goins to sierra leone: Life in the Children's Village

Children Of The Nations has 100 children that live on-site in their Children's Village in Banta. Each of them came to COTN in dire need... with no family able to take care of them, they have become part of the COTN family.

Laundry day! The trick was to get the
laundry washed and dried in between
rainstorms. (We were there in the
rainy season!)

The children's village was built in 2007 after the Paramount Chief of the Banta Region donated a large portion of land to COTN. Formerly, all of their ministry had been in Freetown in a large compound that protected the children, but also kept them inside a small fenced piece of property and had them living a fairly institutionalized life. In Banta, they had the opportunity to build separate homes, creating a much cozier living situation and giving the children acres and acres of land to farm, play and live on.

The kids thought it was so funny that 'Uncle Asia'
found pumping water so hard on his abs!

The village is comprised of 10 homes laid out in a U-shape. The U is on a gently sloping hill. At the 'top' of the village you'll find the well, with water pumped from deep beneath the surface and filtered so that it is safe enough even for westerners to drink. (It's tested several times a year to ensure that this is still the case!) At the bottom there is a boffa - a large open air, thatched roof structure for gatherings and shade. The 10 homes are divided evenly between boys and girls... Houses 1, 2, 4, and 8 are for the girls and Houses 5, 6, 7 and 9 are for the boys. House 3 and House 10 often provide a place for visiting teams and interns to stay, as was the case while we were there. We lived in House 3.

Amazing balance...

The homes are concrete, with a living area, two bedrooms, two toilets and two showers in each. Out the back door there is a covered patio and an outbuilding that serves as a kitchen for each home. (Each kitchen has a small counter, a fire 'pit', and is ventilated for the smoke from the fire to be able to escape.) The toilets and showers are plumbed - with waste and drainage going to a septic system, but there is no running water. Each bathroom area has a 50 gallon bucket that needs to be kept full of water for use 'flushing' toilets and for washing. 'Showers' are actually bucket baths. (Fill your bucket full of room temperature water, stand in the shower stall and dump cups of water over your body to get clean. Brrr.) The bedrooms are divided into a smaller room that is the living space for the 'Aunty' who cares for each home and a much larger room full of bunkbeds that all the children in that home share. The children's houses have anywhere from 10 to 14 children sharing these larger bedrooms.

There is a pineapple farm on the property
so almost every day we were treated
to fresh fruit

Life in the Children's Village has a lovely rhythm to it that centers largely on chores... each morning we were awakened before dawn to the sound of a 'bell' (actually an old rusted wheel being hit with a stick) and "Rise, Shine!" being called out by one of the older boys... The roosters were calling, the air was cool, but thick with humidity, and outside our open, screened windows, we could hear the stirrings of fires being built, footsteps, and children and aunties speaking Krio to each other in the dim light.

Laundry... each child is responsible
for keeping their own clothes washed

The boys 'barb' each other's hair
using straight razors and a steady hand

Asia was almost always the first one up, taking his bucket bath before anyone else, then I would usually try to get up and get bathed before Karim, our 'house boy' came to clean the bathroom and sweep our house. Karim was responsible for keeping our water barrel full, cleaning the house, and washing our clothes while we were there. A lovely boy with an amazing smile and football (soccer) skills that wowed us all, Karim took such good care of us. Our breakfast, cooked by a lovely young girl named Nancy, would usually arrive around 8:00. Breakfast rotated between fried eggs, porridge, and pancakes, with hot water for our Nescafe. There was a box of cereal available (brought up with us on the poda-poda from Freetown,) but only dried milk. (We quickly learned to be satisfied with instant coffee and dried milk as our wake-up call each morning, but found our coffee pot at home and flavored creamer to be some of the things we missed the most.)

Football!

The children were still in school when we arrived - finishing out the school year with their exams. This meant that for the first week we were there, the village would clear out and become very quiet around 8:30. We watched the kids walk up the hill toward the school in their uniforms each morning... and then would finish getting ready for the day in relative quiet.

Massah getting her hair planted

However, once school got out, that all changed. When the children aren't in school, the village is in constant activity. There is always something to do. From laundering clothes to carrying water, to the ever-necessary food preparation, there is very little idleness. The kids do play. But only when their chores have been completed (which is really, honestly, never... but somehow they find the time.) Leisure time is spent differently, depending on the age and gender of the kids. The older boys could be found almost every afternoon playing football behind our house. They play on a rocky, sloping 'field' - using a mostly flat ball. Only a couple of the boys had cleats - most of them played either barefoot or in what we call 'jelly sandals' - exactly like we wore in the 80's. Many of them wear used soccer jerseys sent over from the states... from teams all over the country. The girls are often found 'planting' (braiding) each other's hair, or visiting while they work on food for a later meal. Occasionally I would see a girl knitting or crocheting. The younger kids play football too, or games with rocks, or could be seen rolling tires down the hill, chasing after them with sticks used to steady the tires or propel them over bumps.

Karim making Kyler help pump water for
our house...

All of the homes have front porches, so often, when there is a break in chores, people will be out on their porches... visiting, telling stories, watching the activity in the center of the village U. Our front porch was almost always full of kids. They weren't allowed to come into our house, but if we were in our living room, there were always kids peeking through the windows or standing in the open doorway. One of my favorite things was sitting on the porch with Asia and visiting with whoever happened by... watching our kids play 'jacks' with rocks, or playing cards, or drawing pictures with the village children. Ethan loved being in the village SO much - and played SO hard each day that we gave up trying to keep him, or his clothes, clean. The other children would say to us "Your boy loves to play..." And he does.

The inside of our house - our living area

The rhythm of the village has a way of getting into your heart and making our crazy, on-the-go, busy lives in America feel insanely comparitively unproductive. We have machines that do all of our work for us, and have so much leisure time, and waste most of our days. No time is wasted in Sierra Leone. If you aren't working, you're sitting with someone. Being together. Talking and laughing over meal preparation, or while working side by side. It's a lovely (and all the same hard) way to live.

That's an iron...
filled full of hot coals
for pressing clothes

E. played hard with the village kids

An African version of
"London Bridge"

When the rain came (almost EVERY afternoon)
activity ceased. People would stand
on their porches and wait until
it stopped. This could take a couple
of hours, but no one seemed to mind.