According to the Lycklamas “Everyone Should Have a Family”

Kaelynn, Amber and Ryan with parents Trina and Jason

The Lycklamas are an athletic family. Cycling, hiking, mountain climbing, hockey…and running! And the whole family are now officially Old Guys, supporting Mully Children’s Family in this weekend’s races.

Dad (Jason, AKA "the Machine") is running the 10K. Mom (Trina, a runner herself) will supervise Kaelynn (10), Ryan (7) and Amber (5) in running the Kids’ Marathon. The kids committed to running 41.2K in stages. They will run the final 1K along with the elite marathon runners on race day.

As a family, they’ve done an amazing job in fundraising for Mully Children's Family, home for thousands of former orphaned street kids. Thank you!

Why fundraise? Why run? According to the Lycklama kids, “Everyone should have a family and we should help those who don't have one to get into one."

Well put. Well done Lycklamas!

Calgary Ultra-marathon legend Nicki Rehn is an Old Guy!!!

Nicki is a nice lady...but a bit flighty!

I have always loved running.  It is the simplest form of adventure because all you need is a pair of shoes (or not even) and a place to explore.  I run for many reasons - for fitness, to compete, to explore new places, to push my limits, to decompress my day, to kick-start some creative process, to breathe fresh air, as a social occasion, as an excuse to travel, and for the pure pleasure of moving swiftly across some terrain.

I have done eight full marathons, two ironmans, eleven ultra-marathons (included one that was over 200 miles), fast-packed 1000 km across SW Australia, and represented Canada in long course triathlon.......and I feel like I'm just getting started! 

I choose to run for the Mully Children's Family because it is a way of bringing together my three great loves: Africa, education and running.  I spent four years living and working in West Africa and thus have a special connection to the continent and her people. And, at very my core, I am an educator. 

It a pleasure to support and represent this organization at the Calgary Marathon in 2012 by becoming an "Old Guy". Click here to sponsor our team and support Mully Children's Family!

Marathon Instructions: Put one foot in front of the other. Repeat 100,000 times!!!

Ross and Mini-Mully at Yatta, Kenya in 2010

Over the past 23 years, Charles and Esther Mulli have adopted over 6,000 kids! They currently have over 2,000 in their care...and Charles knows them all by name. Back in 2008 Bernie invited me to hear Charles talk here in Calgary. His story impressed me so much that I remember saying to Bernie on the way home, "We need to do something to help Charles in his work...I know, let's do a fundraising run across Kenya. To which Bernie replied, "Absolutely...I'm in! How far is it across Kenya, anyway?"

Turns out it is about 1000 KM. We've been training and planning ever since. The Calgary marathon is an important milestone along the way. After all, we need to be able to do this marathon without expiring if we ever hope to do over 4 marathons a week for over a month by 2014.

Thanks for your support and thanks to all the other Old Guys in Action: Team Mully Children's Family 2012 Calgary Marathon team members. One foot in front of the other...repeat (100,000 times!) Click here to donate through the Calgary marathon website!

Got to love these kids!

Two of the 2,000+ children currently under the loving care of Mully Children's Family. Bernie, Ross and Claire toured this home in Yatta in 2010 and were so impressed with the facilities, staff and programs. Water catchment basins and pipelines to assure clean water for drinking and agriculture, education and training facilities, reforestation and greenhouses...and so much more. But it was the tragic, yet heart-warming stories that made such an impression. Many of those cared for at Yatta are women who have escaped the sex trade with the help of MCF. They are being trained in a variety of trades that will put them on a new and positive track in life. Their children are fed, schooled, given medical attention and a real chance to blossom with positive role models. Their future is bright.

Thanks to those who are sponsoring Old Guys in Action: Team Mully Children's family in the May 27 Calgary marathon! If you haven't given yet, we'd love your support...All funds raised goes to Mully Children's Family and will make a real difference! DONATE NOW!

Old Guys in Action: Team Mulli at the Calgary Marathon. Join us and Run for a Reason!

Old Guys in Action is sponsoring Team Mulli in this year's Calgary Marathon. As a (soon to be) official charity at the May 27, 2012 event we would love you to join us in running the full or half marathon, 10K, 5K or...get your kids involved in running the Kids' marathon.

Runners will be asked to help raise funds for Mulli Children's Family, an inspirational family of over 6,000 ex-street kids, former prostitutes and aids orphans founded over 20 years ago by Dr. Charles Mulli. His is one of the most compelling stories of our generation (check out the "About Mulli" tab for more info).

Want to run? Stay tuned. As an official charity, Team Mulli runners can register at special discounted rates. Details to follow, but send us an e-mail at info@oldguysinaction.ca to let us know you are interested.

Want to sponsor a runner? We'll let you know how in upcoming posts. Thanks!

Winter Training in Calgary. Got to love it!

The Plunge was Brrrrr-ific!

