The Yavoo Arrival

After a long 20 hours of flying, and three hour ‘tro tro’ ride (A name for the local bus), I have arrived in Atorkor village with my two travel companions, Sammie and PJ. We were greeted by three of our Lumana team members already in the village, Karin, Eric, and Cole.

We brought all of our stuff to our two shared bedrooms for the next two weeks… located in a house at the edge of the village. Our team was relocated here from our previous residence in the Chiefs house, due to the arrival of 15 girl scouts from the UK. Our bedrooms come complete with single sized bunk beds, small bathrooms with showers (although no hot water), and electricity. We spent our first two nights without mosquito nets, but luckily we have acquired some and may now sleep bug free.

Across the street from our residence is the beach and the ocean. This was something I did not expect; the entire village seems to be a beach. Instead of the red dirt roads so common while I was in Sierra Leone, we are constantly walking through sand here. It is very apparent that we live in the middle of a fishing village, the smell permeates the streets and drying shrimp line the roads.

Now that we have been here a few days we are settling into a more constant routine, and diving into our work. We have set our meetings and goals for the following week and are hard at work in the IT center in the village typing away at our computers, researching, and getting ready for next weeks meetings and surveys.

Us Yavoos (what locals like to call white people), have a lot we would like to add to the Atorkor community. I personally will be working on adding a medical component to our services, creating lesson plans for local villagers on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of certain illnesses. These can be discussed during the weekly meetings that our clients will have with their loan repayment officers.

As outsiders, we wish to do our best to determine and meet the real needs of the underserved population. This particular program is a response to a common request we have received during our needs assessment surveys, asking for greater access to medical knowledge.

Right now, the community only has one computer with working internet, and that internet was brought to the village by our team. When young children were given the opportunity to use the internet we described to them what a “search engine” was, and asked them what they would like to learn more about. To our surprise, they decided to type in ‘malaria.’ This was a very defining moment for us, as we realized just how great the medical needs really are in the village.

Thus, the Yavoos are here to help.

Yavoo (translation): Tricky Dogs.