Correction: Amarachi’s mother did not have 16 children, she ONLY had 14!
I forgot this incident: when we arrived in Kenema Jim needed to stop for
diesel and so began to slow down and then turned into the station. Right behind us was a biker. He either wasn’t paying attention or he was
looking to make a buck and he fell.
Luckily neither he or his bike was hurt, but he came up to our truck as
we were getting gassed up and said that it was Jim’s fault that he fell. Jim replied that it was not, and that the biker
was not paying attention and was probably driving too fast. He said that they had witnesses and that they
were going to notify the police and they needed his phone number. Jim told them that they didn’t need his number
because he was staying at the Capitol Hotel and they could send the police
there. They kept saying they had
witnesses and that they were going to prosecute, etc. When we arrived at the hotel Amarachi &
Jonathan soon came to visit. When Jim
told this story Amarachi asked Elder & Sister Burns if they were
listening. People are worried someone is
going to take advantage of them because they are so nice. Amarachi got such a kick out of it and had a
good laugh. The police never showed up,
of course!
This morning we went to church in the Kenema Branch and can more easily
understand their English than when in Freetown .
Jonathan said it was because in Freetown they speak the ‘real’ Krio language and
probably mix their Krio with English. He
says that in Kenema they do not speak a perfect Krio and that it sounds a lot
more like English. Today it began to
rain very hard and their microphone has long since been broken so we could
barely hear the speakers for the noise.
We did understand their basic message, just not the details. Jonathan, being in the District Presidency, was
there to finish up and we could hear all that he said. He is really quite a good speaker. Jim said he sounded like a GA today. All these people speak very well and don’t
seem to have notes!
After lunch we had Cobinah’s (Jonathan & Amarachi) come to the hotel
and we talked a lot about the projects going on now and future ones and then
ate dinner together.
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| Above we found another very clean well. We knew right away that this meant they had a committee and were collecting money. It happens every time. When we see this we are so happy that we want to kiss the people for taking care of their donation. Below, Elder & Sister Burns are with the well caretakers. |
Above: A few children
wanted their picture taken, so it is hard to see who really is now being taken
care of by Jonathan and Amarachi. The
girl in the green and the one in the gray, and the boy kneeling at the bottom
left, do not belong in the family, but everyone else does. Jim and Burns’s are also in the picture. Amarachi’s niece is on the left, Jonathan’s niece is right in front of her. Her brother is
kneeling below the girl in the brown holding onto Alberta
What you
are looking at is a sort of swamp filled with obvious diseases and darling
little mosquitoes. This was near a
well. Even alone, it is a blight on the
neighborhood—homes were close by. They
spent their time telling me I needed to give them money. I told them they needed to fill this hole up
with rocks and dirt and sand and they claimed they had no tools (they do, they
had a garden nearby). I told them to
fill it up and divert the well runoff to the garden, also nearby. Then they tried to tell me how deep this hole
was (about 5 feet according to one man).
I threw a rock into the water and it didn’t even cover the rock! They must all think we were born
yesterday.
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| The girl on the right had a doll head, only a head! It had very little hair, but she had managed to braid a few strands and was working on the fringe of hair around its face. Her mom insisted she carry the purse on her left arm for the picture! |
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| The little boy at the very back of the line was learning how to carry water. We think it must all have splashed out before he got to his destination--so cute! |
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| Turay, on the left, showed up with a couple of politicians. He has been campaigning and stopped by to tell us when he would accompany us to the Waterloo wells next week. The man in the middle said he spent 27 years in the States and his children are still there. |
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| We checked out some old wells and Jim wanted them to remove the dirt at the top of the well and put it at the bottom so it wouldn't erode any further. There was much talk about it till Jim finally asked for a shovel and did it himself. They talked about Jim being 70 and that he was strong from working. Obviously, so was this young man so Jim said he wanted to see the kid's muscles. So he removed his shirt and of course we had to take a 'muscle shot.' |
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