Thanks to the 23 hearty souls that jumped in the third annual Polar Bear Plunge...more than doubling the number of plungers from last year. Thanks also to:

• Sponsors and donors who helped in raising close to $6000 for Mulli Childrens Family in Kenya
• Dave and Javino for hosting to post-plunge party
• Volunteers who helped to set-up, take down, film, canvas and count the proceeds
• Shelley, our tireless Communications Director who coordinated communications, promotion and media contacts for this year's event.

Ron Isaac: Ice Fishin' in Style.
 MORE PICS ARE POSTED ON THE POLAR BEAR PLUNGES TAB
Got MORE pictures? Send them to us, we'll post them in the PBP Archives.

Bigger and better next year! Mark January 1, 2013 in your calendars. Spread the word. There must be thousands out there who are chomping to have the chance to chill for charity.

Update: December 10, 2011

Welcome and congratulations to brave volunteers who will be "taking the plunge" on New Year's Day!
Ross Weaver, Adam Weaver, Alexandra Weaver, Bernie Potvin, James Potvin, Gabe Potvin, Kate Larose, Colin Scheer, Karen Lalonde, David Wayne, Grace Corry, Ron Isaac, Preston Fabbi and Jason Lycklama.
More to follow in the coming days.

Follow us on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/oldguysinaction  for details, videos, photos and more

Do You Dare to Bare???!!!

3rd Annual Polar Bear Plunge! January 1, 2012 2:30PM

We're at it again!

Where? Pond above waterfalls, behind 329 Discovery Ridge Blvd

Why?     To raise money for Mully Children’s Family: Home of over 2000 orphans rescued from urban slums in Kenya. Pledges welcome and tax receiptable.

  

Can I Plunge?   Can I Watch?    Can I Donate?

   

Yes! Yes! Yes! Details to follow soon!

At age 6 Charles Mulli woke in his Kenyan village hut to discover his parents had abandoned him.  He went from hut to hut begging for food and scraped out a meagre existence. After years of struggle, Charles worked his way out of poverty, married, raised a family and excelled in business, becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Kenya. At the height of his career, Charles felt convicted to give away all his resources to help street children from slums in Kenya. Twenty years later, Charles and Esther Mulli, their biological children and MCF staff have rescued over 6,000 street children from lives of abuse, addiction and abandonment. www.mcfcf.org (Cdn Foundation) or http://www.mullychildrensfamily.org/.

Tɛnki, Tɛnki!

The Old Guys are home safe and sound!
We’ve had about a week to reflect on the amazing experience that was
the CAUSE Canada Tour de Sierra Leone.
Here are a few of our thoughts as we process the experience.

1. First, we are tremendously grateful to you (and about 150 others like you) who recognized the need and responded to the opportunity to make a difference to many thousands of women and their families in Sierra Leone. We are truly humbled by the response and support you have provided. At time of writing we were within a few thousand dollars of our stretch $50,000 goal…and have every expectation this target will be exceeded. Thank you so much! 


2. The birthing hut program will make a difference. We saw these huts in operation and met some of the Maternal Child Heath Care Attendants. The huts are well constructed and equipped. The attendants are dedicated and trained. On average 25 at-risk women use the services of each of these facilities on a monthly basis. At over 250 women per hut per year, times the 12-15 that will be built because of this initiative, over 3000 women will have dramatically higher chances of surviving and thriving through childbirth…each year. 

What’s more, CAUSE Canada has applied for matching grants for the funding provided through the Old Guys in Action initiative. We anticipate that your donation will be matched on a 3:1 basis. This means your donation will make three times what is already a very significant impact!


3. The issues that led to Sierra Leone having the highest maternal mortality rate in the world (1 in 8, versus 1 in 11,000 in Canada), are complex. They are the product of history, culture, war, poverty and other factors. Birthing huts on their own will make a big difference, but we applaud holistic approach we witnessed that CAUSE Canada is taking involving education, women’s literacy and empowerment, nutrition and health training, agriculture, clean water and micro-enterprise. CAUSE’s long-term commitment with its national staff and community leadership and involvement are having a sustainable impact. 


At a more macro level, we were encouraged to see an increased level of economic activity, investment in infrastructure, and focus on local and national governance that bodes well for the future of the country. At the airport as we were leaving the country, Paul Carrick, CAUSE Canada Founder ran into a former CAUSE national staff worker. He had worked for CAUSE at a refugee camp after the war and honed his leadership abilities to the point that he was subsequently hired by the UN in Sierra Leone. Fast forward…this gentleman has since earned a PhD from England and holds a leadership position with the UN with responsibilities in other countries in Africa. A good news story where investment in good people at the local level by CAUSE Canada is having a significant international impact.


The purpose of Old Guys in Action is to provide opportunities to Learn, Engage, Network and Support best-in-class organizations working to address complex development issues. CAUSE Canada is such an organization. We feel privileged to have partnered with them on the Tour de Sierra Leone, and we encourage you to continue supporting CAUSE Canada on an ongoing basis.

