Lacs Villa Guest House Freetown

I'm sitting on the porch of a bungalow at River No. 2 outside of Freetown, Sierra Leone. It's a Monday so my 3 friends and I are the only ones here. The sand is white and the ocean is dark blue, not the crystal blue of the Caribbean but a much darker color that promises deep water right off shore. The sun is about to set behind a palm covered po...

i got back onto the smooth roads of Freetown yesterday evening, no worse for wear, actually if anything, maybe a bit fitter, considering my attempts to tame the wild bronc that is The Bush. it felt good to have my feet back on the ground, in fact, real good; real, real good. my eye began to twitch. my bruised toe nails began to ache. my runner s...

They call him Ishmael, and he is my driver. He took over for Sulu once we got into "the bush." He told me he got an award for his driving last year. Well...I'm still alive, so I guess I believe him. I wrote to you last time about the rough roads we had as we moved into the up-country, at least we had roads then. Moving east of Koidu, is moving i...

Apologies again for the unseemly gaps in my blogging, but internet is bad at the best of times, and with so many volunteers around at the moment, my net time is pretty limited. But I thought I'd better make a little time to lock myself in the office with a computer and tell you a bit about my African Birthday Experience. We actually got to have ...

Sorry again for the time between updates. It's been a busy week or so, and it hasn't helped that I've been a bit under the weather with some form of chest infection. My dad was good enough to provide me with the Lonely Planet's Guide to African Health, which is a wonderful book, but could also be titled, "The Hypochondriacs Field Guide," as I've...

I will not bore you with lengthy details but despite spending a couple of weeks back in Freetown trying to sort things out, things actually got worse, not better and despite Carolyn and I putting forward a number of different solutions, VSO, whilst recognising that they had made many mistakes, were not able to improve our security situation. Our...

Seeing a UN aircraft 'crashed' off the main runway an the airport when I arrived did not inspire confidence. I was also not met at Immigration as expected. However, a visa was issued based on papers I had. Through customs, and a change of 20 pounds to receive a handful of well-used strange looking notes in exchange. I fought past the offers of t...

We arrived as part of the largest batch of volunteers that VSO in Sierra Leone have ever received, although we did'nt know this until the next morning. What we did know was it was pitch black with torrential rain hammering down and we were in a hovercraft, dodging the lightning as we crossed the bay .... However, we arrived safely in Freetown, S...

Day 6 Friday Oct. 5, 2007 Up at 7:30 am and met with an NGO known as The Center Of Victims of Torture centered in Freetown. Our intention was to determine if there were any partnering possibilities. They work exclusively with the psychological and emotional aspects of the individual. The psychological recovery programs here are almost non-existe...

Day 4 This is a very brief description of a very long and tiring but fruitful day. We started off with visits to the departments of social welfare and child protection and then on to education, science and technology. The big score here was the discovery that the government has automatic acceptance for free tuition and room to the SL University ...