Friday, October 25, 2013

Traveling Back to Freetown

by Heather Quinn

We eat a big breakfast of beans, eggs, spam, and bread before packing up our things for our travel to Freetown. We say goodbye to Uncle Bens staff. One of the staff members had approached me last night and in broken English says 'shoulder pain.' Upon further questioning, it turns out he has a large under arm abscess which he proceeds to show me in the middle of the dinning hall. We called Phebian to bring antibiotic for him before we leave for Freetown. We say a prayer and hit the road. 

The first stretch was very bumpy and we dodge potholes left and right. We came up with a new slogan for Toyota. "No road. No problem. Toyota Tundra." We decided that we could shoot some video footage of our truck handling the pond sized pot holes filled with water and sell it to Toyota for profit for our project. Not a bad idea, right? This truck has been a huge blessing. About an hour into the drive we saw two people approaching us screaming and running on the road towards our vehicle. We slow down to find out the story. Apparently, they were riding on the back of a motorbike and the driver asked them to step down while he maneuvers around the pot holes. Just as they got off, the driver sped away with their belongings. We felt bad but there was nothing we could really do. Phebian says this is very common, unfortunately. 

We continued on our way for another hour when we came across a traffic jam of 3 trucks stuck in the mud preventing people from passing. We got out to survey the situation. After 30 minutes of negotiations, we decided to wait it out. To turn around and go all the way back and around to the other route would put us back 2-3 hours. We patiently waited and witnessed a volunteer pit crew push and pull the big bus out of the mud. It was the main vehicle in the way and was quite a sight. After, we jumped back into the Toyota and Mohamed steps on the gas to get us through the mud pit. Once again, our truck handled beautifully and we were able to pass through. We saw ahead in the distance, another bus stuck in the mud. Mohamed decided to take a detour through a few yards - asking first of course - dodging rice laid out and children. This may sound dangerous but we were going about 5 miles an hour. No rice or children were injured. 

After safely navigating that excitement we settled in for the bumpy ride until Makeni which is were the road turns to pavement. It felt like heaven as we finally - 3 hours later - made it to the paved road. We were joking that we will have 'abs of steal' as we were bopping around in the back trying to steady ourselves over the bumps. A short time later, we heard a grinding noise under the truck. Mohamed decided to stop in a village where there was a mechanic. We pulled up to what looked like a parking lot with a tent in it. Thankfully, they have a mechanic and assessed our situation. We needed a new break pipe. We spent about an hour there and as we were waiting children are running up to us, then they stop and stare. We felt like we were on display and I suggested that we make up a dance routine for entertainment. We decided against it and just asked the children their names and ages. They of course wanted us to 'snap' them which means take their picture. 

Once our truck was fixed we pile back in and continued on our way. About an hour later we came into a village that was clearly stirred up and people were running down the road. We saw a short ways ahead that there was a piece of heavy equipment tipped over on the side of the road with people frantically searching around it. After slowing down, Kirk jumped out of the car to assess if there are injured people. The rest of us sit tight until Phebian says 'Heather let's go.' I followed her down the the hectic situation and we found out that the heavy equipment had fallen off the back of the truck it was on. There was someone riding on top and he was no where to be found. He was either thrown or under the equipment. Kirk searched around the area and couldn't find any evidence of life. The only place left was under the equipment. We said a silent prayer and get back into our truck to continue our journey. This type of accident is unfortunately too common here. It was a sad thing to witness and from what we could tell it had just happened before we pulled up. 

We approached Freetown and the traffic started to thicken. Phebian suggested we take a shorter route through the mountains but the road was not quite finished, although passable. We were cruising along fine when we noticed a traffic jam up ahead. Another car stuck in the mud. By this time it was 6pm and we had been traveling for 8 hours. We stopped to assess the situation. We were literally on the side of a mountain cliff. We got some great pictures keeping in mind that one false move and it's down you go. There was a bulldozer trying to help the stuck car but it was taking along time. We heard from other bystanders that the road continues to be a challenge even beyond this point. Since darkness was falling we decided to turn around and not take our chances on the risky road. We decided to brave the city streets of Freetown that we were trying to avoid. The streets were crazy - narrow, congested, slow, polluted, people everywhere, horns honking - worse than New York City by far. After 1.5 hours we finally made it to a hotel which will be our home for the next two nights. We were famished at this point and decided to go eat right away. It's 9pm by the time we arrived. 

We are exhausted from the 12 hours of travel and all the crazy accidents we witnessed that day. We were also grateful that we made it safely and in one piece - truck and all. God is good.

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