Kabala.

Back to Makeni again for a couple of days, and then we made our way to another town to visit an Indian VSO volunteer called Saahil. He has lived in Kabala for a couple of months and is the first volunteer there since the war, so far he's based alone but is waiting on more joining him soon.








Kabala is smaller than Makeni, it's cooler and dustier too, a touch more remote. In terms of things to do and see there is admittedly sweet bugger all, however we did have the fun of climbing one of the local hills, and then enjoying the breeze (from the Sahara I'm told). I found the climb quite difficult, but not impossible, at home I would have found it difficult too but the heat did make things worse. I drank three litres of water that morning. There was another climb too, to a higher local hill, which Michael and Saahil seemed quite keen to do, but I had to be a spoilsport there. We were approaching midday, and I had drank all my water, and climbing in the cooler morning had been difficult enough. I did insist I could find my way back on my own easily enough (which was of course a complete lie, but I would have given it a go, and most likely staggered into the first bar I found) but they came back with me.







There were a couple of other new experiences here, the first was a feast of goat (one to add to the meat list) and onions, cooked with a magnificent amount of pepper which was consumed while watching (sigh) Première League football. But then again I will confess to readily agreeing to the football, mainly because there really was nothing else to do (English football is very, very popular here, Arsenal and Man United being the most popular unsurprisingly – everyone I talk to knows where I come from in relation to Newcastle United). We also had a try of Poyo, now this is natural alcohol you tap straight from a tree, and takes some getting used too but I can see the appeal. It doesn't smell bad, just strange, and the taste is pleasant enough when you get used to it, the real challenge is that you need a good eight or nine mugs of the stuff to get drunk, and I do mean mugs.