Day 2 - city breaks for the brave

It's Morning ... Breakfast shared with bush deer and a few traveling business people ... Malaria tablet taken ... Check !

So wait for the driver - my cousins driver - a cheerful chap ( not!!) who choses to understand whatever suits him ... But every so often puts a little effort in ... It's Sunday ... Which is exiting for a number of reasons
Traffic is light enough to be able to go across town in less than 3 hours !!
I am invited for dinner with my cousin and his kids ...
And I am planning to clear a few items of my check list of memory photos..

The whistle stop tour starts with my sisters old school ... St Josephs school - next to St Nicholas church ... Click click .. Item 1 dealt with ... A convent school In those days - run by nuns and as with all schools in Freetown .. No glass in the window offers the only air and relaid from the smell of sweat in 100 degrees plus... My old school does not exist ... A number of similar named schools do - but my actual school does not ... But the smell of sweat and heat as you sat through lessons in those days never leaves you ....









Item 2 sacred heart cathedral.. I was confirmed a catholic in this church - so was my sister .. My mother and father got married in this church ... So anyway click click an odd photo or two - right in the middle of town ... This is the place that the tour guides / common sense / sense of personal well being clearly state proceed with extreme caution ... (And with armed escort if early evening) ... As this is a place that has now become the refugee camp for everyone who ran into Freetown to avoid the war problems ... And lots of them never left... Across the road from the church used to be the cinema .. I went there ... But in those days you had to be suitably dressed... In order to go to places like Hill station club , the cinema , or anywhere other than the beach .. Jacket shirt and tie were required ... Yes even the cinema ..



 Else you were sent away and not allowed in... So my first trip to the cinema was this cinema .. Across from the cathedral - in my White jacket - bow tie - and White short trousers ... STOP LAUGHING !!!!!! I was cute Ok!!.. Almost James bond like :) :)
Check check !!

Lunch is due at around 2 ish so now we have some time to kill ...

So ask the driver to take us to a local bar .. now this is not like popping off to the local for a beer - this is busy roadside - dusty - and the first of the two bars we went to was inside a petrol station - built onto a 40ft container .. And they did not have power for some time ... We were told as the bar owner opened our warm beer.... The second bar was on the main junction on the main road near the police station - the money changers - and a few thousand cars and people walking past... It also gave the original meaning to bar flies - hundreds of them on the tables !!!!!
But one more beer - then off to my cousins house for lunch !!! Wonderful :)






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