Saturday, September 10, 1977, 8:00 pm, Day 592

This evening I went out to take a look at it because, being dark, it's a good time to look for sparks. I saw it spark okay, but it still didn't want to start. Then I went to try out my new theory, and I think that my problem might have been solved. I knew that the timing was off, because I could feel it when I rode the motorcycle today. My theory was that the timing being off would make the motorcycle hard to start. I adjusted the timing and the motorcycle started right up. The timing being off could have been the problem the whole time.

Back when my problems with starting first began, I think it was because my contact points were pretty bad. Those I replaced with new points right away, but maybe the timing wasn't reset as good as it should have been. I switched the points again today in Manjama, and did an even worse job of timing, so I was able to notice that the timing was off. I adjusted the timing this evening and the motorcycle started right up, so I hope that the problem is finally solved. I won't know for sure though, until I try to travel back down to Sefadu. It is impossible to go all those 43 miles and keep the motorcycle running all of the time. If not impossible, then it is at least highly undesirable.

My feet are still on the serious list. They are off the critical list, but they are not yet on the recovery list. These sores are at a state such that if I slack off on my treatment of them even a little, they could (and probably would) quickly revert back to as bad or worse than they were before. I've got to try to keep them clean and bandaged and resting as much as possible, all of the while hoping for some sure signs of healing.

Sunday, September 11, 1977, 7:00 pm, Day 593

Tuesday, September 13, 1977, 10:00 pm, Day 595

My motorcycle is working admirably now. It starts up usually on the first try now. It has never started that good before! It took me and Moiba about 75 miles today with no problem. Even going up the long grades on the highway, it showed that it hasn't yet lost its get-up-and-go power.

We traveled up to the village of Yarya, above Kayima, today to do a quick checkout of the town. We drew a map of the town, counted the houses, and then looked around for a few good water sources. Yarya has just been added to the list. One of the new Ministers is from there, or something, and so he has been supplying some political pressure to get a water system for his town.

With what I found out today in Yarya, I was able to work out a cost estimate for the water system. This information will then be sent to the Minister first to show him that we are doing our job, and second to then ask him for the money to finance the project. then, if the Minister cannot come up with a source of funding, the project will stop right there, with our part completed, so no fault could be put on us for the project not being built.

Yesterday, I happened to see Kathy and Nancy. I thought that they were in Freetown waiting to go to America, but it appeared that they weren't. It turns out that Nancy was going down to Freetown this morning and that Kathy will follow this Saturday.

I've gotten a little information on the new Kono volunteers, but as of yet, I haven't actually met any of them. First, my closest neighbor would be Paul. He is a male (How for do?!) The only other thing that I know about him is some second or third hand information stating that he did not like his housing in Jagbwema and went to Freetown, not planning to go back to Jagbwema unless they figured out better housing for him. He might never move in!

Next, there are two other new volunteers, both females (hurray!) and they seem to be friendly. I've passed them twice on the road, but only saw them once. I was stopped yesterday, fixing my Honda, when this Honda 70 roared past, with these two white females aboard, dressed in new raincoats and new motorcycle helmets, both smiling and waving franticly to me as they went on by. They didn't stop, but I figured that it must have been them. Their names are Cathy and Mary Lou. Cathy is stationed at the Tumbudu house, and Mary Lou was supposed to be in Kayima, but the rumor is that she doesn't like being that far out, so she is planning to move into Tumbudu with Cathy.

The second time we passed them was today. They were in a lorry heading for Kayima, I suppose, so that they could ride the lorry back out again, carrying all of Mary Lou's possessions. These three volunteers are all primary education. I think there is still to be a secondary education volunteer coming to Yengema and a couple of agriculture volunteers, possibly to Jagbwema and Kayima.

Friday, September 16, 1977, 11:00 pm, Day 598

This afternoon each person had to do about ten minutes worth of one of his lessons, so that everyone could see how you were going to go about teaching. I went into mine just about totally unprepared, but luckily I was able to keep cool and coherent during it, and everything went smoothly, and no one cut me down like I was afraid of.

The thing is, though, that I have to realize my limitations with respect to time. There isn't too much time left before training starts, and so I probably don't realilistically have time to prepare as much as I would like to. I have these ideas about wanting to set everything up into sort of a water system design cookbook, where all of the equations and methods are spelled out very clearly and concisely. It could be done, but the trouble is that there isn't enough time to do it before training comes. That means that some of it won't be ready for training, and so we might end up getting bogged down in certain parts of the design.

Part of the major problem, as I see it, is that there is no standardization of the things that should be standardized. If alot of the parts of the design were standardized, then it would take alot of the ambiguity out of the design work, thereby allowing different engineers to design different systems, with the systems being all of the same quality.