Last weekend
Ok, so this is getting fairly bad- waiting an entire week after an event before posting it on my blog. However, work has been fairly busy this week- we've had a major meeting between government and donors to look at how things have been going on the PRSP, aid harmonisation, and various sector strategies since the CG meeting in November. The DEPAC is only one day long, so not quite as manic as preparing for the CG meeting, but it's still been busy. Also, the DEPAC is meant to happen every quarter (unlikely with elections coming up, but still possible) so that people at the top are kept informed on how things are going to reduce poverty.
Anyway, that was all out of the way by the end of yesterday and today has taken a more relaxed pace, meaning I can write a bit on my blog.
Last weekend was a break from the walking, swimming, beaching of previous posts. we left town on Friday afternoon and went down to the beach, about 7 cars worth, but there were spaces- but in any case there were quite a few of us.
Those who wanted to be prepared to roll into bed at any hour sorted out mosquito nets and hammocks and various other contraptions that they intended to us to catch some sleep. we then chilled and chatted on the beach, ate fish and rice (with fruit for dessert), listened to music and started the campfire going.
Now, this is meant to be the warmest time of year in SL, but I'm not convinced since I felt slightly chilly when wandering away from the fire (there was a very slightly breeze which also decreased the temperature slightly). We consumed a lot of marshmallows and there was a fair amount of alcohol drunk considering the hangovers several people had the next morning. I didn't go for a 3am swim (too cold and not looking forward to the prospect of going to bed cold and wet), in fact, slept very snugly and warmly to wake up just after 7.
Someone who was very well prepared had brought a camping stove (and cafetiere) with them- I love the smell of coffee and even quite like coffee beans covered in chocolate but still don't like the taste of coffee, despite housemates and friends trying to encourage me that it's really quite nice and probably won't poison me after all ;-)
A morning swim was definitely in order and was absolutely brilliant- the water wasn't particularly cold and allowed me to work off energy without disturbing those recovering from the previous evening's undertakings.
The journey back to town was a slight fiasco- two clutches gone (one recovered enough to get back to town and the other had to be towed), so a journey that can be done in an hour took well over 2 hours, but all made it safely back to town again in the end, which was a relief.
In the evening I was at a leaving party- two of the leaders of the walking club are leaving at some point in the near future and so we had a pot luck supper to say goodbye to them. Being highly unimaginative I took along a fruit salad- I'll see what I can do about tray-bakes in the future, but having spent most of the day at or returning from the beach, I didn't really feel like I had the opportunity to try anything more adventurous.
Sunday I went to church and heard a good talk from a guy who works for YFC and then relaxed and caught up on sleep in the afternoon (so pretty boring really).
This weekend- well, if all goes well then I hope to go up country to one of the parks. Being in West Africa, we don't get the big animal safari's common in East Africa, but we'll see what wildlife is willing to be capture on camera. Will let you know sometime soonish, but probably not on Monday- Sierra Leone being a majority Islamic country is having a bank holiday to celebrate their Isalmic prohet's birthday this weekend.
Labels: beach, car, coffee, leaving party, weekend, work
Puncture and Paddy's night
So really, my weekends are getting somewhat monotonous-at least for you to read about and I don’t think my week days are getting much more exciting. I’ve started playing squash more regularly, which is fun- tho’ the court is not air conditioned, so it’s kind of warm when we’re playing. I’m slowly getting a bit better, fortunately I’ve found a friend who’s about the same level, so we’re able to ‘share’ winnings rather than just have one person exhausted and the other ‘unexercised’.
Well, in case you hadn’t guessed, I went on the walk this Saturday morning and then went for a swim, the leader of the walk noted that obviously the walk wasn’t tough enough and he needed to make sure we had a faster pace in the future. My response was along the lines of however hard he made the walk, even to the point where I would be collapsing, I’d still swim afterwards (tho’ may have a rest first), because swimming (at least for the amount I do), isn’t particularly tiring unless I’m really trying to exercise and therefore pushing myself to swim faster.
Friday night (lets not do this chronologically), several of us went down to Shanghai restaurant for supper- was v amusing because whenever anyone walked into the restaurant they basically did a walk round all the other tables to say hi to everyone else who they knew and then went over to the table where they were sitting- I did this and so did everyone who came in after me. It’s really amusing to be able to walk into a restaurant and know most of the people in there. This was pointed out to me when I was out eating with a friend who was in SL on a shortish consultancy, he said that it seemed like I knew everyone in the restaurant, it wasn’t quite true, but I did know a lot of people there and as they came into the restaurant they came over and said hi. I guess that shows how small the expat community is here (or how few places there are that people eat out at!)
