Today was quite eye opening.  The Minister Of Health invited some of the crew of the Africa Mercy to come and see her village.  She doesn't live there anymore, but it's where she grew up.  It was a very traditional village. We got to meet the chief and the chief's of neighboring villages.  Incidentally, one of the chief's had just gotten back from the states.  He is also a Reverend.  Another man (I believe he was an official or some sort) spent 20 years of his life in the United States and has a degree from Washington State University in Finance and Banking. THE WORLD IS SO SMALL!!!!!  Here are some pictures of our day

Our day started bright and early at 8 AM.  We all piled into this bus that was supposed to fit 25 people.  We crammed 30 people into it.  So cramped!

Some scenery we passed on the 2 and a half hour bus ride!  We stopped and waited for our camera crew (that none of us knew was coming with us!) and had some delicious snacks including beni cake (sesame bar type thing) and fried plantain chips, apple cider soda, bananas and other lovely things.

We passed a lot of villages, this is what one of the nice houses looked like.  It was so nice to get out of Freetown and into the lovely country full of trees and greenery and loveliness.

Another house

Upon driving into the village we saw the whole village had turned out to sing us welcome songs and dance for us! it was so touching!  The last song they sang was one that we all knew, i'm not sure what it's called but its in krio and we all have heard it and sang it many times.  Anyway...it was the last song they sang and we all joined in with them because we knew it.  It was one of the best parts of the day.

Michelle, one of the receptionists (a drama/music major!) and I sitting under a thatched roof shelter.

The woman speaking is the Minister Of Health.  The people behind her are all different people in her department and other dignitaries.  She told us the history of the village.  While other villages were modernizing and moving closer to the main roads, this part of the village stayed traditional.  She grew up here, her mother passed away here, she built a house and now is the financial support of the village.  She's working on building a small library/school for the younger kids until they  are old enough to walk to the big school.

This house i was told is a very sacred house in the village.  When I asked why i was told it is/was used for many rituals.   We learned that the father of the last chief  had 67 children and 60 wives!!!! 60! imagine the conflicts! imagine the drama! 

Some kittens we found :)

Laundry day! The building in the background was build in the 1940's, it survived the civil war.

I love the little girl with the bucket on her head :) Although i really took this picture to show how they cook food.

Another cooking fire, you could smell the wood burning .    Smelled so old fashioned and great!

It's rice harvest time and there were piles of rice just like this all over the place drying.    On the bridges, on the road, driveways...everywhere.  

Growing in the trees in the village

The girl on the left, was an amazing little dancer.  I was told that she actually won a dancing contest in the village and is known as the 'best dancer in the village'.  She was quite fun.  We had a dance party after we ate lunch and the kids would copy cat any move you did (or do their best to copy cat it).  There's a song here called Chomp my money (or maybe it's Chop...not sure) it's quite popular.  They played that song a lot and i just did random dance moves that all the little kids loved and would mimic.  It was REALLY sweaty though!

A rice field with some harvesters.  one of the guys in our group waded through the water out to the harvesters and got some rice plants/roots/i don't know what it was but it had to do with rice :)

Raw peanuts that were given to us.  The man picked the plants and in the roots were the peanuts.  I honestly had no idea thats where peanuts came from.  We washed them off and ate them.  Very delicious but very different from peanuts the way we are used to them in the US

We went to the Minister's ranch and saw her cattle.  Most of the people in our group were entranced., it was like they'd never seen cattle before. I thought it was cool...but cows are uh...cows.  

What i did find hilarious were the muck boots.  Even in Africa they have the same kind of boots!

The fod they served us for lunch  (clockwise starting at the top): Foo Foo (sort of like fermented dough...it was uh...interesting), pinapple (DELICIOUS), spicy rice (tolerable spice), white rice, chicken in some kind of sauce (REALLY spicy).  It was all very good but my mouth was on fire! I was told that they use a lot of spice to make you sweat, because by sweating your body cools down.  interesting.

This is the shelter that we were under.  I ended up getting a splinter because i touched the leaves that are the roof while we were dancing and I had my hands up.  The splinter hurt REALLY bad! But when I got home Krissy took a needle and dug it out while i cried :) But at least it's out now

Overall, it was a wonderful day.  The Minister said that she wanted to say thank you to MercyShips in a special way that we would remember.  I will definitely remember this day for a very long time.