drink?

 

A bag of water.  Bite a hole in the side and rehydrate yourself!  :)

I love buying food on the street from stalls I’m walking past but my favourite is when I’m just sitting in the car and I can buy it from people walking past the landrover!  It’s like a drive thru, only the people are walking past because the traffic is so bad!  HaHa! 

A long weekend trip up-country

Friday morning, 15 July, 12 of us set out for an African adventure in a hired van fitting all of us quite spaciously.  We were heading about 300km up-country to a town called Kabala.  Our vehicle had CD player and ipod jack, so sweet tunes kept us singing along to the music as we drove through the streets of Freetown.  Only 1 ½ hours into the trip on a nice stretch of road, we felt a thump on the back tyre.  We pulled over and piled out of the car to discover our tyre had shredded all of its rubber!  It was time for the guys to show us their skills!  The girls trouped off for a bathroom break in the bush on the side of the road while the guys realized the tool they had to undo the bolts holding the tyre on, was too big for the wheel.  So then we proceeded to flag down cars, trucks, poda-podas, anyone who would stop, to see if they had a tool that would fit.  No one did, so we were advised to travel on, slowly, to the next village to see if they had the equipment to help.

As soon as we pulled over at the next village we though could help us, and explained the problem, about 20 guys surrounded the car looking at the tyre, discussing the situation.  The village children also came to stare at the ‘whities’ standing around the car.  Some of the group entertained the kids as we waited about an hour while they struggled to get the spare on.  Finally it was done, even pumped up as tight as they could with a bicycle pump!  We headed to Makeni, where we would get the tyre pressures checked.  After Makeni, we were told, the roads got much, much worse, so we opted to buy a new (previously used of course) tyre for the car.  Only 120,000 Leone for a ‘new’ tyre and fitted to the old rim as well.  That’s about $26AUD!

Back on the road towards Kabala, as we stared out the window we saw a combination of mud huts with palm frond roofs and cement blocked houses, washing lines strung out full of colourful African prints, chickens, ducks, dogs and goats in the middle of the road, not even running from our tyres as we sped down the road. One poor duck did bite the dust, much to our disappointment.  The landscape was so green, lush grass, fields of rice, trees and rocky hills.  The people went about their business, some carrying loads of wood on their heads, some walking along the highway, some sitting on the porch of their house watching the world go by.  It really was fascinating to see all of these things, to wonder what the people did with their time, to see a glimpse of how they live.  I kept wondering how or if I would cope living like they do for a period of time.

We reached Kabala much after our expected time of arrival, about 7 hours of travel, but in good spirits.  We found the place we were going to stay for the next two nights and looked up at the hill we would hike the next day.  It was a pretty place to stay, but of course, basic rooms with electricity only from 7pm til 6am and no running water, but only 70,000 Leone per double per night.  We asked someone to show us where the best place to eat would be and we were taken to Choices Restaurant and found out the only choices there were beans, bean soup or chicken that looked like it had been cooked one week ago!  We opted for looking for food in town.

So we walked through the streets and finally, after much discussion and deliberation, we would buy a frying pan, raw eggs, bread and cook our own meal.  We bought a tray of eggs and while some of the group was deciding how much water to buy to last the next few days, Jeff decided to play a game with one of the kids on the street.  Take a raw egg and throw it backwards and forwards between two people, each time it’s caught, stepping further back from each other, until someone drops it and it breaks.  They threw the egg back and forth for quite a while, getting further and further apart until the African boy dropped it, but to each of our amazement (not the Africans funnily enough) the egg did not crack open and splat on the road, it sort of bounced and broke apart.  It was then we realized we had bought boiled eggs!!!  Lucky for us that Jeff had decided to play this game!!!  So were able to go back and swap the boiled eggs for raw ones!

When we got back to the guest house where we were staying, Jeff had organised to use the field close to the guest house to light a fire in and use to cook our dinner.  We hung around the fire until late in the evening, making smores (an American tradition- gram crackers with a piece of chocolate and hot toasted marshmellow between the crackers), enjoying the full moon and each others company.

In the morning after the usual African breakfast of omelette inside bread and instant coffee or tea, we headed up the hill for our hike.  The climb was pretty much straight up the side of the hill and it only took us about an hour to reach the peak.  There was a nice view over the village and you could see the hills of Guinea stretching out over the horizon.

