A Funny Old Week…..

I arrived back in Freetown with my niece a week ago today after a short break in the UK, it’s been a bit of a strange week……some good, some not so good……

The journey was mostly really good – I usually prefer to travel alone, but this time I travelled with Carla (my niece). We had over 5 hours to wait for our connecting flight in Casablanca, as it was Carla’s birthday we shared cakes and coffee while I sang happy birthday……repeatedly. I like Casablanca airport, it’s cheaper than most and the cakes are lovely! Carla kindly let me sit next to the window for both flights, we had a nice young man alongside us for the first flight who joined in with us when we said grace before eating our meal. The lady next to Carla on the second flight wasn’t quite so nice and dumped her bags and her smelly feet under the seat in front of Carla, in Carla’s space – but Carla managed to hold her tongue…I’m not sure I could have been so gracious.

Part of my morning routine is feeding the chickens, we have: Marjory, Deirdre, Mabel, Ethel, Gladys, Eeny, Meenie, Miney, Mo, Bernard, Snap, Crackle, Pop, Bang, Sprout, Spud and Augustus. Augustus is the biggest cockerel I have ever seen and he doesn’t like me, he really doesn’t like me. He tries to intimidate me, when I’m facing him he’s not so bad, but as soon as I turn my back he attacks me. I’m not proud to admit that he scares me!

I have a bit of a problem with my eyes, my eyelids and undereyes are really itchy and a bit scaly from where I keep rubbing them – the eyes themselves are ok, but the surrounding skin is red and swollen and not very pretty. My favourite doctor in the world, Dr Koroma, has prescribed me some tablets that I have to take three times a day so hopefully whatever it is will clear up soon, I had the same thing in September, but it cleared up on it’s own accord that time after a couple of weeks.

The weather is odd for November. I’ve always found November and March to be the hottest months, so I was bracing myself for some serious heat, but it’s much cooler this year. We have had a lot of storms, thunder, lightning, rain, wind – the whole shebang – fortunately mostly at nights so it’s not affected work.

I was saddened to find out that some of our sponsored boys played truant to go to the beach, putting their sponsorship in jeopardy – I’m sure their sponsors aren’t going to be impressed to hear about it. For two of the students it’s their last year in school and they are working towards their end of school exams – they need all the time in school they can get and any missed schooling will affect their chance of passing the exams. I’m so sad to learn that for these few boys their education isn’t as important to them as I thought it was.

We’ve enjoyed catching up with ‘our kids’ and finding out what they are all up to. It was lovely to see Baby Freecall looking so healthy and happy. We’ve been able to help them buy a mattress for Aunty and Freecall. Aunty wants to start a small business selling various items from a portable box so she doesn’t have to keep asking us for money and can become self sufficient. The startup cost will be around £75 – if anyone is interested in helping let me know!!

At the moment we are preparing for our team of volunteers who arrive on Sunday to help with our mission – exciting!!

Vehicle News–Urgent Request

It’s become apparent in the last few weeks that I urgently need to sort out my transport situation in Sierra Leone. I have an old RAV 4 at the moment, but it is costing so much to keep it on the road that it’s time for it to go. I’ve had it patched up and it’s running at the moment, so I’m hoping to find a buyer for it soon…..which leaves Transform Salone in urgent need of a new vehicle.

Crime is on the rise in the city recently and for our safety and peace of mind we have to have a reliable vehicle.

I’ve been looking around for a while and have found a car that I think is the right one for Transform Salone – it’s a Toyota 4 Runner in good condition with reasonably low mileage, just imported from the USA.

I’m going to put in all the money from the sale of my car and I’ve had some donations from very kind friends towards the purchase of a new vehicle, but we are still $5,000 short of the agreed price. Because we are so desperate for a vehicle, I have gone ahead and paid a deposit on the car with the faith that the rest of the funds will come – if we can’t raise the $5,000 by 1st November we’ll lose both our deposit and the new car.

I’d like to appeal to all friends and supporters to consider if you are able to help us with funds towards the car – any amount would be so much appreciated.

There are many ways to make a donation, the easiest being directly into the Transform Salone bank account:

Bank: Barclays, Name: Transform Salone, Account No: 43452867, Sort Code: 20-57-44

or by sending a cheque made payable to Transform Salone to:

Transform Salone, 61 Admirals House, Gisors Road, Southsea, Hampshire, PO4 8GY.

For alternative ways of making a donation email me on alison@transformsalone.org

We very much appreciate your prayers and ask that you continue to pray for us and the work we are doing in Sierra Leone.

