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We did make it to Freetown from London. There was no internet connection at our hotel so I am going to attempt to go back and narrate the highlights of our trip. After our long flight we had to get on an 18 passenger helicopter. The heli trip was 15 minutes and very loud but a fun adventure. We finally settled at the hotel and had a team meeting at 11:00 pm. Our next day was to start at 6:00 am!!!

It was easy to get up at 6:00 am because of the excitement to get to The Abigail Butscher Primary School!! Even after a 30 hour trip, Emma popped right out of bed!!! The sights and scenery on the way to the school were unlike anything I can explain!! Tons of people walking, dirt roads, more cars than could fit on the roads and between all the people, people selling, selling, selling, and people carrying the biggest loads on their heads!!!

Not There Yet!

We are all waiting at Heathrow International Terminal on a 7 hour layover. It is 11:00 and we are all going to head to the pub to watch a soccer match and drink a beer in the hopes that we can sleep on the 7 hour flight to Freetown. We managed to check over 700 pounds of supplies. There are 14 of us. Two dentists, two engineers, three teachers, three doctors, two nurses, one teacher helper(Emma) and Marco, the head of it all! There will be a helicopter waiting for us in Freetown. The airport is out on a peninsula and it is many hours to drive from the airport to Freetown---so the only choices are helicopter(a 7 minute ride), ferry (which is very slow and crowded), or water taxi. We arrive in Freetown tonight at 8:00 (3:00 in Maryland!)
LONG TRIP, but everyone is enjoying each others company!!! The plans are to get up in the morning and head to the school. The medical team will head to the hospital!
Hopefully we will post tomorrow night.
Love to all!!!

Background and Preparation

In four days we will be leaving for Sierra Leone on a joint educational/medical mission. We have a unique, super qualified group of people traveling together with the education team. There are three Boys' Latin teachers. Julia Williams, a middle school science teacher, Greg Schnitzlein, a third grade teacher, and myself, a fourth grade teacher, are exciting to meet the kids and teachers at The Abigail Butscher Primary School in Calabatown. We will be staying in Freetown and traveling to Calabatown during the day. We hope to help the teachers come up with ways to utilize the resources they do have to engage students in more interactive ways to teach. We are also taking over 300 lbs. of school supplies with us. Kevin and Kristen Rowe are also traveling with us. Kevin is a financial advisor and Kristen is an engineer. Their hopes are to head up some projects improving the facilities at the school. Madieu Williams, Minnesota Vikings Free Safety, is our leader on this side of the mission and is passionate about helping improve the education in Freetown. This mission is just the start of yearly missions to help improve the schools in Sierra Leone. We are starting our work at the school in Calabatown and hope over the coming years to help in more places.

My twelve year old daughter, Emma, is also traveling with us. She has raised about 500 dollars and collected a lot of school supplies from Hereford Middle School. I am anxious for her to see how lucky she is to have the resources and infrastructure we have here. I am also excited for her to have the chance to interact with the children in Calabatown.

Marco, my husband, will be with a team of doctors at the hospital in Freetown. The medical team hopes to perform some free surgeries and start planning ways to help improve the healthcare in Sierra Leone.

We have our visas, malaria pills, and yellow fever vaccines. All of our other vaccines (tetanus, Hep A, meningitis, polio etc...) are updated.

The two foundations that we are traveling with are The Healing Hands Foundation, and The Madieu Williams Foundation. If anyone wants more information on either go to www.thhfoundation.org or www.madieuwilliams.org.

The profile photo shows Julia, Greg, Madieu, and I when Madieu came to The Boys' Latin School to talk to the boys about Sierra Leone and the upcoming mission.

I hope to update the blog daily with the happenings of our trip. I will be missing my son, Nico, while we are gone. This blog will be a great way for him to experience everything that we do!