Anyway, on Friday night (to get back to my original story), I had a puncture (v. common in SL). Now, my guards spotted this just as I was about to leave the compound (it was already quite dark) so I went down to the restaurant with one of my housemates instead. Anyway, I found that I did have all the necessary tools to change a tire in the back of the car, tho’ it take us (me and the guards) sometime to work out how to put the jack down.
Punctures happen fairly regularly in Freetown (and in general in SL), fortunately my mechanic was available on Saturday afternoon and took the (now punctured) tire into town in order to get a new inner tube fitted. I do need new tires as the ones I’ve got work, but could be a lot better than they are.
Saturday was St Patrick’s day, so the Irish community (having been practising Irish dancing all of last week) threw a huge party and invited most of the expat community, plus several locals, to a party on Saturday night. Was good fun- they even got some of the non Irish people attempting to do Irish dancing, wasn’t too hard, tho’ is exhausting after a while and seems to be fairly similar to English country/barn dancing but with three steps for everyone one or two that would be done in barn/country dancing. Was a long night most of my friends got home about 5am and I wasn’t home much before that.
Sunday was definitely a day of rest and in the afternoon I accompanied a friend down to Bureh beach. (I’ve been told that this is the correct way to spell Bureh, although one map that I have spells it without the ‘h’). The beach was deserted (well, there were about 2 other people there, plus those who sell the food) and very pleasant. We had barracuda and rice for lunch, which was delicious. I’ve had oysters there before, which are also very nice.
That’s probably enough babbling from me for the moment, next weekend may be slightly different- perhaps staying overnight at one of the beaches, but nothing’s definite yet.
Labels: beach, bouray, boure, bureh, car, puncture, squash, St Patrick's day, swim, walk
Ditto
Another weekend and this is really getting rather ‘samey’ so I’ll have to think of a way to liven it up a bit- I guess remembering to take my camera so that I can take pics to put on here would be one good way of doing so, but since i forgot to take it with me, I'm afraid it's all just words again here.
Anyway, in case you hadn’t already guessed, I went for a walk on Saturday morning (and really should’ve remembered to take my camera with me- the walk was much flatter than last week, although with the (apparently) 70degree slopes that we clambered up last weekend, I don’t think we could’ve done anything much steeper! This weekend it was almost entirely flat, we walked to a waterfall, called Baptist Falls- very beautiful. Because it’s sometime since the rainy season ended, the river is very low and we were able to walk up the river (unfortunately two people managed to fall in- one just got their feet wet but the other got fairly well drenched). However, the water was very shallow, so no problems, just dampness. At the bottom of the waterfall there was a deep and very clear pool, which was cool enough to refresh and relax after the walk but definitely not too cold to swim in by any means. After a relaxing swim (and the discovery of some mosquito larvae that were managing to survive despite the water flowing down the fall-tho’ admittedly not a gushing torrent), we made our way back to IMATT where I had a ‘proper swim’ ie doing lengths in their v nice pool- has good views too!
On Sunday, we went to the beach in the afternoon, which was very good fun- we went down to the BHC beach (normally very calm because it is in its own small bay) and we enjoyed playing cricket on the beach, chatting in the sun, rice and freshly BBQ’d fish, and playing piggy-in-the-middle in the sea at the end of the afternoon, tho’ it was more like ‘team’ in the middle. So all in all , a very relaxing a fun weekend and much needed after the hectic week I’ve just had!
Ooh, some very exciting news- I have a new work computer, it’s new and shiny and even has vista on it, which looks kind of fun, tho’ as yet I haven’t used it at all- just watched it being set up and it has a bigger screen than I’m used to using, so it’s all quite exciting (especially since it has taken since November for me to get a new work computer- ‘eh bo’, that’s life in Salone).
Labels: beach, computer, walk, waterfall
Photos from walks
Well, I admit I haven’t been so good at writing on my blog recently, but life has remained busy (sometimes manic) and I’ll try to share some of it here.
Last weekend I went walking. No, lets start a bit earlier than that, sometime in the week before last I heard of a walking group that met each Saturday morning at 9am and went for a walk, but I was having difficulties in finding out who was organising it, if I needed to sign up and such like. Anyway, a friend I met on that Friday told me she was going on the walk the next day and she would send me on the email and try to get me the contact details of the person in charge of the walk so I could sign up. That didn’t happen- due to meetings and technology failures (I think I might’ve mentioned them before), the email never got sent, so I went out on Friday evening and chilled and chatted with friends, getting in at the not too unearthly hour of 2am on Saturday morning. I was woken suddenly at 7:30am on Saturday morning by my friend ringing me to tell me that another friend of hers had dropped out and there was space to go on the walk if I wanted, so with my eyes just about open I gathered water, long trousers, boots and sunscreen and went off to pick her up (she very kindly made me lunch) and then managed to get to the meeting point just in time as they were organising who should go in which car.
