All is not lost!

Despite not being able to update this blog with photos, the work does go on!! I have received emails and calls that all the windows and doors are installed, wall plastering is nearly complete and the ceilings are completed. The gutters are going up and the interior whitewash has been purchased as well. I long to be able to just take the 2.5km motorbike ride from my house in Bankolia to the school site to check up on the progress.
I have just finished reading a book called "Blue Clay People" chronicling an NGO worker's time in Liberia, just south of Sierra Leone. His recollections of the experience are both comfortingly and frighteningly familiar. I know that already my undestanding and perceptions of my experience are changing and maturing. But I know that it will take time and energy and more visits to Kabala to keep alive the relationships I have begun there, and the great work of this school that we have all been a part of.

work without Mista Asha

I have spent the last week telling stories and sharing my experiences in Sierra Leone with family and friends. But while I sit and evaluate the experience of being in Africa and that of returning to North America the work goes on unabated. For the first time I think I am seeing the excitement of new pictures posted on the blog showing the next stage of construction. It is incredible to see where things have come in a week! Reverend John Phiri, the head of the CRC church in Sierra Leone, will continue to take pictures for me to keep all of us up to date on the construction.
Over the last week it has also been incredible to hear how many of you have actually been visiting this blog. I am blown away by this show of support. And so I also need to think about how this blog changes with my no longer being in Sierra Leone. Because as much as my stories may have filled much space on the blog, my own part in the story of this school has changed now. The stories may no longer be firsthand but the photos will continue and my own work on the project will continue from this end for several weeks yet, documenting, writing, drawing... there are still many things to be done. This blog is the story of this school and so it will continue to be that, all the way up to time when the doors open and the children fill the verandas and classrooms with laughter and learning.