A Quiet Kabala

Wednesday

When we arrived at the clinic around 9:00 to start our day of work, things were strangely quiet. We had even noticed that our walk over seemed more quiet than usual. There were not as many "Kushe"'s. The only roadside discussion we had was with the "police." In Sierra Leone, it is tax season, which means that at random places on the road, they run a string across the road to stop any traffic. They require you to pay a "tax" if you want to pass, but if you have a special piece of paper that exempts you then you can go without paying. However, as we reached the roadblock, they demanded that we pay our "tax." They said, "no matter the color, black or white, you still have to pay." Our response was that we are not even residents of Kabala, therefore why should we pay their tax? They didn't care, and when we responded that we were humanitarian aid workers, they didn't care. It was only when we started mentioning the names of the people we were working with and staying with that they reluctantly let us pass. Later we found out that it was outrageous that they were asking us to pay, since our visa fees cover all those sorts of things. It was pretty obvious that they thought that since we were white, they could get a few easy extra dollars for the day.

Nevertheless, as we arrived at the clinic, things were still strange. None of the workers were around, but all of the patients were there waiting. So we began to get to work giving injections and seeing patients. But soon there after, Theresa, one of the staff members, came to tell everyone that the clinic was closing until Monday. Apparently, a robbery occured at the guest house where another group of volunteers was staying, and an investigation had to be done. They were so upset that someone in their town would do this to strangers who had come to help them and improve Kabala. Now we understood why our walk was so quiet that morning. The whole community seemed to be ashamed, and when we were walking home a woman shouted to us "So sorry! So Sorry!" We understood, but we wanted to make sure that they knew that we loved them anyway. We continued to greet them on our way home.