Earlier this week I finally got out of Freetown. I met a wonderful Sierra Leonean artist/teacher living in London, Usifu Jalloh, who took us on a road trip into the provinces. In England, Usifu teaches children about Sierra Leone and has programs on slavery and resistance. One of his goals is to break down myths about Africa, and provide a more realistic view.  For example, just like not everyone in England is rich, not everyone in Africa is poor. He finds commonalities between African and British culture, often through music and theater, to facilitate cross cultural understanding. Because he's worked so hard to help foreigners understand the realities Africa, he is a wonderful person to tour around with. We started early Saturday morning driving east towards Makini, a city 90 km inland.  The landscape is breathtaking.  Green lush mountains boarded the coastline.  Grasses and palm trees line the valleys. Leaving the city that I've been in for a month was so refreshing.
Freetown is exciting – full of wonderful people.   But, I am not a city person, so it's a bit overwhelming for me. Like many cities, there are not many open spaces.  Buildings and people compete for space. We passed small homes along the roadside, made of earth and straw.  Others were made of concrete or bricks. First, we stopped in a small fishing village.  The beautiful white sand beach had the vibrant wooden boats typical to Sierra Leone on the shore, waiting for a group of fishermen to take them out. We stopped at a farm and saw how they make the local drink, palm wine.  Palm kernels are boiled, creaked open, boiled again, and then stepped on to create the sweet, strong fizzy drink.  We ate oranges right from the tree. Here, people just cut the tops off, and drink the juice. Even though people call them Oranges here, they are actually green and yellow. We stopped in some more towns, talking to people and having a great time. As we returned to Freetown, we watched a beautiful orange sunset cast warm light on the lush mountains and open ocean. Although Freetown is exciting, I hope to try and get out of the city more.  The atmosphere is more relaxed in the countryside.  There is a lot to experience out of the city. The main staple food here, other than rice, is a root called cassava. They make bread from it, eat it roasted, and use the leaves in tasty meat and rice dishes.  Everything I've had with cassava has been great! On the boat we have some Sierra Leoneans who help with watches.
They rave about cassava, and complain that we eat too many vegetables, and not enough meat, cassava, and rice. Well, I've got to go drive our night Sierra Leonean crew ashore in a few minutes in our small boat. Thanks for reading!

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