Pineapple and poda-poda parts

     We headed off-ship the moment I had a chance to change scrubs from night shift, packed 18 crew into our poda-poda, and careened through the countryside over pot-holed dirt roads towards a beach known only as "River Number 2."  It was a perfect sunny Saturday morning, and after 3 weeks I was starting to think it was about time I worked on finally getting off ship.  I nodded off against the rusting back of the seat in front of me, lulled to sleep with the blaring hip-hop Afro-pop music of national radio and "Sweet, sweet Salone (Sierra Leone)."

    The beauty of Sierra Leone's beaches is well-known; their draw only slightly lessened by the threat of riptides.  River Number 2 certainly lived up to expectations.  The white cliffs of sand surrounded by rings of forested mountains and clear blue-green ocean around the river mouth was the perfect peaceful setting to spend a day.

On returning to our poda-poda that afternoon, however, we were a little surprised to notice that one of the tires had been replaced with a concrete block.  "The poda-poda definitely looks knackered," Frances commented.  Knackered is a new favorite word of mine, a Brit expression for exhausted or worn out.  Quite honestly, what was more surprising for me was that more parts hadn't come off during the ride there.  By all rights we should have left a few bits behind in the potholes.

After realizing we might be stranded 2 hours from anywhere for quite some time we decided to break into our stash of food, and also find out what options were available locally.  Chris came back with a pineapple, and after realizing that none of us had knives we were momentarily stumped on what exactly to use.  In case any of you have this problem in the future, a pair of trauma shears (clean, of course) works surprisingly well!

 Fruit chutney Nik-naks (corn puffs) were also a popular hit after their initial slow start.  If you can get past the dubious flavor name these little treats are quite good.  Even Frances enjoyed them, after initially declaring she would prefer to eat the bag (boiled).  Various members of the initial group found alternative transportation home...the photo below is of the final "survivors."

Our driver Mohamed arrived back with the newly fixed tire and we bumped our way back with heads ducked to avoid hitting the ceiling on the bounces.  Expanding on Anna's earlier prayer for safety and traffic mercies, Heather prayed that all the poda-poda bits would stay on this time as we pulled out onto the familiar dirt road.  We arrived back in one piece, two shades darker from the orange dust that filtered in through the windows and streaked us in a muddy false tan.  Late dinner and a full moon on the rise were a perfect way to end the day.