And so it goes [Saturday, August 4]

Signs of the elections are everywhere All indications point toward a peaceful polling day, although this is the first true Sierra Leonean election since the war, as the the 2002 elections still had significant UN support, so everything is up in the air.

Sierra Leone hasn't been very nice to anything electronic that I brought...my computer seems to have been reduced to a heap of shiny white plastic. The fans whirl around at high speeds but it doesn't do much else besides make cryptic beaping sounds. I think the regular power surges involved with running on generators fried the internal organs of my iBook...

Such computer trauma will put a damper on this blog. I spent nearly five hours today in the internet cafe, re-typing the captions and writings (my original typed version is trapped inside the iBook) to go along with my students photographs. I left a group in charge of making all the logistics happen, so hopefully all goes well at the exhibition tomorrow. We'll see.

As I can't upload the accompaning photographs, you will have to be satisfied with a few selections of their writings:

3: Love for one another
This area is peaceful and lovely environment so
every one living in this place must be peaceful and must have love for one
another.
But is love actually flowing among Sierra Leoneans?
Well I
don't think Sierra Leoneans really have love for each other because one man in
his own selfish desire will want to grab a hold of everything and leave others
behind to suffer. Does that really show love? I believe no.
If every Sierra
Leonean practices that habit of loving one another as God above loves us all,
and as illustrated by the peaceful conditions in this picture, I believe things
may be better than ever before.
-Sahr

5: Faithful Friends never stop Loving
I try to keep the faith, skip the pain
off by meeting with friends to make fun, playing games and interacting with
young people in the society so that we can share the ideas up to these fine.
Things shall remain the same and these make me feel upset all the time about my
way of life, I feel like I am a loser and am greatly disappointed by my country,
out of all our beaches and preaches made out of poverty strategies still my life
is getting into mess.
-Mamadu