Author Archives: Tiim & Kathy

Our warmest greetings to everyone on this beautiful thanksgiving day! We are so blesssed and have many things to be thankful for. Experiencing Africa has emphasized that relationships are the most important of all those blessings. In America we think of the closeness of family. Here in Sierra Leone those relationships extend to neighbors, extended family, and friends. Sharing comes second nature to them.

With that said, I want you to know how much we appreciate each of you following our journey. Your prayers for us, your interest, and mostly we are thankful for our relationship with each of you!

On this African Thanksgiving we will eat a chicken that was given to us by an orphanage we visited a day or two ago. More to that story in a future post.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His faithful love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim that He has redeemed them from the hand of the foe and has gathered them from the lands — from the east and the west, from the north and the south.” Psalm 107:1-3

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I have enjoyed observing the ongoing construction in Sierra Leone. We have seen so many buildings started but not finished for an extended time. After several discussions I realized why. Many people build whatever they can till the money is gone. It seems they don’t do much borrowing since many don’t have much or any income. The most common method of building is a concrete pad with block walls. A wood framed roof covered with metal tops it off. Scaffolding is a bunch of skinny hardwood sticks tied together, multiple stories high in some cases.

I’ve looked in at several woodworking shops and most of the furniture is made using hand tools. A lot of the wood seems to be a variety of teak. There is some plywood material used. Much, if not all of the hardware I have seen is reclaimed or hand made. It seems nails are often used rather than screws. The end result is rustic and creative.

OSHA in the United States would be very overwhelmed! No safety guards, spraying paint with no controls, no breathing protection. The wood shop that Brian and I share is so much easier and safer to use. We are so spoiled! The art of hand craftsmanship thrives in Sierra Leone!

First, we apologize for our lack of posts the last week. We left out nice hotel with excellent Wifi and into the provinces where cell service is not strong. We ventured to an Internet cafe (remember those?) in order to update our blog. So you are getting many at once.

We attend Agape Free Evangelical Church with Emmanuel, Kadiatu and family. We and Emmanuel and the girls take the car with the driver Emmanuel has arranged. The rest of the family take motorbike taxis. (These motorbike taxis are the main transportation for people here. )

Pastor Thomas greets us and asks us to give a greeting. The service is over two hours long. There is a lot of very loud and lively worship songs. Tim is asked to close the service in prayer.

Following church we return home for rice and cassava leaf with goat meat. We exchange some gifts. One special gift is a vase the granddaughter, Jordan, made in pottery class.

Little Kathy finally warms up to me. 🥰

In the evening we go to visit Kadiatu’s mother. She is raising at least six grandchildren in her small home. The grandmas here are amazing!

I don’t know how to adequately describe the heart of these precious people. To live with an attitude of unselfish grace, humility, compassion, and resilience in an environment of poverty, fear of theft, limited electric and often no running water is truly an inspiration. That is a big sentence! At the foundation of this attitude is faith. We’ve observed it in their actions and talked about this faith with them. It seems like faith holds them secure when hope seems unreachable. —- Maybe an example is easier. One of our African families noticed a young women always standing around near their home. He discovered she had traveled a long way to take school entrance exams. She was alone and without a home. After a family discussion it was agreed to take her in. They have very little themselves but feared for her safety trusting that God would provide. This foundation of faith seems common in their families.

The driver and guide drop us off at Emmanuel and Kadiatu’s place. It is in a nice gated compound. Of course it has no running water and very limited electricity. They do have a generator that they run in the evening. So we learn to use the buckets of water in the bathroom to take a shower and flush the toilet. The water comes from a well in the compound.

The kitchen is a room with two charcoal fired cookstoves and one gas fired stove. These are on the ground and the ladies squat on stools to do the cooking.

The family is excited to welcome us. Massah who is 9 years hugs us readily. Little Kathy, 22 months, is afraid of us.

Some gifts are exchanged. They have had two paintings made of us to give us. They also gave us two African shirts.

Kadiatu and Fatu serve us a nice lunch, yam and stew and later of dinner plantain and fish. . The African tradition is to feed the guests and the people in the home eat separately. It can be a little awkward for us Americans!

There is a little electricity in the evening but not when we go to bed, so the night is a little difficult. Hot and humid and no electricity for a fan.

We are met at 8:00 am by our tour guide from VSL (Visit Sierra Leone). We are headed off on our birding tour to Tiwai Island. It is a long drive and taking a lunch break in Bo. We head south from Bo and eventually turn off on a dirt road that was bumpy at times. There are little villages along the way. In one village the children are waving and yelling, “White man, white man!”

We arrive at the village where we take a brief boat ride on the Moa River to the island. Our lodging is basic and adequate. The weather is hot and humid. We rest for awhile and then have a guided walk in the rainforest. We saw three species of monkeys: Red Colubus , Black and White Colubus and the Diana Monkey. One nice bird we saw is the Yellow-Crested Hornbill. The walk was long and we finished it in the dark.

A nice dinner of rice and peanut sauce with chicken was waiting for us. The electricity goes off early so we head in early and sweat all night! Uh

The day begins with breakfast of fried eggs, fried plantains, hot dog and cucumbers. We get ready for another walk in the rain forest. We have a local guide from the nearby community. This is the first time we’ve had a bird guide carrying a machete! He knocks down branches in the way as we walk. It is an adventure! We see a few nice birds and a huge African tree with gigantic roots.

