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Thursday, July 7, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 527
Today is all sevens (7/7/77), a very special day. I had forgotten that it was coming up, but remembered this morning when I bought a new battery for my motorcycle. The guy wrote on the receipt, 7/7/77, and so when I saw that I thought, "Oh yeah ..."
I remember that I was in Algebra I as a freshman at Blackford High School when the day 6/6/66 came along. It was a big deal then, but it has gone almost un-noticed today.
I've felt pretty good mentally, all of today and the last half of yesterday. I tell you, it feels alot better than the other way, the way I was a few days ago. I'm not sure, but I think that at least part of the change had to do with leaving Freetown and coming back up-country, picking my motorcycle up on the way. Freetown is bad that way. Any place that you want to go in Freetown, you have to take transport. Places are spread out too far to be able to walk to them conviently. That having to get a taxi or catch a bus is just a hassle to me, and I don't like it.
This past day or so, I have seemed to be able to relate to people. I was interested in them as people, wanted to hear what they had to say, and could even ask questions. That's the way it should be.
Friday, July 8, 1977, 7:00 am, Day 528
I came back up to Kamiendor yesterday afternoon. Today, the main thing that I am planning to do is work on my motorcycle. I will fix up the new battery, change the oil, adjust the tappets and the timing, and all of the other little things that I can think of.
7,000 miles turned up on it yesterday. The chain and sprockets are pretty well worn, and won't last more than a thousand or two more. The back tire is also wearing down and will have to be replaced before too much longer. The front tire doesn't wear down too fast. It would probably be good for 20,000 miles or so. Basicly, the motorcycle is still running good and looking good.
Saturday, July 9, 1977, 8:00 pm, Day 529
I was supposed to get four communal labor today to bush clear for the surveying, but true to form, nobody showed up. They were supposed to come from Kisene, that last village near the Meli River two miles away. I was told that a few people finally did show up at about 12:00 but they never came to see me, and Mr. Lansana, my village co-worker, had already left for his farm by then anyhow. They say it is all set for the work tomorrow, but I'll have to wait and see. They will probably remember that it is Sunday, and decide that they can't work. I've asked for 20 people starting Monday, so we will see how it goes.
Sunday, July 10, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 530
We got a bit of work done today. Three communal labor showed up, and together with Mr.Lansana, Moiba, and myself, we went down to the well site. Starting there, I had them bush clear along a 10.2% gradeline, which will be the first step in putting in the well access road. We only got 350 feet done before they claimed that they were too tired to go any further. The road should be 2000 ft long in all. They say I will get 20 people tomorrow, and so I hope to finish it up. The next step will be to go back and widen the bush clearing, and seeing just where we want to put the road. After that I will have to survey it, finding the centerline, and putting in the cut pegs and fill pegs. Once those pegs are in, they will be able to start the excavation. I will have to be with them to do a few sample section cuts on the road so that they can see how it is supposed to look. Hopefully, Mr. Lansana will then be able to direct the rest, leaving me free to work on other parts.
I've had a good job today. Even yesterday wasn't too bad, so that means that during all of my time since I reached Bo last Wednesday, I've felt pretty good. Maybe it is just leaving Freetown, getting back into my own, getting back to Kamiendor and finally starting the work. One thing that has helped is that the people have still been nice to me. Sia Kundi, my regular cook, has not been here since I got back, but I haven't had to worry about if I was going to eat or not. I've been getting two meals a day, just from the ladies in the town, and I really appreciate it. I have felt completely at ease being around my regular village people.It is getting so that I know more and more of them all the time. There are, however, still alot of people that I don't hardly know at all, although they know me. Maybe I will get to know them all, finally, by the time my work here is completed.
Wednesday, July 13, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 533
I've been feeling great mentally for quite a long stretch now. I haven't had a bad day since I came back up to Kamiendor last week.
