First Impressions

The morning before we left I woke up with a sore throat-the kind that you know is going to turn into something unpleasant. Of course this was about the worst possible timing for a sore throat. So, I pulled out all the stops to try to prevent it from progressing—I took extra vitamin C, took Dayquil, took airborne fizzy tablets, and tried to get a good night’s sleep my last night stateside. The next day I’m pretty sure I broke a fever while packing group supplies. Oh well, at least that meant my sickness was progressing and I was that much closer to getting better.

I tried to sleep as much as I could on the flights over, but you know the anticipation of getting there made it hard to sleep. Here were the flights: Oklahoma City to Houston, then to London/Heathrow, then to Sierra Leone. While we left on Saturday our arrival in Sierra Leone was actually late Sunday evening. I quickly realized that arriving in Sierra Leone did not mean the end of a long journey—oh no—it was only the beginning of an even longer journey.

The airport is actually in a city named Lungi. Upon descending the airplane we walked across the tarmac into the small terminal and waited a while to go through passport inspection. Then it was time to gather all the luggage—we had a good bit of it because most of us brought a second bag with medical and group supplies for the kids. Mind you I was still pretty foggy-headed from the flight and the cold medicine, so a lot of this part was a big daze for me. Next we loaded the luggage into several SUVs and headed for the last ferry of the night destined for Freetown. By the time our cars got in line to drive onto the ferry we were not sure if we would make it. See, it seemed like the line of cars went on for miles—at least in the dead of night that’s what it seemed like. While we sat in the car waiting for word about the ferry, groups of children gathered around our car, selling trays of goods balanced on their heads. The other OSU students began conversing with them, but I was a bit weary of this at first because of my conditioning from living in Chile—see I was always taught not to interact too much with street vendors because it attracts too much attention. But, in reality the kids outside were perfectly friendly and were just fascinated to see foreigners. Either way, I was still pretty sick, so I just kind of listened to the conversations while trying to sleep off my icky sick feeling.

It seemed like forever, but we finally drove onto the ferry. I could tell our driver had done this a thousand times because parking on the ferry required lots of tight three point turns to fit properly with the other dozens of cars squeezing into the limited space. It was great to ride on the ferry because a nice breeze blew through the car windows while riding across the bay. The ride was so smooth you could hardly sense we were moving. Everyone else got out of the car to look at the lights on the coast, but I decided to take advantage of the downtime to rest while I could. Crossing the bay took about 90 minutes. Next was the ride to Wellington orphanage. See, once we made it to the neighborhood we parked on a semi-steep hill from which we then carried our luggage up to the orphanage. By that time it was pretty late at night, but some of the older kids were waiting and helped carry our luggage up the rocky incline. Somehow everyone already knew I was not feeling well so that they went out of their way to make sure I was comfortable—it was so kind.

Just about as soon as my head hit the pillow I was out! We woke up the next morning around 7am for the children’s morning worship service. One of the children led the group in songs followed by Bible verse readings. A young boy immediately took me in and shared his Bible with me-he was so sweet. The kids sang a welcome song for us, wrapped up the service and then cleared the room so the “missionaries” could eat breakfast. It was strange to be called a missionary, but I understood why we were referred to as such. See, the only foreigners who visit the kids are missionaries so that even if we were referred to as students they would still call us missionaries—at least that’s how I justified it in my mind.

Anyhow, we welcomed our warm meal for breakfast. This breakfast became very familiar to us—lightly fried chicken, platanos (fried sweet plantains), pineapple slices, and funnel cake-type bread. It was carbolicious! After breakfast we had time to spend with the kids before heading over to Njala (pronounced Jah-lah) University. The same little boy who sat with me in the morning service welcomed me to join his group of friends. They asked me if I liked soccer—little did I know these kids know everything there possibly is to know about all the world soccer leagues, especially the British clubs. They started reciting various players’ names from teams about which I was embarrassed to know very little. I knew that by the end of my time there I would be an expert too! One of the kids hopped over the patio wall into an alleyway and began collecting “random” items. These items turned out to be materials needed to play a game of hand soccer. Ok, so he gathered two spent D batteries, a long stick, a pebble, and took a couple sardine cans out of his pocket. Within the sardine cans were a collection of bottlecaps that represented soccer players. The boy set two sardine cans lenghthwise next to each other and placed a D battery at each end. After removing the sardine cans, he balanced the stick over the batteries to make a goal post. He then proceeded to place the bottle cap players in various positions to quickly form a full soccer team. See, the boys flick the bottle cap toward the pebble, which is the soccer ball. They sure went into action. My new friend, Joel, became the announcer for the game as the other boys quickly flicked the soccer ball around.

This has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Over time I learned that one can flick the bottle cap only certain ways and one or two fingers are strategically placed next to or around the pebble/soccer ball so that it goes a particular direction. There were also a multitude of games that can be played—sometimes matches go into penalty kicks, and sometimes bottle caps are stacked and lined up to form a wall—just like in the real life game! I could spend hours watching them play hand soccer. The boys taught me how to flick, but I would need months’ worth of practice to even get close to how precise their shots were. Though I was intrigued by this activity, it was the first time in years I had the sensation of what it is to be bored. I mean, I was definitely not bored, but hand soccer is the type of game one plays as a child, before the time in life of worrying about responsibilities or deadlines. I can’t remember the last time I sat worry-free and played games with friends for hours on end. It was liberating.