Last Saturday 28 January 2017 Brent and I went for a walk in the morning down town.  We have walked this several times, but I took my camera to take some pictures of things we have seen and wanted a picture of.  Above is a picture of a Mail Box just on the street.  It is not used anymore, it just has trash in it, but we thought it was cool.

 In the middle of downtown Freetown is the Cotton Tree you can see behind Brent.  It does not have any leaves right now. When we arrived last April there were thousands of bats in that tree, but several weeks ago when the leaves started falling the bats disappeared.  We wondered where they went.  Well on our walk, we were about 2 blocks from the Cotton Tree and were walking by some markets with trees above them.   We could hear a lot of chatter and looked up and there were the bats.  All along the street in the trees.  The bats were about 10 feet above our heads.  It was kind of creepy, but I didn't freak out, I just took some pictures.  You can see them in clumps in this picture. 

 We walked to the Fabric Store that Jokella had taken us to several months ago.  We were able to find this sweet lady and I found some beautiful fabric.  I talked her into selling it to me for the same price she did before.  20,000 LE for 2 yards.  I bought 10 yards that day.  She was so cute, when she saw us she gave me a big hug.  She let me have a picture with her again. 

 We walked down to the Red Lion Bread store and bought their yummy bread and then walked along Siaka Stevens street and I saw this fellow selling something in his pail.  It looked like whipped cream so I stopped and asked him what it was and he said Shampoo.  He let me take a picture of him, but the gal to the side of the street said, "You pay me."  I told her I had permission to take the picture and would not pay her.  I am going to take a copy of this picture to this fellow next week.  I hope he is still selling there.  You never know here.  That is why if we see something on the street we want, we buy it because you never know if it will be there tomorrow. 

 The top and bottom pictures are the same street.  I stood the same place to take the picture.  The top picture is on Saturday and the bottom is on Sunday.  Since Ebola, they close all the markets on Sunday.  They can actually be fined and have their products confiscated if they sell on Sunday. 

 Here is another comparison of a street, top is Saturday and bottom is Sunday.  The name of this street is Wilber Force Street.    These pictures are the PZ market.  It is the biggest market in Freetown.  If you want a live video of it, google PZ market in Freetown.  It will give you a good flavor of what it is like to walk down while the markets are open.  We never drive there during the week, but on Sunday's that is the way we go to church at Upgun. 

 Behind Brent is a construction site.  This is close to our apartment.  They are digging that hill away and there are some pretty big boulders.  The smoke you can see is charcol they have built a fire on the rocks until they break.  Then they beat the rocks with a hammer until they are in small pieces.  In front you can see several Okada's.  That is a taxi and Okada stop and it is tricky crossing the street.  I would not let the grandchildren cross this street, without an adult, or any street in Freetown for that matter.  

Behind the church in our compound.  This is where they burn (smolder) the trash and leaves from our compound.  If the wind blows toward the office we smell like a camp fire. 

 A big bunch of bananas in our banana grove.  Shaka actually cut this down a few days after I took the picture.  These bananas are "strong" which means they will be good.  They are in a box to ripen, kind of like we ripen pears at home. 

 Kassi, here is the picture of our hibiscus that you requested.  We 5 or 6 hibiscus plants like this out front of our apartment.  We have pink, yellow, and white and they have been blooming since we arrived last April.  I think they bloom year round, since it is February and they are still blooming.

 We were coming home from St. Mary's, which is a grocery store up a hill from our home.  It was the same day we took our walk 28 January 2017.  It was actually pretty clear and you could see the ocean, (they call it the sea) and ships out there too. 

 Yes, if you speak like Yoda this really says what you think it says.  We see this often on buildings.  This is to the side of St. Mary's where we get groceries sometimes.  There were some street beggars there that were laughing at me when I took this.  Some of them are crippled and we usually give them small bags of rice or ground nuts when we go there.  They are super nice and had a good laugh on me that day.   

 The top picture is a beautiful sunset in Freetown.  We do have pretty sunsets sometimes, other times it is to smokey to see. I took this from our apartment.  The bottom picture is the same hill, but it was a really smokey day.  You can see some smoke in the middle that is a fire smoking.  I took this outside the office.  

 We love these boys, (young Men).  Top is the office Elders and the AP's.  Left to Right: Elder Sarkodie, Elder Saunders, Elder Oyebambi and Elder Smith.  We invited them over Sunday night after my Birthday to celebrate and have Birthday Cake.  I made a carrot cake and for me and Africa, it turned out really good. (Not as good as the one Keri makes though)  We ate most of it that night. Bottom picture, Left to Right: Elder Saunders, Elder Sarkodie, Elder Smith, Elder Oyebambi, Me, Elder Okwir and Elder Igwe.  Yesterday 4 February 2017 we found out that Elder Oyebambi is being transferred this week out to Makeni for his last transfer.  We will miss him, but we are excited that Elder Izekor will be the new AP.  He is the first missionary that we welcomed after we arrived.  He has been serving in Upgun and he is an amazing missionary,

 Sunday 5 February 2017.  This little guy is about a year old and just came up to Brent today in Sacrament meeting and wanted to be held.  Usually little ones are afraid of us because we are white, but this little guy loved Brent.  He tried to eat his tie and wanted the pens in his pocket.  Kids are the same all over the world. Pretty cute!