On behalf of “Old Guys” Jon, Bernie and Ross, 

CAUSE Canada staff in Canada and in Sierra Leone 

and the many thousands of beneficiaries of your generosity…

as they say in Krio…

Tɛnki, Tɛnki!

May 14

Well, today is a very big day and it represents many things.  If all goes according to plan, it will be the end of the big ride, the fulfilling of our commitment to the donors to actually ride the 500 km, the proof that it can be done and that we Old Guys can do it.

With the aid of Ross' satellite-linked watch, we have taken great care to keep an accurate account of the distance we have cycled.  As of this morning, Bernie still needs 14 km (in addition to today's Freetown ride) to get his 500 km in. Ross has money business to tend to with Oumar this morning, so I ride out with Bernie through the highway construction zone to the land o' puddles and back to make up the difference.

When we return, we pack the bikes onto the pickup truck and head to the start of the procession.  On the way there, the mood is of anticipation and excitement, mixed with the melancholic disbelief that this is really it.  After this ceremonial ride, it's over.  No more slugging it out over mile after mile of dusty red dirt roads, washboard, sand, bedrock and puddles, drinking gallons of water and
dozens of mangoes and protein bars and trying to stave off dehydration and heat prostration.


We arrive at the start of the ride: a beautiful, long stretch of white sand beach that runs for kilometres.  We saddle up and ride, escorted by the CAUSE Canada vehicles, Sierra Leone national television and other media along the beach road and through the streets of Freetown. Don't get me wrong.  This is a modest event - one that attracted little attention on the street, but we take advantage of the protection of our entourage to ride three abreast and ham it up a
little for the cameraman in the truck ahead of us.

The ride ends humbly at the hotel we are to stay at tonight, but the occasion calls for speeches and interviews for the media, thank-yous to all who made the Tour possible and an announcement by CAUSE's Sierra Leone Country Director, Mr. Arthur Cummings:  The Tour de Sierra Leone will become an annual event!


The bikes we have become so attached to over the past 14 days [ha ha] will now be put into duty in various CAUSE purposes around the country.  So, I take a last look at the front tire that I have watched spinning countless revolutions (ok, so I had to do the math - roughly 115,000 revolutions) through this journey.

So, the Tour de Sierra Leone has come to an end.  At the same time, according to Mr. Cummings' announcement, it has just begun.  Yet again, I feel privileged, humbled, and blessed to have been a part of it.  I am overwhelmingly thankful that we were able to stay healthy and safe, sustaining only minor scrapes and bruises and the odd saddle sore.

We owe a huge debt of thanks to our CAUSE support team on the ground: Oumar (co-ordinator and guide), Augusta (food, specializing in groundnut stew and Mango Powah) and Essa (driver and mechanic).


The whole point of our going through all this is to raise funds and awareness for a very worthy cause, so, if you haven't already, please do support what we have accomplished here by donating securely online to the Birthing Huts Program at www.cause.ca/donate (designation: "Old Guys - Le Tour de Sierra Leone").

Thank you for following along on the saga of us three Old Guys in the Tour de Sierra Leone. Stay tuned for more (and bigger) photos and some video footage!

JW

May 13

Theoretically, today is a day off the bikes - a welcome rest for our saddle-weary posteriors, butt [sic] the Old Guys love to RIDE.  We just can't help it.  Besides, we pledge to accompany Bernie as he rides extra distance to make up for the 45 km he missed when he was working on teacher development at Makeni University.  

So, we cycle an "out and back" along the dirt we rode in on and include an exploration of a challenging single-track trail we find that branches off along the way.  I end up taking another little spill - nothing serious.

Back at Franco's, we cool off with a swim in the ocean and I try body surfing for the first time.  Of the dozen or so waves I tried my hand at, I did catch one just right - what a great feeling!

Wayne's Special for lunch (pasta with a creamy lobster sauce) and then a short paddle up the river to look for crocodiles.  Ross spies one, but Bernie and I miss it.  The boat is not enough action for the Old Guys, so we run the 1.3 km along the beach back to Franco's.  As you can see, this "day off" turned out to be more like "triathlon day."

Around the dinner table (barracuda again - I just have to do it!), the conversation turns retro- and introspective.  War stories start to emerge, encounters with all manner of danger and hardship those around the table.  For Ross, it was his posting to Ethiopia during the famine, starvation abounding and death in the air.  Our sister, Bev was there too, fresh out of McGill nursing school and posted to a remote village clinic with a long line of people with diseases she had no experience with.

Paul recounts his time in Freetown when every NGO except CAUSE Canada fled the country.  CAUSE was involved in a refugee camp in Waterloo and it was a very strange and dangerous time indeed.  Often, such are the lives of those driven to fight darkness with light.

The conversation turns to the philosophy of international development, a cause Paul and Bev have dedicated their lives to.  Education (Bernie's bailiwick), UNDP Millennium Development Goals, CIDA, CAUSE, Old Guys in Action... Does any of it really make a difference?