We had decided that morning that Kabala really didn’t have much to offer in the way of food or other things to do, as lovely as it was!  So after bucket showering off the sweat of climbing, we piled back in the car to drive to Makeni.  Before leaving though, we had to pump up this troublesome back tyre again.

Makeni is a nice town, with well build roads, new establishments being built and generally much more spacious than the cramped Freetown we are used to.  A couple of the group checked out a place to stay the night, Thinka hotel, and we moved on to find a place to eat.  We ate at the nicest hotel in the town, still reasonably priced and good food.  And afterwards some of the group choose to have an evening swim in the pool.

We headed back to Thinka to find, it really was the dumpiest place I’ve ever stayed at in all my life!  What can you expect for only 40,000-50,000 Leone a night, but the smelliest toilet you’ve ever come across, the grossest pillows and most uncomfortable, creaky bed ever.  This is was definitely an African experience.  I am used to the life of luxury!  But for only one night and hopefully not bringing anything contagious back with us, we stayed the night.  No one slept in that morning and we were actually packed up and in the car one minute before we said we would leave the night before!  That’s amazing for a group of 12 people!

This last day we had to explore up-country we decided to go to Bumbuna waterfalls.  The road to the waterfalls was super bumpy and took us two hours to get about 43 Km!  Once close to the waterfalls, there was a river flowing over the road that we weren’t quite sure the van would make it through without being drowned!  Again, after much discussion between ourselves and the African boys hanging around the car, we all piled out and Jeff drove over the shallowest place and made it safely through.  Further down the bumpy dirt road, we came across another Mercy Ships group that we had bumped into in Makeni and Kabala too.  They had left their car to see the waterfall and had had an African man bring them some of their things from inside their locked vehicle wanting to sell them to them.  They ran back to their vehicle to find someone had broken inside and taken a whole load of their gear and left the vehicle still locked.

Heading their word, we took two trips to see the waterfall, one group staying with the van and the other group going.  The waterfall was bigger than I had imagined.  Red dirty water raging down rocks filed with Iron ore.  The water was cool and it was lovely to see such natural beauty.

After seeing the waterfall and travelling the long, bumpy dirt road again, we had the tyres pumped up for the third time in Makeni and made the long trip back to Freetown, to our home on the Africa Mercy for a hot shower and a good meal!

It was a wonderful weekend, full of excitement, random Africa experiences and 11 other amazing friends to share it with.

Now I am Tall

Sally on admission to the Africa Mercy

Finally i have one of the stories, written by a Mercy Ships writer, about Sally, one of my orthopedic patients.

            “Sometimes, I would just sit down and cry,” said Sally with great emotion.  For seventeen years, people laughed at her and mocked her because of her legs – horribly misshapen and knock-kneed. The constant verbal abuse made her feel ashamed. Walking was difficult and tiring, so she didn’t go to school. She just stayed at home in her misery.

            The problem was caused by a car accident when she was only ten years old.  A witch doctor blanketed her legs with a native concoction of boiled leaves. Splints of wooden sticks were tied to her legs for three months. But nothing changed; she returned home with bent legs. Without money for surgery, she had to learn to live with her disability.

            Three years ago, Sally’s parents died.  Since she had no siblings, she went to live with a friend. Her friend found a mentor to teach Sally to sew, and she eventually went to work at a dressmaker’s shop.  In fact, she hopes to own her own shop some day.

            A friend at work told her that a Mercy Ship, offering orthopedic surgeries at no charge, would soon be in Sierra Leone. She encouraged Sally to go to the screening. Surgeons on the Africa Mercy surgically repaired her legs and put them in casts.

           

When she awoke in the ward, she was delighted to see that her legs were both straight in the casts. But when her casts were changed, she was ecstatic.  “I could see my legs were straight,” said Sally with a brilliant smile.  “It’s like a dream, and I’m an angel that can walk on straight legs!”

Sally rejoicing at having physio remove her casts for the last time

            

 Another bonus of the surgery is that her straightened legs add height to her physical stature.  When she walked on her bandaged legs for the first time, she exclaimed, “I’m so amazed. I used to be a short somebody. Now, I’m tall.”

            

 Sally knew what she would do first after being released from the hospital ship. “I want to give my testimony at church of what Mercy Ships did for me. If it were not for Mercy Ships, I was going to die with legs like that, because I had no money. I was mocked every place I went. I’m thanking God for what He has done for me, and I’m asking Him to bless you people.”

