Monday, May 9, 1977, 10:00 pm, Day 468

I am spending the night here in Koidu tonight because I want to catch the Freetown bus, which leaves around 8:00 AM. It is against policy to ride my motorcycle to Freetown now, so I will give the bus a try. I've been on the Bo-Daru bus a few times but this will be my first bus ride into Freetown. It is going to be a long ride. I think it takes about 8 hours to get there. This bus is always full also, so I want to get there early so that I can get a good seat.

Thursday, May 12, 1977, 11:00 pm, Day 471

These last two days I have spent finishing up my design for Kamiendor. I think that I can safely say that it is now completed. I had to go through and design the well and the tank, taking each a part at a time and looking at what forces were acting on it. I have all of the figures now for how much cement and how much reinforcing steel the system will need. I made drawings of all of the pipe joints so that I could see how it would all go together and just what-all was needed. I now have a list of all of the required materials for the system. The next thing is to get prices for everything, but someone else will be doing that for me. After that, it will be time to look for funding.

Friday, May 13, 1977, 7:00 am, Day 472

I showed my camera to Jim Olsen, a fellow PCV, to see what he thought was wrong. I didn't know much about cameras, and so I was wondering if maybe the battery was dead, and if that would keep the camera from working. I didn't really think so, but it was a possibility that I wanted to check out, before I threw the camera away. Jim didn't think it would be the battery either, and so suggested that I take the camera apart and see what was wrong. I don't think I would have had the nerve to take the camera apart otherwise, but with Jim suggesting it, I was all for it, and so I got out my pocket knife to unscrew the screws. I didn't know what I was doing, but you couldn't hardly tell that. It turned out that I took out all of the right screws, the ones that had to come out in order to get at the area where the trouble was, the film-advance and shutter-release mechanisms. After awhile I was able to pretty much figure out just what everything was for and how it worked.

The problem with the camera turned out to be a missing spring. The spring was to keep one part leaning up against another, which had the function of seeing that the film-advance part only went forward until the film locked in place. This spring would insure that it would not slip back to the start. with the spring missing, if the film-advance was not pushed completely over until it locked, it would just advance the film without making any progress. When it slips back it would still have to be pushed completely over before it would lock, advancing the film one complete frame at the same time.

The camera will still work without the spring, but I will have to be sure that I push the film-advance arm completely over until it locks every time I use it.

Saturday, May 14, 1977, 4:00 pm, Day 473

In Sierra Leone, there are two major political parties. The APC (All People's Congress) is the bigger one, holding about 80% of the seats in Parliament. the other party is the SLPP (Sierra Leone Peoples' Party). Rumor has it that the majority of the people favor the SLPP but that the APC manages to stay in power through intimidation and unfair elections.

In Biawala, it seems that the town is very strongly SLPP, a situation that is uncommon in this country. The paramont chief's father was one of the founders of the SLPP. The paramont chief himself, though, fovored the APC. This sets the scene for what happened.

On the Tuesday before the election, some APC thugs came into Biawala and made the people take down the SLPP signs. SLPP didn't like that, and so they got together and barracaded the road. When APC was leaving, the only road available was the new CARE feeder road going to Mobai. At the Mobai end of the road, the SLPP took some culvert rings and blocked the road about 50 yards up from the junction. It just so happens that the CARE engineers house, where I would be living if I was still with CARE, is only about 20 yards up from the junction. That evening, APC pulled up to the road block. SLPP was waiting down at the junction. APC started clearing the road block, and SLPP started moving up to meet the APC. Shooting started. Bullets bounced off the CARE engineers house. APC's lorries were busted up and turned over. Officially, two people died. The villagers say there were 6 people dead.

CARE's communal labor foreman is in critical condition. His brother was the SLPP candidate, who wasn't there, so he got mistaken for his brother. The APC candidate is also in serious condition.

The only good thing that I could say about it is that at least no innocent people were hurt. It was one party fighting another, all of whom who were out looking for trouble, and found it.

The worst story of violence that I heard about this election business happened at a small village up in the north. It seems the people in the village kicked out the chief because he supported the APC. The chief went and collected together some thugs, who then returned and burnt down the whole town, killing anywhere from 13 to 100 people.

In the Bo District, the elections have been delayed, I guess because of all of the violence. The story I have from Bo was that 2 PCVs on one motorcycle were riding down the street. They saw a truckload of ISU (Internal Security Unit, government troops) coming towards them. The PCVs turned down a side street to avoid them. The truck followed, passing them, and then stopping in front of them. The men got out, took their rifles and started shooting into a nearby house. The reason seemed to be to make an impression on the PCVs, which I guess it did.

In Freetown, it was comparatively quiet, it seems. The stores were all open normally up to the day before the election, and then were closed election day, which one might expect. There were lots of reports of people being driven around to all of the polling places, stopping to vote at each one. This, and other fier election no-nos were going on, but not too much actual violence.

I've heard one rumor that APC is planning to hold a meeting in Parliament, locking out the SLPP. There they would declare all of the SLPP candidates votes null and void, so that the APC would win the election unanimously.

I also heard another rumor that if Sierra Leone could not hold a fair election, then Jimmy Carter will pull all United States aid out of Sierra Leone. These rumors are all very much unsubstanciated and unconfirmed. The Peace Corps is a form of American aid. I would support President Jimmy if he did do it, though, because I feel that these elections were shameful and disgusting.

This country does have its problems, though, so maybe it is too much to expect peaceful free elections like back home. This country is showing the pains of trying to be a fair democracy. This country is a young republic, and hopefully it can stay a democracy. If APC and SLPP could only learn to work together for the betterment of the country in general, and not be out trying to exterminate each other. If they could do that, a lot of this country's problems would cease to exist.

If one party succeeds in exterminating the other, then the Peoples' rights and freedoms would cease to exist. I would very much prefer it the other way.