mattprentice.com
grace.kindness.peace.disruption.pain.processing.rinse.repeat.have a nice day.
A Day Off and Chicken
Mmm … chicken. We're headed to the beach to eat some grilled chicken in a little bit. It will be a great way to finish my day off.
Last weekend we the team went up to the highest point in Freetown, a Catholic retreat center called Javouhey House. The view of town was amazing, as was the silence and food. We had several good discussions and a lot of time to just sit and relax.
The weekend was bittersweet. The time away provided good opportunities to read and talk. It also provided the closest environment to the US that I've experienced since being here. In a way, I had forgotten some of the pleasures and conveniences left behind in the states. It was by no means just like the US, but there were likenesses that reminded me of the "difficulties" that awaited me upon descending the mountain.
The descent was difficult … both literally and figuratively. The original taxi driver forgot about us and the one that did come a few hours later (which provided two additional hours of relaxation … a hidden blessing) came with a box with brakes. Thankfully, all we needed to get down the hill was four wheels, a seat, and brakes. He didn't have much more than that. My knuckles were a little bare, but we were down the mountain. The following few days were rough, up until today. Culture shock set in and everything that was different from the culture of my birth felt like lemon juice in a paper cut. My community both here and at home has been wonderful in asking how I'm doing and spending time to let me talk about how I'm feeling. Thank you all.
This time will pass. It is almost a right of passage that must be passed through in order to make it to the other side where I will not need to remind myself of the beauty that surrounds me, I will see it at first glance.
So yes, I have a day off and it has helped immensely. I listened to my iPod (one of my few guilty pleasures) for two hours this morning before rising for breakfast at 9:30. I read, played guitar, though, prayed, and journaled until 4:30 when I finally left the house. So yes, things are hard right now, but they're not as hard as they were a day ago, and there is chicken to look forward to.
Life in Freetown
Life in Sierra Leone is quite an adventure full of new experiences. From the food, to the climate, to the language, each dimension presents challenges and lessons.
First things first: we eat well. Rice accompanies about every meal. The main course consists of chicken, beef, or fish in vegetables and oil. The three meats, different oils (mainly palm and vegetable), assorted vegetables, and some spices can be combined in many different permutations. A popular dish here is granut (peanut) soup served over rice. It is quite good. Soups here are more like stews in the states. The rice ensures that each meal is filling. The oil ensures that my stomach will have some aches a few hours after eating.
One of the real treats we’ve found here is frozen yogurt. Instead of T.C.B.Y., think frozen lemon Yoplait. My first treat to this heavenly gift was after a two hour walk under the hot African sun. The cold refreshment hit my lips and reminded me once again that God is real and that he loves me 
. The yogurt costs 500 Leones (about $0.16). So far I have reserved this treat for times when I can most appreciate it.
To answer many of your questions, no, the water is not safe to drink. We filter our water with ceramic filters or buy purified water in sealed plastic bags or bottles. No matter how I get my water, I can’t seem to get enough. Ay de sweat.
Ah yes, the heat. It is hot. But, come on Matt, you knew you were going to Africa. We’re entering into the hot season here. Apparently a woman scorned hath no furry like an African summer. I don’t think I’m prepared for the heat, but I don’t really have a choice. It’s coming in about a month.
Sleeping in the heat has been interesting. No longer do I snuggle up in my covers. I’ve forgone a top sheet altogether in the hopes that a passing breeze from the window will bless me throughout the night. I have not slept well in this past week which has resulted in me falling asleep during my Krio lessons and pretty much any other extended periods of sitting. While this doesn’t surprise many of you, I would appreciate your prayers for good sleep.
We started our Krio lessons here this week. The lessons are simple and good. There are ten vowels in the Krio language, as opposed to the five and sometimes six (that crazy ‘y’) vowels in English. There are also a few new consonants. We lose a few consonants too, but I never cared too much for the ‘x’ or stand-alone ‘c’ anyway … luxuries at best. We all look forward to knowing how to speak the local tongue. Only then will we really know what they’re yelling at us from the side of the road. In all seriousness, I feel like my ability to build relationships with the Lighthouse kids and other Sierra Leoneans will improve only with my improved language skills. Please pray that I would pick up the language quickly.
