Monday 22nd September

Woke up in Robertsport, Duncan having had 38 hours sleep but still with regular trips to the toilet. Parks did his usual trick of not having a shower in order to put the rest of everyone else off. We went for breakfast at the archdeacon’s house of fish sandwiches or egg sandwiches for girly Lawrence. During the breakfast a man from immigration came into the house, Duncan looked for a place to hide as his passport was still with the Sierra Leone embassy.

On to the next school. The drive was particularly uneventful apart from Parks not hearing correctly a conversation with Maximor:-
Maximor: “the government ministers don’t get any work done because they all sit around drinking beer”
Parks: “Oh that’s good!”
Maximor: “No it’s not!!”
It is particularly warm today but not according to Parks with his air conditioning. We arrive at Bromley high school for girls and are confronted with a fantastic looking building which sits on the edge of the river. We visited almost every year in the school, the classes are a sensible size and the girls are all very well behaved. Most of the girls are orphans who go to stay with families during non term. The school gets all its power from 4 solar panels on the roof which had been donated from America. There were a couple of groups singing on the field where a 4 year old girl decided to attach herself to Duncan (If you had a choice of Parks, Lawrence, Mark or me, who would you choose?). We then went on the final leg of our journey back to Monrovia.

Duncan and Lawrence were the first ones back to the guest house and Duncan and a couple of the Liberian chaps decided to go to the Sierra Leone embassy to see if his passport was ready. I was called in to see the big boss and he said that he couldn’t give me a visa for Sierra Leone because the original letter of invitation was addressed to the high commission in London!! This meant I would have to get a letter from the Bishop of Freetown for the next day when I would also then have to pay the $25 emergency visa fee.............. What a surprise!! As the embassy was about to close there was
No way to get it done today so returned to the guest house.

Everyone was now back at the guest house where they enjoyed a late lunch. Mark then turned his attention to getting the Bishop of Freetown to send an email inviting Duncan. After this was taken care of Mark went for a nap and in an unusual turn of events and due to the rest of the evening being free a massive game of Uno ensued. Duncan was the big winner of this session and there was great rejoicing.

Mark put an ending to the game by declaring that tea had arrived. A welcome change to normal with plain old chicken and chips! With a couple of beers, some tunes on the laptop and a phone call to Mr Jalloh we then decided to open up the 4 player Uno game before bed. Duncan was the big loser in this game and there was great sadness!