Dora is a grandmother who is believed to be 102 years old. She looks after her four grandchildren aged 5, 11, 12 and 14 because their parents died from Ebola.
She is at a time of her life when her children should be caring for her, instead she has suffered the loss of her own child and the hardship and hard work involved with bringing up 4 small children.
Benjamin is a normal 8 year old boy who lives in Sierra Leone, Africa. What makes Benjamin special is that he is the single survivor of a family of 14.
Since Sepember 2014 Ebola has claimed his mum, his dad, his sister, aunts, uncles and cousins. It is impossible to imagine how he must feel.
Today I followed Lamin, a Street Child voluntary social worker to visit some of his cases. I have heard some very sad and harrowing tales of sowing, loss, and sadness.
After a good night’s sleep at Kabba crossing. James and his son (the headmaster) took me back up to the school. They teach 283 children in a tiny building so mostly use outside under mango trees as classes. This is fine at the moment but in 3 weeks the rainy season starts. When it rains, all the children go to the building making any teaching impossible in such a crowded space.. They have a half built building next door that needs a roof before the rains arrive. They need a contractor to saw up large roof timbers and some more zinc sheet. PLEASE USE THE LINK ON THE MAIN PAGE TO DONATE TO STREET CHILD AND MAKE THIS POSSIBLE. I am sure that a couple of hundred pounds will be enough to open a new school building for this and the surrounding villages.
Today was about great bike riding on mountain roads and on jungle tracks, falling off a ferry into a river, seeing fantastic wildlife, breakdowns and hospitality in a remote jungle village. It is going to be a long blog. ..
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Distance 350km
Today has been a great bike riding experience it started with some straight forward good straight tarmac for high speed and burning kilometers. Then came some of the worst roads imaginable where the tarmac was either pot holed or missing for several kilometers at a time. I spent a lot of the time riding on the dirt beside the road rather than dancing around pot holes on the road. Finally I was back on good tarmac through fantastic hilly scenery with long sweeping bends.
This morning I only had a kilometer to go to the village where I needed to get my passport stamped. Right from the outset the steering did not feel right. It was notchy when turning rather than smooth. Ok when going straight and fast but very difficult when going slow and using the steering to help balance.
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Distance: 380km
I started the day unsure of where I would finish. The Michelin paper map showed an unpaved road between Bougoni in Mali and Kankan in Guinnea but neither Google Maps not Openstreetmaps said it was a complete road. They showed a gap and no route through. Internet searches gave no mention of a border post there. I decided to get to Bougouni and ask a local. If no joy then I would have to take a much longer route and stop overnight in Bomako, Mali.
Opposite the hotel in Bobo was a bike repair shop so first thing I wandered across to ask about them helping do an oil change (they do the mucky bits of a service) we agreed a price and layer I came across with the bike. While he did the oil, I checked the plug, cleaned the air filter etc. Half hour later the bike was serviced.
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Distance 350km
Last night I went to sleep with the sounds of a big thunderstorm. Lighting flashes were almost continual as was the rumble of thunder. I definitely made the right choice of not camping. I got a very good 9 hours of sleep and woke to a very different world to the one I left the night before.