A little fighter

Osman, aged 9, came to the Africa Mercy in May 2011.  He presented with a right knee burn contracture with a wound after hurting his knee from falling out of a tree.  The family sort medical advice from a witch doctor who poured boiling water on the wound to heal it.  Unfortunately, it caused 3^rd degree burns to most of his right leg and didn’t heal the wound.  His first two surgeries were to clean and debride the wound before a skin graft and contracture release would be possible.

Osman was a bright boy, understanding English and responding to the nurses politely and clearly, unlike any African patient I’d ever looked after.  One morning at 5am, while I was still quietly going about my night shift duties, he called me over, telling me in plain English, “I need to change my sheets.  They have not been changed in three days!”  My response was to think, What!?  Osman, since when do we change sheets here every three days if they are still clean?  Where did you even get the idea that they need to be changed so often?  Instead I replied, “Osman, it is 5 o’clock in the morning!  Let’s wait until people are awake!”

Osman was very particular about the tablets or liquid medications he would take, often telling you to wash his cup out and refill it with fresh, cool water before he would take his medication.  Still, he would always say thank you and try to remember your name.

The third surgery he was able to have the skin graft and contracture release of that leg.  I looked after him in the following days, keeping up the pain relief and keeping an eye on the leg, noticing that his foot was very swollen and he was unable to wiggle his toes and he had no sensation present.  His foot was also like this pre-operatively, but we were hoping for an improvement.  He was a trouper, not often complaining of pain and cheerfully sitting in bed keen to interact and participate in whatever was going on in the ward.

On day three post-op, his leg began to bleed profusely and he was rushed off for an emergency surgery for a popliteal arterial graft (behind his knee).  The surgery was completed but we were still unable to find a pulse in his foot.  Over the following days, even with antibiotics, and a lot of prayer, his temperature rose and we hoped he wasn’t turning septic!  His foot turned black and looked awful.  I didn’t see him much of those days as he was moved to ICU where a paediatric nurse could watch over him.  He seemed relatively cheerful, despite the circumstances.

As things weren’t getting better, we heard the devastating news, “Osman is going to the OR today.  He is having an above knee amputation.”   We all thought, Oh Osman, above the knee!  I’m so disappointed for you!

But like the trouper he is, immediately after the operation he asked for a balloon!  He coped with the change remarkably well, asking the day after surgery when could he get out of bed on crutches.

Osman with a fellow nurse.

He is still on the ward now, more than one month after his admission, while we wait for his stump to heal well enough for him to go home.  He hops about on his crutches like a little champ.  He’ll play balloon soccer in the hallway, standing on his one leg and waving his crutches in the air to hit the balloon.  He is also quick to wack someone with a crutch if they are out of line.  He is hungry for affection and love too, quick to hug you, sit on your lap or even give kisses (I had to tell him to only kiss on the cheek when he went for the lips!).  He is such a beautiful child, also adding to the nursing prayer time by praying himself.  Any fears that us nurses may have had for his future without his right leg, have been washed away by his determination for life.

Love

How busy I have been in the last few weeks!!!  I have said goodbye to countless friends (or so it feels) and sent them on their way home with a hug and the hope of keeping up to date with their lives via Facebook or email.

The ward I have been mostly working in lately is plastic surgery.  We are now down to just 13 patients, all waiting for their wounds to heal enough to leave the hospital and come back to outpatients every couple of days for dressing changes.  The patients who are in the ward currently are mostly children.  I looked around the ward the other day and saw about 10 boys all between 1-12 years old.  It is the noisiest place in the hospital as you could imagine.  These boys have a special place in my heart, each coming with special needs and the desperate want to be loved.

At handover the other day, the group of nurses were all sitting around in a circle, listening to announcements and hearing happenings in the hospital.  Almost every nurse had a patient sitting on her lap.  When it came time to pray, one nurse asked one of the boys if he’d like to pray.  He said yes!  So we bowed our heads and heard the beautiful words flow out of his mouth thanking Papa God for the nurses and Drs and everyone in the hospital.  After this prayer another little boy prayed, offering his thanks to Papa God.  And again, a 12 year old girl in a nearby bed also prayed for us all.  Those whispered words from the hearts of the children lifted my heart so high I could fly!  What a sweet, sweet feeling.

Each patient knows every nurses name.  They want to sit on your lap, to be carried around, to be hugged, squeezed, loved.  And we give it to them with all of our hearts, and feel the same in return.

