Letter # 72 - June 20, 1979

This letter is written from Kamiendor and will hopefully be carried out to civilization tomorrow by private courier.

Everyone is healthy at the moment. Rainy season is here but it isn't bad. In Kamiendor it usually rains in the late afternoon or at night, about 2 out of 3 days. In Freetown, though, it gets pretty old, quick, because it likes to rain all day, everyday sometimes. In kamiendor we can still work during the day.

My water supply project is coming along. We are still working on the well. Last month we had a cotton tree fall down on top of it. This time we found a massive stone down under one wall of the well, with 2 1/2 feet still to go. We lower the concrete walls as we dig, so the stone is in the way. I decided that instead of trying to break the stone, that it would be easier to break out some of the concrete wall, so that the wall could slip down over the stone. This should keep two hammers and two chisels busy for at least a week.

Some plumbers are supposed to come up to Kamiendor any time now, but so far there has been no sign of them.

Our future is a big question mark at the moment. I had planned to be in the next training program for Peace Corps, but it has been postponed again. First, it was to be 6 weeks during Oct-Nov. Then it was changed to 8 weeks during Nov-Dec-Jan. Now it seems training won't even begin until the middle of January, and I don't plan on hanging around that long as a volunteer.

Diana and I decided that it wouldn't be bad if I found a good paying job here in Sierra Leone, and then just went to America to visit once a year or so. I don't want just any job, though. I have an ideal job in the works, though. It would be heading my own road construction project on the road to Kamiendor, using all hand labor. I need to get the Sierra Leone government to agree on it first, and then also USAID. I hope it works out okay.

Love,
Donny and Diana