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Tuesday, July 19, 1977, 7:00 pm, Day 539

I think that I have been pretty much talked out of my road today. Jim Olsen came up here to Kamiendor yesterday. This morning I took him out and showed him what I was doing, and together with Moiba, we three worked on putting in the cut and fill stakes along the road. We got to talking, and Jim asked the question of why I needed a road built down to the well site. We discussed it, and took a look at the amount of work that would be involved. I could see that it would take alot more work to build the road than would be required to haul all of the things down by foot. It was suggested that if I made a good footpath down the hill instead, then materials could be easily carried down, and a footpath would be alot easier to build than a road.

Also, I've been calculating the amounts of cut and fill that would be required to make the road, and they have been coming out more than I had first estimated. Some of the cuts and fills are coming out pretty massive to expect people to do it by pick and shovel.

This is a hard decision for me to make. To do it, I have to swallow my pride and admit that I made a mistake. Here I am, I got all of my communal labor out there bush clearing for 6 days, and have a 30 ft wide by 2000 ft long area all nicely cleared to show for it. Now I have to go and tell them that it has all been for nothing and that it will not be used. It is 6 communal labor working days down the drain. On the otherhand, by changing the road to a footpath, I save about two months of communal labor work, so I guess it will be worth my having to admit that I goofed. Looking at the bright side, though, everything that we bush cleared through was just bush, and no crops or coffee trees were cut down. If anyone wants a 30 ft by 2000 ft freshly brushed farm to plant, I can sell them one cheap.

Tuesday, July 21, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 541

I made a trip to Sefadu and back today. Moiba had to be in court in Sefadu at 10:00 AM this morning, so I took him there on my Honda. We left Kamiendor at 7:00 and it only took us about 2.5 hours to reach. That was good time. The bad spots in the road were pretty bad, but the other parts of the road were pretty good this morning. I was therefore able to maintain a good rate of speed inbetween all of the bad spots.

The back tire went flat yesterday, but I didn't take it apart to fix it, but just pumped it back up. I wasn't sure if it would hold for this trip today, but I was surprised because it has held and is still holding its air without any leaking.

The trip back wasn't too bad either. I was in a light rain for the first 10 miles, but then it cleared up after that. Nothing special happened, and I just went along leisurely until I reached Kamiendor just as it was getting dark. It started sprinkling as I was finishing unloading the pack from my motorcycle, and just as I got inside the house, it started to downpour. It was great timing. I quickly changed into my cutoffs, grabbed an empty bucket, a washcloth, and some soap, and went out under the eves to take a shower. The bucket filled up as I washed. When I was done, I took the bucket of water and a scrub brush out to my motorcycle, which was sitting out under the rain. I washed my motorcycle, and just as I was finishing, the rain stopped again. So, in just a half hour or so after I had returned to Kamiendor, both me and my motorcycle were clean, and it was done with water delivered on the spot. I consider it a sign that God is looking out for me.

Friday, July 22, 1977, 2:00 pm, Day 542

I dropped the road idea last Tuesday. On wednesday, Moiba and I surveyed from the tank site down to the well sight, along a different, more direct route. The purpose was to get a detailed lay of the land, so as to figure out both where to put the pipeline and also where to build a high quality footpath, over which all of the materials can be hauled.

This morning, I went back down to recheck a few of the horizontal angles from Wednesday's survey. I was surprised to find that in two different spots along the survey line, there has been a large branch broken off from high in the trees overhead, and have fallen down. In one spot, the branch has fallen on line, pulling a few small trees with it, so as to completely obstruct the view in between the two points. In the other spot, the branch has fallen directly over a point, but was caught up before it hit the ground, and so remains suspended about 5 feet above the ground. Do you think that God is trying to tell me something?

I've learned one thing. That is that you should consider carefully before you build beneath a big tree, because if it should drop a branch, there wouldn't be much left of whatever was built beneath it.

Saturday, July 23, 1977, 9:00 pm, Day 543

i finally got around to finishing painting my room today. For the last 5 or 6 months or so, it has remained with a completed ceiling and uncompleted walls. I had one coat of yellow-green paint covering half of the walls when I ran out of paint, a long time ago. All of the stores were out of that color paint, so I bought one gallon of blue-green paint, which has been sitting down in Freetown since May. When Fred finally came up a week ago, he brought the paint with him, and today I finally went ahead and did it.

I think I worked for about 7 hours off and on during the day. I started in one corner of the room, and started painting down one wall. I went all of the way around the room and back again, and the place looked really bad with just the one coat. I had used over a half gallon by this time, and so I was a bit worried that I might run out. I started around again for a second coat, and I was glad to see that the walls were now coming out looking good with two coats of paint.

In addition to painting my walls, I was also painting one kerosene stove and one kerosene lantern that people had given me to have painted. I figured, what with the looking like it might run out before I finish, and that the stove and lantern don't really use that much paint, that it would be best to go ahead and paint them anyway. I painted them in between walls, and the stove got 4 coats and the lantern got 2. I figured that by painting them, I was doing a good deed, and that this would set me up better with God, so that He would see to it that I had enough paint to finish my walls.

As it turned out, I figured right, because the paint ran out just about exactly as I had run out of places to paint. I didn't have to skimp on any spots, either, but just went along, painting each place as much as it required. I figure that the second coat didn't use as much paint as the first, because the first coat has to fill all of the holes and also gets soaked up by the dry walls. The second coat then has it easy.

There are quite a few spiders living in my room, but I don't mind them. Today, as I was painting, I occasionally had to take out to coax a spider to move out of the way. When I moved my shelves over to paint behind them, I found one of the spiders wrestling with a cockroach. The spider had him beat, too, but when I came he ran off, leaving the cockroach lying on its back and looking stunned. I stepped on the cockroach, but said thank you to the spider. The spiders don't bother me either, because they stay high on the walls usually, and don't seem to build any webs to clutter up the place.

Sunday, July 24, 1977, 8:00 pm, Day 544

The sand pulling will have to stop for awhile, maybe until next dry season. Yesterday, the river was up a foot from where it was before, so it was about chest high when crossing the river. They still managed to pull sand yesterday, but today they met the river even higher, so they were unable to pull sand. They have pulled 5 days worth so far, but we still need about another ten days more. I was hoping that they could get all of the sand pulled before we need it, because it will have to all be transported to Kamiendor by tipper, and I don't want to hire a tipper for only half a job, but would want to transport all of the sand at one time.

This evening I was pondering how I would be able to keep ten communal labor busy for tomorrow. The only thing that I could have them do would be to bush-clear for the pipeline and the well-access footpath. The reason that I was pondering, though, was because I haven't as of yet had the chance to get out there enough to be able to determine just where I want to put them. I need to do alot more bush walking and scouting around and probably survey some more parts before I could decide. I could only keep a few people busy helping me on that, but not ten people.

Lucky for me, though, just a short while ago Mr. Lansana came to me and informed me that there would be no communal labor tomorrow because of a chiefdom-wide election or something. That works out great for me because that means that I can spend all of tomorrow out in the bush figuring out just where the best place would be to put the pipeline and the footpath.


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