So Jill finally got the go ahead from the doctor to travel :) woohoo. She'll be here Thursday night as long as she gets to Dulles early enough. For my part, i've pretty much settled in to Freetown. The town is at the northern tip of a peninsula that runs north south so the town itself is basically east/west. To the north is the ocean and south of the city are mountains. The nicest beaches are on the western side of the peninsula about 1 -2 hours drive away. Turns out that distance is SL is a meaningless concept. The real question is how long does it take to get somewhere.

Speaking of which, I finally got my drivers license and took my first drive to the office. Since it's Saturday, traffic and pedestrians were extremely light. A good first run for me. Anyway, what have I been up to these last few weeks you might ask. Well, mostly it has been reading and starting to figure out what projects i'm going to work on. I also took my first orientation trip out to the field. I went to Kenema in the east of the country and several villages outside of Kenema.

You may be able to find it on the map below:

The drive to Kenema takes just under 5 hours. About half the drive or so is on nicely paved road, then the road to Bo is potholes, gravel, deteriorating asphalt, etc. It makes for a dusty bumpy ride. Then the road from Bo to Kenema is also paved and mostly in good shape. However, Kenema was really just the base, from there its another 1 1/2 hour drive to Segbwema where CRS has a suboffice. The office out there works with farmers and small businesses. My main purpose in going out was to see what we are doing out there and observe. So day 1 we just wandered around Segbwema and met with recipients of our grants. These are small cash grants that enable the businesses to grow slightly - or that's the idea at any rate. The next day we headed out to Yawei chiefdom to conduct final interviews for the 2nd group of grant recipients. The ride took about 2 hours on a road that in the US would more likely be called a track. The road had it all, potholes, ditches, mud, etc. Amazingly the Landcruiser we were in managed to get through, though it was incredibly bumpy. I wouldn't recommend the ride if you get carsick.

Anyway, once we got out to Bunbu, we went from client to client. The CRS grant agents conducted the final interviews with the recipients. The primary purpose of the interview is to find out if the grant succeeded in helping the business grow and expand. The tribal language spoken out there is Mende though Krio is sometimes understood and English not at all. When we first got to the village only a few children were around, but apparently as word spread, our escort grew by the minute. They were extremely cute, but unfortunately malnutrition was much in evidence, orange hair (sign of kwashiorkor) and protruding belly buttons were common sights. The irony is that the country gets plenty of rainfall and is ideal for agriculture.

After we finished up, we headed back to Segbwema and then Kenema. I spent far more time on the road than I did at the sight. In future I may stay in Segbwema in order to save time and my behind.