Freecall Update

Back in May I posted about a poorly baby called Freecall (click here to see that post).

If we are friends on Facebook you might know that the Aunty who looks after Freecall was evicted from where they were living a few weeks ago when her landlord repossessed their place and knocked it down to make way for another building. This left Aunty, her daughter, and Freecall with nowhere to go and they ended up staying temporarily in an unfinished building with a leaky rook in the height of the rainy season! All of their belongings got soaked and Aunty was scared that Freecall would get sick again in that environment. Fortunately, through the generosity of kind friends, we were able to help them rent a room to live in.

I saw Freecall and her Aunty today – she is looking good! She’s put on weight since I last saw her and is much more alert and interested in what’s going on around her (she was especially interested in trying to eat the cross I wear!!). She has a bit of a cough, but apart from that she seems fine.

She’s seems happy and contented – and I loved spending the afternoon with her.

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!!

Quick Update

Well, time seems to have got away from me somewhat this summer – it’s over 2 months since I last posted!

I’ve been spending some time in the UK with my husband, enjoying our roof garden, having nice meals together and generally enjoying each other’s company.

I had a day trip to Dublin with my niece for my birthday in July where she treated me to lunch on my first visit ever to a Hard Rock Cafe!

I had my head shaved to raise money for Transform Salone – just under £300 was raised. I quite like the bald look, but my husband isn’t so keen.

Transform Salone won a place in the 2017 London Marathon through the charity ballot, which I’m really excited about: every year my husband and I go to London to watch the marathon and cheer on the runners and next year we’ll be cheering on someone running for Transform Salone!! We don’t know yet who will be running for us – the place will go to whoever pledges to raise the most money.

I’m due to head back to Freetown in a couple of weeks – with the new school year starting in September it’s my busiest time of year. I need to check all the student’s report cards, get their uniforms, shoes, bags, supplies, text books…….the list goes on. I’m hoping for good results from our students this year, I know we have one boy who came second in his class and another who was top of his year for the whole school……so things are looking good so far!

Apart from popping back to the UK for a couple of weeks in October, I’ll pretty much be over in Freetown for the rest of the year. My niece is coming over to join me for November and we will be hosting our first joint Transform Salone/Mission Direct team while she is with me – if that goes well I’m hoping it will become a regular team each year.

I’m always in need of working, unlocked second hand phones, so if you have one lurking in a drawer somewhere give me a shout and I’ll take it off your hands!