Running through disorder

I woke up with the bright idea to put socks on for the first time in almost three weeks and slide on those bright orange and black Nike running shoes and pound through the streets of downtown Freetown in the early morning hours. The streets aren't too bad before 7:30, but in certain areas, especially out east, the roads are incredibly congested with terrible traffic. Thanks to my whimsical style of running, randomly turning down streets that look interesting, it was only a matter of time before I was dodging podas, taxis, buses pouring out diesel fumes, women with towering baskets, children selling plastic bags of corn flakes, business men and school children all while trying to avoid puddles of water and piles of trash on the sides. I was trudging along at a fairly relaxing pace enjoying the morning when a young man ran by wearing a backpack. I struggled to keep up with him, hindered not by speed, but by his nimble flight through the chaos that is central Freetown.

While my Krio is absolutely terrible and his English too broken for us to communicate effectively, it turns out that this young man by the name of Osmem is a member of a running club that meets everyday in the Freetown heat to run. I can't wait to run with a group, although I have a feeling that these guys are going to leave me in the dust.

The entire day without African food on Sunday may have been a bad idea, as I wasn't feeling so great the after my run, which probably only compounded the problem. Anyways, I'll spare everyone the details, but after a dive into medicine bag (for the first time), I felt great. Thankfully the water was on, and so after a quick shower, Mohammed brought to the room the usual breakfast of bread, cheese, tea and butter. For about 10 minutes this morning the electricity was randomly working- it turns out that there is a electrical grid in Freetown, but that it simply isn't used very often. It was very strange to have electricity and not hear the hum of the generator outside.

Anyways, Sara and I took a taxi over to iEARN. We no longer get charged thousands of Leones for a ride around town - once you understand the taxi system, it actually isn't too bad and most of the drivers are fairly helpful, even if they are ex-rebels.

There are three types of cars on the streets of Freetown: taxis and podas, the SUVs of NGOs, the UN, and the government, and the occasional private car (usually very nice ones at that, even by Western standards) of the wealthy. Taxis and podas are always blinged out with extra lights, both inside and out. Popular accessories include multiple roof racks, side mounted fire extinguishers and extra radio antennas. Some podas have a generator running in the back powering roof mounted speakers several feet tall, providing a mobile jam session. Taxis always have their windows down in the stifling heat. For some reason the window cranks are always missing; I guess some people like to steal the window cranks from taxis, although I'm not sure what you do with them as there isn't exactly much of a market for window cranks. Anyways, when it begins to rain the driver passes around the one remaining crank he keeps on his door and each passenger roles up their window.

When we finally arrived at the center, I wasn't feeling the best and so didn't do much teaching and only sent two girls out with cameras. Sara ran another identity session, focusing this time on race and ethnicity. Nothing too exciting happened at the center today. I also set up two donated iBook laptops - one that I brought over, one that one of the previous interns brought - for the kids to use; once the network people come over and configure the network their will be two more computers for use. I'm pretty excited about that, especially as we won't be messing around with anti-virus software on the Macs.

We returned to the Y and went with Amanda for some groundnut soup and rice at the usual place just down Fort Street - it easily has some of the best African food in Freetown and is run by a jovial lady who always brightens the day with a smile. After dinner, we went down to supermarket.

I love that place. I just walked up and down the aisles staring at all the imported Western food. Thankfully my inability to make decisions when confronted with so many options resulting in me only purchasing a package of fantastical chocolate chip cookies for Le6000. Sara found some Haribu gummy bears and a jar of honey.

We bought some bananas on the street after unsuccessfully attempting to outrun some sort of parade full of men in red shirts, as we had no interest in joining the crowds. The banana seller didn't seem to realize that we were in a hurry and trying to avoid the parade rapidly approaching; thankfully, they seemed to be just a rowdy Freetown crowd marching through the streets/ After returning to the Y, the three of us sat on the balcony with Nick and devoured bread, bananas, peanut butter and honey sandwichs while watching the sunset.