I am, all at once, humbled and inspired by it all.

I will have a whole lot of processing to do when I get home to Canada.

Tomorrow is the triumphant ride into Freetown and the finish to this Tour de Sierra Leone.  Good night.

JW

May 12

This morning we visit another CAUSE Canada birthing hut locations, this one built from the funds raised by the Rotary Club of Canmore, Alberta.  Once again, we drive well into the bush where another village depends on their birthing hut to help them beat the odds and deliver healthy babies... and once again, we are deeply touched by the sight of the real lives this project is saving.

To help sate our taste for remote bush trails, we decide to bike out from this village to the main road. We then drive to another bush track that was recommended by Moses James the night before and it turns out to be some of the coolest single-track action thus far.

Eventually, this leads to typical dirt road, then to pavement.  We plunk our sweaty into the pickup and drive to Waterloo.

Waterloo is a sprawling urban space with market stalls and shanty houses, but with paved roads. Here, we get on the bikes again for the ride to Sussex.  After two hours in the pickup truck, we feel like we have been ridden hard and put away wet, which is exactly the case, come to think of it.

Back in team road-riding mode, we head out of Waterloo in tight formation against a strong headwind on a beautiful new, but hilly, two-lane highway.  We all feel the wear and tear of this long day and at one point we use one of our rest stops to actually stretch out on the road to rest our parts.  A short time later we are buoyed by our first glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean (!) and the sun setting between the Peninsula Mountains on the right and the Atlantic coast on the left.  Beautiful.

When the highway ends, we're back to dirt / what used to be pavement. During the war, the rebels tore up many of the paved roads to make it more difficult to be followed.  We cycle through an enormous highway construction project that will connect Waterloo to the nation's capital, Freetown.

One particularly bad section of dirt road sends us pedalling through through a pothole puddle so deep that Ross and I both get shoe soakers.  Hey, when you're in the deep end, it's either pedal or swim!

At long last, we pull into Florence's Resort (formerly, and more commonly known as Franco's), founded by Franco & Florence, an Italian couple who have been running the joint since the 1980s.  It is a beautiful little place on the beach, with a restaurant that specializes in Italian dishes and especially barracuda!  Franco speaks an incomprehensible mixture of Italian, Creole (and maybe English?). I do a fair bit of nodding and smiling.

After a gruelling day of jungle track, dirt, back seat of pickup, then back to road, construction site and dirt again, Franco's is an oasis, a welcome respite and a chance to recover a bit before the push to the finish line.  Paul and Larry are there as well.  Ironically, in the room Ross and I share, the shower has scalding hot water... but no cold water.

... but the grilled barracuda is amazing.

JW

May 11

Theresa Benjamin is simply one of the most formidable people I have ever met.  During the war in Sierra Leone, when rebels were abducting children, drugging them and turning them into child soldiers, Theresa saved countless boys and girls by walking miles and miles barefoot through the bush and risking her life to rescue them.  Trained as a nurse and highly experienced in maternal and child health, Theresa is in charge of projects in the southern half of the country and heads up CAUSE's birthing huts project. I met Theresa in 2000 when I ran CAUSE Canada Atlantic. She is simply a force to be reckoned with and, incidentally, a ton of fun to be with.

Today, Theresa takes us to see exactly what we have come all this way and done all this work for.  We drive deep into the bush along single lane path to two remote villages where these birthing huts are

currently operating.

We are greeted by a throng of primary (followed by secondary) school children, who parade in accompanied by a drum group and singing welcome songs to us. There are dozens of women here, either pregnant or carrying infants, and it dawns on me:  These are women and babies whose lives were likely saved by the project we are here to support.  I am blown away.

The birthing hut itself is a concrete structure, about 30 ft square with a corrugated tin roof.  It is typically staffed by two Maternal and Child Health Aids (MCHAs) and five Traditional Birthing Assistants (TBAs) who work on rotation.  The women we meet have been admitted for a variety of perinatal complications, ranging from edema (swelling of the lower limbs) to postpartum health issues. Without the birthing huts program, it is women like these who die trying to walk to the nearest hospital with their unborn babies.

The MCHAs demonstrate an astounding level of understanding of all things maternal, a combination of traditional knowledge, appropriate technology and modern medical science.  As we bike out of the second village, I am left with the overwhelming sense that this project is truly making a difference.

The day is far from over.  We still have to bike all the way to Taiama. The heat, as usual, is not our ally, but we make Taiama by sunset and check into the Taiama Lodge, an oddly gaudy guest house with Roman columns and ornate finery.  We are the only guests here tonight.

While having supper, we strike up a conversation with Moses James, a Sierra Leonean man who has stopped in for a drink.  He has been living in the US for 20 years, and is back now to plan construction of his retirement homes in Taiama and Freetown.  He is a fascinating man with very interesting views on the current state and future of his country.  He is also the brother of the local Paramount Chief.  He calls his brother to arrange an informal meeting with us, but alas, it is too late and the Chief is bound for bed.