Back to Freetown

I travelled back to Freetown at the weekend after spending a wonderful few weeks over the summer in the UK with my husband.

The journey didn’t get off to the best start when I couldn’t check in online (I was had booked through an agent I hadn’t used before so was a little nervous there might be something wrong with the booking). I got to the airport nice and early……and just as well I did as I was told at check-in that the flight was overbooked and not all booked passengers would be able to fly – luckily I was one of the first to check in. The overbooking was the reason that online check-in wasn’t available.

I sat next to a nice lady from Ghana on the first flight, which was to Casablanca, we had a good chat about anything and everything and played a word game together on my tablet. The few hours I had to wait at Casablanca airport passed quickly as I spent some time chatting to a friendly group of ladies from Senegal who were travelling for their Haj. Everything went smoothly on arrival into Freetown, my luggage arrived and my friend was there waiting for me with my ticket for the watertaxi.

Not a lot has happened since I arrived, I had arranged to look at a vehicle yesterday and spent most of the day waiting around for that………it never did arrive and I found out today that someone else has bought it, so it obviously wasn’t the one for me.

Tomorrow I’m going to the school that I work out of to see my friend, the headmistress, and some of the sponsored students will meet me there so I can catch up on how they are doing.

It’s the rainy season here now, so it’s much cooler than when I left in June. Yesterday the rains were very heavy, buy it only rained for an hour or so today.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy – I have more than 80 students to get enrolled for the new school year starting in September as well as arranging for new uniforms, shoes, bags, books, supplies…..the list goes on and on – but before I can do any of that I need to go over their school report cards for the last school year and meet with each student and their guardian to check their progress and see how they are getting on and if any changes need to be made related to their educational needs.

Your prayers, as always, are vey much appreciated!!

The End Of Ebola?

A few days ago Sierra Leone passed 42 days with no new confirmed cases, meaning that person to person transmission is no longer considered a threat.......for now.

 

I saw some celebrations on the news, but in my area celebrations were pretty muted and understated.....most people I know have taken it as a time of prayer and reflection, remembering those they lost and praying for those who survived.

 

The AHS Hospital at Waterloo, which was first closed and quarantined in August 2014 then later commissioned as an Ebola Holding and Treatment Centre, reopened as a general hospital this week. The doctor and staff are glad to be getting back to normal after living and working under restrictions for so long.

I went to the reopening and as well as being a day of celebration it was a day of reflection, remembrance and prayer. It was an honour to be mentioned as one of the organisations that has helped them through the Ebola crisis and the hospital pass on their thanks for the help that Transform Salone and our supporters have given them since the start of the crisis.

The doctor was so eager to get back to work that he was seeing patients as soon as the tour of the hospital at the end of the reopening programme was over!

 

It's a great testament to the doctor, his staff and the people that came to help that while the hospital was operating as an Ebola centre no staff were infected with the virus.

 

People are very aware that there are still Ebola patients being treated in neighbouring Guinea and that it's a real possibility that we could see further cases.

Wisely people are being advised to continue with precautions such as avoiding unnecessary touching and hand washing.

 

I think people are afraid to get too excited in case it all starts up again - they don't want to celebrate prematurely.......I think most people accept that there's a good chance there will be more cases here and there, but at least the country can start to recover now.

 

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office have updated their travel advice and are no longer advising against all but essential travel to Sierra Leone.......so we are ready to start welcoming volunteers to come and help us with our community work and the sponsorship scheme. If you'd like to come and help out please get in touch!!

Car Trouble

My biggest headache at the moment is my vehicle - I have an old (2002) RAV4.

The first year or so I had it it was marvellous, but just recently it's started really playing up.

I've been having to do running repairs on it for the last few months to keep it on the road, with small things going wrong here and there.

 

I had to take a trip to the provinces a couple of weeks ago, to visit some of our sponsored students and take some food and clothes for people in the villages. I got the car checked over first and it all seemed to be ok. I was about three quarters of the way into my journey when the car stopped as I was pulling into a checkpoint.

It seems the temperature gauge wasn't working, as despite the gauge telling me everything was ok the car had seriously overheated.

 

We found someone to tow us the rest of the journey and called our mechanic in Freetown - he came to us and had to replace the radiator and the gasket.

After 5 nights away from home the car was fixed and I headed for home - it was clear that there were still some problems but I got home ok. Since then the car has been in and out of the garage, trying to get it right.

