Kambia, Continued

At 2:00 am this hot, muggy morning the electricity went off, which means the fan keeping us cool stopped. Ugh! We arise at 5:30 and take our nice cool bucket shower. We are thankful for the outside deck that felt wonderful at 7:00 am.

The family brings breakfast of rice banana balls with a savory fish sauce. This fresh African cooking is spoiling us!

We drive to the Guinea border and visit the border control station. It is shared by the two countries. We are able to have a nice tour and allowed to cross into Guinea for about ten minutes.

Our next stop is the rice research station. Unfortunately the workers were in strike, so didn’t see the research. We were able to see the rice fields and a few workers harvesting the crop. A young research scientist spoke to us about the research. He said the fields are shared with the local community women so they could plant their gardens. This cooperative effort allows the women to help support their families and brings badly needed nutrients back to the soils.

We drove to the port along the river. Here the women gather to buy fish from the fishermen. It was a feast of color with the women’s dresses and the painted boats.

We are back on the hospital grounds for a tour of the hospital. The wards are one room with around 18 beds. The equipment and resources are old, but they seem to make do. The maternity ward was busy with mothers and babies and an ambulance bringing more.

We have another tasty African dish. It was a vegetable combination of sweet potatoes, potatoes, cassava root and plantains topped with another savory sauce with fish.

We are back to our hotel after a three hour drive.