So, too, are we.

JW

May 10

In the room Ross and I shared, he ended up with the smaller, kiddie-sized bed - long enough for most humans, but at 6'4", he actually got sore ankles from his feet sticking out over the end. Trooper that he is though, he didn't complain... much.

Sister Perpetua prepares eggs for us-delicious, but not quite plentiful enough for the late arrivals at the table, fodder for much razzing in both directions.

Outside, a huge mango tree boasts many mangoes so perfectly ripe that they simply fall to the ground.  Most places we have visited, mangoes are picked by locals before they reach such perfection.  It was one of the pleasures of this trip to be able to eat a fresh perfectly freshly fallen mango from this tree. However, despite throwing stones, coaxing, and even chasing (Bernie actually climbed a tree), a mango will often only fall when its time has come... and not before.

Remember the handicapped school?  Disabled children and children of disabled parents, they are packed like sardines in a building that was never meant to be a school and their landlord is, to be kind, exploitive.  Well, this morning we get to give them some good news. CAUSE Canada will commit to constructing a new building for them and help to subsidize the teachers' stipends for the coming year.  They already have the land, so we visit the site on our way out of town and share in the overflowing joy of the school's teachers and administrators.

The kicker to all this is that they decide (to be confirmed) to call the school "Little Weaver School for the Handicapped." I am at once incredulous, honoured,  and scared at the idea of having a school for

disabled children in Sierra Leone named after me for no credible reason.  I think I am going to have to process this one when I get home.

Back on our bikes and back to long, red dirt roads (not unlike the colour of the dirt on Prince Edward Island), muscling village to village, trying to keep hydrated and healthy.  At one village, there is a large PA system cranking out techno-dance music and the kids are all out in the school yard.  We couldn't resist.  Pulling into the scene, we become the centre of attraction and, with music pumping and

everyone staring, what could we do but perform.

Make no mistake.  These three Old Guys did not make it this far through this journey on the strength of their dancing!... Yet we often seem to find ourselves the only ones dancing when there is loud music and a crowd of onlookers.  We have some fun hamming it up for the kids and get back on the road.

After crossing a long bridge, across what turns out to be the river that forms the border to the next chiefdom, we stop for water top-up and shade.  A lean man, perhaps in his 60s and clad in only a towel comes down from his house bearing four mangoes and offers them to me. "I am sorry I don't have more for you," he says humbly.  Wanting neither to insult nor to take this poor man's last four mangoes, I stammer and stumble on my words until Augusta intervenes and accepts the gift.

Get this:  The man turns out to be the Paramount Chief of the chiefdom we have just crossed into!  Wow.  He honours our request for a quick photo and we honour his request to put on some clothes first.  He is a class act through and through.

Overall, the Tour de Sierra Leone covers a distance of nearly 1,000 km.  To reach all the desired destinations, to finish each day in villages that actually have accommodations and to make the cycling part cover the prescribed 500 km, we often bicycle part of the day and then pack the bikes into the back of the CAUSE pickup truck, pile our sweaty carcasses into the back seat and drive to where that night's accommodations are.  On this occasion we drive to Bo, the country's second largest city, where we will meet up with Theresa Benjamin. It will be a treat to tell you all about her tomorrow!

JW

May 9

Up at 5:30 am. I realize that the thief did manage to make off with my bike helmet, gloves, and shades, which were sitting on my headboard. RATS. I brought extra gloves and I end up borrowing Oumar's helmet, which my namesake, my nephew, Jonathan Carrick left for him when he visited Sierra 

Leone last year.

Moments before gearing up to leave, the skies open up and we are hit
with torrential rain and high winds. We cannot cycle in this, let alone cover our ambitious 120 km. It is an odd and memorable moment; the three of us sitting in silence in the pre-dawn half light, the howling winds and persistent, pounding rain as our soundscape.

The larger, looming question going through our heads is whether or not
this is the start of the rainy season and what does this mean for the rest of the journey?

We sit and we wait.

After about an hour, the rain tapers off and we decide to head out after breakfast. Our timeline is shot, but we are still going for the big day. The rain has brought out the bugs in great number and, without my shades - stolen the night before - let's just say that sometimes it pays to have squinty eyes like mine!

Lifetime memory here: Near the bottom of a particularly long and 

difficult hill, we start to slowly pass a group of primary school children on their way to school. (I love to see the blue uniforms because it is a sign that children in the area have a school to go
to.) One of them starts running  alongside us, then another and another... until all 15 of them - and their teacher - are runnin  beside us up this hill! It was so moving and encouraging, and they did it with such joy and playfulness that it felt like they were pulling us up with them. Unforgettable.

We actually get them to re-enact part of the climb so we can capture it on video. Then they take us to their school for a quick visit. I will leave Bernie to talk about education in Sierra Leone at a later
date.