The road work has been going fine. It took three days to finish the initial trace cut to find where the 10.2% grade line was. The road will be 2050 feet long, just 50 feet longer than I figured. There are no rocky spots along the way, so the excavation shouldn't be hard. Today we widened out the first 500 feet of the line, and it is really starting to look good. The survey has been finished on it and I have figured out just exactly where the road will go and how much they will have to cut or fill at each point along the way. Four culverts will have to be built along the way, which might tend to postpone the completion of the road. This is because at the moment we don't have the cement , or the sand and stone either. I am hoping that I will be able to keep the people occupied with working on other parts of the road until these things can be obtained.
Work would be over by about 2:00 or 3:00 each day. I would come back into town and wash, and then usually I would go out visiting for the rest of the day. I like being with these people, the ladies especially, and spend many many hours each week doing just that. It is a relaxing time for me because the work is over, and I leave the paperwork behind in the house, and then go out among the people with nothing on my mind except to enjoy.
Thursday, July 14, 1977, 4:00 pm, Day 534
Oh, Market Day! Market Day, every Thursday in the Kamiendor area, is really the big event. For a day or two before, people talk about what they will wear, what they want to buy, etc., and for a few days after they talk about what they bought, who they saw, what they did, etc. On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the people are busy fixing up things to sell at the market, getting their fine clothes ready, and fixing their hair up fine.
I would say that there are about a thousand people at the market, all people from around the area, traders from Sefadu, and some people coming over from Guinea. Today, I met all kinds of people that I knew, but hadn't seen for a couple of months. All of the people from my house were there, many of whom I haven't seen since April or May, because they have been out at their farm all of this time.
Market Day is also a "no-work" day because the communal labor gets this day off.
Sunday, July 17, 1977, 6:00 pm, Day 537
Last Friday night there was a regular dance here in Kamiendor. I think that it is the first one since before I came here last December. I went to it, and it was the first time that the people were able to see me dance. Some remarked, "Sahr Kamiendor sabe dance.", so I don't think I did too bad. It started at about 10:00 PM and I finally left at about 3:00 AM. When I got up the next morning, I found that the dance was still going on. It finally stopped at about 8:30 AM Saturday morning.
I ended up buying tickets for eight ladies to get into the dance. I was only able to get about one dance out of each of them, though, because once we were inside, they pretty much dropped me cold. I guess that they only want me for my money. I got turned down quite often when I asked some of my ladies to dance. Looking at some of the other men's techniques for asking a lady to dance, I saw that quite often the lady seemed unwilling at first, and that the man wouldn't take "No" for an answer, and would just about drag tha lady up off of her chair to get her to dance. After that, she would start dancing. I am not willing to start using that technique, so I guess I will just have to get used to being turned down. Besides all of that, I still danced about 75% of the time, although some of it was without a partner. Having a dancing partner isn't really considered necessary at these dances, but it does make it alot more enjoyable. All in all, I had a good time and am glad that I went.
Fred Hoyt finally came up to visit me yesterday afternoon. The last time that he was here was way back in January, 6 months ago. Even so, he is the first white man company that I have had at my house since he was here the last time.
We finished the bush clearing for my well access road yesterday. Today, we started to pull some sand out of the river. There has been very little rain these past two weeks so that the river is down low enough so that the sand can be gotten. As it is, it gets about waist deep when they cross it. The sand is on a sand bar out in the center of the Meli River. There is another spot of sand on the other side of the river which they wanted to get. They were going to fill the headpans and boat them across in a dugout canoe. It would have worked okay, but when they started, the guard on the other side said that we couldn't have the sand. Technically, the sand is in Guinea so, if the border guard says that we can't have it, then that means that we can't have it.
I figure about 10 to 12 days to pull all the sand that we will need. During that time, work will stop on the road, but I will get out and put some construction stakes in, and try to figure out which parts they should try to excavate first. That is a bit of a problem, because there are four culverts to be built on the road, and they can't be built until I can somehow get some cement up here. Alot of the excavation, in turn, can't be done until the culverts are installed.
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