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Saturday, February 14, 1976, 8:30 pm - Day 18
We had this day free to do anything we wanted. For the first part I walked over to the house where Charlie (one of the other trainees) is staying and had him teach me Gin rummy. It turned out that it was almost exactly the same as the rummy that I played at home. I beat him both games that we played. At 2:30 we went with one of the boys living at my house and traveled by taxi to a school 2 miles away. The taxi cost 30 cents total for the 3 of us, and I was surprised because we had been told by the other volunteers that taxis were 30 cents per person.
At the school they were having "Sport", which is what they call a track and field meet. It started at 3:00 and continued until 7:00. It was a coed track meet with girls events and boys events and 4 schoolscompeted. There were probably a couple of thousand people watching, so it was a pretty big affair. The track was dirt with rocks up to about 3/4 inch diameter lying around. About half of the contestants ran barefoot but they must be used to it because the ground didn't seem to hurt them any. All distances were metric but the high jump, long jump, and triple jump were measured in feet, while the javilin throw was measured in yards.
Sunday, February 15, 1976, 11:00 pm - Day 19
This afternoon Greg (one of us trainees) and I were brought to Daru for a 4 day visit. Daru is the village where the 4 of us will be living for at least part of the next 2 years. this night we were spending in our house-to-be. It is wired for electricity but it is not connected up. It also has no indoor plumbing. Hopefully we can get both of these things taken care of. The house is large and there are 4 bedrooms, but 2 of them only connect to the front veranda. there is a large river just about 50 yards away, which is supposed to be good for swimming and bathing, and also we will be getting our water from there.
Tuesday, February 17, 1976, 10:00 pm - Day 21
I badly misjudged about the river. It is really about 250 yards away. It is still good for swimming, but hopefully we can get a well dug behind the house to avoid the long trip to fetch water. Also, the nearest electricity is 500 yards away, on the other side of the river. Wires would have to be strung across the 200 yard long bridge to reach our house. Also we were hoping for a bit of indoor plumbing complete with a watertank on the roof.
Daru has about 200 houses, one post office, 3 bars, and about a half dozen small shops which all sell the same thing. there is one family in town that bakes bread, and beef is slautered about twice a week. There is also a bit of a market place and one traffic circle. There is also a large palm oil plantation nearby, which is sponsored by the International Development Agency.
The past few days have been spent going around and looking at the different feeder roads, both already built and under construction. Tomorrow we will be looking at a road that is still in the planning stage. About one third of the equipment here is broken down and they are waiting for parts.
Friday, February 20, 1976, 12:00 noon - Day 24
I've been pretty busy the last few days and didn't get a chance to write. We talked to the landlord of our house and he has ideas of putting in a well and also getting electricity. He is hoping that CARE will be paying for it and it seems that CARE rented the house with the condition that CARE will be improving it in return for lower rent. Another thing that the house needs is a good cleaning and then a paint job. Also we would like to put a culvert in the drainage ditch (4 feet deep) between the house and the road. this will be needed to get the motorcycles and truck over to the house. Our refrigerator and stove are in Bo right now but should be coming up to Daru any time now. Everything else that we need we will have to purchase ourselves.
Wednesday, we went with Chuck (one of the volunteers there already) to go look at a road that they are planning to improve. It is 18 miles long and just one lane at the moment. The places where bridges and culverts will be needed are now equipped with palm logs laid across over the streams. They use about 3 logs for each side and they seem to do the job, although you have to slow to about 2 mph to go across. We also went to see the paramont chief in order to arrange for a place for the carpenters and masons and bridge supervisor to live and also to see about getting communal labor to dig the excavations required for the culverts. The communal labor is usually about 20 or 30 villagers working without pay to help build the road. Communal labor is always required because these roads are supposed to be built on a self-help basis. That is, the roads will benefit the people so the people have to help build the roads. Communal labor is usually pretty easy to get if the chief is a strong one. Just tell the chief what you need and he will see that you get it.
When we left the chief, he gave us a whole basket of bananas and oranges and one pineapple, which was the largest that any one of us had ever seen. Another thing that was an experience on that trip was the fact that we rode the whole way (about 5 hours) in the back of a tipper (dump truck). We had to stand up all of the time and it was the roughest ride that I had ever experienced. This is how the labor force gets out to the site every day.
On Thursday we caught the government bus for the trip back to Bo. These are fullsize buses, and the 100 mile trip only cost Le2.00 or about $2.50. The buses ride on those dirt roads at about 50 mph and travel faster than any other vehicle on the road. they say that the buses don't move over for motorcycles, so that when you see a bus coming, just pull over and stop as quick as you can.
Coming back to Bo that afternoon really did alot to lift my spirits. It felt to me like I was coming home when I arrived at my family's house in Bo. I found myself very much at ease with them and they seemed to treat me as one of their own and not as a stranger or an outsider. I spent the rest of that day playing soccer with them and we even got a regular game going.
Saturday, February 21, 1976, 2:00 am - Day 25
Friday I really felt good. it was a carry-over from the day before and hopefully it is not just a passing phase. I found myself really enjoying our language lesson today, which was the first time in a long time.
I played soccer again Friday afternoon. I seem to be much improved in my ball-handling skills because I am really getting the hang of using my knees as well as my feet and head in controlling the ball. There was a big soccer game at Coronation Field (big soccer field in Bo) , which is just down the street from where I am staying. It was a contest between two primary school teams from Bo. It was hard for me to believe all of the excitement that went on both at the game and also just after the game. After the game all of the crowd came jogging down the street chanting something in Mende which translated out to "We won the game!" That was pretty impressive, seeing about a thousand or so people jogging down the street in unison, and the enthusiasm that they had was just overflowing.
Friday evening, up to very early this morning, I spent playing poker with some of the volunteers from around the area. They cleaned me out for over Le5.00, but I had fun anyway. At about 1:00 am this morning it started raining. unlike the rain that I had experienced here so far, this rain seemed to be typical of what to expect during the rainy season. It came down fast and heavy, and we got alot of lightning but not much thunder. The surprising thing is that the country side seems to be able to absorb all of the water and by tomorrow morning you would hardly be able to even tell that it had rained.
I was writing now because I had something to say and didn't feel sleepy, but now I seemed to have said it all and am starting to feel drowsy, so I guess I'll go to bed.
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