Florence's Freetown

... having anyone understand us when we're all together and speaking in English so we say whatever we want. Here when we've needed to speak in private it's had to be done in French. It's been a really relaxing and enjoyable vacation and much needed. We've spent our days on the beach being pestered by men with nothing better to do and our nights at dinner and then dancing. Since it's just us four girls its also been too easy to find men to show us around. We went ...

... felt i had to. the sticker on my anti-malarial pills says, "Avoid prolonged or excessive exposure to direct sunlight while taking this medication." don't burst my bubble here, but i'd like to believe that if you're moving within the sunlight, it can't be "direct." as if the sun doesn't have time to settle on my skin, as long as i keep moving (it's like the runner's version of the movie Speed (the role of Ted of course played by Keanu Reeves (or Mickey ...

... was to have been spent travelling the country, I was simply not prepared to leave Carolyn in such a situation. For obvious reasons I do not want to go into further detail except to say that we may have been prepared to live with the external security issues, but not the problems in the house. We are bitterly disappointed to have to have come to this decision particularly as Sierra Leone really needs help in so many areas. On our final day in Bo I ...

... hours 9 and 11.  We could still be on the   road if we'd had the misfortune to be in one of the many un-roadworthy   vehicles we passed stranded by the roadside awaiting a new tyre or   worse. Since then, the bell-shaped curve of Mr & Mrs R's journeying masochism   has skewed severely to the right (after a protracted debate over cheap   whisky, we think that's an extended left-hand tail).  We give you: - the neck-crickingly bad ...

... Senegal, apparently due to the president of Senegal deciding that he wanted to take off at the same time as us. After arriving at Lunghi airport and passing through immigration ( an "interesting" experience it was a further 10 mins along the main airport road (dirt track) to the "Hovercraft port" i.e. a tin shack! In all there were around 13 of us arriving from the UK. After an hour or so of waiting for the hovercraft in the middle of a massive ...

... was totally unrealistic. What we were given was a Landcruiser with no working AC, broken door and window handles, no working gas gage, leaking exhaust back into the car, and burning more oil than gasoline. This same vehicle caught fire when Mambud was getting refreshments for the soccer team and literally had to jump from the car to escape the fire coming from the engine compartment. Traveling from point A to point B means we arrive hot and sweaty and only get there on ...

... school for next year. When we drove through the gates at least 50 children were playing in the school yard (dirt-no playground toys of any kind). We were quickly enveloped by all of these children and Anne-Marie disappeared beneath their outstretched arms and hugs. They were so loving. We had walked into the school and they would not let go of her arms and hugs. We were welcomed into the directors office and after several minutes of ...

... She turned and told Anne-Marie how ill she had been feeling with the Malaria but with Anne-Marie's show of love and compasion she was feeling better. Turns out she was not able to receive the IV infusion needed due to her small veins. Naturally, Lynn, being an IV infusion nurse was all over this and arrangments are being made for Lynn to administer the IV tomorrow once the medicine arrives!! Ministry comes in all ...

... of boiling water and cooking without the coal. This could become another business for the amputees during the sunny season. While Anne-Marie shared this Lynn and Jim were entertaining the kids with Duck-duck-Goose and photo ops. Back to our hotel filthy, sweating, overwhelmed, exhausted, and yet overjoyed that God has placed us in eachother's lives. I think they gave us more than we gave them! Good night to all Jim, Lynn and Anne-Marie

... e exists a huge compound full of UN trucks, who drive around doing something or rath**. While at Freetown the only oth** Europeans we met happened to be 6 US Peace Corp volunte**s who lived in remote villages in Guinea but had come to Freetown to celebrate New Years Eve. I always thought the Peace Cop was like the Marine Corp, but purely to maintain peace. This is completely wrong, turns out it was started by President Kennedy to promote cultural exchange between Am ...