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Tuesday, May 30, 1978, 8:00 am, Day 854
We are both here in Kamiendor now. Diana and I came up country Sunday, sleeping at Clay's house in Yengema. On Monday morning, I brought Diana into Koidu, and put her on a lorry for Kamiendor. I had some things to get done around town first, so I went to do them then. First, I went to check at the MEP office to see what the situation was on my materials. No so much to my amazement, I found that they had left all of the materials in Koidu. The arrangement was that they were to bring everything to Koidu and then make two half-load trips to get everything to Kamiendor. They never went to Kamiendor. This caused me to do some extra running around, and I ended up sending both a telegram and a letter down to MEP Freetown, telling them to do something soon.
I came on up to Kamiendor, and Diana had arrived about 1 1/2 to 2 hours before me. The road is starting to get bad. There are alot of puddles that have to be gone through, and alot of new ruts starting. Alot of the road surface is clay, on the verge of slippiness. If I were to travel the road just after a rain, it would really be slippery, especially on the hills, and I wouldn't be able to keep from sliding down into the ruts.
I found the bulldozer broken down again. It broke down right smack in the middle of the road. It looks like it had the road blocked, until people got busy and made a diversion into the bush to get around it.
When I arrived in Kamiendor, I found a letter waiting for me in my room. It was from Sue Gillikin, the primary education volunteer from Jaiama Sewafe. Part of her job is going around visiting schools, and so last week while I was in Freetown, she came up to look at the schools in this area. She spent 3 days in Kamiendor, using my room as a base.
Sue was impressed by the road, or more correctly, the road made a strong impression on her. The address on the letter was "Mt.Everest Kamiendor, via Devil's Run". Sue only has a Honda 70. She got to the bottom of the Kamiendor hill, put the Honda in first gear, and started on up. The motorcycle wouldn't make it up, and so she ended up falling down half way up, badly scraping her arm. Just about this time it started raining. After awhile she tried again, this time walking along next to the motorcycle. This didn't work either. She sat there for about 20 minutes, on the verge of tears the whole time. She was pretty much defeated. Finally, some people happened by, and helped her to push the motorcycle on up the hill.
Thursday, June 1, 1978, 8:00 am, Day 856
The last three evenings, Diana and I have played rummy. She has been wiping me out. She had 4000 points to my 3000 at the end of the second day. Last evening she was again wiping me out. At one point she was 780 points ahead (2315 to 1535). It was terrible. Diana was beating me just about every hand, and i couldn't seem to do anything about it.
Then I decided that I had to change my style. I went back to my old one, the one that I was using when I was first playing with Diana. That style stopped working before, but now that my present way of playing wasn't doing any good, I was desperate. It made a difference! By the time we stopped for the night, I had cut Diana's lead by 505 points, down to just 275 points (3315 to 3040). The last hand especially, I was in complete control, getting 180 points to her 25.
My strategy behind this present style of play is to keep control of the discard pile. To do this, I keep putting in cards that go with the ones in my hand. This then greatly increases my chances of picking up the pile. Then, with all of the discard cards sitting in my hand, that gives me a great selection to find cards to lay down for points. Also, it makes those cards unavailable to my opponent, so she just has to rely on what she can find in the draw pile. The only hazards in this type of play is that:
- If my opponent picks up the pile, then all of my cards which I put down are no longer available to me, so I would have nothing that goes together.
- When I pick up all of the cards in the discard pile, and then my opponent goes out, I end up with alot of negative points in my hand.
Saturday, June 3, 1978, 4:00 pm, Day 858
I just got done with a good day's work. We just finished pouring concrete for the tank foundation. We did about 5 cubic yards worth. I was in there mixing the whole time. We were lucky today, because the sun never really came out, so we didn't get overheated as quickly. We were half way through mixing the last big batch when the sky opened up and it started raining. The rain won't hurt this work, though, so it was okay. I was able to wash up, cleaning myself and my clothes, by just standing under the eves of a house.
My toes feel like they don't have any more skin on the bottoms of them. Cement always does that to me. It just eats my skin away. I knew it was going to happen, but the work came first, so I made the sacrifice.
Also, my back and shoulders are badly sunburned. I didn't have a shirt on all day today or most of yesterday, and those were the first days in quite awhile since I have been in the sun. My all-day-tan was no longer there to protect me.
Saturday, June 10, 1978, 8:00 am, Day 865
One of the ladies in my house had a baby this morning at about 5:30. The nurse guesses its weight at about 8.5 lbs. It sure doesn't look like a 2 1/2 hour old baby.
Sunday, June 11, 1978, 4:00 pm, Day 866
Today's work was pouring the concrete into the forms above the two doors and two windows of the tank base wall. The work is really looking good. So far, we have the walls for a concrete block, circular, two room house. Tomorrow, we will finish it up by putting on the last row of blocks. Then it is back to the old game of waiting for materials. I'll be going down to Freetown the day after tomorrow, so I'll check on it then.
Tuesday, June 13, 1978, 4:00 pm, Day 868
So it's agreed upon! Diana is coming with me to America for a visit. I've always turned down this thought before. Before, it has been that Diana wouldn't be coming with me this time, but that if everything was still going good at the end of my next year, then I would take her home.
Now though, I see that this 6 week visit home would be a great thing for Diana to experience. That would give all my family a chance to know her and get used to the idea, and it would also give Diana the chance to experience America, and how the rest of our lives together would be. Being that it is only a visit, and that we are both returning to Sierra Leone for another year, then it still leaves room to get out of the relationship. If Diana finds that she just couldn't see herself spending the rest of her life with me in America, then she would know that from this visit, and so she wouldn't feel obligated to come back with me again. I guess it would work the same way from my side. If I stayed with Diana all this next year, I would then feel obligated to take her to America as my wife. That would be a tremendously big decision for both of us to make. This way, with the 6 week visit, we both get a good chance to try it out and to see what problems we would be encountering. Then, once we were back here in Sierra Leone, we could sit down and decide one way or the other, if we wanted to stay together or if we wanted to end it.
With the 6 week visit experience behind us, that decision should be pretty easy to make. All possible problems that we might encounter with married life in America would be known to us, and alot of them would likely even be solved (or even dissolved) as a result of the visit.
About a week ago, all of the good points about Diana's coming home to visit occurred to me. It was then that I first saw this as a definate possibility. At that time, though, I didn't mention it to anybody. I just let it sit there in my head for awhile. This idea sat there in my head for a whole week, getting looked at, turned over, and poked at every so often. The idea of Diana coming home with me at this time was something that I didn't want to rush into. I wanted to think about it some more first, to see if it would still look good after further consideration.
I finally mentioned it to Diana yesterday. She seemed to be receptive to the idea, but wasn't really pushing it. We didn't dwell on the subject though.
Today, now, we were in Sefadu talking with the chief's wife. We told her about our plans. I said that Diana would be coming home to America for a visit. She asked me how my mother would react to the idea of my marrying Diana. I said that at first she probably wouldn't like the idea, but that once she got to know Diana, then she would be happy about it.
Diana mentioned that even if her own mother didn't like me, but that if she herself wanted to marry me, then she would marry me, even if it meant going to America, never to see her mother again. It was good to hear that Diana is willing to make that sacrifice, because a sacrifice it would be, to leave her home, go to a foreign land, possibly never to return.
We are going back down to Freetown tomorrow. I have to see about plane schedules and prices and reservations and visas and what all.
Also, I have to go see the people at the Ministry to try to get some more materials and transport money for the work.
I'm not looking forward to the hassle of getting a seat on the bus tomorrow.
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