My birthday, Easter & more beach pigs!

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Woohoo – Week 5 started with my birthday! Thanks for all the wishes I saw on Facebook! It was really nice to see them all! Just a norma day in the office turned into an interesting time at the Police Station. Em called me as she was down their reporting her camera stolen. The police wanted a witness so I toddled off down there. When I got there, they had already taken Emma's statement and someone next to her was giving s tatement on a different matter overhead Emma and admitted he was in a cell overnight with a guy who was boasting about how he had stolen a camera off someone in Mems on Saturday. Fortunately for Emma, this witness gave a statement and the police were happy they knew who it was and they could storm his house the following day. As the policeman was taking my statement, he asked me my age. He didn't seem to believe me so wrote on the official witness statement 25! Em and I insisted that he added on a few more years but he was quite adamant that I was the same age as my 'sister' Emma, so refused to change it from 25. Eventually, after a bit more persuasion, he added the additional 11 years. Unfortunately, even now as I write this, Em's camera has still not been found and we have a horrible feeling it is to do with the fact that she is not so keen on the policeman's texts and calls telling her how much he loves her. A little frustrating to say the least.

We celebrated my birthday by going to a restaurant above the supermarket. It was a lovely air-conditioned restaurant, and Emma had managed to get the manager to offer us 2 free bottles of wine for the occasion. What a treat! Cold wine! It went down very nicely! And for dessert I was pleasantly surpassed by a beautifully decorated cake that arrived. Not quite like the cakes you get at home, but Emma had worked closely with the chefs in the clubhouse and had managed to sneak off several times during the day to decorate it! Then, at prime cake eating time I was reminded that perhaps I shouldn't be eating cake as it was in fact Sedar night (first night passover) and the Bravo clan called me during the Sedar to wish me a happy birthday! Fun day was had by all.

Tuesday I went back to Lunsar (the base for one of our projects) and travelled on the back of Justin's (head of project) bike to Masimera which meant we travelled in a canoe across some water with the bike. The project in Masimera is ECIS (Every Child in School) so went and visited 7 out of 8 of the communities to tell them about the Marathon and how we will be coming back to visit with many of the international runners. They were all very excited and will be great hosts. I will split the runners into 4 groups and each group will visit two communities each and see the schools. Every school I visited, the kids came out to look at the white person. One school they all swarmed as if I was a foot going into one of the fish spas. One started and they all started touching. I think they genuinely think that if they touch me the white may rub off on them. It was an amazing but very tiring day. Eventually returned to Makeni with a head full of cold (strange in this hot weather but true).

Wednesday, Em, Marie and I headed to Freetown to a ELoH (Elizabeth's Legacy of Hope) meeting. ELoH is that charity that Pollyanna's mum and auntie started – for those of you that do not know Pollyanna – please take a few minutes to read her story as this is the story that confirmed Sierra Leone was a good plan for me. It looks like we could be getting some money to encourage amputees to take part in the marathon. Em and I sat and brainstormed how it would work and are super excited about my buddy idea. For every amputee that takes part, whether it is the full marathon, half or 5 km (or even our new mini marathon of around 1km) we will find them a buddy. The buddy is predominantly for safety so we will always know where they are around the course at all times, but the buddy should be able to raise even more money for the charity. They ELoH team seem to be very excited with all our proposals, including an amputee football match a few days before the marathon. Also, now we have contacts with the Sierra Leone Olympic Committee I am hoping that Mohammed Kamara, the only Sierra Leonean paralympic athlete at London 2012 will be a huge asset to the team. In the afternoon we went to visit Jenovive at the Hovercraft. To get from the airport in Sierra Leone to Freetown, you must cross a body of water which can be done in several different ways. We are negotiating with the Hovercraft for a sponsorship deal. Jenovive is lovely and seems to know a lot of people in Freetown and took us to Tessa's a brand new restaurant to trial some food as a possibility for the international runners.In the evening we watched some great cultural dancing, which made no sense, but was absolutely amazing to watch. My cold meant we left early.

Poor Emma had to share a room with me and unfortunately it was one of those rare nights, that when I lay down, I could not breathe. So I had to sit up… and wait and hope that I would be able to somehow lie down, breath and sleep. Two hours after Em dozed off, I managed to get some shut eye. We awoke to no electricity and no running water. I hope I never take such luxuries for granted in the UK again. We had to pack our bags by torch light and go without a wash for the day.

Thursday we had a productive morning in Freetown, a few more meetings including a music academy called Ballanta where we hope to get performers to entertain at our marathon events. Jenovive took us to lunch and we stopped at her house to meet some of her 20 dogs, and she said we could name them next time we go. Em and I splashed out an additional £5 to charter a taxi back to Makeni – I am not so good at squeezing into vehicles the local style.

Neil, an ex Army guy who now owns a security firm in Makeni, offered to cook for us – all 8 of us! He managed stew and yorkshire pudding and even let Em and I shower too. It is so funny how we get excited over a shower that barely dribbles, but to us it is amazing! Back in Makeni we realised that the 24/7 electricity we had been used to since I arrived in Makeni (that we got about two weeks before I arrived) was no longer. Due to the shortage of rain, electricity was being rationed which meant we could only get electricity from 7pm until 7 am. That is not too bad, I could still use the fan I have borrowed at night, but I have to be really on top of charging my laptop, mobile phone, camera etc.

Saturday we headed off to the beach for a relaxing bank holiday weekend. Back to Bureh and Prince William's place – Australeone. We have now recruited Prince to run the marathon too! Bureh beach is great for surfing, but it is very rocky and many of us got attacked by the rocks at the weekend. Being fortunate enough to be a relatively strong swimmer, I never quite understood how a strong current could sweep you away. Well now I understand. Phil and I decided to do a short swim around the rocks, and what seemed a short swim took quite a while. And within a couple of metres from the shore, I managed to whack my foot on a rock in true Tracey style. Unlike anyone else's injuries that weekend, I was the only one not to draw blood (although the pain certainly made me think I did!). I struggled to walk on it the rest of the weekend and Prince William kindly gave me a stick to help me walk (after he nearly used it to fight off people that were trying to steal our stuff!). There was quite a few of us at the beach, so for some it turned into quite a big night. For others (me) I toddled off to my tent to try and sleep to the sound of the waves.

The next morning, two of our Lebanese friends, Danny Devito and Emad took some of us to Banana Island. We hired a boat to take s the 30 minute journey to a beautiful Island where we relaxed and ate Lebanese food and had a drink. Emad, the pharmacist massaged my foot (that is what he called it but it really hurt and even made me cry!!). After some more relaxing we headed back to the mainland where we had a more gentle evening.

Monday morning we found a driver that would take us all back to Makeni. After choosing me for the front seat, I asked him if it was because I had the biggest bum and he replied 'yes' and laughed lots. The back seats had 4 people squeezed in each row so I was quite relieved as well as hurt that he chose me! He got his payback when he shut his fingers in the car door and phil had to use my new walking stick to prize the door open!Back to Makeni we went, to find the electricity had been rationed even more. Looks like we were not getting power tonight… so an early night and no power in our phones was had by all…Luckily there was water in the well so we managed to at least have a wash by torch light.

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