Along the way, we meet up with the dirt bike contingent and stop to pose in the street, much to the amusement of the local bystanders. (Note Paul's Canadiens hockey jersey.)

For much of the day, we use a team road cycling technique in which cyclists ride in a tight single file and take turns leading, the leader creating a slip stream for the others to follow in. 

Our 120 km day is a big one and we feel it, but it would have been a whole lot harder without the early morning downpour and overcast skies, which brought the temperature down a few degrees. In the end, we manage to successfully cover the 120 km this day and finish it in style... 

We end up at a former leprosarium-turned guest house in Makeni run by Catholic nuns. The rooms are clean, there is running water and Sister
Perpetua treats us very well, serving up a pepper chicken (remember
those peppers?) that rivals Augusta's. The electricity is turned off
at 9:30 p.m., at which point we can hear the nuns somewhere off in the
distance singing hymns. Nice touch. 

Good night.

JW

May 8

A leisurely breakfast with the Old Guys and Paul and Larry. The norm has become the ever-present footlong whitebread bun stuffed with either omelette and mayo or fish (much like tuna salad), instant coffee, and an anti-malaria pill.

Sierra Leone is predominantly Muslim with a significant minority of Christians, but it is unique in the world for the harmony between the two groups.

Warning: Some of the following will be far more entertaining to my fellow audiovisual, tech, and musician friends.

This morning we visit the Kabala Baptist Church. We walk through the doors, where the congregation of about 100, packed into this small blue and cream-coloured concrete building are dressed to the nines, singing and dancing, and it is LOUD. As we are escorted to the front, I realize that although the congregation and the keyboardist leading them are both belting it out and true to musical pitch, they are in completely different keys. To my musician's ear, the result is so potently disorienting that it makes me physically dizzy for a time.

Aside: As it turns out, when someone in the congregation bursts into spontaneous song and the rest join in, the poor keyboardist has to figure out on the fly what key they are singing in, and, because of where he is in the room, he often can't hear well enough to get it right.

The choir is made up of about twelve Supremes... as in the female background singers for Diana Ross. (Google it if you have to.) The ladies' hairdos are amazing-plaited, sculptured, coloured, etc, and the loudspeakers are cranked well into distortion levels for the various people who take their turn at the wireless mic (which is constantly cutting out and giving blatts of RF interference. It is a sound-man's nightmare.

The rest of our 90 minutes there (only part of the gathering) sees various people coming to the mic and leading in song or praying or taking up an offering for one ministry or another. I should mention that this is all in Creole, so I am picking up, at best, half of what people are saying. Bursts of spontaneous cheering, dancing and song are usually a complete surprise to me!

After lunch, it's off to the CAUSE Canada guest house for delicious ground nut stew and mangos, mangos, MANGOS!

A long stroll through the streets of Kabala takes us to the market. The sort of little hot peppers shown here are in much of Augusta's food we have enjoyed. On the way back to the guest house, we are swarmed by a condom parade(!). It is a large group of young people raising awareness of condoms, primarily for prevention of HIV/AIDS.
They are pumping loud techno-dance music and condom slogans over their
mobile PA. I get in on the fun and dance with them in the parade. I just couldn't help myself, I guess. Fun.

Bernie and Ross go for a 5 km run, which brings us to goat and fish for supper and a visit from Andrea and Katie, two Canadian CAUSE Canada Interns.

Tomorrow's plan is to leave at 6 a.m in the morning and cover the 120
km between Kabala and Makeni - a distance far greater than any ride I
have ever done, let these conditions, which have been mid 30s and mid 40s with the humidity. I get packed up and hit the sack.

In the night, I half waken to the sound like something being dragged across the floor, but I reckon it is a dream and I doze off again. Moments later, I hear another sound very close to my head. It sounds like there is someone in my room! I grab my flashlight and click it on, pointing it to the window above my bed. There is my backpack, with my passport, credit cards, US cash, camera, etc. halfway out the window! "Who deyah?!" I yell. The bag drops to the floor, but I hear no footsteps running away.

Shining the flashlight out the window reveals a long stick that the thief used to hook my bag across the floor, up the wall and almost out the window, about a metre away from my head. The bars in the window slowed him down long enough for me to catch him.

Ross and I close the windows and eventually get back to sleep.
Tomorrow is a big day.

JW

May 7

[Another quality post by Ross...]

Good night’s sleep. Feel refreshed. Breakfast sandwich and coffee, bike tuning, gear sorting, and we set off on our bikes to see some of CAUSE’s work in the area.

