"You'll be here every day, right?"

Yesterday, I took a sick day. Given that I was sick, this may seem unremarkable. But I wasn't as sick as I had been Wednesday, when I nonetheless worked yet another 10-hour day.

I took yesterday off in part because I had a sneaking suspicion my illness was the result of exhaustion and I figured a day spent in large part in bed would help ensure a return to health. Probably more than that, though, I took the day off out of curiosity; I wanted to see how the news programming would go without me.

Kalleone's seen three weeks of uninterrupted news since our Jan. 9th re-launch, but I've shouldered a heavy burden of the workload, typing and editing every script and producing every soundbite that went to air, in addition to working on stories.

Last Wednesday was arguably our best newscast to date. We had a bunch of good stories and they came in early enough in the day that I was able to prepare soundbites for three of them. Even the scripts were fully edited before 6, which almost never happens.

I should have known things were going too well.

It was to be Mabel's debut as the news presenter, and a crisis of confidence took hold. Wanting to abate this mild anxiety attack, I (somewhat masochistically) volunteered to pre-record the entire newscast.

Over the next two hours, we broke the script down into 10 small chunks for Mabel to voice, I hurriedly edited out her numerous nervous gaffes and, using Adobe Audition's amazingly straight-forward editing software (which I was more or less teaching myself on the fly), I somehow managed to tie 13 sound clips together.

While we were working, I mentioned that the building's power would probably cut out, as it does every night. I assured her this was no cause for alarm and that power always returns within five minutes.

Minutes later, my prophesy fulfilled, Mabel cast a glance of semi-astonishment my way, and I could see her slowly coming to appreciate how many late nights I'd been putting in. In my time here, she'd never once been at the office late enough to witness this almost-daily ritual, and she's arguably Kalleone's most diligent reporter. It was precisely the type of simple incident that helps to encourage reporter buy-in to what I'm trying to do.

Just before burning the whole newscast to CD, we narrowly averted disaster when a last-second check revealed I'd ordered two of the files incorrectly, which would've rendered a 90-second segment of the broadcast completely non-sensical. I quickly fixed it, and Mabel got to the station just in time for the 8:00 newscast.

Shortly thereafter, I received a text from Mabel thanking me profusely for my work, and thanked her in turn for not only voicing the day's news, but also producing two of our best stories. It was a typically Canadian battle of politeness and modesty, and my non-Canadian counterpart was more than holding her own.

I like to think my gesture helped her confidence and I was sure to be explain that we wouldn't be able to pre-record every week. This Wednesday, when Mabel asked to do so again, I explained that I was way too sick and exhausted, that we didn't have enough time, and that she was going to rock it live. And she did.

These are the interactions that nourish my soul in the haze of exhausting and often-frustrating exchanges that characterize my working life in Sierra Leone. The night after receiving the grateful text from Mabel, another colleague paused at the door as she was exiting the office, turned towards me and said, "You'll be here every day, right? We're learning a lot from you." I laughed, said no, and assured her they soon wouldn't need me.

All in all, it's been an exhausting three weeks. But I can deal with long hours. Significantly more troubling for me was the worry that our progress wasn't sustainable.

Truth be told, I considered leaving Kalleone less than a week after the news re-launched, which may come as a surprise given the good days like the one outlined above.

But there have also been days when I wasn't sure we would be able to pull it together, when stories didn't start coming in until three hours before we went to air - a small window to type and edit stories that often need a lot of editing, to print scripts, and to get the presenter to the station's studio - a half hour away from the newsroom - with enough time to practice pronunciations and be ready to read.

I've worried over administration's commitment to the news, as we were twice forced to print scripts from an Internet cafe at my expense, I've had to front the money to get news presenters to the studio, and we've been given very little access to computers other than my laptop.

It all came together to paint a grim picture of prospects for the news team after my departure in May. It was even discouraging enough that I had sent an email to JHR outlining my concerns and raising the spectre of a switch to a different station, a move I've long held as a last resort.

Instead, over the last two weeks, we've been able to slowly break through the obstacles. I was reimbursed for the money I fronted, and transportation money has been forthcoming in recent days. I've been given keys and software to grant me access to the printers. And this week, we're supposed to be getting a dedicated computer for the newsroom, which will allow me to pass on valuable skills like typing and sound editing with Audition.

Most important of all, however, my concerns about sustainability have been addressed by the return of Daphne and the impending return of Liz, the station's two older, more experienced news editors.

Daphne stepped in to fill the void left by my absence yesterday, as news hit the airwaves without interruption while I lay in bed. Liz will begin in the coming week, returning to work after losing her baby during childbirth recently, a harsh reminder that SL is still ranked last in the world for under-five mortality with 262 deaths per 1000 live births, according to the State of the World's Children Report for 2009.

In the next two weeks, I hope to transition back to my mandated role of working one-on-one with journalists and running workshops, while leaving the editing to this capable duo. Soon, hopefully, I'll be able to pass the sound editing torch to them as well. But departing from my explicit mandate for a couple weeks to see the realization of Kalleone's return to news was well worth it if it saves me from having to switch placements.

Seven months is a very short window in which to make a difference. It takes time to learn the rhythms of a station and to gain the respect of its reporters. Actually, I just read an interesting article about the implications of short-term contracts for international NGOs, and the challenges of effecting sustainable change in these small windows.

I think I've reached a point where I understand how Kalleone works, and have forged a rapport with my colleagues. On Wednesday, Princetta, Mabel and Fatima started calling me "Obama", a high compliment given how respected he is here, even if my attempts to understand what the hell I could possibly have in common with the American President have thus far yielded nothing to abate my confusion.

But it's taken a lot of work to get to this point. To have to start again from scratch with a new station would significantly limit the good done by my time in Sierra Leone, so hopefully my colleagues and I continue to break through obstacles as they present themselves. I'm confident we will.

In the meantime, I'm trying to come to terms with my chronic over-ambitiousness. The in-depth feature show I proposed in an earlier post will more likely give way to frequent five-minute 'special report' features in the normal daily newscasts.

And on a personal note, to reduce stress, I'm trying to give up a lot of my freelance ambitions, including a feature-length narrative story that I'd love to do about the seven Canadian IMATT soldiers stationed here. There's simply too much to do in too little time, especially if I want to pursue my travel plans, which themselves are becoming more modest. Turns out Africa's still huge and flights are bloody expensive.

For now, my goal is to have everything running smoothly enough that I can make a mid-February trip to Liberia without worrying that everything we've worked so hard for will come crashing down.