Normalcy [Monday, July 16]

If an uneventful, typical day is possible for an American in Sierra Leone during election campaigning, today was that typical day. I stood in the rain, waiting for a taxi that was both going to Murraytown and with a reasonable driver not demanding more than Le 3000. I prefer to pay Le1600, which is the going price, but ususally don't feel like arguing more if I can get it down to Le 2000. I'll pay Le3000, but I won't be a happy camper about it. I finally found a taxi who only demanded 2000, but said he would have liked Le3000, claiming the traffic was heaby. His son had just died a few weeks ago, leaving behind a child right after graduating from Fouray Bay Collage, which cost the family a fortune.

Despite the windows being closed and the heat being on full blast to compensate for the "frigid" rain, I was still in a good mood - probably because while we were stopped at the gas station, a lady sprinkled FOM! laundry detergent all over the windows for three block (Le300) and washed the windows in the rain - so I ended up giving him 3000, even though he was nice enough to try and give the extra 1000 back.

After a quiet morning at HU, Ibrahim, the HU driver, dropped me off at Brookfields. I stopped by the internet cafe and walked over to iEARN, failing miserably to avoid the cars splashing water onto the sidewalks. I spent a few (unproductive) hours at iEARN and went back to the YMCA with Jyoti. I also brought Rajai, one of my students, back to town with us. He had borrowed my video camera to film a few things around his town and I had promised to show him how to edit the video once the generator at the YMCA turned on at 7. For barely having used either a video camera or a computer, Rajai's film turned out pretty well, although we still need to add subtitled translations of the Krio and maybe shorten it a bit.