I really need a reliable vehicle, it's essential for the sponsorship work to be able to get out and see the families and the schools, and I need to be able to deliver the food relief and at times take people to the hospital.
Soon we will be having volunteers coming over to help out - it's all very well me jumping on the back of a motorbike to get to work, but I can't expect my volunteers to do the same.

 

I am desperate for us to get a new vehicle - if anyone would like to make a donation to the fund for a new vehicle for Transform Salone please let me know and I will supply the bank details for the charity. Donations can also be made online through Stewardship's give.net site at https://www.give.net/transformsalone - Stewardship keep an admin fee of 2% on donations made through give.net. Fundraising pages can also be setup here if you'd like to do some fundraising for us.

Lost Luggage......again!!!

I arrived back in Sierra Leone last night - I came with Brussels Airlines as their flights are much cheaper than the other options at the moment. The flight was pretty uneventful, I sat next to a man on the way to Brussels who was going to take part in a shooting contest in Lithuania . I had a wait of about 4 hours in Brussels Airport, but with the free wifi and the sunbed-like loungers it was quite comfy. The flight to from Brussels to Freetown was really quiet - I had the whole row to myself, I watched the entire season 5 of Big Bang Theory which kept me entertained.

 

On arrival in Sierra Leone, as has become normal, we went through the hand washing stations (which is now soap and water rather than chlorine) and a temperature check......then onto the conveyer belt to claim the luggage, where I waited, and waited and waited.....until it stopped. Both of the bags that I'd checked in failed to arrive.....again - last time I flew with Brussels Airlines in February one of my bags was missing on arrival, this time neither of them showed up. I filled in the missing luggage forms, which takes AGES as there were about 10 of us in the same boat all trying to report out missing luggage. I'd already paid for a trolley, and I was super-miffed to have wasted money on it and not have anything to put on it.

They said that my bags might arrive on the next flight on Sunday and if they do I should have them back Monday or Tuesday.

Luckily I have a lot of clothes here, so it's not as big a problem as it might have been.....but all my work files are in the bags so I can't get started on the work until the bags get here - it looks like I'll be having a few days off!

 

My friend who works at the airport had pre-purchased a ticket for the water taxi for me and that took me to Aberdeen where my Sierra Leonean son was waiting for me.

 

I noticed a massive difference while driving through Freetown - the streets were busier than I've seen them for a long time, now that a lot of the restrictions have been lifted people are making the most of it.

 

It's really nice to be back and I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone over the next few days.

Up, Up and Away

It all started so well, I was probably more organised before travelling this time than I've ever been.......the night before my flight my cases were packed, weighed and locked ready to go - I usually finish packing as my husband is loading the car!

We set off for the airport and were enjoying nice drive and chat....when someone pulled alongside us and hollered that we had a flat tyre.....he was right, we did.....a very flat tyre. We managed to make it to the next garage where we added air, then we stopped at every other garage on the route adding air when needed. Luckily we had left home early so I still make it to the airport in plenty of time for my first flight.......and my husband made it back home again without too much drama.

Thank heavens I was flying from Gatwick - if I'd been flying from Heathrow we'd have been haring along the motorway with the flat and goodness knows what might've happened then!

The first flight was Gatwick to Casablanca, roughly a 3 hour flight - I chatted with two nice ladies in my row, one of them was interested in getting into charity work so we swapped contact details.

I had almost 6 hours to wait in Casablanca for my connecting flight and then we were off to Freetown. The flight was only about 2/3 full so I had the entire row to myself - which is always nice! This flight was due to take about 4 hours - after a bit of sleep and a snack and then a bit more sleep it didn't seem long before they announced that we would be landing in Freetown in a few minutes...........then about 20 minutes after that it was announced that the weather was too bad to land and we would hold for about an hour before landing.

I braced myself for a bumpy landing, but after holding for over an hour they announced we would be diverting to Banjul because of the bad weather! This was a bit of a shock.

We landed in Banjul and waited for 3 hours on the plane - it wasn't too bad because there were so few passengers there was plenty of room - then we refuelled and set off for Freetown again.

I got here in the end - almost 5 hours late, but in one piece and with both of my suitcases!!

I enjoyed the flights - there was loads of leg room and apart from panicking a bit when I thought I might get stranded in Banjul it was pretty much hassle free, I'd definitely fly with the same airline again.

I've spent most of today unpacking and settling back in, and now I'm having a cup of camomile tea before getting an early night.

Ready.....steady......GO!!

