Monday 29th September

The Day after the night before –

After the events at Paddy’s last night, this morning began slowly.
We were woken at 8am by the sound of Pa Jalloh’s car horn, and without much planning rushed out of the house as we realised the Bishop was keen to see us earlier than we’d thought.
However, as the day progressed it soon became clear that the passing of time in Freetown is completely and utterly dictated by the Freetown traffic. We reached Mark at the YMCA – eventually - and then set off in the direction of the British Embassy to register Park’s and Loz for their longer stay in Sierra Leone. Now, the assumption that we would be greeted kindly at the Embassy was soon crushed by the realisation that, in fact, the words kindness and Embassy just aren’t applicable in a sentence together. We were shouted at, frisked (Loz being hit in the nose by the eager woman with her baton) and then told to wait for no reason whatsoever whilst they pretended they were doing something. Meanwhile Duncan slept in the car soundly and Pa Jalloh shopped for a new hat. After 30 odd minutes the deed was done, and Iain and Laurence were officially registered for their stay.
Next, onto Holy Trinity School - Kissy Road. Greeted warmly by the delightful headmistress, there was chaos in the ranks as 300 young children ran around screaming at the sight of we strange white folk! Duncan thought it would be a good idea to take a photo of the kids on the balcony, which resulted in 200 children bursting up the stairs dangerously, in an attempt to poke their heads into the photo...it was truly manic, well played Sir Duncan. The kids were then severely told by the head for running down the stairs again! The purpose of the visit was to present a cheque to the school to fund a new toilet block, as the old block in fact consists of one toilet for 600 kids!!! The children were beaten into line according to age and began singing songs of welcome and praise before Mark, officially, handed over the cheque.
After enjoying a few beers (Star the “best beer in the world” according to the Headmistress,) we set off for some well deserved lunch joined by Canon Harding of Bishop Crowther Church. After this we visited the church briefly and Canon Harding tried to convince Loz that he should attend confirmation classes with the intention of getting Baptised and Confirmed, the full shiding!, all in one go in Sierra Leone!
Following the church visit we next visited a local Orphanage, Mark telling us to prepare ourselves for some sad sights of disfigured and severely disabled children. On arrival we were greeted very warmly by 14 of the 17 kids whose eyes lit up at the sight of our arrival. Many of severely disabled children were in fact at school, those remaining were the younger, very lonely children. We plan to visit again to see what we can do to help and Laurence will most likely spend a few days their getting to know the kids and helping to teach them. After sadly leaving the children, we returned to the YMCA to see off M-J who sadly returns to England tonight. Her company has been quality, she effectively removed us all from our comfort zones by taking us on an adventure to Paddy’s last night via Podahpodah (very eventful,) and we were all sad to say goodbye.
After this we set off for home, and to give you an idea of Freetown traffic, we set off at 5.45 and arrived at 8.15, the distance travelled.......3km....sweet!