Friday 19th September

Friday 19th September 2008
What a Day!
Started off with breakfast in the guest house, which consisted of scrambled egg and some sort of sponge cake, not too dissimilar to carrot cake. We were picked up by the bishop and headed off to the office to swap cars around. There were 3 cars making the trip. Iain and Mark were in the air conditioned land cruiser while Duncan and Loz slummed it in the 4x4.

Iain and Mark’s trip went without a hitch, Duncan and Loz’s was a different story. The first instant happened at a police check point when asked for passports. Of course as Duncan only had a single visa for Sierra Leone his passport was with the Sierra Leone embassy. This was no issue for the accompanying men who said no, no and then drove off with whistle’s being blown and arms being flapped!
The 4x4 then suffered a tyre blow out which was nicely held by the driver. While the tyre was being changed Loz and Duncan watched a “terrible version of Wesley snipes” with a machete and a mac hacking down trees. He then engineered a spear and disappeared into the jungle!
After we were going again and left the tarmac roads we came across a tree which had fallen after the rest of the convoy had passed. We promptly used the 4x4 to break the trees and carried the branches to the side of the road.

Arriving at St Phillips mission school
Duncan and Loz arrived at the school approximately an hour and a half later than the rest. The school assembly was just starting. There was a talk from the bishop, principal and Mark. We then had a tour of the school, there was all sorts of fruit trees around the school. We then went down the hill to visit the local clinic. It had some very interesting posters on the wall describing all sorts of ailments.
We then moved up the road for lunch before moving on to St Stephen’s

Arriving at St Stephen’s school in Malmo
Having arrived at St Stephen’s school we realised that the 3rd car in the convoy had gone missing. This car contained Fatta and so was a major issue for us as we 4 men have absolutely no idea how to look after ourselves without him! Eventually after watching the kids play football and having a tour of the school (which is exactly the same layout as St Phillips) we had a service in the chapel. It had started to get dark by this stage and the kids had been there all day. The totally riveting talks by the same level of people managed to finish off the younger kids on the front row. Luckily they all woke up again! Fatta showed up half way through the service, phew!

After the Service
We were having tea at the priests house which is in the grounds of St Stephen’s. Dunc and Parks had a game of Frisbee while Loz sat it out with a case of the feeling girly. After tea Mark decided that we should all stay at the priests house. The priests house was badly damaged during the war. Apparently it has now been refurbished, although at this stage writing the blog I am not totally at ease staying the night and cannot wait to see the morning!

Goodnight everybody!