Monday 6th October

This morning we were all up and out of bed at 6am, expecting Mr Jalloh to arrive at 7am to whisk us off inland to Port Loko. We were all considerably miffed with the prospect of this early hour, yet decided it wouldn’t be so bad as long as “The Jalloh” rolled up on time......he didn’t. We were finally on the road at 8am with the prospect of a long day of work ahead of us.
The roads between our compound in Freetown and Port Loko, varied from brilliantly paved to excessively pot-holed and off the beaten track. We eventually arrived at 10.15, warmly greeted at Schlenker Secondary School by the Principle- Mr Kamara. We soon departed on a tour of the school grounds and were all thoroughly impressed by the facilities erected, especially with the destruction caused by the war clearly visible around every corner. After this, Duncan soon settled himself into the Computer suite whilst Iain and Laurence set off to visit the local Primary School in the Jalloh-mobile. On the way to the Primary School, we managed to fit in a bonus visit to the local Pre-school where the very young children went from being intimidated by the presence of the “Pumuie”(White Man) to completely enthralled by Laurence’s ability to take photos of them before showing them the, smiling and waving, end product. Chaos ensued as each child hurled his or her self in front of the camera as each little one cried out –“Snap me, Snap me!” After Iain had carried out the necessary auditing work, we continued on to the Primary School. The delightful, yet unfortunately blind, headmaster extended to us a fond welcome before explaining how a cheque for £140 had been impossible to cash (they do live in the middle of nowhere!) After we’d resolved the situation we toured the small school, witnessing the proposed site for the construction of a new school hall. The auditory work complete, we quickly rushed over to the local Medical Centre to applaud the work done there before embarking on the return journey to pick us everyone’s favourite I.T expert. We experienced a flat tyre on the way, yet eventually returned to Schlenker via the Principle’s own car.
On arrival Duncan filled us in on the fact that a virus had hit 4 of the 6 computers available at the school. Dunc had fixed one computer and installed the school’s printer but there was little we could do to rescue the other machines. We shared lunch with the Principle and Vice-Principle before spending a time in the computer suite to see if there was anything we could do. Unfortunately the machines seemed beyond repair and after Duncan had written a report we set off for home- Freetown. We arrived home just gone 4.30pm, with the rest of the evening to wind down after the long journey and the long day’s work had worn us all out.