Breakdowns and baby snatching

Up at 6am and off at 7am for the first day in Maselleh. Unfortunately we don’t make it out of Kambia town due to an airlock in the vehicle. The lack of petrol stations in Sierra Leone mean that diesel has often been through numerous dirty bottles and jerry cans before it gets put in, causing dirt to create airlocks. We don’t have the correct spanner for the job, despite this being a regular occurrence (forward planning does not seem to happen much) so Alhajie is called for. He arrives with Moses (and a flat tire on his bike) and is unable to fix it. So another ambulance is called for.

We change over the kit and get on our way. Another 30 minutes on, in the middle of the bush, we stop again. This time we seem to be stuck in first gear and the ambulance cannot go on. Half of the party sets off to try and find a spot with mobile service and we gravitate towards a local house. The children are very scared of us here and run away, much to their parents’ amusement. We sit next to their fire with them for an hour or so, before deciding to walk to a market town we passed a few miles back. At the market we buy a delicious local version of sesame snacks and eventually the original vehicle (sans airlock) comes to pick us up. We return to Kambia town as we don’t fancy our chances of making it to Maselleh and decide to film the scenes in Kambia instead.

In the afternoon we head to some scrub land to film the first part of the Sick Pekin film. For this we need a pekin (baby). We mention this to Israel en route and he stops the ambulance, jumps out and grabs a nearby baby. He plonks it on my lap and we drive on. Without the mother. Not exactly equity guidelines but no-one seems worried.

Back at home after filming there is no sign of Abbas, so James and I attempt to start the fire. Luckily he rescues us just in time, and advises us always to wait for him as we are “very, very bad’ at lighting fires. I am glad Abbas feels he has the upper hand as he has been incredibly helpful but often fails to understand our strange Western ways. We are careful not to abuse his time when he is supposed to be revising but our insistence on doing our own laundry and washing up (mainly to ensure hot water is used) has meant he is often cast in the role of Dobby, the house elf who can’t do enough to help.

More pasta and a Heinz pudding, then a boy arrives from Hassan’s with a bag of coconuts. Bless him, we had asked him if it was possible to get fresh coconuts in Kambia and he has sourced some for us.