Little Josephine

Here's a recent story written by one of our Mercy Ships writers on a gorgeous little girl called Josephine.

 

Two-year-old Josephine inhaled something that affected her breathing. Her parents took her to a local clinic which sent them to an emergency hospital . . . which sent them to a government hospital . . . which sent them to a satellite clinic . . . which sent them back to the government hospital.  After five days in the government hospital, specialist Dr. Karim Kabineh told them that Josephine was so tiny that she would die if he performed the necessary operation. He needed a pediatric anesthetist, anesthesia equipment, and a critical care unit with 24-hour nursing care – all unavailable at that hospital.

         After eight days of hopeless searching for help, the desperate parents took Josephine to the office of the Minister of Health, where the father, David, hoped to plead his case and find someone who could help. At that moment – in the miracle of God’s timing – Ann Gloag, a member of the Mercy Ships International Board who is well-known for her charity work in Africa, was meeting the Minister.

         She put in a call to Dr. Gary Parker, Chief Medical Officer onboard the Africa Mercy docked a short distance away in Freetown Harbor. After explaining to him what appeared to be the problem, arrangements were made to use an ambulance to transport Josephine, her parents and Dr. Kabineh to the ship.

         Dr. Gary examined Josephine, took x-rays and discovered a small stone lodged in the little girl’s bronchus. A virtual think tank was begun to find a way to remove the stone from her tiny body. Dr.Gary approached engineering to see if a medical device could be fashioned that would be the right shape to fit into the bronchoscope and retrieve the stone.  Every plausible idea was examined and eventually rejected. 

         Dr. Gary and Dr.Kabineh worked for five hours trying to remove the stone without success. Dr. Gary called Ann back to explain that what Josephine needed was a cardiac thoracic surgeon, and there wasn’t one on the ship. David was devastated. Mercy Ships was his last hope. But crew member Clementine Tengue encouraged him, saying, “God will find a way.”

         Josephine was admitted to the intensive care unit with 24-hour care. About 3:00 am, ICU Nurse Melissa Warner was working the night shift when Josephine lost her breathing tube.  Her vital signs were crashing.  Dr. Michelle White, the pediatric anaesthetist/ anesthesiologist, was paged, but it would take her several minutes to respond.  Melissa said, “In my mind I said I need help.”  “And when I looked up, there was Corina Buth standing in the doorway.  Corina, a pediatric ICU nurse, had been restless and couldn’t sleep.  Corina did CPR, and Josephine’s vital signs returned to normal. Then Dr. Michelle arrived and replaced the breathing tube.

         Josephine’s condition was deteriorating rapidly. Analysis was made of the hospitals nearby.  Ann Gloag phoned a professor friend in Nairobi and explained that she needed a pediatric cardiac thoracic surgeon who could fly to Sierra Leone right away. The professor knew just the right man – Dr. James Munene, head of cardiac surgery at Nairobi’s Kenyatta National Hospital. 

         “I was a bit reluctant,” said Dr. Munene. “I had never heard of Mercy Ships. I had no information on this case, and it was the middle of the night” Ann called back with information on his flight. “Be at the airport at 6:00 am,” she said. 

         “It was a little difficult to say no to the lady. I told my wife I guess I’m going to Sierra Leone in the morning,” Dr. Munene said.

         Dr. Munene was overwhelmed by the Africa Mercy, the more than 400 crew members volunteering from 35 different countries, and the concept of bringing hope and healing to the forgotten poor. He couldn’t believe such a mission could have been in operation for so many years, and he didn’t know anything about it.

         Teaming with Dr. Gary, Dr. James operated on Josephine, fishing the stone out of her

bronchus with ease. Because Josephine was so tiny, it was a vital requirement to have a pediatric anesthetist as part of the team.    Josephine woke shortly after the surgery and sat up all the way to the Intensive Care Unit, looking around and asking for a glass of water. To everyone’s surprise, she was anxious to eat right away. After a few days of recuperating in the ICU – and enjoying the attention of the nurses and other crew members – the little girl and her grateful parents left the ship

         Dr. James was captivated by the mission and hopes to return to volunteer his services. “Really, it’s a privilege to come and see what people are doing while others are sleeping and doing nothing,” he said.

         And God never sleeps – miracles still happen every day.  Sometimes we are blessed to be a part of them.