A quick aside: You already have some flavour of this from the trip so far, but a quick overview of CAUSE Canada's work in Sierra Leone is in order to provide context to today’s activities in particular. If you have been following this blog you know that CAUSE Canada (CC) was founded by Paul Carrick with my sister, Beverley, 26 years ago. CAUSE has been working in Sierra Leone for 22 years and had a presence here through the 10-year civil war. I’ve always thought of CC as a thinking person’s NGO because I have always been impressed by their foundation of good values, well-thought-through development principles and planning, their excellence in execution and stewardship, and their total commitment to working in partnership with local leadership and communities. They are committed to long-term relationships and holistic, comprehensive approaches to development.

CAUSE's work in this area includes clean water and sanitation projects, agricultural and reforestation initiatives, women’s literacy and empowerment, micro-enterprise training and loans, and the CAUSE Kids sponsorship program. CAUSE Kids is a program where individuals abroad sponsor and can correspond with an individual child through their primary school and junior high school years. While the individual child is connected to the sponsor, CAUSE’s commitment is to the entire school. The target is to have all the children in the school sponsored, but all students in the school benefit from CAUSE’s commitment to that school through the provision of daily breakfasts and lunches, uniforms, books, teacher support, desks, clean water, latrines, payment of school fees, and ongoing monitoring and support on an individual student basis by trained SL (university-educated) staff.

The first stop of the day takes us through downtown Kabala to the CAUSE Resource Centre (library, computer training, other) to meet with my family’s two sponsor children, Yaramaya Kamara (11) and Mohamed Conteh (8). We chat for a while, play handslap, and I take Mohamed for a short ride on my bike.


Our 35 km ride for the day takes us to three remote villages in the beautiful mountainous area outside Kabala. Hot uphills, more technically challenging downhills. Koromancilia is a beautiful village with a CAUSE Kids school and a number of agricultural initiatives. It is also where Jon’s family has a 

CAUSE Kid, Hawa Conteh (8). Being Saturday, school is out, but we meet Hawa and much of the rest of the
village under the shade of a beautiful mango tree. I chat with a beautiful pregnant woman and reflect on the purpose of our ride, the birthing hut program, which we will visit as we move south on the tour.

All the CC initiatives will contribute to reducing maternal mortality; however, proper nutrition improves general defense against disease and clean water reduces infections. Girls with more education marry later and have fewer children. This village is also the site of a brand new CAUSE Kids school funded by friends in Montreal.

Next stop: Affee. Besides seeing the school, we visit CAUSE-sponsored
community rice mill project. The project includes a rice drying concrete pad and a mill which is just being installed today! The mill will be able to process 1500 kg/hour! We write “Old Guys 2011” in the wet concrete.

En route to our final stop, Sulemaniya, Jon takes his second spill of the trip. He will survive with some scrapes and bruises. We visit another school, and a CC-sponsored community rice paddy. We have a blast playing with the kids. They run alongside us shouting “bye, bye, bye, bye” as we leave the village and head back to Kabala.

RW

Tomorrow, it's church Sierra Leone style!

May 6

Aside: Since this is Jon's first trip to Africa, he will be authoring the lion's share of the blog posts, but occasionally Ross and Bernie will contribute, such as this one from Ross:

Up at 6:45 a.m. to prepare for the appointed breakfast at 7:30 a.m. The truck shows up at 8:40 a.m. Not pleased as we could have slept longer, or more importantly have got cycling before the worst heat of the day (36 degrees in the shade today).

 

Oh well. Breakfast at the CAUSE Canada office and then off to Pendembu by truck, complete with two goats belonging to Mr. Arthur Cummings (CAUSE Canada's Sierra Leone Country Director and former CEO of Red Cross here)  who will travel with us all the way to Freetown.  Apparently goats are three times as expensive in Freetown as they are "up country."

As Bernie has gone ahead to Makeni for educational training meetings, Oumar is riding with us. Oumar is slow but steady.

A short additional ride takes us to the paved highway. Busy, noisy.  Instant re-entry to urban sprawl. It gets busier and more bustling as we go the last 5-6 km into Makeni.

We see an odd apparition, a helmeted motorcyclist wearing a full Montreal Canadians hockey jersey... and it's waving at us! Through our sweat it takes us a while to recognize it is Paul and Larry zooming by on their way up to Kabala.

Makeni is the beautiful, chaotic reality of an African town/city.  Everything and anything is going on, traffic is 4-5 abreast the wrong way, families on motorcycles, incessant tooting of horns, voices, boom boxes, smells of garbage, cooking fires, bread, diesel, sweat.

We arrive exhausted and meet Mr Cummings and others who, in five minutes, tell us they are on their way to Kabala, but that we should proceed immediately to the School for the Disabled. We are completely soaked in sweat and would love even five minutes with a Coke and time to put our feet up, but off we pedal for another 3 km to the school...for a surprise.

Two local CAUSE workers introduce us to the school principal lady and the school chairperson, a man crippled with polio. We are then ushered into the main hall where 150 hot kids are assembled who have been awaiting our arrival for some time. All the kids are either disabled or children of disabled people. (These kids are often sent into the streets to beg for a living rather than go to school).

