A lazy day of pig and pool.

Mennah still ended up being a pretty ace night, and grottily we made our way back the next morning. The upside of this was it was pork day. Presumably because of the high Muslim population, you don’t get to eat a lot of pig in Salone; local Muslims are big on the not drinking and eating pork, less bothered about modesty of dress (judging by the amount of titties on display in the street in general). However two pigs are killed a week (for all of Makeni) and you can buy it in the morning.

As we descended Michael and Kieran were summoned away; bad news was had, a traffic accident in Freetoiwn led to four VSOs being hospitalised and medi-vacced out of the country. Their taxi was run off the road by a drunk Red Cross worker in a four by four, then as they lay in the wreck they were robbed before anybody actually got them medical help. A really horrible way for things to happen to some very nice people (I met Ben and Chloe when in Freetown). But my presence wasn’t required for this, so I went to collect the pork.

This led to a rather bizarre incident once I had said raw pig, the bike I was riding was chased through the streets of Makeni by dogs, one of whom tried to bite my leg. Thankfully I had my combats on so no skin breaking took place, as had it done so I would have had to leave the country (no medical facility in the country has 24 hour power, meaning that people with animal bites have to be whisked abroad). Gave that little bugger a bit of a kick, if only to make the sod stop gnawing at my trousers.

But I got the pork back, and when Michael returned we cooked it and had a bit of an outdoor lunch and tried not to think about what had happened. It was like the Darling Bugs of May with less white tablecloths and more plastic tableware. And after that an afternoon of cold beers and swimming in the pool at Apex (which was, and there is no other word to describe it, manky. Not a fluid ounce of chlorine in sight).

We also had a couple of nights out at the real local bars (we were the only white people in there, just like I like it). One was a converted shipping container, with room for two barstaff and about six people. The other was a poyo bar. Local drinks range from a bit weak and weird (poyo) to pretty vile (local spirits) to alright but not as good as the stuff at home (Star Beer) - needless to say we had lashings of all three.