We are all resting up in Nzerekore today. A few on the truck are quite battered and bruised and we are all in need of a break. We are really lucky that we have a formidable nurse in board who has spent years in Africa and is sorting out everyone’s ailments. Two people have infected feet, our driver is covered in bee stings and blisters, quite a few have head colds and a lot of us are just buggered. The truck (Amineh) could also use a bit of TLC as she has had a rough time in the past few weeks. Jason gave her lots of love today.
I was on cook group again tonight which is fun as it gives a purpose to having a good wander around the market. We ended up buying a 6kg side of beef, from a butcher with a bloodstained apron and no refrigeration. It was almost enough to put me off eating meat. Thankfully I am with a professional chef who is happy to figure out how to butcher the meat. We went all out and planned to do garlic bread, tomato/cucumber salad, coleslaw, avocado and steak, followed by bananas roasted on the coals with nutella. The ladies in the food market (and yes it was ladies) were mostly friendly but few of them wanted their photo taken. It is a mostly Muslim town, so most people say no to photos, and actually shout at you if you look like you might be taking a photo.
We visited the mask market and I bought a Nimba – the national symbol of Guinea and also of fertility. This is probably the cheapest place in Africa to buy masks, but there is only so many masks you can get in a backpack.
After that, it was an active overlanding afternoon of laundry and lying on the bed in our underwear watching Star Trek on the laptop (it’s too hot for clothes), followed by a quick swim. What a perfect way to spend the day. The only thing that would have been better would have been if the electricity had been working so we could have been chilling in the aircon (the power is only on from 7-7)… oh well, electricity is a luxury I am learning to live without. We were also well amused by our howling toilet which makes a haunted screaming noise whenever we flush it.
On laundry day we all wear our emergency clothes. Air France lost one of our group’s luggage on the way to Freetown, so we bought him a delightful local shirt, which he has refused to wear until now, when he has no choice…. I particularly like the mesh sleeves and ‘hwos your daddy’ logo. 
Dinner went well in spite of a howling thunderstorm rolling in as we were prepping and before we got the BBQ on, so the garlic bread was deconstructed, and the ‘roasted’ bananas were raw, and we told people to use their imaginations.
Nzerekore November 30, 2016
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