Small-small update.

I am so incredibly busy with my project right now that I haven't been updating any of my blogs. I write something almost every single night while I lie in bed but I always get too tired or anxious about work or distracted by must-sleep-must-sleep-count-sheep and turn off my computer before I have finished writing the latest entry. My project has to be completed by April 15th (*cough* tomorrow) and it's just not ready yet. I'm glad that the final report will not say "A Report On Children's Rights in Sierra Leone by A-Lok" because I'm going to be mortified by the lousy quality of formatting when it's completed. Oh well. The information contained is priceless, I've learned so much that my line manager mentioned that I'm probably more knowledgable about children's rights than any of the other expats in Sierra Leone (*ahem*She said it, not me), and I've had an incredible rush writing it. I'm just disappointed that I've had to write about 30 pages worth of information that is going directly to the United Nations and I've only had a month to do it. (!?!) It's simply not going to be a perfect document and I'm disappointed by that.

Despite that, it's been very well worth the stress and the anxiety, since I spend my days learning absolutely immeasurable things. My evenings are spent drinking cool white wine on a beautiful porch overlooking bougainvillea bushes, reading books with Kumba and Fatmatah (the children who live on my compound) and eating chicken schwarmas by the pool at the local hotel. I take dirty, crumbling taxi cabs and chat with the locals who tell me stories about Salonean weddings, I hand out candies to the most beautiful, smiliest children you've ever seen, and feel extraordinarily fulfilled.

So, I have a million other things to add and plenty of half-written entries that I promise to complete and post next week when I actually have the time. In the meantime, I will mention this:

- I am currently at the Hotel Cabenda, which is why I have suddenly had internet over the weekends. They have wireless! Who woulda thunk it? We barely have electricity half the time, and here they have free wireless internet. I usually therefore spend my weekends working with my computer by the hotel pool, burning, uh, beautifully.

- The swimming pool is closed today because the hotel is having a wedding here this evening. I am supposed to go to a party tonight (theme: "glamour." I have a kickass red lipstick. It'll be interesting to see how a bunch of expats normally clothed in khakis and a pretty coating of red dust manage to clean up to look "glamorous.") but I am tempted to stick around to watch the wedding take place. I have never seen a Salonean ceremony before.

- My waitress told me that she thinks that I would make a beautiful bride. *Ahem*, mothers, lock up your sons!

- I went to a big musical festival on Easter Monday with my friend Justin. It was a music competition between artists: Western Sierra Leone vs. Eastern Sierra Leone. During this concert I experienced my first rain in 6 months. You can watch the video on Justin's website here. He also included some other videos from that night and has more to come, so feel free to peruse his site.

- I finish work on the 18th and leave on the 20th at night. During those two days off I need to: distribute all the gifts that I brought for the Salonean families I met here on my first trip; buy many, many souvenirs that will not fit into my suitcase and for which I will be royally ripped off at the covered market (so don't expect much, dear friends); I need to lead a workshop with collaborators of my project and my NGO's team; I need to go to several schools to ditribute pencils, pens and books to children; I need to pack and move out; and I need to socialise and take photos of all the things I've seen.

- I will be profoundly busy in my last week and probably arrive in Canada suffering from malaria, typhoid, an inflammed gall bladder and 2nd degree burns from the sun.

- Can't wait to see you all! Please take care of me when I arrived burnt, burnt-out, half dead, and brilliantly happy.