Aussie Joy's Life

Today we visited Freetown, Sierra Leone to run some errands and visit the Logos Hope.

Firstly I exchanged some American dollars.

Things you should know about currency exchange in Sierra Leone…

-          you will get more for your buck if you exchange $100 bills and they most likely wont even take a $1 bill

-          $100 today equaled about 400,000 Leones and the largest denomination is 10,000 Leones.  But I was given all 5,000 leones… so I look like I have a truck load of cash!

-          You can exchange in a bank… but you can likely get a better conversion on the side of the road by talking too the dudes that yell ‘Exchange! Exchange! Exchange!’….  Very weird… but apparently legal… Sierra Leone even has a drive through bank!

Driving through the streets are crazy.  You lock your doors and keep windows up.  I took a few photos out the windows but you have to be careful not asking for permission.  I had people telling me ‘no photo, no photo!’  Some obliged reluctantly when asked.

We visited a little Western Café, called Crown Bakery and I purchased a cuppa tea, a meat pie and a Coconut Macaroon.  Meat pie was more like a pastie with just mince in it.

Ruth from Living Water International had to pay taxes and social security for her employees.  Interesting thing to note about this was we were the only people in the building.  Taxpaying doesn’t seem high on anyone’s agenda.

Next we attempted to find the Logos Hope.  Went to the wrong dock and took an hour and a half to drive about a mile to the correct place.  Traffic was horrendous.  Literally one of the streets we drove down we had to clear people off it (persistent horn honking) to drive down it.  People had put out there goods all over the streets and there was not even a cars width space to drive down.  Craziness.  Whatever you can think of is being sold.  Anything donated by other countries, random stolen goods – mobile phones… bottles refilled with liquid (who knows what!) etc… will end up on the streets being hocked off to earn someone their daily bread.

Finally we got to the dock.  Actually it was a breath of fresh air walking into such a peaceful place.  We met up with Zainad and her son Muhummad (she works for LWI teaching Hygiene) and through some more random parking issues we somehow connected with this other young girl, Esther.  She spoke very fluent English and was obviously educated.

Once on board the Logos Hope, I met up with some Aussie’s I had been connected with prior on facebook.  I think it was really cool for them to find a patriot in such a foreign country.  Some of these guys hadn’t seen their families in years.  These guys give two years of their lives to serve on board and dock in countries all round the world to serve.  If you are considering missions these guys are totally worth checking out!

The ship was great.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time in the HUGE bookstore.  (Random fact – it’s the biggest floating bookstore in the world!)  Loved that it was full of all different types of books – cookbooks, kids books, religious, bibles…. You name it – all for sale at very reasonable prices.  Seriously, I bought a book worth $15 + tax in the States for about $6.  They had dropped the prices dramatically so the Sierra Leoneans could have a chance at affording them.  It was awesome!

During the afternoon, I got to know Esther a bit.  She was intrigued by the ship and had never seen anything like it.  She was even more intrigued by the abundance of books… and all the information contained in so many books.  I’m not sure I’ve stopped to appreciate the overabundance of information I have constantly bombarding me.  We in the west, are moving away from ‘books’ to getting all our info online… if it can’t be found on google it ain’t worth knowing right?!  Or we’re buying books ‘online’ to read on itouches or kindles.  I watched these people in this bookstore pick up books and thumb through them like they were as precious as gold.  What a gift we have – first to be able to read this post and second to have access to all the knowledge in the world because of that.

I walked with Esther to get her more information about OMAfrica.  I found out she’d made a commitment to follow Christ early in her life after being brought up in a Christian family.  Her father died when she was young and her mother tried forcing her to get married at thirteen years old.  Esther, not wanting to follow in her families uneducated footsteps – was kicked out of home because she did not want to follow in her families uneducated footsteps and she got herself from the Liberian boarder all the way to capital, Freetown to stay with an older brother.  She then put herself through school winning scholarships and doing whatever it took to get money.  I’m not sure if prostitution can be ruled out.  All to follow her own dreams of becoming educated and becoming an accountant!  She exuded ‘the spirit of Esther’.  She showed me her Gideon New Testament bible and I felt to get her the whole bible.  Man, the look on her face when I gave it to her was amazing.  She knows her bible stories already… I can’t wait to see what God does through this 20 year old.  Maybe she’ll end up traveling the seas on an OM ship and seeing the world.  Maybe she’ll be a leader in Sierra Leone and  be a catalyst for change and help bring a corrupt nation back to God!

Over and out for the night.  Internet very sketchy tonight so I’m having trouble loading pics.  Check out my facebook here!