Sierra Leone Or Bust!

Here are two of the first image results when you Google 'Sierra Leone': 

I know, right? What a contrast: one of my favourite things in the world, and one of my least favourite. Well, I should clarify: love the kid, hate the gun. Not a big fan of national conflict or civil wars. But I am pretty interested in the way that conflict affects a country, especially in relation to it's general health and HIV/AIDS prevalence. So when we had to give our top choices for places to carry out dissertation research this summer, I said Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sudan. My professor quickly said no, and no. The university will not be liable for transporting your corpse back to the U.S. A week later a classmate and I got a call to come to her office. When we sat down with her, she explained that one of the organizations neither of us had been particularly interested in had just decided to offer 2 placements in Sierra Leone, were we interested? 

Six months later, I have a completed research proposal and tickets to fly to Sierra Leone in 28 days. Coordinating things with the organization (called Restless Development) has been a bit of a challenge at times, but I think things will go well once we are on the ground and working face to face with them. (They are a 'youth-led development agency', which may explain why it's been slightly hit and miss communicating with them..) My classmate, Barrett, is an International Development major and will be looking at civic participation and the reintegration of child soldiers into society. I'll be looking at youth sexual and reproductive health and knowledge about HIV/AIDS. I am STOKED. This is one of those things I've always wanted to do -- walk into a community and sit down with a bunch of young men and women and ask them what they think about abstinence, condoms, abortion, STIs, faithfulness, relationships -- but of course you can't do that... unless it's 'research'. So I get to wear the hallowed 'researcher' label and collect all sorts of opinions and thoughts and insight from these young people with so much wisdom about their culture and it's problems, and how to best go about solving those problems.

I'm also stoked to be in West Africa, since my travels thus far have only been in the South and East. Also, the dominant language in Sierra Leone is Creole, which is fantastic because it has a lot of French influence (et je sais un peu du Francais), and it's also spoken in Haiti, where I'd really love to work someday. Also, as you will see if you Google 'Freetown', the capital city where we're based, it is surrounded on 3 sides by BEACH. Really beautiful beach, too.

So that is what's happening. Summer in Sierra Leone: 11 June - 27 July. And no, there is not a war going on there, it ended 10 years ago. And Ben tells me it is one of the countries in Africa you are least likely to be kidnapped in. So there we go!

Thank God It's Friday Night.

Happy Weekend, Everyone! Thanks to some sort of bank holiday on Monday (still not quite sure what we were celebrating), all my classes for the week were today. I was in the same classroom from 9 to 5 for back-to-back lectures. Thank goodness that's over with. Things are going alright. We are starting to work on final assignments and exam preparations, which is terrifying and exciting at the same time. Amidst all the work, this week I went to my first Ceilidh (okay Isaac and Leah, you can stop cheering now), which for those who don't know is like Scottish square dancing. A very sweet older doctor in my programme helped organize it as a fund-raiser for building a school in a village we visited in Kenya. He's also in the band that played that night, aptly named 'No Mean Feet'. Cleverrrrrr...   

I also went to small group at my friend Sarah's house. The last time we met there, I noticed that her neighbours had a rather oddly shaped bush around their house. Thanks to DST, this week it was actually light enough to see it properly, and it is indeed a bush in the shape of a caterpillar. I could hardly contain myself. I took a picture for you all to witness the wonder. 

The weather has been completely erratic lately. During one lecture today, it rained and shined and rained and shine probably 6 times. Every time the sun's out, all these news stories pop up about how England's going through a drought because it's had so little rain this year, and every time it starts to rain, all these claims that we're in for a national flood warning crop up. I'm so confused. In spite of all this, things are green and the sky has been nice lately.  

 Miss you all. Will write more soon. 

Jiggety Jig.

I'm baaaaaaack. For those not aware, I made a glorious trip home for the month of April (Easter break). Opted not to post about it so I could surprise a few people, which was marvelously successful. Home was filled with lovely things: Easter brunch with all the cousins, Maren's final recital, Mum's birthday, long trail runs in the woods, house and dog sitting for a week, sunshine, a surprise birthday party at the beach for the boyf, Seattle, Olympia, Vancouver, bagels, Mexican food, big fat thrift stores, card games with all 3 grandparents, consecutive hours with dear friends, and studying when necessary at old coffee shops around town. To say leaving was hard is an understatement. I thought it might get easier over time.. it doesn't. Especially when it's sunny in Bellingham and pouring rain in Sheffield; when I have nothing here to greet me but police sirens and piles and piles of work to finish by the end of the month. My life is so different there than here. And to everyone who said "Oh, your programme's only a year?! That'll FLY by!".. that's not actually true. And, and, and.

