June 17 and 18th

Friday evening

After another full day in the operating room, we decided to treat ourselves and go out for dinner. One of my friends Lourens is a long term crew member so he is allowed to drive the Mercy Ships land rovers. Going out for dinner is fun, but almost as fun is the adventure getting there. Because the restaurant we went to was on the other side of one of the mountains, we had a choice, go through the city and sit in evening traffic or go over the mountain on the "back roads".  We decided it would be more fun to go off roading in the back roads and test out the land rovers capabilities. I don't have a great picture to show you the exact incline... but if you look at the picture below, you can see the path that 3 people are walking up, that is one of the "less steep" roads we took!

As we were driving up the mountain Lourens offered to drive us up to one of the highest points of the mountain to see the sunset. It was an amazing view, you can see for miles the city of Freetown.  

Lourens, proud of his parking job... about a foot away from a straight drop down the mountain

We had a great dinner at the Country Lodge and then took the regular streets to get back home.

Saturday - Bunce Island

On Saturday I went out with a group of 2 land rovers (18 people) to Bunce Island. As I said above, part of the adventure in Sierra Leone is getting to various locations. So we started the morning with a 4 hour offroading experience over the mountains and down random dirt roads. I got to ride in the front of the land rover with Chris a fellow Canadian driving. He made my day when he pulled out a tin of Tim Horton`s coffee (quick side note... the coffee is quite bad here... for all of you who know my coffee addiction, you will be impressed that I have cut down substantially) Chris had a french press and we managed quite well with the coffee mug and press while in the city. Once we started climbing the mountain... it was a different story. Somehow I ended up with coffee all over my pants as you can see from the picture below. But it was okay because I had my first great cup of Tim Horton's since leaving Canada so I couldn't complain!

The coffee that ended up all over me

pit stop enjoying the view from on top of the land rover

A picture after successfully completing the hill

The beautiful back country

After 2 hours we finally hit pavement... it was a very strange feeling to all of the sudden be driving on smooth road. It didn't last for long though. Bunce Island is listed as only being accessible by boat to tourists from Freetown. Tourists pay about $100 American to take a motor boat to the Island. Lourens and some friends enlisted the help of google earth to look at satellite pictures of the back country. they found that there was in fact a dirt road that led to the water right in front of Bunce Island. I believe that this was Lourens` 3rd time to the Island so we trusted his navigation skills! It was a fun experience driving on the dirt path for over an hour to get to the sea. we passed through many small villages that did not see vehicles very often. All of the children came running out to greet us and wave by the road.

When we finally arrived at the village, we got into canoes (which the villagers were quickly bailing out excess water from) to make the trek across the river. The boats were very tippy and there were multiple occasions during the crossing that I thought we were going to tip over. We made it safely across to Bunce Island and met an archaeologist from Syracuse who has been working at the site. He told us that he had been here in the late 1980`s surveying the site and was hoping to start a restoration project. When the civil war started, he had to delay, but has returned and has a large grant to start preserving the site. It was great running into this man because he gave us a quick overview of the buildings so that we would have some bearing as we explored.

bailing out the water from our canoes

inside the `Georgian manor` which was the slave traders home on Bunce Island

Kate and I inside the mansion

The slave quarters. The mansion overlooked this area.

The opening to the left went to the women and childrens area and the opening to the right was for the men

Where the men were kept

Where the women and children were kept

Inside the armoury cave

It was dark and full of beetles, but you could still smell gun powder.

Cannons were the main defence against ship attacks. If things did not go well the  slave traders would escape from the rear of the island and paddle to the mainland

This Island is very historical as it was home to one of 40 major European commercial forts on the coast of West Africa during the slave trade era. It was in operation from 1670 to 1807. This fort is of particular importance to the United States as large numbers of slaves were sent from this location to South Carolina and Georgia. Slaves from Sierra Leone were very valuable to the slave traders in the southern states because they were very skilled in rice planting. The Island itself was attacked twice by pirates and four times by the French. It was a very sobering experience to visit the Island.