Today was another of those interesting days. We were all set to travel to Segbema, the last village on my tourney to re-introduce myself. I’d planned to go earlier but the whole toe thing happened. By the way, it still hurts. I think I really may have broken it. Just a little break though. Anyway. So we are all set to travel to Segbema and we hear wailing in the forest. We wait to see what is happening and my friend Jebbeh (who braided my hair a couple days ago) stumbled out of the forest, blood pouring down her face. Her husband follows. Apparently she wouldn’t carry his water for him so he beat her with his shoe and opened up an inch gash on her forehead. I was so furious. I know her husband as well. Really she needed stitches – the gash was deep. But I cleaned it and bandaged it the best I could. Apparently he beats her a lot. He tried to greet me later on and I couldn’t reply.
We travelled on to Segbema and greeted the townspeople and gave them my “kola” ($~8). I love that village but it’s a bitch to get to. You walk 45 minutes due south, then hope that the message got to the village that you need a canoe. If not, you swim (ok, Kenewa swims, not me…) to get to the other side. Kenewa will then find a canoe for me to take me across. We were lucky this morning and they were expecting us. The canoe came and it’s about a 20 minute canoe ride up river in a very rickety dugout canoe. Also a lot of biting flies. Then another half hour walk from the river to the village. Uphill. OK so that doesn’t sound so bad. It’s mostly the whole crossing the river thing that makes it annoying. Anyway the village people were so sweet, and of course one of the elders asked to be my husband, but they seemed genuinely happy to see me again. The 4 elder men all went away to discuss something, and came back and said they wanted to cook me something if I could wait. I declined, saying I had to get back, and we trekked back. We met up with the official cultural dancers from the village and walked with them back to the camp. Apparently some big wigs were coming to visit (CEPF – the people who fund EFA) and they were gonna dance for them.
I got to meet some fun Americans (the CEPF people) and also a lady who has lived in Sierra Leone for 25 years – impressive! She invited me over to the camp to talk later but when I got there, she was meeting with EFA peeps. The dancers did their dance thing which was good and now I am sleepy and going to bed! Nitenite! The trainees are leaving on Monday! Yay!!! I mean, I love them and everything but I want my dang kitchen back and some privacy!
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