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Published: February 18th 2013
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So we were invited to be the guests of honour at a local primary schools league football tournament run by the Craig Bellamy Foundation for a couple of evenings last week. I've attached a photo of my favourite ever football kit including golfing socks, bless him.
It was a great few games and we were really impressed by the level of professionalism of the kids. The foundation encourages kids to go to school through football coaching and they can get points in the games and also by attending and doing well in school. If they don't go, they can't play. Its run by an awesome group of local young football coaches who really love teaching the kids to play and become the best the can be in all aspects of their lives. It was lovely to watch and its fantastic when a team scores – the whole school comes down to the pitch to support the team and they storm the pitch for about 30 seconds, all smiles and somersaults and then they disappear to behind the barriers again so play can continue, its mad! If you blink you miss it.
We are hiring this
professional line up :)
they all went along and shoot each others hands and everything stadium for a charity football tournament in March to promo the marathon. We will be bringing in local teams, a Street Child Staff team and expat teams to battle it out. There is even a women's team in Makeni so I'm putting a girls team together to go up against them. We'll also be challenging the guys.... in this heat.... I'll let you know how it goes! … :-/
Just in case you're thinking I'm not doing any work at all.....
We got to experience the gems that are the Sierra Leone beaches this weekend (its a bank holiday so you can't get anything done as everything shuts down!).... all I can say is..... Oh....My....Buddha!!! It was epic!!! Just so happened that our nice quiet sleepy beach that we went to was hosting a festival this weekend so it was bonkers! It was all surrounding a beauty pageant, which is apparently a massive part of the culture here (there were only 4 contestants!) but it was huge. They built a couple of wooden stages and had a VIP bar with armed guards at the gate.
Due to our blatant whiteness, apparently
it automatically makes you a VIP to social events so we got discounted entry because we were volunteers and we got front row seats for the pageant. It was all very exciting. We heard it started at 8pm so we went down at 9pm thinking that in typical African time, it wouldn't start until 10pm.... it started at 2:30am!!! And after a few Star beers, Lizzie decided she wanted to be a judge on the panel so I asked and it was so! Turns out there were 9 rounds to this blimmin thing and between each round, the girls took 30 minutes to get ready so by the end of round 3 its getting on to about 4am... I had to fake to be really ill so that Lizzie would be able to step down as judge to take me home. After her epic introduction at 'The only white judge from the UK with years of experience', it was hard to get away!
We camped on the beach for the equivalent of £3.70 which was pretty cool. Photos of the view when we woke up attached 😊
Camp tour starts Wednesday. I'm heading to
Freetown tomorrow for some pretty big sponsor meetings, one of which I set up and is very exciting 😊 Staying overnight, then heading out on the camps tour with Papa, one of the guys who works for Street Child Commercial. He's a pretty cool guy so I'm looking forward to it 😊 The girls are hosting a Pub Quiz at Clubhouse on Wednesday and we're doing a cocktail party on Saturday to raise money while the rugby and football is on. I am, according to the posters, one of the 3 best mixologists in Makeni!
Gotta dash as got lots to do and its even harder to work on a bank holiday!
Hope you're enjoying half term Jessie, and great to speak to you Lou 😊 sorry I interrupted your meeting!! haha 😊
And Dan, please reply to my email!!!
Big love and hugs everyone
xXxXxXx
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Sue
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Settling in!!
Hi Honey, Looks like all is well and you are settling in and aclimatizing, Daddy had a fit last night when it said on the news someone had been kidnapped in Nigeria, he's OK now he knows that's a few countries away! All well here, Daddy away all week in Birmingham, at a show, me and Zippy fine, I am doing some decorating! and keep fit for our ski holiday. Enjoy the sun and send some back for us xxxxxx