The living situation is going well. Ben has yet to move upstairs, but I think it will happen soon. We haven’t been there much, seeing that our first week was quite hectic. As we find our routine here in Freetown we’ll be spending more nights with our host family, the Zizers: Pastor Victor Zizer, his wife Marvel, his children Marvic, Marvin, and Marvina, and Thomas, a teenager that lives with them to go to school in Freetown. They are a very, very kind family. I feel very blessed to have such nice people with which to live.
There are more pictures up in the gallery. Enjoy!
On Silence …
As the days dogs bark seemingly without ceasing in the background, I write about silence. Here I have given up much of my precious silence. My room is not my own. The house is shared by eleven people: eight to one bathroom in the upstairs apartment, three to the bathroom in the downstairs apartment. Loud birds, gas generators, barking dogs, horns, people singing, talking, sweeping … there is always something waiting to steal the still moment I longingly await. The cloud of sound that surrounds everything wears down my nerves. I struggle to find peace – to process all that I see and hear, to remind (and sometimes convince) myself that I am still sane, I am love, I have worth. There are no coffee shops, no empty, quiet houses where I can escape. The color of my skin and the celebrity it provides does not allow me to find the silence that anonymity could provide. The brief moments that do come when the cloud cover breaks briefly or when I lose myself in my thoughts are sweet and cherished. Finding extended moments of escape is one of the challenges of my time here.
Even as I seek moments to be lost in silence that is mine to break, I am thankful for the silence from my routine back in the US – a silence brought about by the absence of the familiar. While I deeply miss friendships and family, the silence afforded me by my forfeiture of my routine allows me to start anew, to see what is really me and shows up here in Sierra Leone, and what is not and is left back in the states. This experience is a filter of sorts, leaving behind the things that are hindrances behind to create a silence to sift out what remains. Sadly, it also catches some things that mean so much, like family & friends.
So here I sit, seeking a literal silence to process the figurative along with all the lessons of the day.
Tearing through the outer shell of my heart …
I've said to many of you in emails that things here are hard, but good. The hardness comes in many ways: seeing extreme poverty, lack of conveniences, heat, walking, missing good friends and family back home, loneliness. But the hardness is good. It causes me to think about what is before me. One such hardness before me has been seeing people beg for money on the side of the street. There is a story behind each person: polio, victim of war atrocities, widowed, and many more. Each one is a person, deserving of dignity, but having to humble them self to beg from others. Enter a large white man. I stick out and am asked for money many times a day. My personal philosophy on giving here has yet to form. But beggars do not wait for personal philosophies. Here is the story from my journal of the first beggar to tear through the outer shell of my heart.
While seeking a poda-poda to ride back to the Aberdeen house, we ran into Mr. Gooding, the house owner. He drove us to Congo Cross in his Ford Explorer. I wore my seatbelt and was mocked. It's humorous to do so in a country where seemingly no one does so. I haven’t even seen a seat belt in over a week. On the drive back a little boy approached the car to beg for money. Traffic was slow so the boy was able to approach my window several times as we stopped repeatedly. The first few times I tried to ignore him. There are so many beggars here that you become numb, or try to keep yourself numb so you don't end up utterly broken or broke, or both. But after a few stops, I could ignore him no longer. I turned to look upon his face and saw a child that had been scalded on the face and body. The protective shield around my heart that keeps me numb and rich was torn and my heart filled with emotion. Compassion, pity. I reached into my shirt picket for a 2,000 Leone note … only 66 cents, but enough to buy more than a day's worth of food. I gave. It was easy, temporary. The money would not fix his scars, nor keep his belly full for long. But it was something.
