Yarm's Farm Word of Life School, Sierra Leone

After a long journey on 4 differents planes we landed in Sierra Leone at 5 in the evening. The first step out of the plane and I am hit with the heat (especially the humidity) and the smells, and I feel I have come home and I realise in that moment how I have missed those smells that only come from Africa!
We all pile into 2 poda poda's which are van's that really should only sit about 8 people but at times here can fit 20! All our luggage is all loaded on top of these - this is when I am praying that all our luggage gets there in one piece! We are taken to a small car ferry for the hour long ride to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone! Thunder and lightining guide our way there, no rain yet but its coming!
We arrive in Freetown with all our suitcases somehow they have made it! Then it's a small ride to the ship where we are greeted by food! We don't have long onboard as it's now raining and we need to get to Hope Centre, were we are staying for the next 2 weeks - it's about 45 min drive in good traffic! Fortunately we have a good drive there and we settle into our dorms. The girls, all 12 of us sharing a dorm and the boys sharing the other. The Hope Centre is a beautifull place. We have power from 7 in the evening to 7 in the morning, that means we can cool down at night with the fans blowing; a very good thing after a hot day out in the sun!!

The next day we have a sleep-in as recovery from jet lag! We eventually make our way to Yam's Farm, it's a small fishing village and their main source of income is bringing in sand from the sea and selling it for construction.
The area is very poor, they have no electricity and they get their water from various wells. After a very bumpy ride we get to the school and we are greeted by 250 screaming children all wanting to hold our hands. An incredible moment!! We are then introduced to the Pastor who is also the principle of the school. He shows us around the school which consists of one room with 6 classes in. All the benches are squeezed in, and you wonder how they can teach all these kids in different grades in one room. Then we are showed around the construction site where we are going to help build the extension to the school! 
Four of us were in the children's ministry, this meant teaching the primary school in the morning. We had planned a few lessons before we got there, and we had also got some things we would leave at the school which they could use. We bought a world map, in a school of 271 only a few had ever seen a world map, even the teachers were amazed. How simple things we take for granted in our country to them it's an amazing thing to see. It was great to see the children's eyes glued to the map and to what we were teaching!

After lunch we would join the rest of the team on the construction site. The jobs included making bricks from scratch, digging and more digging, shovelling sand from one place to the other. It was great to see the school extension go up, unfortunately it's not finished yet, but hopefully will go to see the school before we leave Sierra Leone and it would be great to see it finished!
It was hard work at site and it was very hot, at the end of the day we were all drenched in sweat, cement and sand! As a team we all got on really well, supporting each other and enjoying the time we had together as a group.
During the weekends we were able to relax and enjoy the beaches! They are soooo beautiful here, it was nice to be able to swim and go walking on the hot sand :)

In the 2 weeks we were there, we were able to teach at 2 other local schools, this was a great chance to show the love of God. They were very gratefull for us coming and spending time with them. It was a great experience for me, which I will never forget!

Sorry for not having many photos; on the ship it takes a long time to download them. See my facebook for more pictures!
I will write another blog to let you know how are things going here on the ship!