Sunday 17 May 2009

Freetown home visits

Today has been a little crazy. I used to hate my Freetown home visit day, but then they got a little easier once I knew where the patients lived and found some good parking places.

Now I hate them again.

The morning started with sitting in traffic for 45 mins to Congo Cross, which should without traffic take 10 mins max.

Then from house to house we went, traffic intermittent with Police officers intermittent with crazy taxi drivers and the odd pedestrian stepping out in front of the car.


None of the children we saw today were new, but all seemed to be hard work. The first patient I had specifically phoned the night before as we wanted to speak to the mum, who has been absent on the last few visits. She has had some family finance problems and has had to go to market early in the mornings to sell leaving her 3 yr old disabled son at home being watched by older sister (9) and neighbours when the sister is at school. This families desperate situation is not uncommon, and the struggle to get enough money to feed all the mouths in the home is never easy, especially when there is no man around to help. Still, I was a little frustrated when I had called the eve before to make sure she would be there, then she wasn't.
Still, on we went and had a good session with the child, and spent some time nurturing and teaching the sister how to do some important stretches and positioning for her little brother.

Passing through a huge crowd of people who had gathered around an accident, we tried to get to our next patient in a slum area called Krew Bay. Parking the car as far from the crowd as we could, we walked down a steep slope to get to the house. Ibrahim was waiting as ever with smiles, but also with wet shorts....a quick change and ready for some good work. We measured him for a standing frame we are hoping to make in the next few weeks. Both he and his family are excited that he will be able to be standing upright for some of the day.

Next patient was at the back of a tailors shop..... we squeeze our way through the cutting and sewing, to find Umaru. His chair needed adjusting but without an entire set of carpentry tools with us (which is a little unpractical), Abu ended up walking off down the road with the chair on his head to find the nearest carpenter workshop. 3000 Leones (60p) and 45 mins later he returns with all the adjustments done. In the meantime I had enjoyed playing with Umaru with the neighbours kids - was so good because I'm not sure how much interaction he gets with other children as he needs so much facilitation just to sit upright , let alone pass a ball to other children.

By this point in the day it is SO hot, I'm literally sweating so much I think I'm melting!! There has been a few nights of rain recently, the rainy season come early?? But the Africans say that "the rain cleans the sun", and now I know exactly what they mean - and the sun sure was clean and bright and clearly beating down on us without a hint of grace!

Our next stop was the house of a child of ours who died last week. It's always sad when this happens, and many 'why' questions are asked. But all we can do is go and sympathise, do the cultural thing of giving some money in an envelope and pray with them for encouragement.

On to our last two. Chu Chu enjoyed lots of sensory play - all new experiences to him as we teach his aunty to encourage learning in a different way since Chu Chu can't see. Another chair to adjust, this time a foot plate that we had designed and got our carpenter to make. Fitted perfectly - love it when that happens!

Then Abu went off to see the last one alone as this child is afraid of 'white man' and does nothing but cry when I am around.

Instead, I go off to the car to start writing up some notes. Only in true Freetown fashion, I didn't get any peace as people were knocking at my car door, talking to me through the window, hassling me for anything and everything. At the end of a long hot dirty day, I have to admit I was not very patient with them, especially when one told me 'You don't do anything to help us disabled people' that made me mad...if only he knew. I wound my window up and tried to get on with writing the notes, but is was so hot I nearly suffocated! When these men moved on I quickly opened the window again and took a deep breath of yet more warm air!

I was totally finished by the time Abu got back to the car. Only another hour in traffic, in the heat, with the windows open for any passer by the talk to me/beg me/hassle me, with bad drivers and police officers to dodge, then eventually to get home again.....

Can't wait for my next Freetown day - honest!

1 comment:

fiuman said...

Dear friend,
My name is Dragan Buskulic and I live in Rijeka , Croatia. My hobby is philately, and I try to collect postcard or cover sent to my address from all world countries, for now I got mail from 126 countries, but I don´t have any from Sierra Leone. (please visit www.followstamps.com)
So I would appreciate very much if you could send me postcard or cover from your
country. In return if you wish I can send you postcards or covers from Croatia.

Greetings from Croatia

Dragan Buskulic
Ante Mandica 11
HR-51000 RIJEKA
Croatia