Just arrived in Kono, Francis had one of his Christian friends pick me up at the bus station, I am staying at a place called Uncle Bens. I think. The room is like the Hitlon compared to other places here a double bed shower & everything! Unfortunately my second card is so small its filled up & Kono is fascinating with all the diamond mining, this place is right out of a movie! It is so cool, I’ll try & find a card but it may be impossible here in this small African town.I’ll try. The bus ride here was an adventure to say the least I got up at 5:30 with the Muslims prayers fought the already hectic (I mean Freetown is unlike anything you can ever imagine, people pulling carts, people & cars, buses, motorcycles sharing the street, stench), anyway I wans’t feeling great this am but I am recharged by the excitement of being in Kono. We actually had a greyhound type bus & I thought great! But three of us had to sit on the floor (its OK it allowed me to stretch my legs) and there were chickens on the bus! thats right chickens, I couldn’t believe it. People here are as touchy with picts as Freetown even when I asked Mohammed (Francis’s friend) he said OK people still get mad, partly because they want $$$, but also many people here believe in Juju (Voodoo) & its what they use (pictures ) to cast spells. On the other hand back on Thunderhill around the house I can’t get enough pictures of the kids ‘Snap me! Snap...
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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...
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I am at an internet cafe in downtown bust Freetown but I am living in the lap of luxury as this one is air conditioned & actually working!!!!!! Abrahams is not however (he is the 18 year old son of the Kamara’s who accompanies me now that Collins is MIA),. He is tall quiet young man who |I really appreciate, he is my shadow here in SL. The busy streets of Freetown are something you wouldn’t believe, the wretched stench of petrol (think a mix of diesel & propane fumes), sweaty guys pushing trailer like carts, cars, ladies all walking with their baskets on their heads, vans & people all share the street. As a matter of fact I just caught 2 pick pockets again!!! These ones didn’t get anything, I caught them before they got their hands in my pockets. They work in two’s, so if you get bumped on one side the guy on the other side is working you. I got bumped & knew this, I told Abraham, someone behind us began saying stuff in Krio (which is basically like a really fast Jamaican, whiich everyone speaks, they say English is the official language but it is in actuality Krio) I asked Abraham what the guy said, ‘abusive language towards them’, so other people caught on to their scheme as well. One should hav a zippered bag slung over your shoulder here. I taught Class 1 (Grade 1) this morning, cutest little kids, as I said I would say half maybe 60-70% (at most) speak English & most not well or with that thick accent. So my lesson consisted of ‘I am Uncle Spencer from Edmonton Canada’…about an hour in I asked the kids if they knew what snow was, all of their little hands went up, first kid ‘Sierra Leone’, 2nd child “Kay!’, 3rd, ‘Freetown”…you just have to laugh! Abraham & I are on our way to the BMI office to pick up my 2nd bag (so now I have 2/3!) Yesterday was an extremely heart wrenchjing & powerful experience, a teacher, Paul Thomas (who is a Sierra Leonian who was in med school here but lost his scholarship so he is teaching now, a fabulous guy, ) & Abraham...
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I am at the UN Special Court ( the penitentary where the 8 RUF AFRC prisoners & court is being held) this morning in Ray’s office. The internet is pretty quick here. Had a great night & morning I had another shower this morning & shave (now I at least have my shaving kit) in front of an actual mirror! The place that we had supper last night was really nice. It was a court yard behind gates in a grubby area (well almost all of Freetown is dirty by our standards, just some more than others, for instance I thought Thunderhill was bad until on my motorcycle taxi the other day I went through some back streets downtown) anyway, the restaurant was really nice good food & place even by North American standards. Afterwards we went & picked up a friend of Rays from the hovercraft coming in from the airport. She owns a little wine bar that the ex-pats visit frequently. Anyway she is a 50 (or so) Sierra Leonian woman & it is a variation of the same theme that I have been talking about here the horrors that all of these people have seen, experienced witnessed & have had happen to them is absolutely unspeakable. And yet again, you will not meet nicer, friendlier, happier people. Great kids & people. Unfortunately the poverty is so entrenched here there is certainly crime & corruption runs rampant. Francis the man I am staying with paid for a PO box for the year & when he went back, the guy was gone, so was Francis’s money, even with a receipt no box & no money. So tell Dad that when they won’t let the Dahlens send stuff directly to their foster child its because it would never get there. Who knows where my bags are or if they will ever arrive! I do not want to go home after all that everyone did & donated to have to tell them the goods didn’t get to the children. A flight comes in today so hopefully! There is a DHL courier office in Freetown, I suggest to Francis to have stuff arrive there as there is a good chance stuff will arrive. The next two...
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Saturday’s August 2nd 2008 I am e-mailing you from Ray’s compound so hopefully I will be able to communicate with you a little bit, instead of the small crowded, hot internet ‘cafe’s’ I’ve been trying to e-mail you from (after walking around to 3-4 places & 30-45 minutes to log on an hour session) Ray is very nice & around here resembles alittle bit of the pictures we saw (think Mexico outside the all-inclusives) Well where to start? I caught a pick pocket with my camera last night, got the camera, Colins & Francis (the pastor I am staying with & who’s house I’m living at) said just to relax…so no I didn’t slap him. Oh ya we left around 3pm or so yesterday to go to the airport, no bags, still, & we got home around midnight I wish I could share all of these incredible experiences with you, I am on Thunderhill in Kissy which has entrenched poverty beyond anything that you could ever imagine. Words can’t express how poor they are, chickens walking around & yes in the house, goats, dogs & cats & they all live in peace (Chloe wouldn’t do so well here) I’ve seen the same dog about a million times (skinny Keena only with fleas)but I don’t dare touch them, as they are all scabbed & flea bitten, I believe it is insulting to show any affection to animals especially when the people are in such dire straights. I must tell you though the people who I stay with are the most wonderful people in the world. They are spoiling me. I get breakfast & all of my meals prepared for me (so far so good with my Stomach!). They wash my 2 t-shirts (no clothes or toiletries yet) by hand (I do smell by the end of the day with no deodorant) they warm a big bucket of water for me to ‘shower’ with in the outhouse over a charcoal fire. It is absolutely heartbreaking, the atrocities that the RUF has committed to these people here Christie are unspeakable. I can’t even repeat what these people have endured, EVERYONE has a horror story beyond comprehension, every single one of them and yet the happiest, friendliest most...
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