6/23/12   

The long awaited day for Tiffany, Joey, Kyle, Miranda, Jonathan, Mikala, and Elizabeth has come and gone eight (8) days ago. All seem to have recovered from jet lag and are trying to get accustomed to a totally different way of life. They are enjoying the various kinds of rice and soup that we have each day for lunch during the week. The kids are all “jumping in” and helping with dishes on the week-end and clearing the table after breakfast and dinner each day. Ya Posseh and her daughter totally take care of lunch each week day.  The girls are keeping the water bottles filled, and the boys are keeping the water filter filled, so with a lot of teamwork, things are going fairly smoothly in our household of nine (9) people.

 

Most of the kids have been playing a lot of soccer and basketball with the Sierra Leone children and young people. There are often 15 – 20 smaller children on both the front and back porch decorating with sidewalk chalk or coloring pages from a coloring book. Some of our kids have also been reading to the SL children or listening to them read.  This afternoon there are 27 children playing here!

Bud has totally finished up the water project with new pipe throughout the system; he is also finishing up some electrical work. In fact, today he and Joey removed all the florescent lights from our house and replaced them with LED lights which are more economical. Joey has visited in the schools and talked to some of the teachers and many of the children; in fact, he often has a following of children with him.

Tiffany has been going to class with me each day and has gotten to know the students and shared some of her insights with them. Kyle and Miranda have also participated some in the NA class; maybe there will be a desire for them to get into healthcare at some point…always a wide open field!

While we were still in Freetown, we had the opportunity to go to the beach one day which was fun. The kids swam in the ocean and climbed on the rocks. We all had a great lunch of shrimp and/or barracuda shish kebobs under one of the “grass” umbrellas.  It was a good day!

After the beach, we went shopping for a while, and a gentleman on the street was trying to sell the monkey you see in the pictures. Both Elizabeth and Jonathan were excited to hold him and get their pictures taken. 

 

This morning Tiffany and Joey talked to about 70+ young people about sexual purity per request of Albert Kargbo, the Kamakwie District Youth Director. The teens seemed to be very interested and asked several questions. Both the pastor of the church, Rev. Alusine Murphy and the District Superintendent, Rev. Alfred Bangura were there and assisted with translation and further explanation.

Today, we all went over to Ya Yeleh’s house to see her daughter Pam and the twins, Pa Leach and Dr. Tom. They are growing and look very healthy. Each of us got to hold them for a few minutes.  

  

We are in the process of trying to get the last things done that need to be done before we head back to the US. Next week is our last full week in Kamakwie; we will be happy to return to our home in the US but it will be sad to leave the students and not be able to actually watch them as they grow and develop in their hospital work. Bud’s two guys today seemed somewhat “down” as they talked about Bud leaving the work to them alone.

I’ll probably try to write a short note when we arrive home and then will start the blog again as we get ready to head for Zambia.

Until next time….

We have actually been home now since Monday, July 9, 2012. I was unable to send this last blog from Sierra Leone due to either extremely slow internet and lack of adequate electricity to keep the laptop charged! I’ll try to send this now, and then in a couple days, I’ll wrap things up for Sierra Leone while we rest and get ready for Zambia.