Home Again.

The last week was spent in Freetown on the beach. We slept in a tent which we borrowed from a friend for the few days we stayed at the resort under a grass hut right on the beach – it was wonderful! We fell asleep to the sound of crashing waves. Sierra Leone remains to be place where few tourists come and visit however, the industry is slowly growing and development is being made. There were several times where we were the only ones out on the beach either sitting writing our report or walking along. It felt serial as nowhere else in the world with a white sandy beach like that one would you be the only one roaming. We were able to get a good start on our report, but there was still much to do and see in Freetown.

Monday was a relaxing day spent on the beach, swimming, report writing, meeting new people and shopping!

Tuesday we went into Freetown for the day with some new friends and toured around. We saw the famous Cotton Tree which is said to be over 100 years old, the government warf, visited the national museum, saw the national courts, visited the markets, went out for lunch etc. In the evening we played games with friends and chilled on the beach.

Wednesday was spent relaxing, packing and getting our hair planted one last time. We bought the products in the market the day before and our friend ended up braiding our hair for us.

Thursday morning we walked the beach and swam one last time before packing up the last few things and heading to the airport. We were dropped off at a dock where we took a speed boat across the peninsula, but once the boat reached the other side, the tide had gone too far out that the speed boast was unable to pull up close so we could all get off. To solve the problem, they had about seven workers carrying passengers on shoulders back and forth – never have we gotten off a boat like that before! All of our luggage was carried for us from the dock to the vans waiting for us further up on shore. We arrived at the Lungi airport without trouble and customs went smoothly as well. We were a little early for our flight so we went to the lounge, enjoyed some drinks and played more games. We flew to Banjul, Senegal for a short layover (crew change and to pick up more passengers) before carrying on to Brussels. We arrived in Brussels at 5.30 AM and enjoyed our 30+ layover as our flight was not scheduled to leave until 10.15AM the next day (Sat.). We locked up our luggage in the airport lockers, bought a train ticket and went into the city centre. We saw the Grand Place and enjoyed waffles for breakfast! It was delicious After savouring the sugary taste we visited an information centre, got our map and walked around the city seeing all of the highlighted buildings and places to visit. Before heading back to the airport at the end of the day we bought some fresh Belgium chocolate – it just melted in your mouth…yum! We slept in the airport for the night and then caught our flight the next morning were we arrived safely again in Toronto.

 It’s good to be home again, but we would have liked to have a few more days as it was hard to leave the people we have met. We each have learned so much and have grown to appreciate the education and infrastructure even more so here in Canada.

Thanks for reading along over these past 6.5 weeks and hope you enjoyed gaining some insight to our experiences had in one of Africa’s western countries, Sierra Leone.

All the best, Janis and Megan