Since it was our first time, we went on the short walk and it was very enjoyable (if getting quite warm by the middle/end of the walk). We walked near Charlotte Falls (not quite close enough to see the falls properly but we could see parts of the top of the falls, which looked nice) and then up through Regent village, past a lot of two storey houses (you don’t normally see very many of those and these ones looked pretty old, so conceivably built by freed slaves in the 19th century). I didn’t manage to take a pic of the prettier ones, but I’ll try to put up some of the pics. I did go for a swim after the walk (and a shower 1st), which was really relaxing and then tried to spend the afternoon reading development economics (normally interesting- at least to me), but my body decided that after a busy week, a lack of sleep and enough exercise for the day, that resting my eyes was going to turn into a 2 hour nap (well, I didn’t time it, but I certainly slept for longer than I planned).
(looking down the valley towards a 2 storey house). I think the long walk went up those hills in the background-rather them than me!
Saturday evening involved a hog roast- very tasty, I watched as it was turned over the outside fire for the last bits and it smelt good. We also had delicious garlic bread- could smell it ages before we saw or ate it, as well as fresh fish (which may also have been BBQed), oh and watching England do so badly in the rugby that someone said they were going to go and change their England shirt for a French one! I left early cos I had promised a very special friend that I would chat to them that evening, which was brilliant and much, much enjoyed.
On Sunday (yes- I know, this weekend seemed to have a lot happening, either that or I’ve suddenly become a lot more verbose than normal) I went to the early service, where I actually got to chat to the pastoral team (am sure they have a different name here), but that was nice, since I haven’t really ever had much of an opportunity to chat to them before because they’re always quite busy and the meetings are normally pretty big. Then went down to Kent (not the one near the M25) beach for the afternoon with a couple of people, one is a retired Lebanese friend who always has a lot of very interesting information to give about SL’s history and people and culture and the other, was a friend of mine who’s doing work with an NGO. We had crab and enjoyed the beach and swam in the sea- tho’ I did forget to take any photos, but golden sands and a turquoise ocean under a blue sky basically sums it up.
Ok, so last weekend dealt with, I’ll skip over most of the details of this week, since they mainly involved work, although I did manage to play squash (badly but enjoyably) with someone who’s definitely better than me, but we’re still able to have a good game and she doesn’t have it all her own way!
So the weekend just gone- I planned to go out on Friday evening because several people have just got back from trips abroad/home, however, my body decided that it preferred the idea of sleep, so that’s what happened. It did mean that I was much more fresh faced than I had been the week before and had a lot less difficulty in getting to the start of the walk on time. Now, the (apparently) highest mountain in (either the peninsula, or at least this end of the peninsula) is called Sugarloaf mountain (not sure if it abides by international standards in terms of being the right height for a mountain, but it felt a bit like one). The main walk this week was to go up and down Sugarloaf, now this week I’d actually got a proper rucksack-so I felt a little bit more the part than the shoulder bag I’d used last week, but although I made it to the top and didn’t lag behind or anything, my fitness leaves a whole lot to be desired. I think I probably manage to make it to the top on stubbornness alone because the body really wasn’t willing- and let me know by aching the whole of Sunday. The views were good (at least from 2/3’s of the way up) and from the top, you could see other mountains on the peninsula, which annoyingly looked taller than the one we were standing on, but we just said it was the perspective/angle (hmm-not sure about that). Anyway, was glad I did the walk- much enjoyed and managed not to fall asleep in the afternoon after all. Some of the rock faces were somewhat sheer-hopefully you can see this from the pictures I’ve taken, so in some ways going down was more difficult than going up (tho’ in my opinion, you’ve got gravity working with you rather than against you, so really, going down is much easier- you just need to work how when/how to stop!)
The view from 2/3's of the way up
The clamber to the 2/3's marker- the bit I still had to do but decided to photograph instead. I think it felt steeper than it looks, tho' that could just be my lack of fitness
The bit i'd just walked/clambered up.
the group at the top of sugarloaf mountain
On Sunday afternoon, after a very enjoyable lunch at Country Lodge (good views and you can get there by car instead of walking), I went down to Lumley beach, where I met a friend who’s here working for a couple of weeks and we joined in some volleyball- the first game was really good fun, but then people started getting really serious about it all, so we just chatted and enjoyed relaxing in the evening sun. The beach was sooooo busy- maybe I just don’t really go down to Lumley beach very often, but I didn’t realise how busy it got on Sunday afternoons- I guess we normally go to a beach that you need to drive to and since Lumley is part of Freetown, those without transport go there to enjoy the beach.
So anyway, you’ve heard a lot about the ‘new’ activity for me- going walking on Saturday mornings- long may it last and I hope it will help improve my fitness just a little bit more. Am still trying to swim a bit, tho’ that mainly ends up being at weekends as well and I don’t do enough exercise during the week- will see what I can organise.
Labels: BBQ, beach, photos, views, volley ball, walk
