Arriving in Mapaki

We landed at Lungi airport last night 10 pm, pitch black no street lights and were glad that TMT had his cousin Harold meet us and MKK from cdpeace to drive us to the guesthouse. We were up at 615 to catch the ferry to Freetown at 8 am and had our first poyo calling which means white person as we drove to the ferry terminal. We had breakfast in Freetown with Clare and then did some errands- grocery shopping, meeting officials with cdpeace, visiting th evillage of Mayugba to pay our respects to the village and then on to Makeni to visit before arriving in Mapaki aorund 630. Dinner was fish stew on rice with cucumber slices, fried plantain, and oranges. It was wonderful to sit and eat and know we are home for a week. My cellphone doesn't have any service here so I will rely on email communication while here.

After supper we heard drumming and went out to enjoy a traditional welcome from the Paramount chief, and elders, the teacher and the oldest auntie. Then there was drumming and singing and dancing by the women. The women laughed when I joined in and then they got Nancy and Clare up dancing too. This went on for an hour or so. THey asked the cheif for permission to dance all night, it was granted. They have stopped though and gone to put the children to bed.

The children love to wave and call out to us. We are learning to say sele- hello, moo moo thank you, and tanke karoo thanks be to God when we are greeted.I am going to go through all the supplies tomorrow with TMT to divide them between Paki Masabong chiefdom and Gbonkolincoln chiefdom evenly. So that will be tomorrow. It is very dark here with no street lights, no traffic and a crescent moon. So bedtime is early and we will be up early around 630 when the sun comes up.

Good night everyone.