Instead of more whining, which I want to do, I've been trying to be mature about this, which I don't want to do. I think that after years of traveling all over and coming back to Bellingham thinking "well, I guess this place is alright", I finally get it. I finally see that Bellingham is a ridiculously wonderful place. I get it why people like my parents move halfway across the country to live there, or why people stick around years after finishing at WWU. It's not just filled with people I love, it has seas to swim in, lakes to kayak around, mountains to climb up and down, trails to run on, or you can just sit and LOOK at it, because it's beautiful (see above). Maybe it took living in Sheffield to figure that out. The irony of this is that in 4 months, I'll finally have a Masters degree that puts me anywhere on the globe... and I really miss Bellingham. I still want to go work in the Congo and Sudan, but I could also be pretty happy with a job that lets me work at home or close to it most of the time.

The other thing I've noticed in my pursuit of maturity is that for every bad, there's usually a good. Cases in point:
1. Bad: I had to leave on Saturday. Good: SeaTac airport was completely dead when Ben and I got to there. Check-in took 2 minutes and we got to spend almost an hour playing Dutch Blitz in the waiting area.
2. Bad: My plane had to circle Heathrow 5 times before landing because of rain, fog, and wind. When we finally did land it kind of sounded like the plane cracked in half. Good: When everyone opened their eyes and pried their white knuckles off the seat in front of them, we realized we were all still alive and in one piece. It never ceases to amaze me that millions people routinely FLY, in an enormous contraption miles in the AIR, hours and HOURS across land and sea, and reach their destinations [relatively] unscathed.
3. Bad: Realized halfway through the flight that I forgot my toothbrush at home. Good: In all my travels I've never flown an airline that offered free toothbrushes and toothpaste. But guess who does? British Airways' Seattle to London flight.
4. Bad: I had a group meeting at 7am this morning, a group presentation at 10am, and class until 3pm. With 2 hours of sleep. Good: I'm alive. The rest of the week looks more manageable with slightly more sleep in the cards.

Miss you all.

Daffodils Are Taking Over the World!

3 days topping almost 70 degrees (f) this week. In March. So fantastic. Also, there is an unfathomable amount of daffodils blooming in Sheffield right now. The sun came out and BAM, out of nowhere, they shot through the ground in lines like little neon yellow armies taking over the city. In some random places, too. Below are sights that have made me happy this week, aka my artistic photo series entitled "Spot the daffodil in every single picture". Except for the last one, which is proof that I am actually in grad school over here, not just wandering around taking pictures of daffodils all day long.

The kitchen windowsill.

Lunch with Manon & Catherine.

There is an old lady in a bright red burka sitting on the grass
in the middle of the photo. She looked very content.

 

 

Rugby players and hideous apartment buildings...

and daffodils. 

We gave presentations on the placements and dissertations we'll be taking on this summer, which I'm pretty stoked about and will write more on later.  In the meantime, I'm thinking of attaching this to my resume and adding 'university lecturer' to my list of past work experience. I think it'd fly.

Getting Around.

I went through some photos from the last few months, and realized that the 3 or 4 pictures posted previously, documenting December's adventures with Ben, simply do not do them justice. I hope you enjoy these. 

London

St. Pancras Station. (Or affectionately, St. Pancreas.)

So. Much. Cheese.

Tower Bridge, often mistaken for London Bridge, but that's because
it's way cooler than the actual London Bridge.

Carolers, Christmas Tree, and the Olympic Countdown Clock.

Portobello Road.

Westminster Abbey by night.

Buckingham Palace by night.

Brighton

 

Edinburgh

View from below..

..view from the castle.

For Dad.

Unbelievable.. but true. We saw what is left of Dolly the cloned sheep.

The Peaks

3 matching stones Ben spotted that were most likely used for
grinding things hundreds of years ago.

Unbelievably jet-lagged, but up for a hike.. as always.

Manchester 

I don't mean to imply by having this be the only picture taken in Manchester that this is the only thing to do in Manchester -- pose with irrefutably large piles of trash. But it was certainly an entertaining tourist activity for us.