Hello! I meant to catch up on stuff earlier, but I didn't have much internet access last week. We had a nice trip up country to Kambia two weeks ago. I saved up stories for you, so let me see know what I can remember! (ps. to the left is my trying to capture a rain storm... if you look close you see some drops)

We left Freetown on Monday morning in the pouring rain. The road to Kambia is paved in sections, and ripped apart in others. And with the mud/rain, there are tons of potholes. So it was about a 5-6 hour drive, all things considered. We didn't stop too much. And, because of the bouncing in and out of holes, and the unevenness of the muddy roads, I took a chance and took a dramamine. It worked for me in Costa Rica -- of course by knocking me out for about 12 hours or something -- and it was pretty similar here as well. I don't remember the trip to Kambia, I was passed out for most of it. When I came to, we were crossing some scary looking bridges, so I told Dan we should unbuckle our belts and open the car windows, in case we had to jump out. But we all got there in one piece. No worries.

Tuesday we drove through slick clay back roads to a remote headquarter town of a remote chiefdom in the district. It took maybe 3 hours to get there, half the time we spent in the car the day before, and we weren't even going that far. But it was beautiful! Green and lush. The area is covered by rice fields. Just now showing a spring lime green everywhere. We listened to presidential candidates give interviews over the radio. And when we got to the town, it turns out the CRS focus group discussion had to be postponed. The community volunteers involved in the program had walked there - some as far as 15 km or more I think we heard - but there was an impromptu celebration for the chief of the chiefdom, who had recently been selected to represent all the other chiefs ( I think for all the districts even!) in the Parliament. And everyone had to attend that event first.

We sat with the volunteers for probably 2 hours... after they had walked, and cheered for the chief, without food or drinks for most of the day -- and talked about the CRS sponsored conflict resolution program for the district. People were positive for the most part, they were able to intervene in small farming disputes over land ownership, some domestic disputes, and some people mentioned problems with the Guinea border, so those kinds of things were reported up the chain of proper authorities. Which was good, that was the point of the program, to get earlier warnings about possible border problems. During the civil war days, news about things happening on the borders reached Freetown far too late to do anything, so it seems like the program is making some progress in this area. The newly elected MP Paramount Chief wanted to meet us, and so we talked with him briefly at the end of the day, before heading back to the center of town where we were staying. Because of all the rain, the man made palm tree trunk bridges were out, and so just a few hours after crossing the first time, this time we got out of the vehicle and walked across the trunks. It seemed much safer that way. The second day of discussions went well too. We were in a different Chiefdom, with a smaller group because of a conflicting elections procedures training that was going on at the same time. But it was good to hear the stories of the volunteers, and we met some of the elders as well. Everyone was positive. We even met, earlier that morning, one of the presidential candidates! The man we had heard the day before on the radio was holding a meeting at our guesthouse that morning. Mr. Jalloh, a Fula, although I was too shy to greet him in his native language. He shook our hands and introduced himself, and then he was gone. Interesting, I thought, since we aren't citizens and aren't voting. We were with a colleague of Dan's, who can vote, and he ignored her completely.