Other
then work our last month was spent trying to cram in all the stuff we wanted to
do. One of our trips was to a place called Kabala which is north of Sierra
Leone. Ben had told us it was a great place to go for some nice walks. It was a
standard journey, starting off brightly as we headed to the taxi rank and
picking our taxi carefully i.e. it was still in one piece. We anticipated the
trip to last about 1 hour 30 but as we headed off down a very dodgy road we
started to smell something coming from the car. The driver appeared to ignore
it and carried on with the journey until we were about an hour in and the car
came to a standstill. We obviously hadn’t chosen our taxi carefully enough. We
weren’t too sure how far was still to go but we clearly needed some other form
of transport. As a bus came past the driver of the taxi hailed it down and helped
us to negotiate a price as we pilled on to the already full bus. It seemed to
take another 2 hours or so to get there and once we arrived we met with Alfred,
a friend Ben had made on his visit. He took us to his house where we waited for
a couple of lads to take us on a hill walk. The walk went up a very steep hill
through the bush but it was definitely one of the easier walks I had done since
I’d been there. Afterwards we went back to meet Alfred who said he’d take us to
a coffee plantation. We were looking forward to seeing all the coffee being
made but all of a sudden Alfred stopped at a tree and said “here is the
coffee.” Basically we’d gone to see a coffee tree which was pretty cool but I
think we were all secretly a little disappointed there was no actual
plantation. Our journey back was done in half the time it had originally taken
us due to our speedy taxi driver not being able to find the brake pedal, though
he probably didn’t even have a working speedometer to know if he was speeding
or not.
Others
trips we did were to the chimpanzee sanctuary in Freetown, to Bambuna to see a
stunning waterfall, to the CBF academy where we got to spend some time with the
boys at training and we also made another visit to Burah Beach. We enjoyed a
few nights out to, one being to the local hotel club and another playing a bit
of flip cup at the Clubhouse. On our final night in Makeni we decided to invite
the team managers and coaches to our house for a few drinks. We asked Sally to
bring us a cool box of all her drinks and paid her for them all so it was a
free bar. Turns out a free bar in Makeni is not a good idea. Those that turned
up all had one too many beers and started announcing all their problems with
CBF to us. We couldn’t get a word in edgeways and in the end Charlie had to
step in and say that there wasn’t anything us volunteers could do as it mainly
went down to there not being enough money. After a little reminder that we were
supposed to be celebrating, the managers and coaches took to dancing and going
completely crazy with the alcohol. There were pictures being taken left, right
and centre and as soon as the cool box was empty they all decided to leave.
Most of them left on their motorbikes in a drunken state and others stumbled
away into the darkness. It was only 10pm and it had seemed like a tornado just
hit our house. A few minutes later and the respectable Nosdo FC lads turned up
to say goodbye. We had no drinks left to give them but we had already bought the
team a football as a leaving present which they all loved. There were yet more
pictures being taken and some emotional departing hugs and handshakes.
Afterwards we went back into the house to add up the final cost of all that was
drunk. Turns out it came to 300,000 le which is around £45. Realistically I can
defiantly spend that much on a night out so it didn’t seem too bad when you put
it that way.
On
our last day in Makeni I felt pretty sad to be saying goodbye to everyone. The
day was spent going to all the places and seeing all the people who had made
our stay so special. We had our last lunch at Global which was the restaurant
we went to everyday, and we had our last few drinks at the Clubhouse. We went
to Encis for the last time which was the place we went for internet, and we
battled our way through the Makeni town streets experiencing all the Aporto
calling from the usual kids for the last time. When we got back to the house we
chilled out with the local kids giving them a balloon and few little toys to
keep them entertained. I gave Mohammed (sally’s son) a toy car which when you
pulled the string made a loud ringing noise. I later realised I had probably
given him a typical toy which every parent hates because he just kept pulling
that string.
The
next morning, after our eventful managers and coaches evening we got up early
to say the final goodbyes to those who we were most close to. This included
Sally and her family, Fatmatta and her son and of course our main man Alusine.
We gave them all presents and for Alusine we told him that we would contribute
to his university fees which he was over the moon about. We gathered outside
for one last photo of us all and I looked around the house for the last time
thinking about everything we’d done. I remember thinking this was probably the cleanest
I had ever seen the house since we’d been living there.
We
then bumpily drove off, waving to everyone in the distance and hoping that one
day I would meet them all again.
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