Saturday June 28

Bong Mines is an amazing place to visit. if you look on google you will find it listed. What it may not tell you is how the staff from Mercyships manage to find their way there. A simple trip in a landrover or three to a railway point. Drive onto the flat bed rail carriage and then sit either on the bonnet or roof of landrover while the train chugs away for the next 2 hours passing through lush green vegetation and view a wide variety of homes, some more like shanty towns others obviously owned by the wealthy.

Todays visit was my idea and having started with a list that would allow 9 people to go plus a driver, I ended up with 23 people, 3 drivers and 3 vehicles. The rail journey was great fun as we sat and talked, waved to countless excited children and burned in the hot sun.

Saturday was washing day judging by the amount of clothes being dried "African Style" i.e. on the nearst bushes or simply laid on rocks or grass to dry. it wouldn't have taken long to day although if left out all day would have been soaked by a very short but very heavy downpour. It looked as if it was snowing the raindrops were so big!

The most unusual thing I observed was a scarecrow. You really don't see many of those in Liberia.

The driver in whose landrover I rode, is a day worker on the ship. In 2000 he was working at the Bong Mine from where they excavted iron ore for a german owned company. Rebels came and decimated the workforce very simply. They shot the workers of particular tribes. Later he took us to Elijah valley (see Elijah 39 in the old testament) so called because of the numbers of bodies the rebels threw in there. rather gruesome but there are no "dry bones" found there. Rains and animals have sorted that out. A new mine is being opened by the chinese as there are still rich deposits of iron ore in the area. There were a couple of lakes which appeared as the previous owners were mining at greater depths. The lakes have a bluish hue to them, affected by the iron ore. This driver took us to the old mining area and we saw the devasted buildings. We also visited the hospital which the company had set up, but when they withdrew after the invasion of the rebels so did the support for the hospital. The hospital still has patients but funding is poor. Until a year ago there were german nurses at the hospital.

The ride home on the train took 4 hours as the train broke down and we had to leave one of the carriages carrying iron ore at a siding. Children were still happy to wave and there was evidence of a church service with all the women wearing their colourful dresses and children in their Sunday best clothes.

I had taken a ships mobile phone with me so was able to ensure they kept dinner for us. By the time we got back the sun had set. I was filthy as were a good number of others, partly from simply climbing over pipes, jumping spaces and being around the mine. The rest came from the landrovers and smuts from the train engine.

All that is left to do now is to distribute the items I don't want to take home and then to pack. My rucksack weighed just 14kg on the way over. I dread to think of its weight tomorrow although I will probably be OK.

So here ends the blog. Best moment of the trip was helping a 4 year old girl who had been blind from birth see for the first time but there have been many other memorable moments and new friendships started. Would I come again? Absolutely..