A wan lan krio - I want to learn Krio.

For the first 6 weeks Dave is theoretically taking time out of his challenging medical work in order to study Krio, the pidgin English language, which spoken properly it is completely unintelligible. We are using the learn-sentences-from-a-helper,-go-and-practice-with-ten-people-in-the-street method that we used successfully for Arabic.

Today we sat on a bench on a veranda in the rain looking at the exercise books of three 9 year olds, while we explored the subject of schools. This family just outside the hospital has become our ‘padi’s’ already. Apparently you have to buy your own uniform, books, pencils, lunch etc. The teacher salaries in Freetown are usually paid by the government, but up country they can work for nothing. Some children are beaten by the teacher if they don’t bring money with them.

People are keen on helping us and conversations sometimes take an unexpected twist; today a lady exposed both buttocks to show us her bullet wounds from the civil war!

PS Please email us with brief news and greetings, and any suggestions for the blog. Please send small sized messages; anything over 0.5 MB can take hours to download.