There are no good students, just good teachers.

This last week, since tuesday we have been doing the training in informatics to the teachers of the nursing school. We have taught them some basic skills of computers, word, excel and power point and on saturday morning we will have our last class to evaluate if everyone had understood everything.

In the afternoons, we have been having walks around to show the village to Mireia, the new nurse. Today we went to see Javi playing football with the locals, we played with the children and we took some pictures of the team.

Yesterday we were invited to a celebration in the Brother's house. Here, the brothers, celebrate their saints instead of their birthdays and they use that day as a thanksgiving day. It was Mireia's saint too so she participated in the celebration.

 

Tomorrow we will go to a funeral of a beloved friend of the brothers and in the afternoon we will go to Makeni to buy some food for Jennifer's birthday party, that will be on saturday.

We are  enjoying our last days here as much as we can!

The last week is here!

This weekend unfortunately we didn't have internet and we have been disconnected from the world. Althougth it could seem tragic, it  has been peacefully and allowed us to live as in a summer camp, to start the weekend we went for a walk with some Inés friends who wanted to say goodbye to her.

On Saturday we woke up with a really intense rain so we stayed home working. In the afternoon we went to see again where the Ebola infected people where isolated and then we started watching a serie called ¨The Handmaid's tale¨.

After having dinner, we decided to say goodbye to Inés, who was leaving on Sunday, by making a camp fire and eating some toasted marshmallows. We had some trouble to decide where to make the camp fire as we were afraid of burning the garden that we finally made it inside a pot.

On Sunday we woke up without wifi and later the lights went off until the afternoon. We spent the whole morning chilling in the porch.  After lunch we said goodbye to Inés and we went to the hospital to get some internet connection so we could work a little.

As Inés left, Mireia arrived and brought lots of food with her (Nutella included). Today we have worked all the morning and part of the afternoon, then we have gone to the tailor to pick up some things we ordered and to show Mireia a little part of Mabesseneh. Now we are still watching the serie we started, we don't have good internet connection yet but Mireia brought all the seasons downloaded (we already love you Mireia).

Tomorrow we are going to start with the informatics training to the teachers of the nursing school and Javi will keep working on the electrical installation of the school.

Wish us good luck and we will keep you informed ;)

Working days

After a very relaxing weekend this days we have worked hard under the rain. It has rained every day but it hasn't stop us from working neither going to order more pieces to the tailor. As Quim always says, "hemos venido a jugar".

Today we decided to stop our work for a while and went to visit our friends at the hospital while they were teaching a seminar to their nursing students on how to pass an intravenous canula. Here you can see some photos we took during the seminar.

In the afternoon Ines and Bego decided to go beyond to the african culture and braid their hair.

This days Javi is working hard with Dani in the electrical installation of the school while Bego and Sonia are finishing the plans of the hospital and preparing a training in informatics for the teachers of the school.  

Let's go to the beach

As Murphy says, we woke up at 4.30 to go to the beach and it was raining; even though we got into the car and as soon as we went there we fall sleep again.

We first went to Freetown to change money, we had breakfast at a very good place called The Crown Bakery and we arrived to the market where the capitalism won. We spent lots of money there buying some random things.

Fortunately, when we went out from the market it had already stopped raining, we continued our drive to the beach and we could barely see Freetown, the fact that everything was really different from Lunsar and all the little villages we have seen before shocked us, in addition it was really different from any other European capital that we could have ever visited. There we discovered what "local way of driving" means.

After a rollercoaster with the minibus we finally got to the beach and there really started our relaxing weekend. 

We basically switched between two activities during the whole weekend, when the rain allowed us, we swom in the sea or we rest on the beach, but when started to rain we read or played card games at the porch. But as we said before, the capitalism has always been present during the weekend, so we couldn't avoid buying some things at the local shops and of course take some photos.

It was not a problem to decide what to eat, because there were only two options, fish or chicken for lunch and the same for dinner. Hovewer, everything was very good.

Jennifer's birthday is on the 19 but Ines is leaving this sunday so we decided to pre-celebrate it and we surprised her with a little cake made by a nursing student.

Now we are back into routine and here you can see some photos of our weekend:

 

The container is here!

After two weeks waiting, the container with all the material needed for the electrical installation of the school has finally arrived; it also includes lots of first need products and other things. It has been very interesting and funny to see (and try to help) how they unloaded it, in a totally contrary way than how it would have been unloaded in Europe. Here you can see some photos and wonder how they have downloaded everything without a pallet truck. 😂

 

In the photo above this lines you can see all the material needed for the electrical installation of the school; when we have finally ended unloading everything we could start helping Dani with the installation. 