I'm heading back to Freetown again. I have found a good balance between the time I spend in Sierra Leone and the time I spend in the UK - it's working really well for me to alternate spending a couple of months in Sierra Leone with a month in the UK.......my husband and I are both happy with the arrangement.

 

This time I'm flying with Royal Air Maroc via Cassablanca. If you read my blog regularly you'll know what last time I flew out to Freetown one of my bags didn't arrive until 4 or 5 days after I did (that was with Brussels Airlines).......I hope and pray that this time it all arrives when I do!

 

I feel remarkably well organised at the moment, which is probably an indication that I've forgotten something! Yesterday it dawned on me that my International Driving Permit had expired - but that was soon renewed and I'm all set as far as that goes. I say I feel organised but I haven't started packing yet, that is one job I always leave until the last minute. Most of my luggage will be taken up by things for the house, including lots of lovely new fluffy towels!

 

One of my first priorities when I get to Freetown is to check on all the sponsored students, to ensure all that are enrolled in school are attending and to make a plan with the parents/guardians of the others for when they will go back to school.

 

Now that travel restrictions have been relaxed I will make a trip to check on our sponsored students in the provinces, in Kambia and Kenema. I am looking forward to that trip as it will be nice to be able to travel inside the country again.

 

I will be putting the finishing touches to my spare bedrooms in the hope that friends will start making plans to visit now that Ebola is coming to an end.

 

I've been having a bit of car trouble recently and I'm hoping to be able to find a decent mechanic to sort out the issues. I think the time is coming to replace the vehicle, but it's just not financially possible at the moment so I'm hoping to get a few more months out of my RAV4.

 

If you feel able, here are a few things I'd appreciate prayer over:

• That I will find a good, decent, honest mechanic
• That Ebola continues to reduce in Sierra Leone
• For our students as they reintegrate into school
• That my relationships with the people I work with will continue to grow and flourish
• For my good health and general wellbeing

 

Thank you!!

Air France to Resume Flights

Air France have announced that they will resume flights in to Sierra Leone from 30th June 2015. They plan to have 3 flights a week operating on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

 

Before Ebola there was a choice of 5 airlines that flew into Sierra Leone from Europe:

 

Air France

British Airways

Brussels Airlines

Gambia Bird

Royal Air Maroc

 

BA and Gambia Bird were always my first choice as they flew direct from the UK.

 

Unfortunately Gambia Bird announced on 30th December 2014 that they were suspending all flights until further notice, so they aren't going to be an option - I do hope they are able to resume operations at some point.

 

I wish British Airways would resume their flights as I have air miles waiting to be spent with them! Although I've lost my silver status, so I'll not be able to use their lovely lounge at Heathrow anymore.

 

Air France is the only airline out of those listed above that I've never flown to Sierra Leone with - they were always too expensive.

 

I'd like to say that I will show loyalty to the airlines that carried on servicing Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis (Brussels Airlines and Royal Air Maroc), and I would if money was no object.....but if another airline comes along offering lower cost flights I would have to go with them.

 

Hopefully, as other airlines resume their flights, the cost of flights will start to drop - the prices have been very high in recent months.

Luscious Locks

I promise that this isn't an advertisement and I'm not getting paid to say this!!

I wanted to recommend Lush solid shampoos and conditioners to my friends who travel (and those who don't too!!)

 

I first tried them a couple of years ago after spotting them in a Lush shop while out shopping - I thought they sounded like a good idea. Decent shampoos are expensive here in Sierra Leone and to take enough with me to last a few months takes up a lot of my baggage allowance - and when a bottle splits in the suitcase it makes an awful mess!!

So I bought a shampoo bar, a conditioner bar and a couple of the nice little tins to keep them in.

Wow! I was impressed - the shampoo lathers up really well and leaves my hair feeling really clean. The conditioner has rosemary in it, among other things, and leaves my hair soft, easy to brush and smelling really nice. The conditioner can either be rinsed out, or left in the hair - it doesn't leave my hair looking greasy if I leave it in

 

A shampoo bar lasted me around three months when I had long hair - I guess it will last even longer now my hair is short. A conditioner bar lasts around two months.

 

So far I've tried Ultimate Shine, Squeaky Green, Godiva, and the most recent one I've got is Jason and the Argan Oil. Most of the shampoos smell lovely - except the Soak and Float one that is for flaky, itchy scalps......it's a bit whiffy, but I've not tried it.

They are really handy for travelling, they can be carried in hand luggage, no spillage, lightweight and take up hardly any room.

 

I can't recommend them enough - have a look on www.lush.co.uk