They start to sing welcome songs, including 5-6 verses of a song and dance centred on the words, “We welcome you Little Weaver”.

Paul had told them that "Little Weaver" (Jon being the youngest of the four siblings) and another man were coming.  The administration is desperate to finance a new school building and funds to catch up on teacher pay which has not been provided for some months (they are about to be evicted from the current one and had already secured land on which to build). They are hoping that "Little Weaver" and friend can help...

The chairman starts a speech, apparently fully written out explaining their plight, but pauses just a bit too long and the principal cuts in with her own fully prepared speech. It took me a while to realize she was reading the speech from a sheet of typed Braille. She is blind.

The ceremonies continue with everyone except Jon and I oblivious to the fact we are generating a pool of sweat under each of our chairs.  Everyone except Jon is oblivious to the pain of his saddle wound.

Speeches end with an invitation to Little Weaver to explain just how committed he is to their school and how much money he was going to provide.

Jon commits to discussing the matter with Mommy Bev (our sister, Executive Director of CAUSE); I responded to an invitation to speak with words of encouragement, but no firm commitment.

School visit done, we take pictures outside with the kids and cycle off, leaving drops of sweat in our path. We don’t get too far. The truck which had been having clutch troubles all day is in for repairs.

We finally locate a restaurant and have a plate of rice and fish.  Locals are barbequing what they call “bush meat”.  Looks good. On inquiring about this later on, I am told bush meat is any animal found in the bush that goes well with barbeque sauce.  Depending on the day and the location in the country, bush meat could be squirrel, porcupine, monkey, baboon, hedgehog or something else. I would like to try some before I leave.

The truck is ready with a new clutch, so we weave our way through wacky traffic out of town...3 old guys, 2 sierra Leoneans, 4 bikes, 46 L of drinking water...and two goats.

It is a 2-1/2 hour ride on a pothole-infested paved road.  Finally we start the switchbacks that climb up to Kabala, arriving about 10:30.

We discuss the "Little Weaver" story with Paul and Larry outside  their room at the Sengbeh Guest House.

RW

Day 5

May 5

This is a day out of the saddle (phew).  It starts with goat pepper soup, eggs, and fritters.  Today also marks CAUSE Canada's return to Kamakwie.  Here, their focus in Kamakwie is on women's empowerment, a cornerstone of sustainable development.

Aside:  In the early 1990's, rebels from the civil war in Liberia started raiding across the border into Sierra Leone.  These rebels (the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF) brutally slaughtered authority figures, turned innocent boys and girls into child soldiers and sex slaves, and caused massive property and infrastructure damage. They gutted many schools and turned them into barracks and bases of operation.  During this time, CAUSE Canada was the only NGO that did not pull out of the country entirely, but they were forced to close operations in Kamakwie.

Today is a triumphant celebration of CAUSE's return to the region.

Downtown, a throng of dignitaries (including our new friend, the Paramount Chief) and a women's group gather and start dancing to drums and singing in the street.  We process to a covered amphitheatre where we Old Guys sit in seats of honour alongside the Paramount Chief, police chief, and CAUSE Canada staff facing the audience.

For CAUSE Canada's excellent work in the region, founder, Paul Carrick, was made an honourary Section Chief (one step below Paramount Chief) before the war. He is dressed in his ceremonial chief attire, as are the other 25 or so Section Chiefs in the front row facing us-extraordinarily distinguished gentlemen straight off the cover of National Geographic.

Many introductions, formalities and speeches later (and, for the record, sitting still on a wooden chair for hours with a saddle sore in front of an audience is more painful than our daily ride over dirt washboard in 40-degree heat. There, I said it)... we all adjourn and process up the hill for the ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

It is a magnificent sight:   About 500 Sierra Leoneans dressed in vibrantly coloured traditional garb slowly making their way up to the new CAUSE Canada offices. Ross is given the honour of cutting one of the ribbons and delivers a short impromptu speech with grace and authority.

After the ceremonies, it's goat stew with the Paramount and Section Chiefs.  One of the honourary Section Chiefs has spent 22 years in Los Angeles and lives in Kamakwie in a small scale replica of the White House that he built.   (!)

We temporarily part company with Bernie.  He will spend the rest of this day and the next working with CAUSE Canada on a needs assessment for teacher development at Makeni University.

Aside: For those who don't know him, fellow Old Guy, Bernie Potvin is a chair and associate professor of education at Ambrose University College in Calgary.  He has taught courses and developed programs for schools and universities across the globe, much of it in Africa (Liberia, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia) and much of it pro bono.  He is a gentle, mellow man-very kind, wise and soft spoken, but with a keen wit.  Athletically, he is a runner at heart (more than a cyclist)and has been running distance since his college days.

Ross and I go for a little, and slow, 3 km or so run to avoid getting too soft from eating Augusta's cooking and eating mangoes on our day off. We stop by the White House on our run, but the Chief is not in-alas.

Early to bed, for tomorrow WE RIDE !

JW