The Sunday before Christmas is always a favourite of mine. There are only a few days to Christmas and yet it is usually a time for relaxation and fun with friends, often the annual Christmas carol service is followed by drinks at our house or at a neighbour’s house.
Today is a very different type of Christmas service as we join the 200+ members of Koidu Central church. The atmosphere is afro carnival with a reggae beat, keyboard and loud drums. During the service we are welcomed to Koidu and are both made “paramount chiefs” which is a great honour. Drinks are served afterwards in honour of the guests! Unfortunately we cannot stay for long as at midday we leave to return to Freetown.
It is not possible to catch the bus back to Freetown and so David has arranged to take us back in his rather “tired” Mercedes (not sure whether the car is older than Joni but it must be close!). Jimmy a friend of David joins us on the journey to act as both driver and mechanic. Jimmy’s presence sends signals of both good risk management and concern over the car. Within half an hour of embarking on the journey the concerns are justified, there is a problem with the rear wheel which is easily solved. However a few miles further and the fuel pump breaks down. After 3 hours we have travelled about 25 miles with another 75 miles on rough track before we hit the decent road. Fortunately the driver of a 4 wheel drive vehicle offers us a lift and David agrees it is best for us to continue our journey and so we say our goodbyes. We complete the worst of road conditions in the 4wd and manage to recover some lost time. However we still have another 110 miles and we are almost at Makeni where take the first of 3 taxi rides to Freetown. The second taxi driver is a budding Lewis Hamilton and without a working speedometer all we can say is that we felt like he drove at speeds of up to 100mph before we persuaded him that it was in his interests to slow down a little in order to preserve fuel! Fortunately this far out of Freetown there is little traffic and so the real risk is not hitting another vehicle but of a tyre blow out and a high speed spin into the jungle. As we get closer to Freetown dusk draws on quite quickly and by 7.00 it has become very dark. “Surprisingly” the taxi does not have proper headlights but “Lewis” our driver continues undaunted, despite the fact that we can see not much more than 25 yards ahead! We are all very concerned by now and eventually persuade him to stop near Waterloo where he transfers us to a friend of his to complete the journey. The rest of the journey is less eventful but slowed by heavy traffic in town and it is almost 10 hours after leaving Koidu before we return to the guest house to a welcome drink and celebration of our safe arrival!
On Monday we say our goodbyes to Yatta, his team and Freetown before taking some final photographs of the city as we drive to the Ferry at lunchtime. The Ferry journey seems less eventful, other than some actors “busking” around the top deck rather like street entertainers in Covent Garden. We have a long wait for our night flight to the UK but spend some time at the open air pool at the Airport hotel. The evening wait goes quickly as the TV in the departure lounge is showing Everton v Chelsea live – we know that at most other international airports the only variation in TV channel is between BBC News, Sky News and CNN news but then this is football mad Sierra Leone! The flight is on time and come Tuesday morning we are safely back in Oxford and another world!
A fantastic life experience comes to a close. It was particularly special being so close to Christmas which is traditionally a time for helping others less fortunate than ourselves. We will have much to discuss and reflect upon in the days ahead.
Richard and Joni
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