Thursday 27th November

One last job for our visit remained, that was a visit to York Island a even smaller, more remote island if you can believe that! Before we headed off we met Canon on a walk around the old folk of the Island. It was a pleasant experience visiting them in turn in their own homes, these folk where the stalwarts of the parish of old and have all spent their whole lives on Sherbro Island. As we were heading back for breakfast we were reminded that we were due to met with the Mayor at 9am and we were already late so we made a quick visit to him. When we arrived at the town hall, basically an old beaten building on the sea front we were greeted by the Mayor, two councillors and all the council staff. We then proceeded to a meeting around this surprisingly large table surrounded by 12 executive chairs, not that we were allowed to sit on them, we were on the wooden ones! The Mayor welcomed us to the Island and told us of his plan to start a process for Visa applications to visit Sherbro Island (He did add we wouldn’t need one though as we are now seasoned visitors) and also made a request for us to get power to the Island. Not sure if we will manage that but suppose if they don’t ask they don’t get. We left him and headed for breakfast and then on to the boat. Today’s boat trip was a much shorter one only a thirty minute trip. We spoke to the head on board the boat so our visit to the school wouldn’t need to be too long and on arrival went to meet with the Chief. The Chief of York Island was a lady, the first we had come across in Sierra Leone; she had inherited it from her father. After this we headed around the Island to the school and to the site were the old church use to be. It now has no roof and is in a really bad state of repair because if this they are now meeting in an old store room, that smells really bad. When we arrived back in Bonthe we had lunch and it was then time for relaxation and packing since we were leaving early the next morning. It was a really wonderful afternoon; we spent some time with our host family and then headed to catch a glimpse of a local football match, which was in honour of the RC Archbishop of Freetown and Bo’s visit to the Island. Not long after returning from the match, he appeared by our house and we quick chat before heading back for our evening meal and some more Duvui. It was then early to bed.