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Monday, April 24, 1978, 1:00 pm, Day 818

I wasn't able to get my thoughts down too clearly last time, so I quit writing. Now, that "whole bunch of uncertainties" might be an out-and-out lie. I didn't have any conflicts. Things couldn't have been going better. What I meant though, was that I had some uncertainties about having a full time woman on hand.

I had the thought that I had to be with her constantly, to keep her entertained, so that she would not get bored and wouldn't feel left out. This put me in conflict with my other thought that I ought to be doing some work. I had the feeling that I couldn't manage to do some work and also keep the woman entertained at the same time. I think that this was my one big worry. There must be others also, but this was number one.

Diana has helped alot to help relieve me of this worry. She knows that I have to work every day, and doesn't expect me to be with her all the time. She has decided that she wants to do all the cooking, and so this item alone fills up much of her time. Also, at the moment, she is out washing the clothes. It is good to see that she wants to work, to do all of the things expected of a wife.

Diana and the village people also get along good together. Because of Diana's presence, we have so far been given two chickens, a supply of rice, some palm oil, and other things. Bondu and Diana have taken a special attachment to each other, which is good. Diana says she wants Bondu as a small wife. Also, Sia Kundi, Idama Lamin, and especially Kumba Bekio have been good to her. Everyone seems pleased that I now have a woman around.

Diana seems to enjoy it here in the bush. She seems quite content. She plans to remain here until next Monday, a full week from now, when she will return to Freetown. She has mentioned that she plans to return here again.

For the last 4 or 5 evenings now, Diana and I have played Rummy. We are playing by her rules, but they are almost exactly the same as our own rules back home. The only differences are 1) you get dealt 9 cards instead of 7, 2) there are no wild cards, 3) you cannot pick from the pile unless you play it, and 4) low Aces also count 15 points. Also, our games don't stop at 500 points. With no wild cards, the hands last longer and totals often reach over 100 points for the high man and sometimes even 200. We just keep playing until we get tired, and so usually go until way over 2000 points each, and yesterday one person even had over 4000 points.

Diana has improved on her game considerably. The first two nights I was always ahead by 300 or 400 points at the end. Two nights ago though, we were pretty evenly matched, and so we played until Diana took the lead. Then we stopped, thereby letting her win. Then yesterday, I don't know what happened. We were going along fine there for awhile, Diana was in the lead and I was seldom more than 100 points behind. I was able to cut the gap down to 5 points finally, 2300 to 2305. Then somehow, everything fell apart for me. Over the next three hands, Diana added another 290 points to her lead, but it didn't stop there. It seems that nothing was going right for me. I was literally getting wiped out. By the end of the evening Diana was a full 825 points ahead, 4240 to 3415. It still seems impossible. I'm waiting to see what happens in this evening's session. I'm hoping that it was just a quirk, and that this evening we will be back to matching each other point for point. I am trying to keep an eye on my strategy and try to find something that works. Maybe now I need to take lessons from Diana.

Thursday, April 27, 1978, 3:00 pm, Day 821

My rummy game is back together again. Once, I beat Diana by 420 points, and the other two were pretty close. It must have been some kind of a big quirk for Diana to have beaten me so badly that last time.

I am beginning to get used to this married life. I see that I am able to manage with a full time woman. So far though, I haven't been able to donate as much time to the work as I should. But I am managing to get some work done each day. The reason is that our arrangement so far has sort of been like we were on a honeymoon. Therefore, the work often has to take seconds on my time. The more that we are together though, then the more of a routine all of this will become, so I would then be able to get more work done.

Diana and I are still together. We haven't had any real palavers yet. She has gotten on me about the way that I encourage all the kids to run wild. Because I am friendly with them and often play with them, they often come over to our room to just hang around. Diana doesn't enjoy all of the kids just hanging around. Then also, I get a little buggered when Diana tries to cheat a little at rummy, especially at those times when I am losing. At times, she peeks at the top card in the draw pile to see what I will get.

Tuesday, May 2, 1978, 8:00 am, Day 826

Diana just left this morning for Freetown, so I think I will take this time to catch up a bit with my writing.

All in all, her stay was pretty good. A few days ago, I noticed her doing something that she was telling me not to do. I was sitting there at the table doing some paperwork, and Diana was keeping busy playing with the kids. They were playing cards, and at one point I think I counted about 13 or so kids in our room at one time. Before, she was getting on my case for my "encouraging" the kids, and now here she was doing exactly the same thing, but even more so. I didn't say anything to her about it, as I didn't want to start a palaver, and besides, I think that it was good that she was able to enjoy the kids company, as I usually enjoy them also. No case.