But then again, is the point to change his life? I can only affect his life for a brief moment. Our interaction was no longer than a minute. No, it was in this moment that he affected me. God used this moment, this thin place to break through my thick outer shell to show me that my heart beats, my heart breaks. It was in this moment that I was changed, not the boy. I sat quietly as we drove on. I did not look back at my friends; I could not bear the possibility of their stares, questions, or remarks.
I sat there quietly, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Impressions & Stuff …
How do I describe Sierra Leone? Sights, sounds, smells, and heat have bombarded me since stepping off the plan almost a week ago. As a sidenote, a weeks seems like an eternity ago. Our team is a good one, a fact that I'll probably repeat many times here and through email over the next several months. Our community is forming well and strong on a good foundation of openness, prayer, vulnerability, and desire to support each other. This community will be an integral part of my time here, providing the much needed support as we laugh, cry, get angry, forgive, and encounter our brokeness.
The WMF team here in Sierra Leone is broken up into three, unequal, yet nonetheless important parts: the girls, the couples, and three guys. The girls (Faye, Cami, and Michelle) live in the Aberdeen house that I mention in the pictures. This is in a small "suburb" (for lack of a better word) of Freetown called Murray Town. WMF rents this house by the year. The last Servant Team of five girls lived there. The couples live in a rented apartment downtown Freetown. The Eichorns & Padgetts live there. The Padgetts will be headed back to the US of A on Monday in search of chocolate and a refridgerator. The remaining three guys (Chia, Micah, and me) live in a house in Murray Town about 3/4 mile away from the Aberdeen house. Two families live in the house, one upstairs and one down. Chia currently lives downstairs and Micah and I upstairs, but we're going to try to get a bunkbed in our room so we'll all live upstairs. We hope to still be able to use the shower and facilities downstairs though.
We walk a lot. I consider this a good thing. The walk from the Aberdeen house to the guy's house is about 20 minutes. We take this route about once or twice a day. To travel into town we take a poda-poda. How do I describe a poda-poda? Hmm …. work with me here. Picture a late 1980′s family vacation in one of those new-fangled Japanese boxy minivan with a catchy name (Nissan Vanette and the like). Yes, oh yes, the fuel efficiency of a Japanese vehicle and the roominess of a van, but without all the hassle of a full-size van. The seats are cushy. You may even have captain's chairs, captain. It seats seven comfortably, including driver and front seat passenger. Ok, now remove the air conditioning, the padding, the carpet, the muffler, the seats, some windows, and make sure that it burns some oil. Now, put in three benches, the front two with a slide-out fourth seat. The back seats four (un)comfortably. The vehicle now seats twelve in the back (three rows of four), plus the driver & shotgun seat that will most likely seat two. The right seat in front bench in the back is reserved for the Apprentice. This is not some cocky twenty something trying to impress Donald Trump's hairpiece. No, this is the teenager that sticks his head out of the window calling out the transport route and who takes passenger fares. Now you have a poda-poda.
Travelling around Freetown is exciting. A large honky/cracker/apoto (white person in Mende) like myself draws quite a lot of attention. People like to stare. I stare back. They'll call out "white boy." We respond back with "black boy." Everyone chuckles. Being a spectacle is a novelty now, but I think it will get old after a while. The anonymity that is fairly abundant in a multi-racial soceity like the U.S. is a luxury that I will miss when my introvert self wants to be alone. But this challenge will make me stronger … or drive me crazy. Ahh, culture.
Things are going well. Relationships are forming in the team and with the Lighthouse kids. We'll go into Kroo Bay tomorrow to do the Good News Club for 200-300 kids. We walked through the Kroo Bay slum yesterday for the first time. It is quite an experience. From above, looking down on the bay you see a chaos of different colored roofs, garbage, dirty water, and pathways for travel fashioned with no planning. Once you dive into the slum you are greeted with a strange sense of orderliness. The shacks become houses with windows and doors. The threshholds are swept and clean. There is still trash and dirty water to remind you that you are in one of the poorest areas of the poorest countries on this planet. There are people in school. A church. Laughing. Cooking. Cleaning. … Life happens. I'm still trying to process what I've seen. It will take much longer than four months.
