Visiting Villages

Last week, I made a trip 2 hours north into Lofa County. I stayed at a lady’s house who is also a volunteer through Global Mission. I stayed there for three days and had two opportunities to go out to villages with the hospital’s community outreach team. Their primary focus is Malaria screening, vaccinations, dispensing medication and prenatal check-ups. Without this team, many villages would have no access to a health care team. They are a very hard working team driving hours to visit villages and sometimes walking 6 to 10 hours to villages that are not accessible by vehicle.
Day 1, Bromi Hills: Early Thursday morning, we left to visit this village about 90 minutes away from Zorzor (the town that I was staying in). Driving to Bromi Hills, I got to see a different landscape than what surrounds Phebe. The rainforest is much more dense and there are mountains that line the horizon, it is beautiful.
When we arrived at the village, the town chief welcomed us to his village. Two of the team members then ushered me into someone’s house and handed me a cup full of palm wine. Palm wine is naturally fermented in the trunk of a palm tree and, when freshly harvested, is very sweet, although has a pungent odor (similar to that of vomitus…). After having my taste of palm wine, we were ready to set up the clinic! The village had a church building so we set up there and for about 3 hours, I helped with prenatal checks and general assessments. When we were through, we walked backed down into the village area and, of course, drank more palm wine! Now, I must say that the alcohol content of palm wine is probably pretty low, although I only had about a cup total.
From there we drove to other villages, announcing that the team would be coming next week to visit their village. At one of the places we stopped there was a baby chimp being protected by a family from hunters. He is for sale for $600 USD, if anyone is interested.

Day 2, Torpkah: Friday, we drove to a village about 45 minutes away where we parked the vehicle, drank some palm wine and began a 90 minute hike to the village we would spend the day at. Luckily, I was wearing my Chacos because this was a good hike! We crossed much water, climbed over roots of trees that were incredibly huge (how many thousands of years have these trees been here, I wondered) and did a fair share of climbing steep inclines. When we arrived at the village, a cola nut dropped from a tree right in our path and I took it as a good sign. Not only that, but when walking into the village, the radio was blaring “Last night, a DJ saved my life…” I knew it was going to be a good time. After resting (and drinking more palm wine) we were ready to start the clinic. I was walking over to where we were setting up and a woman asked if I wanted to chop some wood. I said yes and she handed me her axe. As I began hacking away, I noticed that the entire village was gathered around watching me chop wood. A woman approached me with a hollowed out can and acted as though she was taking my picture. It was so embarrassing and hilarious!
Before the clinic began, the village welcomed us with two live chickens, some cola nuts and 10 Liberian Dollars. This is tradition that shows the new comers that they are welcome into the village. (This ceremony took place in another language so I was not aware that one of the chickens was mine until we were back at the hospital…). For this clinic, I worked with Moore who is in charge of vaccines and malaria screening. Never have I made so many children cry! I would cry too if an unfamiliar white woman wearing bright blue gloves was approaching me with a sharp object to test my blood! After many, many positive malaria tests, our clinic was through—now for some lunch! Rice was served, along with Bat stew. I had thought that those chickens were going to be killed and served as our lunch. So, when I saw the small-bodied creatures, I asked “Chicken?” praying that it was. “No, it’s bat!” Now earlier in the day, someone had showed me a few bats that had been dried and smoked. I realized then, that they were showing me the precious meats we would be eating later. I probably should have eaten the bat meat, but all I could think about was rabies or some crazy bat disease. I figured that eating the juices from the bat was close enough.