Can you imagine leaving your house every day & someone is outside needing shoes, clothing or asks you for help with a serious health problem? That's how it is here. Or even simple requests are made, like today can you get me an umbrella? This is the rainy season & in one month Freetown will get the amount of Rain Petaluma gets in one year, so you get soaked & most people have no rain coats or umbrellas. A young bare foot teenager who has no parents asked me for shoes,(I know this young man, as we have established a friendship), an older gentleman requested help for bad stomach pain. A young man asked me for help to get his hernia repaired. I carry a camera & it is best if we have a photo of the problem so I asked the boys at the gate to take a picture. Even inside the ship the day workers will say Mary I have a friend outside who has a hernia can we bring him in, or they bring pictures in of loved ones with health problems many of which the ship doesn't have the means to take care of b/c Mercy Ships addresses specific surgical procedures. The needs are great & their desires are so strong, hoping we can help them & you feel the hard times they are going through. It can be difficult to hear & see these problems. Then I carry on with my walk pondering all that I have just encountered to be soon welcomed by the sounds of many, many children greeting us & giving hugs as we pass by. Many of the kids on the street call me Marian or in the hospital it is Auntie Mary, my new name!
I will miss so much the smiles & the welcomes people give us as we walk through town b/c it adds a richness like nothing else.
Florence's Wedding
The wedding was beautiful. There was a traditional wedding before the church wedding which is very symbolic. A calabash bowl is packed with a needle & thread to show the wife will take care of the husband's clothes, stitch them & keep the home, a bitter & a sweet cola nut symbolizing marriage has sweet & bitter times. A matt which shows that even in hard times, no money "to buy a bed" you don't leave your husband. These items are wrapped up in the calabash bowl with a white cloth which also symbolizes peace. The cloth is saved as a burial cloth I believe for the mother to symbolize her daughter was married when she dies. This bowl is brought when the husbands family comes to the brides house & knocks at their door & they say they have come to bring peace & they noticed a rose in the garden & wanted to pick it. Then they come in & they are given cold water. Then "false brides" greet the husband's family & they are asked is this the rose you saw & they will say no until the real bride appears. The calabash bowl is something that grows on a tree that is dried out & used for this ceremony. It is carried by a young virgin child on the father's side & given to the bride. I got this info from my day workers & another married woman here & I probably didnt get everything corrert but this is close I think. I love the symbolism & I think it is a wonderful tradition.
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