Container arrival...

This past Friday a container from Holland arrived. Always quite the event (3-4 times per year). First the container is shipped to Freetown. Then it sits in the port, for an undetermined length of time, waiting to be cleared by customs. Then once it's released it makes its way to the center. Before hand, we get word that the container will be released from the port on a certain day, however, the release is often delayed. Once the particular day is set, we end up waiting around for the container to come; often said to arrive at 4pm but always arriving after 7pm. So, on this Friday evening we received a phone call saying the container was 'on its way' - a famous phrase in Sierra Leone, meaning the container is either really close by, somewhere in traffic, or still waiting to leave the port. We were lucky- this time it came at 730pm- not bad really.

I always expect to have to help unload box after box, always forgetting that there are many local guys who would gladly help us offload the container, for a small fee. So, in the end, I actually didn't do much at all, container-wise. I did however spend the evening playing with 2 year old- Abdul- a VVF patient's child who arrived two days earlier. He is a bit undernourished and has malaria, but what a fun kid. Anyway, we discovered a HUGE teddybear in the container...and couldn't pass up the chance to play with (or on) it.

It was a successful container offloading night!