(Not so) Initial Thoughts about Sierra Leone

Well, it's been just over 72 hours in country now. I've meant to post something each night but we've been working up until at least midnight every night thus far and by that time, I'm in no condition to write coherently anymore.

The first night was not enjoyable as I couldn't really sleep, despite basically not sleeping for almost 36 hours since leaving Vancouver.  In hindsight, I should've just given up trying to sleep and blogged instead.  But other than that, the team's very thankfully adapted quite well.

Living Water International in Sierra Leone is still a relatively small operation, but the people are doing a great amount of amazing work.  And, they're in the process of more than doubling in size in the very near future so for any WASH engineers out there, LWI's hiring!

Robert and Ruth Search are the country directors and Mariatu is their 4 year old daughter, and we are staying with them during our time here.  I must say, each time I meet a missionary and/or their family, I'm just so humbled by them, and the Searches are definitely no different.  The commitment to the people they serve, the sacrifices they must make on a daily basis, the difficulties of living in mostly isolated conditions,  the list goes on but it's such a blessing to serve along side them.  Although I've only been here three days, I've seen them toil from early in the morning to late at night every day in order to serve Sierra Leone and its people, particularly during this time of Cholera outbreaks.

It's not just a job, and it's definitely not enough that we made an effort.  It really pains me to see Robert's obvious disappointment after some of the test results we take from the wells come up dirty.  Because when Robert and Ruth see red dots on the coliplate test indicating E.Coli in the water, what they're really seeing is people suffering.  Ruth had a phone call just tonight where she was informed of two deaths of people in country that she had known.  So please keep them in your prayers as they are so burdened by the pain and suffering around them. 

Kids, if you think hockey players and Olympians are heroes, try again.  People like Robert and Ruth are what give the world hope, one rehabilitated water source, one delivered box of IV's, one child learning proper hygiene at a time.  That's heroic.
 
Tangent but yes, in short, I've just been very much inspired by Robert and Ruth and the work that they do.  In saying that, there is all the more pressure to be able to help them help others.  It's obvious that they have high hopes that we will be able to help them improve these wells and other communal water sources both in the immediate and also in the long term.  It's a tall order with the limited time and resources on hand, so it's been a challenging few days and I anticipate that won't change during our stay.

The eMi head office has constructed a google earth file documenting the locations that we have been working at based on our GPS points from the daily reports.  I hope that this link will work if you want to view where we've been.  If you have Google Earth, you can go file>download>KML file and then basically zoom right into each individual village!

I'll stop here as I need to get to bed, below are a couple photos of what's we've done so far.  Will definitely post more when I get the chance.  Good night from Freetown (we're actually in Lungi, a smaller town just north of Freetown).

The cleanest and nicest Cholera Treatment Unit (CTU) that we've seen yet.   This is where anyone with Cholera will go to get treatment and rehydration such as IV's. 

One of LWI's well functioning pumps, with the typical crowd that always show up to watch us work.

Zanab, in the woman in yellow, conducting a hygiene training session for the community.  It may seem so obvious to us in the first world, but in a country like Sierra Leone, where people are generally not as healthy and hospital services not as available, many people will die as a result of a simple infection or disease because they didn't have good hygiene.