After lunch we take the boat across to the local community. We observe the people of Kambama going about their daily life. Some growing coffee, growing pineapple or peanuts. Some drying cacao nuts and others drying rice.

Down by the river women and small children are washing clothes in the river. A young man is fishing with just line and hook connected to a grasshopper. The children love to see us white people!

We wait for awhile for our boatman and find out that he has gone to buy some charcoal. So the villagers bring down two canoes and row us back to the island. It was quite fun.

A group of six British travelers have joined us at the island. They all work for the British government here in Sierra Leone. One couple joined us for our river boat cruise on the Moa River. They are avid birders and he gets very excited when the boatman spots a Rufus Fishing Owl. It was a delightful ride and many different species of birds seen.

We end the evening with rice and cassava leaves. You can’t get more African than that!

Before we leave Tiwai Island, we have one more walk through the rain forest. We saw a nice view of a Black and White Colobus Monkey with its long white tail. Then we transport are luggage to the boat to go back to the mainland. We say goodbye to the local community workers. Our local nature guide found some ripe coffee berries for Tim. One local man gave me a cacao pod and told me take it home and plant it in The United States!

Augustine invited us to visit his place this morning. It is very small but welcoming. His mother, Hawa, prepared the food. It was fried fish, tomato’s, cucumbers and plantains. It was delightful to share the meal in his place with a few of his family. Hawa asked if Tim could pray for their family. It was very special.

We then went to Aaron’s place to spend more time with his family. We were able to have some meaningful conversations. Tim even got some smiles from little Bjorn.

We took a walk around the neighborhood and visited the local tailor. We also visited the community clinic and saw some nice gardens full of vegetables.

Tim had some more flying time with Desmond, the future pilot. We gave the family a book with photos from Southern Oregon that they enjoyed.

Mariama served us some rice with green curry sauce. We were also treated with some fruit including my favorite, papaya.

As we left, Bjorn cried for Tim! He didn’t want Tim to leave. Very sweet. It was a good day!

At 2:00 am this hot, muggy morning the electricity went off, which means the fan keeping us cool stopped. Ugh! We arise at 5:30 and take our nice cool bucket shower. We are thankful for the outside deck that felt wonderful at 7:00 am.

The family brings breakfast of rice banana balls with a savory fish sauce. This fresh African cooking is spoiling us!

We drive to the Guinea border and visit the border control station. It is shared by the two countries. We are able to have a nice tour and allowed to cross into Guinea for about ten minutes.

Our next stop is the rice research station. Unfortunately the workers were in strike, so didn’t see the research. We were able to see the rice fields and a few workers harvesting the crop. A young research scientist spoke to us about the research. He said the fields are shared with the local community women so they could plant their gardens. This cooperative effort allows the women to help support their families and brings badly needed nutrients back to the soils.

We drove to the port along the river. Here the women gather to buy fish from the fishermen. It was a feast of color with the women’s dresses and the painted boats.

We are back on the hospital grounds for a tour of the hospital. The wards are one room with around 18 beds. The equipment and resources are old, but they seem to make do. The maternity ward was busy with mothers and babies and an ambulance bringing more.

We have another tasty African dish. It was a vegetable combination of sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava root and plantains topped with another savory sauce with fish.

We are back to our hotel after a three hour drive.

Today we are on our way to Kambia, a small town north on the Guinea border. At the town of Waterloo, we make a detour to see Augustine’s property. It is situated down another very bumpy road. Sometimes it seems like we are driving through the brush, as the vegetation is high following the rainy season. His plot is a nice size and he has begun building walls of concrete blocks which are all made from scratch.

We proceed, after driving back on the very bumpy road, toward Kambia to the north. We pass many palm trees and some rice fields. The road is very good. Yeah!

We arrive at the hospital where Samuel’s wife,Salamatu, works as a midwife. She served us a real African meal of rice and cassava leaves. We enjoy it greatly.

They take us to the guesthouse to rest. It is difficult as it is 90 degrees and humid. This is a typical African accommodation. No electricity until 7 pm, no running water, but plenty of water in buckets to do what we need. We should have brought our insect repellent, our bamboo sheets and our quick dry towels for such a situation. But, no, we left them back in Freetown. We just weren’t thinking or didn’t know what we were getting into. (We are faithfully taking our Malaria pills!) We are doing something right.

We took a walk by the beautiful Scarsie River and noticed rice fields near the banks of the river.

We ended the evening with the family bringing dinner of pancakes, fish and fried plantains. Yummy! We had a nice talk about Simeon and his death. It really helped us to understand the circumstances and the pain they all went through. We are very thankful for everyone’s kindness to us.

It is Sunday morning at Calvary Free Pentecostal Church in Freetown. Augustine, our superb driver, maneuvers with 4-wheel drive up a very bumpy dirt road to the church. We approached the entrance and are escorted to the front of the church to sit with the pastors. ( Not my favorite place to be!) We said hello to Pastor Timothy and took our seats.

There were a few very lively worship songs with singing, clapping and a little dancing. There were a lot of comments in Krio that we didn’t follow well. The choir sang a beautiful song and the we were introduced. I gave our greetings and then Tim preached on Psalm 100. (Tim’s addition: Kathy was also part of the preaching and was excellent. It was such a blessing to present this passage with her.)

I wish we could have taken more photos but it’s hard when you are up front.

We took a nice walk in the afternoon at River Number Two. It really isn’t a river, but a very beautiful beach. We also asked if there was a River Number One, but apparently not!