Cold Rainy Day in Venice

Image 1 - Wet and cold on the Grand Canal in Venice

Image 2 - The Grand Canal in Venice

We are in Venice, Italy! This morning we caught a train to London Gatwick Airport from my parent’s place and boarded a plane to Venice. The flight was uneventful, but noteworthy due to the fact that the seats actually had descent amount of recline. Amazingly I managed to snooze a bit and catch up on some the sleep I lost on our trip back from Freetown to London.

Arriving in Venice we were rather disappointed that we didn’t actually get a Mini Cooper, like we had reserved, as there were none available. Instead they upgraded us to a VW Golf Plus, which I wouldn’t consider an upgrade from a Cooper. It is, however, fun to drive. I’m still a little bit nervous about driving out here though. I’m worried I might misunderstand road signs, which are all in Italian, and get in an accident, or park illegally and get my car towed.

I was under the impression that Venice was supposed to be a romantic city. Romance wasn’t on my mind as it rained all day long with a temperature of probably no more than 8 degrees celcius. Stephanie and I bought 2 umbrellas and within an hour the wind had turned both inside out often enough that they were useless. The canals were impressive and beautiful but I wasn’t able to thoroughly enjoy them as I was soaked to the bone and cold.

We caught a, public transport, canal boat around the island of Venice and then down “The Grand Canal”. I think we have the transport figured out now. Hopefully this will mean that when we return on Friday, our anniversary, we won’t waste any time figuring things out.

R.W.

Grueling Trip Back to London

November 6 & 7

I never thought that checking in & boarding a flight would be such a trial of faith.

Our trip back to London started at 6pm with us going to a water taxi terminal that will bring us to the airport. The airport in Sierra Leone is on the other side of the bay than Freetown, and it’s much more time efficient to boat across the bay then take a vehicle around.

Once at the terminal on the other side, we took a shuttle to the airport on a VERY bumpy road. We were at the airport at around 7:30pm ready to go through the process for our midnight flight. We had to wait in line over 3 hours, in a building with extreme heat and no air conditioning filled with lots of people.

We arrived at the check-in counter at 11:00pm to find that there were only 15 more seats left on the flight. Looking at the line behind us, it looked like well over 25 people were expecting to be on this flight, and that people travelling alone or in pairs were being checked in at a much faster pace than groups.

This is when your prayers, and ours, were depended on. We waited about 15 minutes in silence, watching the lady type on her computer. Our prayers were answered! We were so happy to have seats on the flight, it was only a minor concern that we were scattered all over the plane.

A number of strangers were sympathetic to our seating arrangement as we boarded, and more prayers were answered as we were able to sit as couple’s on the overnight flight to London.

We didn’t bother with a nap, as the rest of Saturday has been spent together as a family, as smaller groups as well as one big group. Kevin & Toni will be going home early tomorrow morning while Richard and I will go to Venice tomorrow. Shawn & Ang will be heading back to Manitoba on Monday, spending one-on-one time together with mom & dad until then. We wonder when it will be when we are all together again... Good Night!!

S.W.

The Day Before Departure

November 5

Image 1 - Stephanie searching for souvenirs

Image 2 - Richard & Stephanie at the Lighthouse Restaurant


We were pleasantly surprised today when a lady, who used to work for us, showed up and joined us for breakfast. I hadn’t seen her in almost 15 years and she sat down next to me at the breakfast table and pretended not to notice me. After a moment of confusion I recognised her. I knew she was playing a joke on me so I cleared my throat a couple of times, while looking at her, until she broke into a huge smile. We exchanged hugs and then proceeded to reminisce about our memories.

She remembered how I would always go running outside whenever I heard a helicopter flying overhead (it happened all the time). I told her how I remembered how she was always terrified of our pet mongoose.

She described how she had escaped to Malawi to get away from the war and returned to find that her father had been beheaded by rebels and her mother beaten until she was crippled. It is still a struggle for her not to feel sick when she thinks of her father’s brutal killing. Unfortunately thousands of others in this country have similar stories as her.