Photos …
Pictures are up! Check out the photo gallery here. Don't miss the video. It's the one with me in the green shirt.
A Picture of Our Team
Ben, Faye (leader), Michelle, Me, Micah
On Electricity …
My team leader informed me that I may have lied to many of you before I came and may have led you to think that things would be a cake walk over here. For that, I am sorry. I promise I intended no harm. I was incorrect in stating that we would get two hours of electricity a day at our house. I've been told that we'll more likely get two hours a week.
This week has been an exception. We've had about seven hours so far, but between the hours of 3-7 a.m. People get up to enjoy it when it turns on. You can hear the BBC blaring from radios all over the neighborhood when we have it. Many of you know that I like news, but no matter how cool a British accent sounds, I still don't want to hear it at 7:30 in the morning while I'm trying to sweat out a few more minutes of sleep!
On Hygiene …
Can we say "bucket shower?" Yep folks, that's right. The shower head is broken so each morning your friend wakes up and shuffles to the bathroom to stand in the tub and use a bowl to bathe. I hope this isn't too graphic for y'all. It really isn't that bad. We do have cool running water, which feels great in the morning after a hot night of sleeping on top of the covers.
The bathroom situation is not too bad. The emergency supply of Charman received as a Christmas gift from my sister has so far remained in my bag. The water supply is not consistent all around town though. When the water shuts off you have to fill the tank with water to flush. So far I have not had to do this myself.
These things are challenges, but not impossibilities. I do miss the comforts of home in this regard, but four months will help me be so very thankful for them when I'm back.
If you have any other hygiene questions just let me know! lol …
Da Body Fine
Ah, yes. The body is fine, thanks for asking. We tried to hit an Internet cafe yesterday, but all of them were without a connection. Apparently this is very uncommon. We're back downtown today without our leader … venturing out on our own! We came in to register at the US Embassy so Uncle Sam knows that we're here. We attempted to register yesterday, but it was President's Day. I don't know how we could have forgotten that one.
My team is great. I would put a picture of them directly below this paragraph, but the powers that be in this cafe have locked down the computers so I can't connect my camera. I'll get some up soon. My team is made up of Micah, Ben (a.k.a. Chia), Michelle, and Faye, our leader. Cami, Keith & Laura, and Joe & Mindy are other WMF staffers here with us. All of us are very easy going and laid back. We've had some great times of joking and laughter, as well as good conversation, prayer, and worship. We have a long road ahead together, and we are laying good foundations now.
We went to Lighthouse yesterday for the first time. We met about fifteen of the seventeen kids that come to the program. We meet from 9am-1pm in a building near the center of Freetown. The time is filled with playing, reading, and talking to the kids. About midway through the time one of the kids will lead a Bible lesson. I understand (from others) that yesterday's was really well prepared … even though I didn't capture much. I'm excited to learn the language so that I'll be able to communicate with all of them. They have amazing stories to tell; I look forward to hearing them. The crew is a lively bunch, playing basketball, soccer (football), and a checker-like game called Draft. Keith, the WMF staffer, is a former collegiate wrestler. When he and his wife head back to the states next Friday I think that I will be taking his place … whether I want to or not .
I'm living with a Pastor and his family in a suburb-like town to Freetown called Murray Town. The house is nice – I looked at the ocean through the window on Sunday while I shaved. I'm sharing a room with Micah and we hope to bring Chia up from downstairs soon so we can share the room together. The beds each have mosquito net coverings that keep the little buggers out (or in, if you're so unlucky), but also prevent any breeze that enters through the windows from reaching you to provide the maximum relief from the heat. I've come up with a new weight loss program. It's called journaling in bed. The last two nights I've sweated off what seems to be pounds as I journaled under the mosquito net. The journaling time has been good though, and I know that I will appreciate later any time that I put in now.
I think that I'll do some smaller, topical posts for specific questions I'm getting …