Thoughts of home - my childhood home

Before I came to Sierra Leone I had always poo pooed the use of social networking sites such as Facebook.  It must be said that that has changed in the last 18 months as I have rejoined Facebook and have used it to keep up with people from home and those I have met here that have moved on.

Through various "likes" of friends I have joined the "Macduff and it's community group" (all grammatical pedants (I include myself here) the apostrophe in the name is what the group is called not my lack of knowledge of how to use an apostrophe).  So grammar forgiven I have enjoyed looking at pictures of the place I spent my childhood.  It's amazing how nostalgic you can become when you move away.

Here are some of my favourite images of Banff and Macduff.  All Canadian readers (there may be some) - this is the original Banff.

The anchor in Macduff near Shand Street,  taken by Francis Masson 

The bridge connecting Macduff and Banff, taken by Jimmy Thompson

Weather I remember well,  taken by Mac Duffer

Macduff Harbour with Doune Church

And here is Banff Links where I spent sunny Scottish days.  You know what? It could match a Salone beach for beauty but not the temperatures - note the obligatory wind breaker.

Banff Links

Not often these are the views from your desk

I have spent the last couple of days volunteering at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary to help with their accounting spreadsheets. Click here to read an earlier post about Tacugama.

Sitting at your desk watching and listening to chimps has been quite a different experience and one I have been so fortunate to have.  Who could have known where my spreadsheet skills would take me?

Here are some of the images from today.

Morlai loves sitting on Posseh's back

Reassurance in numbers

Chica

I am such a lucky girl to have such special days.  Another great day in Freetown.

Congo Cross Mystery Solved

So the statue has been revealed and I had an inkling it would be this man:

President Ernest Bai Koroma

This new bust has been erected by the Federation of Young People of Sierra Leone.  Here is the inscription

So mystery solved.   Here is the statue in its full setting with traffic going around.

The Congo Cross Mystery

Congo Cross is the area of Freetown which I call home.  In my time here I have always lived somewhere in the five minute radius of Congo Cross Roundabout or Turntable as it is called here.  It's a great area of town to live as it is easy to go downtown or West to the beaches.

 This weekend marks one year since the elections which re-elected Ernest Bai Koroma as President of Sierra Leone.  In that year the election poster of the opposition candidate, Julius Maada Bio,  has remained on the Congo Cross Roundabout and I felt certain it may remain there until the 2017 elections.  Here are photos I took last weekend where the poster takes pride of place.

So you can imagine my surprise on Friday when the poster disappeared.  Even more intriguingly it has been replaced by a statue wrapped in plastic.  Not only this, the roundabout has also been painted and potted plants added.

So the mystery?  Who will be revealed when the plastic is removed and when will this happen?  I'll let you know when it all becomes clear.  In the meantime here are a couple of pics from today.

The plastic wrapped statue

All spruced up in Salone national colours

Ants in your pants...

The other Sunday I set off with Heather and Hayley to climb Sugar Loaf Mountain, which at 760m is among the highest points on the Peninsula.   We were not brave enough to try this alone so were joined by Jacob who has climbed this mountain many times.  I'm not sure he was quite ready for what followed.

The intrepid walkers

I, it must be said, have never been the most confident of walkers when it comes to climbing over things and going down very steep slopes. So it was not a happy Lynne that had to climb up over two fallen down trees.  It wasn't that far off the ground but for me it could have been the top of the Empire State Building. Even though I was being held very securely I had this terrible feeling of falling.  Not one of my finest moments.  But worse was to come.

We had to clamber up over lots or rocks which were wet which made them slippery  In the dry patches there was lots of grip but not much moisture and you could lose your footing. This meant that often my hands were on the ground too in an odd crawling motion to give a feeling of security.  This was fine until the section with ants.

Not friendly ants, oh no, these are the biting variety that once they see an opening are in your sock, up you trousers and stuck fast to your fingers.  All of the above happened to me at one point,  It was so bad that my boots and socks had to come off and then my trousers.  The little buggers were up my trousers and biting so it was the only way to rid myself of them.  Jacob was a trooper as he didn't bat an eyelid as I walked up one short section in my bare feet and pants.  Heather and Hayley also had ant issues so we were all standing on the side of the mountain with our trousers down at one point.  All very funny looking back but very unpleasant at the time.

We made it to the top were we took in the views before starting on our way down.

Heather took this beautiful picture from the top

Views of the Peninsula Mountains

Leicester Peak

 We coped far better on the down which was just as well as I'm not sure my nerves could have taken any more excitement.  Four hours one Sunday not to be forgotten and followed by a well deserved afternoon at the beach.

Much happier now the ants have gone

Happy Days...

when three lovely friends take the plunge and come to visit.  Caroline, Coila and Rose arrived on the 22nd October and left yesterday.

Rose and Coila arrive on the Pelican

They had arranged to join a group tour so for the first 8 days they were off to Bunce Island, Tacugama, Rogbonko, Banana Island and Sussex Beach - a very full itinerary!

On Wednesday 30th I met them at Franco's and we headed off for a picnic lunch at Black Johnson.

It was super to have a good chat with friends who have known me for many years.  Sharing my Sierra Leone life was a joy.  We chilled out at Tokeh beach on Thursday (with some impressive thunder and lightning) and stopped at Bureh on Friday on our way back to Freetown.

Coila on the pull

At River No 2

Raining - again!

A lovely meal at Tokeh

 Chilling was good as we had a hectic Friday night having sundowners at the beach, dinner at PhaseBook, enjoying the life music at O'Casey's and topping it all off with dancing (and sweating) at Agal!  In at 2pm for pints of water before bed.

Saturday was shopping and a final beach trip for lobster at Lakka.

Rose enjoys the local fare

The whole trip was capped off with champagne on Ed's balcony with views of the ocean.

A final meal at Saffron, new Indian restaurant, and time for good byes!  I was much sadder than I expected to be as I had not realised the relaxation that comes with easy company where the conversation flows and you can discuss the sagging skin of aging!

A lovely, lovely few days which will keep me going over the next 6 week.

Thank you for coming ladies!!!

Road trip to Outamba Kilimi National Park - what did we see?

In the guidebook it states that "In Outamba, a sighting or two of hippos, chimps and endangered monkeys is pretty much guaranteed".  Really?  This was not our experience.  The largest animal we saw was a butterfly - and that's an insect!!

That said we had a lovely 3 hour walk in the park.  They had managed to glue one canoe together so that allowed us to be ferried across the river but not unfortunately to venture up river is search of hippos.  Here is some of the beautiful views.

Our guide 

So we didn't see any hippos in the end but a friend who went in March did.  He recorded his trip on video so you can see the terrain and the joy that is the Kabba Ferry.