Only 3 days til we leave to Sierra Leone now, and i am a rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I'm so excited and can't wait for the new adventure and then almost as suddenly I am freaking out about no water, electricity, phone coverage and being so remote!
This is definitely going to be a life-changing experience. I am totally ready for it and think it will make things in life seem more real to me. I think any materialistic traits will hopefully be diminished after this trip. I am also very aware that it is going to be heart-breaking, and i will probably want to keep on doing things like this every year and have ongoing projects. Might even come back with some adopted babies on my hip!! ha!
This past week has been manic with all of our meetings at the Humanitarian City here in Dubai. We have fundraised over 18,000AED which is awesome. The support from friends and families at school has been overwhelming.
We have decided after much deliberation that we are in no rush to spend it all before we leave. I felt that maybe Bella and I had lost track of what we were trying to achieve in the first place. Initially, we were just 2 teachers going to volunteer for month in Sierra Leone, I think when the funds started rolling in we realsied that actually we could make a big difference to a whole community.
After speaking with Leila at Vestergaard we realised that it is best to start small and assess their needs once we get there. This will definitley be a project that will take time and effort over a period of years, but if we can go in and help CICS School and their families in Kambia then its a good start.
We have found out that SL has the highest mortality rate in under 5's and mother's giving birth. It is at a shocking rate of 30%!!! The highest killers are Malaria and other vector-borne diseases so we are going to have a big push on malaria prevention education. We are in a lucky position to be working in the school and with the children directly so can hopefully build up a good rapport and trust and have some sort of influence on them when it comes to educating about prevention, hopefully then they can pass this onto their families.
I remember the 'Make it Click' campaign in NZ in the 80's and after that any time i would get in the car, I would remember to fasten my seatbelt and children would always remind parents to do the same. Hopefully the same thing can happen with anti-malaria.
Started packing today and realised that my pack has only 4 pants, tshirts and undies. My Birks, hiking shoes and the rest is supplies!! massive first aid kits, gloves, wet wipes, mosquito nets etc!! Going to go and buy some muesli bars and other dried foods for when we are sick. We won't want to face ocra soup and groundnut stew! Not sure on the water situation, the kids walk 2 miles each day to collect the water apparently, so we can hopefully do the trek with them. We have drops and iodine to make it safe to drink and i'm going to take some Tang to make it taste ok!!
