The Kid Life

The children in Mokanji are very friendly and many of them remember Josiah from when we were here back in September. While everybody is still trying to remember our names, they shout Josiah’s name from their houses as we walk down the road. Many kids do not go to school because of the lack of school fees and even if they are in school, I’m not sure how long they are there every day because I often see kids in their school uniforms outside our house well before lunch time.

The boys love to come over and kick the soccer ball around with Josiah and he is also tries to play cricket with them (not that he really knows how to play). He will go out and just hang out on a cut down tree with them throwing stones or use sticks to make some pipe scraps lying around into a drum circle. Lydia is our dirt magnet; she will go outside and play in the dirt for hours if we let her. She also likes torturing all the grasshoppers with sticks and climbing on the cut down trees that are in the compound. She seems to enjoy playing with the boys more than the girls because the girls are seem to be a little more aggressive while the boys are a little more gentle and helpful with her. She is very adventurous and has many a scrapped knee already. Sofia is our social butterfly. She loves using the Mende phrases that the other kids have taught her to make the adults chuckle and has no reservations about the locals picking her up and toting her around. Sofia gleefully pats us on the leg or arm and tells us about every bug, goat, dog, and chicken she sees and also enjoys roaring like a lion at the grasshoppers.

The kid life in Mokanji is not all fun and games. They have work to do; they often help with gathering the wood for cooking, preparing the meals, hauling the water, walking around the village selling food items, and watching over younger siblings. On one hand, they don’t have an easy life, they have to work hard; they have many struggles to stay healthy and get an education. On the other hand, they often seem so carefree and enjoy the simple pleasures of life like playing soccer and throwing stones at the trees.

Josiah in Sierra Leone

Josiah had a blast in Mokanji. He made so many new friends that are looking forward to him coming back. He would literally play all day with occasional breaks, coming back up on the porch saying that he just wanted to rest and he was 'tired of playing'. 'Tired of playing!!!' I don' think I have ever heard such words come out of my child's mouth before! I love how play transcends language and that to truly play you don't need all these expensive gadgets and gizmos. The majority of the time Josiah and his friends just ran around and played with sticks and the occasional ball.

Another amazing thing was how little I was worried about him. There were several times that I had not seen him for 10-15 minutes and was not sure where he was at, but not worried. He was playing with friends, everybody knew who he was and all I had to do was ask one or two people and they would know where he was or would go and find him for me.

It was so funny, when we would look through these pictures or show other people, Josiah would point and say 'That's me in the blue shirt' or 'That's me in the red shirt'. REALLY?!?!

Just like here in the States, Josiah loves to hang out with the 'big kids'. One of his new friends was Junior, a general laborer helping with the construction of the houses. At one point, they decided to change names so now Josiah is referred to as the 'white Junior' and Junior is known as the 'black Josiah'. I loved watching Josiah (or the 'white Junior') just completely integrate himself into the village. He played and danced with the kids, hung out with the big guys, and even helped Mommy do some dressing changes on some wounds.

It almost seems like he grew in stature and maturity overnight while we were there. Josiah makes friends so easily and is completely uninhibited when it comes to going up to people, especially kids, and introducing himself and starting a conversation. Here he is with Alfred, his self-pronounced best friend in Freetown who he knew all of 10 minutes before we left for the airport.

Josiah got a small taste of a child's village life. He pumped water from the well and said that it was a lot harder than it looked.
 

And he played with the African car that 14 year old Francis made him for his birthday. It is assembled from two sardine cans, two sets of wheels and a strip of fabric to pull it around with. Josiah would find roly polys and pull them around in his car. Not exactly the safest toy, so because of the tetanus hazard and not wanting his sisters to get cut on it or break it, we opted to leave it in Mokanji.

Josiah was so exhausted from all his fun at Mokanji that he could barely stay awake in the airport and he basically slept while I walked him out to the plane, up the steps, to the bathroom to change and into his seat. This is how he spent the entire plane trip to London. He woke up about an hour before landing, just enough time to go to the bathroom and have breakfast before our next layover and last flight.

Josiah would say often during our trip that he missed Daddy and Sofia (Lydia only a little bit) and was glad to see them. He is looking forward to going back to Mokanji to play with all his new friends.

Sierra Leone Diary 2nd installment

Thursday & Friday September 22 & 23

After finally falling asleep, Josiah and I slept through our alarm and had to rush to get dressed and grab a few bananas and biscuits from the hotel breakfast area so that we could leave and get to the ferry on time.

Side note about Freetown geography - If you look at a map of Freetown you will see that it is situated on the coast of the Atlantic ocean as an offshoot of land, the middle of which is a hill. The airport is on another offshoot of land and therefore the quickest and best way to get from the airport to Freetown proper is either by water or air. Now a helicopter ride would be pretty cool, but expensive, so instead we spent about $2 US to ride in the first class section  on the ferry for the 45 minute ride to the main section of Freetown.
We met up with Charles and Petra (They are the Canadian couple who have been there since the beginning of the year. Charles is managing all the construction of the houses and hospital) who were gathering construction supplies in Freetown and loaded our suitcases into the back of the pickup truck. It is a 6-7 hour drive to Mokanji; the first 2/3 of the driving is adequately maintained paved roads, but then we turned and the road turned into a packed dirt road riddled with road engulfing, waterfilled pot holes!

We arrived in Mokanji in time to unload the truck and get back in for an hour drive to a local mining camp for dinner. Mokanji is situated about one hour away from Sierra Rutile Mine. An interesting fact about the mine is that the only reason that they were able to survive the war without major damage is because they hired mercinary soldiers to protect the mine property. In fact, some of those soldiers are still on staff with the mine as security! The mine is a nice escape to get a good meal and some uninterrupted time. Since our houses in Mokanji are literally steps from the community well, there are often visitors and requests for help that come throughout the day. After such a long day Josiah and I slept well.

After a good night sleep, Josiah barely wanted to stay on the porch long enough to eat breakfast before going out to play. The kids (and everybody else) thought him quite the novelty. Because of the mine (they employ quite a few Caucasian Europeans and Africans) and short-term mission teams they have seen Caucasian adults before, but most have never seen a little Caucasian boy. Josiah had such a great time playing with all the kids. I love how play is universal and language barriers do not inhibit friendships with children.