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It seems like I’m settling into a routine where I have a flurry of busy days and then write a single entry to get caught up. Fairly soon, though, all of our routines will be changing, as Capt. Eliza will be showing up in just three days and the final crew transition will be happening right after that. It won’t be long until we set sail for Goree Island in Dakar. For now, though, there’s a certain monotony that comes with being anchored for an extended time.
The last couple days have been broken up by two trips to the UN Hotel at Mammy Yoko, which was taken over by the UN peacekeeping troops during the war and has remained the central base for UNAMSIL (the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone). My trips there have been in order to drop off and pick up the crew’s laundry. Doing laundry on deck is now a thing of the past, since Heather became the two-time victim of a Tumbu Fly, which is a parasite that implants its larvae inside a host, where they grow until the maggots eat their way out. As it turns out, one of the primary modes of human infection is through laundry that is left to air dry, where the fly lays its eggs on the fabric and the newly hatched larvae embed themselves in the skin of the wearer. Parasite jokes have become de rigueur on board Amistad and we’ve all been remembering the last time we watched the movie Alien.
My skills with the small boat continue to improve. On Wednesday, I was ferrying Ben to the Navy dock when we saw that the new ferry, the Princess Caroline, was having difficulty coming alongside the pier. Since Amistad routinely uses the small boat as a mini-tug, it made sense to offer to do the same for the ferry. It was the first time I had used the small boat to move a larger vessel, but everything went well and I managed to maneuver her right into place, alternately pushing on the bow and stern quarters. Yesterday, I took the small boat for my longest trip, so far, as I ferried some of our crew members to the Aqua Club. It was about 20 minutes each way and the weather was great, with just enough wave action to make the trip interesting.
Last night, as I was on watch, the ship was surrounded by a pod of dolphins who were swimming up the river. At first, when I heard them breathing, I thought that one of the crew members was coming down with a wet, hacking cough, but as the sound got louder I went to the rail and could just barely see their backs breaking the surface as they breathed, with a loud chuffing sound. I’m on watch again tonight and am keeping an ear pealed for the dolphins’ return, hopefully close enough that I’ll be able to get a good look at them.
Today’s schedule was a very nice break from our usual routine. At 10:30, as we were finishing up deck wash, a cameraman visited the ship and interviewed the Sierra Leonean members of our group for the BBC’s “Inside Africa” program. At 1:30, the German ambassador to Sierra Leone and his entourage visited us. Rumor has it that we may be returning to the Government Wharf and tying up there for a couple days so that people can have a final chance to visit Amistad before we head on to Senegal. Donald George was aboard today and mentioned that the President of Sierra Leone is planning on coming to be part of our farewell ceremony and we’re all looking forward to meeting him and maybe getting a crew photo with him.
I’m sending along a couple photos that I took on my walk down from the US Embassy last week. Everywhere I went, children wanted me to take their pictures, and I ended up taking several of of a couple boys who were out collecting aluminum cans for recycling, for which they get 1,000 leones (about 33 cents) per pound. When I passed over one of the bridges on the edge of town, the embankment was covered with a huge, smoldering pile of garbage and, below it, was a bit of land being cultivated by people trying to scratch out a living. The stream that runs through the center of the photo is essentially gray-water runoff from all of the houses on the hills. The environmental problems here are mind-boggling and, while there are certainly lots of NGOs and church groups working to improve the lives of the average Sierra Leonean, there is a great need for further work.
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