Flat Tires, Car Breakdowns, Patrick Dempsey, and other birthday presents for me!

Yesterday, July 25th was my 28th Birthday and, well, there's really nothing like visiting a refugee camp or two for your birthday. We set out to visit Kouankan Camp at 8:30AM and a hour and a half later, about 2 kilometers outside of a small village called Seredou, James the driver pulled over. I thought he was stopping for a "PEPE break" (yes, that is what they actually call it). But he got out and said that there was a problem with the tire. And we didn't have a jack or anything to use to change the tire. Fabulous.

So we sat out on the side of the dirt road for a while while James went on a tirade yelling about how driving the car to Seredou would ruin the tire (duh). No one really felt like answering in the radio in the office and I was just sitting there wondering why no one was walking to go bum a jack off someone.... It's just 2 kilometers, for goodness sakes.

So after about 20 minutes of yelling, I decided to calm them down and talk some sense into them... and James and Bobo (yes that is his name) finally took off walking to Seredou.

And I started wandering in the bush taking photos until my Sierra Leonean coworkers decided that the expat needed a lecture about tribal witchcraft in the Forest and how a snake was going to drop from the top of the trees to kill me (Talk about putting a damper on my explorer-tendencies.) So I bowed to their worries and stood by the car as they debated if a Catholic priest was doing a good or bad thing joining a tribal witchcraft cult in order to bond with the locals.

Eventually, a International Commission of the Red Cross (ICRC) car came up the road with James and Bobo. Rescued by the Red Cross. But that didn't mean we were off to Kouankan Camp. No, the spare had problems too so they decided that the best idea was driving back to Seredou to get the tire fixed before we ended up in a pickle again.

Getting the tire fixed took around 2 hours... so two hours of wandering around Seredou taking photos... which was a birthday present in itself. My co-workers were pretty pissy, but I always wanted to have a chance to stop in one of the villages that we zoom past on the way to the camps to take photos... and all it took was a flat tire.

So, at the time we were supposed to be back in N'Zerekore, we headed off again to Kouankan Camp. Meetings and such for a few hours and on the way back, we met Celestin, our chief driver, on a motorbike bringing us the jack... uhhh... a little late. So we started following him back to N'Zerekore.

...Until his motorbike quit in another little village along the highway which meant another hour or so taking photos in another little village on the highway.

We finally made it home at 7:15PM instead of 1PM, but, courtesy of the IRC's crappy cars, I got to be happy photographer for my birthday. Which was a present from the heavens. :) Along with the nice article about Patrick Dempsey that I found when I opened my magazine over my breakfast cereal. Dose of Dr. McDreamy over my morning coffee.... (sigh)....

A Refugee Church in the Kouankan Refugee Camp