August 22 (Two days in a row at the beach)

Fridays (yesterday) are ourday off during the week. Anne, Krysta, Ben, and myself ended up exploring all over. We made it to the beach about 4.5 miles away. Quick recap, the landscape was beautiful but the beach was dirty as all the rain has washed the city trash into the ocean. It should clear up as soon as the rain stops. We saw a group of fisherman pulling a huge net into the shore with all kinds of fish in it. A group of Sierra Leonians were standing standing around a sea turtle that was flipped on its back. I think they were trying to help it but they all seemed scared of it because when they would try to flip it over they would scream and jump away when it started flapping its flippers. I found two coconut trees to string up my hammock which was amazing! Part way through hanging on the beach a man with white warrior paint all overs his body chose us as his next audience for his "performance" which turned out to be kind of disturbing. He said that he wanted to show us a trick and when we agreed, proceeded to fill a huge bowl with sand and then EAT five or six double handfuls of it!!! I didn't want to watch but kept thinking that maybe this was just an intro to the real trick but after he finished he just thanked us and walked away. After talking to our friends here, we were happy to be reassured that is definitely not considered normal here. :) Though it makes for an interesting story for sure!

This morning my new friend Alimome (Ali-mommy) from Lighthouse asked if I wanted to jog with him. Many of the boys from Lighthouse go to the beach on Saturday mornings with Chris, one of the staff, to play ultimate frisbee. Chris has been teaching them how to play for about a year now. Alimome decided that it would be a good idea for me and him to run the four and something miles to the beach, which would not have been bad except that he is substantially faster than me. I could tell he was slowing down for my sake and I did have to walk once for a minute or two and yet we still finished the entire distance in about 30 minutes! Considering I haven't run in months and the fact that everything here is either up or down a hill, I'm just glad that I made it without passing out. And of course while I'm resting at the beach, Alimome decides to take off on his own for another 30-45 minute run.

After spending the day on the beach with the boys, we went to the Kroo Bay kids club, which is another one of the things WMF does here. Kroo Bay is an extremely poor slum next to the water in Freetown. Noah, a staff member for WMF and local Sierra Leonian has been working with the kids for over 10 years. 200-300 kids come every Saturday to sing and dance and be taught the Word. Later Noah and some of the Lighthouse boys help clean and bandage the kids cuts and wounds in order to prevent infection, which can be so dangerous in the slums. I am excited to get to know some of the kids in the weeks to come.

***Hopefully pictures will be coming in the next week or so!!!