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 accused defence wraps up their part of the 4 year trial, judgement should be in a couple months & sentencing a few more after that, the consensus is here they will all be found guilty & serve in the 50 year range.
Ray & I are off to the UN cafeteria soon for breakfast. I enjoy by breakfastes at the Kamara household cooked over a fire but it will be a treat to eat my eggs with out ants running all over them! The African experience, will be an interesting day (court starts at 10 a.m) I am also looking forward to getting back to Thunderhill, the children are always so excited to see you, they all come running up & hang off of you, even the ones you don’t know. Everywhere you walk they come running ‘whitaman!’ it fills me with such happiness those cute little gaffers!
I have had treat of watching the closing arguements of Augustine Gbau, & Morris Kallum (yesterday was Sesay) I have spent the day at the UN complex (Special Court). I met more Canadians here today, yet another small world story a RCMP from Penticton knows Lynn Kraeling the father of Dean Kraeling an old school mate & hockey buddy of mine from DC!
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