5Crawfords

Day Three (Feb 5) I actually slept really well considering I was sharing a bed with another man! Actually, the bed is so big it really is like a separate bed. Think king size x 1.5, so one of us can get in and out of bed without the other feeling a thing – one of the benefits of a foam mattress. One of the few benefits I should say - ha! We set out for the Bo hospital campus after breakfast and our morning worship time. John leads worship and Mark from Mercy Ships was able to find a guitar to borrow this week, so that’s been really cool. Since it is Sunday and none of the maintenance workers were expected to be at the site, we decided to do an unescorted walk-through of both the Bo and Kenema sites so we could wrap our brains around the remaining work that lies ahead. At the Bo site, we once again ran into a wrinkle – the site map from Google Earth that we had drawn was somewhat inaccurate, with a number of new buildings to add. Since we have internet on our phones here, we pulled up ...

Sierra Leone Trip II Part I of III - Travel days (Jan 31 – Feb 2) I’m sitting in London in a hotel (since I had an overnight layover this time) and I am amazed by two things. One, even though I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the UK over the past few years with EMI, I am once again reminded how different the cultures are. As with many cultural differences, they are subtle and many times difficult to even describe, but they ultimately serve to make you feel very out of place. So when I travel to the UK, I typically try to be quieter, less obvious in what I say and do, and just try to blend in. I do become somewhat of a target for being taken advantage of though since if things don’t go as I think they should, I am very unlikely to buck the system. For instance, if a sign says something is one price and when I get to the counter they charge me for more, I will probably just keep quiet and pay because I don’t want to be that obnoxious American demanding my rights overseas! (Not that all...