Transport
Today we caught our first poda-poda. Imagine a mini-van with four back seats and up to 24 people crammed in. To catch one you merely stand on the side of the road and wave. They will stop if they are not full or if they are full. It is actually quite fun, and only $0.30 to take us into the market. At midday it is like being in a sauna and I sit there like a sardine with sweat dripping off the ends of my hair (although sardines don't have much hair). Apologies for talking so much about sweating, but its such a part of our daily lives that its worth a mention! Temperatures are in the eighties but the humidity is indescribable. There is nothing you can wear that doesn't come home completely drenched so we have given up.
Podapoda:
Food
The food here is average. Every morning we receive a fresh bread roll with jam. They were alternating this with omelets but I threw up last time I ate one and begged off eating any more. We have stews at night which are hit or miss, but as mentioned in a previous post, the chicken and peanut sauce is delicious. Most dishes are served with rice and are reasonably spicy. We eat a lot of fish, which is good besides the bones that get stuck in my throat. Unfortunately they store it in the fridge with the water sachets, leaving our water with a vague fishy taste. At the beach we had yummy schrimp and barracuda kebabs served with French fries.
Interestingly a can of soda is about $1.50 but a glass bottle of soda is $0.50. However, when you buy a bottle you have to drink it on the premises. As this is usually a tiny little hut with no air you end up hotter than before you drank and sticking to the plastic chairs inside. It's about $1.50 for a bottle of water, and $0.03 for a sachet. I haven't seen any milk - just milk powder.
Amenities
We have electricity about 1/4 of the time (and the denominator on that is growing) which has the benefit of making us go to bed early and get up around 6:30am. Our food is cooked using coals.
We always have water although the pressure is limp and I've broken the shower head. There is even a bidet in the bathroom, much to Ide's delight. In the surrounding areas water usually comes from communal pumps. Because the water pipes are thin, plastic, and only buried an inch in the dirt they frequently burst - turning the dust into mud. Mixed with the trash people throw out indiscriminately (I havent seen a single trash can) this makes for a lovely mushy cocktail and very dirty shoes.
Internet
There is an Internet cafe but the wait is long and the connection time awful. Ide spent an hour composing an email today, only to have the generator crash For every hour you spend browsing, an extra hour is spent connecting. It's cheap though, around $1.50 an hour. My biggest complaint is that they don't have wireless and as a result all of my blog posts are written twice. Once on the iPad, and then again on the blog. The keyboards are ancient and need to be pounded to type anything. I think I have carpel tunnel.
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Wildlife
There are cute little dogs everywhere. Not mangey scraggly dogs, but slightly bigger than Turkish with pointy ears. They are all a light brown color, no black or white dogs. Rabies shots are very expensive so we skipped them and listened to the advice of our doctor: "take a big stick". Well, no sticks, but we havent been rushing to pet them either. The lizards are also cute, about 6 inches, and orange and black. Big vultures circle around our apartment, probably looking for lizards and dogs.
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We were warned about mosquitos but you barely see any. They must exist because most people have had malaria at least once but I haven't even been bitten, despite forgetting to put on Deet most days. There are many, many more insects on the farm in Kaitaia (although the cockroaches are smaller).
Health
Needless to say, healthcare is poor, but a lot cheaper than in the US. For those in need, the pharmacies, tiny little holes in the wall, are chocablock full of off-the-shelf prescription drugs, no questions asked. FDA approved? Ha! Take your chances.
I haven't seen anyone smoking, but cigarettes are incredibly cheap. $0.60 per pack, compared with $6 in the States and $16 in New Zealand. Except for the fact that you can be arrested if you smoke in the center of Freetown, it's enough to make you want to start. Instead of 'smoking will kill you' or 'if you smoke, you will die', written on the packets is 'Try it Again!'. Much more soul lifting.
Religion
All the travel books say that the population is 85% Muslim and 15% Christian, but the Christians definitely have a monopoly on advertising in Freetown. Most taxis and poda-podas have phrases like "God is great", "My Savior is Jesus", or "Fear the Lord" on them. When answering "none" to questions about what religion we are, we are met with a dumbfounded silence and then an incredulous "...why? How can that be?". Sierra Leonians seem very religiously tolerant and frequently stress the need for peace. Marriages often occur between different religions.
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Dress
It is a very colorful city, and the woman wear wonderfully vibrant fabrics. We were warned that women did not show their shoulders or legs, and men did not wear shorts. This seems to be a load of hogwash. It is way too hot to wear long sleeves and most women wear tank tops. Short skirts or dresses are not common but I have worn them anyway. Maybe people are saying rude things at me, but as Fatima said when we let her know the double meaning of the "I love [insert picture of rooster]" t-shirt that she had just bought, "It's great being illiterate".
