Not even 24 hours into being here near Tiwai, I seem to have broken my pinkie toe. I’m not completely sure, but it sure hurts to walk, and it’s swollen and the entire thing is a bruise. Nice job me! Such a silly thing to put you out of commission too!!! So I was riding from village to village with Minah, the research coordinator, on his motorcycle, to tell everybody I was in town. And we slipped on a muddy patch and my left foot went under the motorcycle, and my toes bent backwards. So anyways, it went from painful to numb to painful to numb. Now it’s just purple and I am trying not to walk on it too much. Wouldn’t now be a fantastic time to have ice and like…a doctor? Yup. This is one example of why I bought a very nice helmet and wear it anytime I set myself on a motorcycle.
Things are going pretty well, except for the bodily inconveniences – sunburn (sunblock was packed deep in those boxes!), massive amounts of heat rash, bed bugs from the night before, black biting flies that itch like mad, and now…a broken toe. I had about 5 people grab my ass today, exclaiming how nice I’d become (men and women). Nice = fat. Haha.
It’s all a bit overwhelming really. People here expect I am already OK with everything because I was here last year, when I am really in culture shock. There are about a dozen people here at the research station doing some arts and crafts training, which is cool but makes for strange circumstances. I.E. they aren’t allowed to use the tank water but I am so I feel weird taking a shower where they can hear it, and they are using all the kitchen stuff really so I’m not really sure how I can cook...I’ve been eating in the village for the past 24 hours but am not so used to the going 12 hours without eating throughout the day thing. Out come the Luna bars!! I slept in a tent in the village school yesterday (thus the bedbugs) because it was too late to go to the village.
With the help of the nice EFA driver named Fortune, I rented a taxi like vehicle to take me to Tiwai Island. It was fairly uneventful – I made the mistake of getting food at Moyamba Junction again and found odd bits of innard meat inside.
We made it to Kambama by 8ish and found a very quiet village. I stepped out of the car and people sort of glanced over, then Kenewa’s little son Bachana shouted “It’s APRIL!!” and suddenly the village burst into activity. Everybody came out of their huts to greet me and I sat in the barri (town meeting area) to soak it up. I felt very welcomed and it was fun trying to remember all the Mende phrases and people’s names (yeah, I basically had forgotten everything). I feel almost caught up to speed on the Mende now…So hopefully I can improve on my tiny little phrases I know.
I ‘moved in’ this morning to the island, with 10 men and me and all my heavy boxes piled into a boat. It was a jolly time actually. Then Minah and I went off to 3 villages – Sahun, Nianianhun, and Boma. Then the broken toe. Then me hobbling around the village for awhile. Then maybe the mistake of me trying local medicine.
My assistant Kenewa has a grandfather who is the town medicine man. I think maybe it couldn’t hurt to try some local rub on the foot. Ethnobotanical herbal funness right?? Knowledge of the local indigineous people right? So he goes and gets something that looks like a dirt ball. He wets it then proceeds to rub it on my foot. I’m thinking that’s ok cuz I don’t have any open wounds and why not? Then he grabs my toe and starts to shake it. That’s when I decided I would never try local medicine again. And also when I decided my toe was maybe broken.
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