I have given Rhema & the Komoras all that we set out to accomplish. We got water into the school, & although it took eight long, sweaty, smelly, crowded hours, it looks like we will have internet Monday! Only 6 days left on a trip of a lifetime. I shared with Francis (the pastor, & father of the |Komoras) how much i am missing Christie. He shared his story, when he was in Nigeria studying to be a minister he had to be away from his family for 2 years. This was before cell phones, email, etc. so he had no contact at all. Then on the TV he saw that the RUF had taken over Thunderhill, he saw on TV thr RUF at the church right next to where they lived. There was no way that he could contact them or know if they were safe. Stories were surfacing about what the rebels were doing, He said he spent all of that night on the floor just praying to God that everyone would be alright. marie took all of her children, jumping over corpses they ran & escaped in the night to a safe part of Freetown, they held up in a church with hundreds of other people for over a month with no food & unfit water before they left that area.Makes me sound like a wimp! Ruth the house maid, told me her story too, she was in a night club when men came in with machine guns & ordered them to walk in front of them for cover, Ruth slipped out of the people & snuck away, many people were killed that night.
Went to the chimpanzee reserve in Tacugama we start out in this goat trail of a road & niether the driver who only spoke Krio nor Abraham knew where it was so we had to pick up some local teen to give directions. the driver complained the entire way as he was bottoming out, stalling up hills, the ruts were unimaginable. I must admit |I felt a little uneasy as we passed a group of about 8-9 larte teen early twenty year olds carrying machetes on this road. Well we finally got up to Tacugama only we had to walk the last kilometer or so as the car wouldn’t make it &WE CAME FACE TO FACE WITH ANOTHER CAR & THERE WAS ONLY ROOM FOR ONE VEHICLE SO WE GOT OUT IN THE POURING RAIN (oopa caps lock!) & walked the rest of the way, the hill would have been too steep for him anyway. Tacugama however was amazing, it is seriuosly the nicest place that I have seen since I have been here, it is exactly like a |North American zoo. it is clean well organized, amazing. Honestly honey with 7 i think 4-7 acres forrested enclosures which the chimps are rotated throug every fiew months (one is like a North American one with ropes tires etc.)the chimps here live better thabn the people, no joke! Bala was not there so i did not meet him. I met a russian from the UN there Andrei, lawyer, nice guy. Oh ya so we come up to this one enclosure & they warned us the chimps may do this, |I get close to the front to take a picture & a rock went wizzing by my head, I thought ‘they’re not kiddi.. then THUNK! I got pegged right in the face with a rock!! It was about the size of a big egg, luckily the rocks are porous, lava type rocks & the chimps throw underhand/sidearm so it was more of a laugh than anything, I had a small red mouse but no black eye! . I did slip the boy some leones who helped us out
Francis is a rock, I explained to him that his people, asking for money, or trying to manipulate Westerners, could scare potential people willing to help away. he realizes this |& is genuinely a good person. Marie is too. With the bag of clothes their was nothing in there for the orphan girls Betty, or Esther, (and these girls ask for nothing!) so I told them I’d send them rain coats when i returned (its rainy season herre & I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever get out of here it has poured for 2 days straight & I mean think of the worst down pour we have ever had times 10!) I suppose one has to keep in mind that when they ask for leones it works out to be only a few Canadian dollars that goes so far here
I got sick for the first time friday night. I knew i should not have eaten the lettuce that Ruth prepared in the dish, I’m not sure if it was your grapefruit extract but I started putting it in the water & I have been fine since.
It is very difficult to see all of the dogs in such dire need here. At the Komora family they throw rocks at the strays to keep them away. I still can not get used to the Keena like screams that occur on a daily basis in the distance. I will say this though on our way out to the Grafton war amputee camps the other day (not sure if I toldyou about that, disturbing) , I saw the oddest site. A tent set up in the middle of a field with dozens of dogs around it. They were vaccinating the dogs FOR FREE!!!!! Every dog that is vaccinated gets a blue collar indicating that they are safe, all the other dogs will be put down. the program is on for a month or two & after that all uncollared dogs are fair game. It is so sad & hard to take. They must do something.They move the tent to different ares of freetown every2-3 days, it was thye last day in kissy so there was nothing i could do I couldn’t even help the two little strays aroung the house. I have been sneaking out & tossing them the odd cracker when I can, it is important that no one sees as although nobody starves here every penny goes to something (they don’t even have a can oopener Betty was opening a can with a knife this morning) food shelter clotjhing.. i talked to a helper at the tent & they are hoping to save 5000 dogs. i have seen probably 9,10 (maybe even more) uncollared dogs to every one dog you see with a blue collar
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