12th May - Mali-Ville

Nicki reporting!

We woke early, and by early I mean about 1am. For no reason other than it was again boiling hot. We spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, trying to appreciate that it wasn't quite as warm as Bassé but failing slightly. It means one never starts the day well, due to a lack of sleep and a desperate need for a shower that you can't have, but there you go!

So we set off once again on the road at 7:30am. The road was exactly the same as the day before if not worse as there were more steep inclines, more steep precipices (usually on my side I'll hasten to add), more pot holes and more boulders sticking out of the road. Progress was slow and hot of course, although we did benefit from a breeze.

About midday we happened upon a village in the middle of nowhere that had a primary school. David had a brainwave and we pulled over. It was a small school of about 50 students, but they were very well behaved and greeted us accordingly. The school itself was literally a rectangular room but it did have a corrugated iron roof and some windows so was better than some we have seen. We decided to donate all the Lego we brought out here for David and Abby's sponsor child in Burkina Faso, but of course we now won't be travelling that far. It seemed an ideal place because Guinea is such a poor country with little aid and these kids in the middle of nowhere had definitely never seen toys. So in we piled with all the Lego and showed the teacher briefly what is was for (a toy to play with but it can also be educational). Next minute the teacher has called in the entire class plus parents of the students plus anyone else who was in the area for a demonstration, by us! David said a brief introduction in French which the teacher translated into Malinke, the local language, saying who we were and where we were from. He then said a company called Lego has sent this as a present for you, to which we received a hearty round of applause and cheering! Following this the teacher asked if we could make something to David and I returned to our childhood and built a house, again to a round of applause. One of the students came and made a house after this which was pretty good considering he'd never seen Lego and had no concept of the idea of building something with plastic. Finally the teacher asked us to make a boat, so I had the brainwave of taking the house off the board and turning it upside down. Voila! We made our escape just after to another round of applause and au revoir's.

And so we continued on our way. We bounced and catapulted all the way along, I managed to leave the seat AGAIN and hit my other elbow although nowhere near as badly as yesterday. On the subject I have spent 24 hours realising you use your elbow for a lot of things: propping yourself up, pushing yourself up, leaning on in bed, etc etc all of which I have done and then yelped in agony as a result. It is one of those annoying injuries where there is nothing to see but it is incredibly painful, especially when continuing to jolt it around in the truck. Even shaking hands is painful! But enough about that.

The next eventful moment came as we crossed over a bridge. It was a concrete bridge with a slight lip on the approaching side but nothing anywhere near as bad as what we had been tackling. Next thing we know there was a huge BANG like a rifle shot and we realise the back tyre on my side had been punctured. How, we are still not sure. But the tyre and the inner tube were absolutely royally… destroyed! So in the middle of the day heat David got down to changing the tyre with me finding and handing equipment as and when it was required. However we attracted quite a crowd and in the end three men were getting involved and mucking in with the process. Quite a godsend really, as David was pouring sweat as it was! The job was done in no time and we were soon off on our way again, hoping that it didn't happen again as we only have one more spare tyre. David brought a puncture repair kit but this tyre was beyond that by a mile.

Soon after this I began to feel pretty queasy. Whether it was the heat, the bouncing around continuously for hours on end, the lack of lunch, dehydration or the fact I was inhaling a lot of exhaust fumes and dust I am not sure. In any case I was thrilled to reach Mali-Ville, finally, our destination. Just short of the town, yet another group of children gave us a wave and a spontaneous cheer as we went past. It's like being the Queen!

The town was something of a surprise. Firstly it does have electricity now in some places, secondly it is pretty big for a mountain community and thirdly it was totally buzzing with life. The first place we were directed to was a bar, we obviously looked like we needed a drink!! It wasn't cold but a fizzy drink all the same. Our paper work was checked by the Customs who tried to fill it in when they weren't supposed to and then they sent us on to the police. There was a problem here because our passports hadn't been stamped in Koundara, the first town we came to after the border. So they kept our passports until half five which was slightly worrying, but what could we do? We spent this time drinking a sprite and finding our accommodation for the night. L'auberge Indigo is a quiet little place up the hill so it is lovely and cool. It has gates so we are hopefully secure here and the man running it is trying really hard to make us feel welcome. He was attempting to make us do a 4 hour 7km round trip up a mountain, so David said I was tired and feeling a little ill from the journey. At which point he takes me to the back and shows me where the town clinic is and said I can go even in the middle of the night, I'm not even ill!

We headed down soon after to get our passports back, which we did in one piece. We wandered around the market for a while and David tried to take some photos but no-one was very keen. Some children were writing Koranic verses on wooden boards, which would have made a great photo, but when David asked they declined; he pointed the camera at them to gesture what he wanted to do and they scattered as if it were a grenade launcher! We bought some bananas and also some fried dough balls which are apparently 'gateaux' and have retired for the night at the truck. I hope it is cooler than last night!