 

Meanwhile Sonia and Bego continued with the plans, Bego has replaced Quim, the new marriage has to be kept in secret here, because if discovered we can end at the prison. 

Quim has arrived safe to Barcelona. 

Tomorrow we are going to Freetown and we will spend the weekend at the beach so we won't be updating the blog until sunday or monday. Try not to miss us so much!! 

First goodbye

Today we said goodbye to a part of our team, Quim. He is now going to the airport and yesterday we made a little party to say goodbye to him. After a hard-working day, we gave him a little present, as you can see in this photo:

Then we went to a party organized by Francesco, who have been here for 2 years as a Cuamm worker; for the occasion we were all wearing the same typical african shirt. We shared some drinks and some music with the locals and then we continued the party at home. We played some games, we danced and we ended up with a water battle. 

Today morning we have trained the administrator of the school how to use the school software, and he had learned very quickly.

Quim and Sonia continued working as a team/marriage and we had lunch all together. After that, Quim left to the airport and we went to the nursing school to made a little interview to our friend Patrick for one project. Here you can see a frame of the video:

Now we are going to the tailor to pick up all our gifts and clothes, tomorrow we will show you some photos.

Improvised monday

Today has been a kind of improvised day. The initial plan was to prepare a eschema of the content that we are going to explain in a training that we are planning to do with the teachers of the school, then go to the school to prepare the things to teach the administrator in the management program and them meet him to organize his training. But when we arrived at the school the generator was not working so all the plans changed. We brought the generator home to try to repair it, and we succeed!!

The only thing that we needed was a connector and we went to Lunsar to buy it.

When Sonia and Quim ended their work with the plans Quim and Javi went to play football with the locals. 

Switch-off sunday

Today has been a very relaxing day because yesterday was very complete and intense. We worked a little during the morning and then in the afternoon we went to Lunsar to buy more lapas and we spent like 2 hours at the taylor to order all the clothes we want. We ordered a t-shirt with the same print to everyone in the group, we will post a photo here when we have it.

After having dinner we got ready and we went party with Mohamed in Lunsar.

We spent the morning sleeping to recover and the afternoon have been like if we were in a summer camp: film, card games and dinner. The sunset has been very beautiful, here you can see some photos:

Intense days

After two days of inactivity we are back! These last two days have been very intense and we haven't got time to update the blog. We have been working on the hospital and we have finished the internet installation, we also have installed the server at the school, we have continued with the measurements for the plan and we are about to finish the floor plan.

We have also visited different places, on thursday we went to Lunsar with the initial idea of going to the market but we decided to walk a little more to see the beautiful landscape. When we arrived to the market it was closed. Anyway it was worthy because the views were incredibly beautiful, here you can see some photos:

Yesterday we had the first anecdote, Quim was feeling sick since thursday and his fever went up so the nurses that live with us decided that the best would be to test if he had Malaria. They made him a test and luckily it was negative; later, at night, the nurses saw that he was starting to develop tonsils so the Malaria theory was discarted.

In the afternoon, when Quim felt better we went by car to Makeni to visit the city and buy some lapas (pieces of fabric) to design our own clothes. It was raining a lot and we couldn't visit the city so much, but here you can see where we bought the lapas: 

When we arrived home we cooked our dinner and we made a different meal at our home. 

WETnesday

Today has been a rainy day so we have changed a little the schedule.
Dani was feeling sick so instead of continuing with the internet installation in the hospital, Javi and Bego have been working on the Academic Software for the nursing school, so we can install it there tomorrow, here is the result:

Sònia and Quim have continued with the plan, and as every day, they have not been lucky at all; to change that luck, in the afternoon, Javi and Bego joined them although it was raining. Today we have changed the walking for team work under the rain.

Now we are waiting to dinner and, for sure, it will be a very good meal, as the others; the food here is very good and tasty and the fruits are amazing. Here you can see us yesterday eating mango.

Another hot day in the office

Today, another hot day in the office, we have continued with our work. Bego and Javi have been worked on the internet of the hospital and Quim and Sònia have continued drawing the plan. After lunch, we have seen Dani fixing the electric pannel and then we have been splitted again. Bego and Javi have worked on the electricity of the solar pannels and Quim and Sònia have got some troubles with some angles of the walls.

 After work, we were supposed to have a football match with local children but finally we have found out there was a team training in the football field so we decided to go for a walk. Guided by two local girls we have arrived to Makindo, where we have found out that the villages placed near the road had more infrastructures than the farer ones. After dinner we have played some card games and now we are going to sleep.