Now, I want to write a bit about Otis. Do you remember Otis? Otis is that orphaned American-type, big, hairy dog that lives in Kamiendor. He is the one that I cut his hair over one year ago, and that had his part to play in that series of experiences that I had, that led to my finding God. Well, this time also, Otis proved himself to be a very exceptional dog. I am sure that Diana has seen this also. It happened the day before yesterday. We were in the room that afternoon, just having finished eating. The door was shut, and I was sitting on the rug on the floor and Diana was standing. Bondu was sitting at the table. Then, we all heard this "scratch, scratch" at the door. Not knowing it to be so, I mentioned "That's Otis.", as Diana went to open the door. It has been a very very long time since Otis has come to my room, but always he has met the door open, so he has never knocked before. Therefore, I had no previous experience to lead me to assume that it was Otis, but somehow, just hearing that scratch two times on the door, I just figured that it might be him. I didn't really think about it when I said it.

Diana opened the door, but I was sitting behind it a bit, so I couldn't see who was there. As soon as Diana caught a glimpse outside, she literally jumped back, closing the door at the same time, and almost falling over me. I then got up and opened the door to see who had scared her so, and there was Otis, sitting down facing the door. Nobody else was there. I was surprised, because I didn't really believe that it would actually be Otis knocking at the door. I really assumed that it was just one of the kids scratching a stick on the door, and then try to scare Diana when she opened it. Diana wasn't really scared, but just seeing Otis there was so unexpected that it made her jump back in surprise.

Otis came in and sat down. I figured, after that performance, we had to give him something, so I had Diana give him some of the evening rice chop. After that, he went to sleep, and Diana and Bondu were busy playing cards on the rug. They talked me into giving Otis another haircut, since he was now looking almost as bad as he did a year ago, so I agreed. All of the hair on his back half was matted together into clumps, so that was the first to go. The haircut went pretty quickly this time, since now I already knew how to handle Otis, and keep him from getting in the way. Even in all of his special spots, he didn't give me any trouble. I trimmed everything but his head, so now he looks alot better than he did. After that, he left.

The next day, yesterday, I had loaded up Diana and her load, and took her down to Densembadu to wait for a lorry. Then, as I was returning to Kamiendor to get my own load, I passed Otis on the road. He was in the process of trotting down the road, headed away from Kamiendor and towards Densembadu. I just naturally assumed that he was going to go see us off. I passed him by, and as I left him behind, I kept an eye on him in my rearview mirror. He just stood there, still facing towards Densembadu, but looking back over his shoulder at me and the Honda. I figured that my passing him left him left him with a dilema. He was in the process of going to see us off, but then here I was going the other way. I figured that the way that he was looking at the Honda, he had noticed that Diana wasn't there, so that he might just continue on to Densembadu. Also, if he didn't have quite so much sense, but just blind loyalty, he might turn around and follow me back to Kamiendor. That is, of course, assuming that he was out to find me and Diana. He might have been on some other errand completely.

I picked up my own load and headed back to Densembadu. I kept my eye out for Otis, but didn't see him. I sort of forgot about him then. I arrived back in Densembadu finally, and was just standing around, when I noticed Otis laying over in a corner. I asked Diana about him and she told me that when he first came, it was to her that he came, that he came up and nuzzled against her.

Otis truly is an exceptional dog. He seems almost human. The only difference is that he doesn't talk, but he usually managed to make himself understood. That dog has sense, noto common!

So Diana has now left for Freetown. She managed to get a seat on the #1 bus, so she should make it there without too much hassle. Today makes three full weeks that she has been up country, two of them with me. It was her first trip outside of the Freetown area in quite a few years, so I think that it will feel good for her to reach home again. I think that she has enjoyed her stay here, and we have plans for her coming back up with me when I next go to Freetown. It looks like the chance is there for me and Diana to spend the rest of my stay here in Sierra Leone together and then, if all that works out, possibly the rest of our lives together. I can't disregard the possibility of our getting married and living together in America, but I don't want to jump into it too quickly like before. Getting married to a black woman from Africa won't be all smooth sailing. there will be plenty of rough points and snags to deal with, and I first want to be sure that we are both able andwilling to handle them. These last two weeks were a big plus towards this. We were able to live together for two weeks and still come out friends. If we couldn't manage that, then the chances would have been that we couldn't handle the rest.


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