Around mid-day we did some souvenir shopping and then headed across from our hotel to swim in the ocean. The girls are getting very frustrated with always being seen as a dollar sign. We are forever being approached by people begging for money or wanting to help us in exchange for money.

A little later we were joined by an American friend of ours that we had known from back before 1995. It was great to visit with someone from the same culture as us.

The day ended with a Wiebe family dinner at the Sierra Lighthouse Restaurant. It was a great way to end our last full day in Sierra Leone. Tomorrow evening we depart on our return trip to London.

R.W.

Banana Islands

November 4

Our adventures took us to Banana Islands today! This trip required us travelling to another village and renting another hand-made wooden canoe with a motor- smaller then the one we took a couple days earlier.

This boat ride was a lot rougher with us crashing into the waves and being sprayed with ocean water as we went (the swaying side to side in the canoe later in the day was just as bad if not worse).

Once at Banana Islands, we boated our way around them, stopping at a town for a tour. We watched a man making a canoe from a tree, and were shown the landmarks while saying “Koushay” (Hello, in Krio) to various villagers.

We made our way around the Island by boat, and stopped at the beach where we had dropped off a cook and his supplies earlier. He had a wonderful meal ready for us with flavoured rice, fish, fries (made from cassava root), and chicken for me (which had clucked all the way to the Island with us in the boat!).

The boat ride back was a lot calmer, but we still had to drive home in the dark. Fortunately, Paul, our driver, saw the herd of cows being lead down the road before we hit them… actually, on second thought, they were hard to miss! Just part of being in Africa, I guess!

S.W.

River #2

November 3

After getting off to a late start, which seems to be how every day starts, we headed off to “River Number 2”. This is a stunningly beautiful location where a river flows past a large sandy beach into the Atlantic Ocean. Every time I come here the river has cut a new route through the soft powdery sand. We arrived at low tide and had fun hopping in at the mouth and letting the rising tide sweep us swiftly down the river.

Some of the villagers prepared us a delicious meal of barracuda, lobster, rice and fries, before we headed out for another swim under the light of the gradually setting sun. This is a little bit of a difficult location to get to as the road is absolutely terrible, but it is still very much worth the effort!!!

R.W.

Bunce Island

November 2


Image 1 - Richard and Stephanie in the ruins of the Bunce Island slave fort


Image 2 - Leaving Bunce Island


Today we were off to Bunce Island. We rented a hand-made wooden canoe with a motor hanging off the back and travelled with 5 sailors to the Island from Freetown. We went against the tide, so it took longer then we thought. Thankfully, we had bought some umbrella’s for the sun (They had a Barrak Obama picture stamped on two sides of it… he’s a very popular thing to have on T-shirts, hats, etc. here!)

The Island has ruins of a slave fortress where slaves were kept before being shipped out to America. We saw the fireplace where the slaves were branded and the cave where they were kept for 3 days with no food or water to “weed out” the weak ones- the ones who died.

We saw a cemetery where various slave masters and/or captains of ships were buried. It was interesting noting the feelings and comments made at that cemetery- none of them compassionate towards those buried there. It certainly made you want to live a life where people won’t despise your gravestone when you’re gone.

On the way home, I saw the house Richard grew up in along with a number of neighbour’s who were very excited to see him and his family. Now, at the end of the day, I am exhausted… the short nights, heat, rough travel, and effort needed to meet new people took all my energy out of me. Good-night!

S.W.

Church and Guests

November 1

For Church we headed off to the east end of Freetown. We joined the former head of the Sierra Leone branch of our mission, at his church, to worship God. My dad preached and my mom gave a little lesson. Us Wiebes sang a couple of songs for the church and then Stephanie and I as well as Kevin and Toni were called up onto the stage by a couple of Sierra Leonean pastors. We were asked a number of questions as part of a marriage panel. Our responses garnered considerable laughter and clapping from our audience. It seems women and men are the same in every culture and experience the same marriage issues. The women particularly liked (they stood up, clapped, and cheered) when my sister-in-law Toni talked about how my brother Kevin started to help with house work because he realised the amount of work she was doing.

Back at our hotel we relaxed a bit before we received a couple of guests. Samuel, who used to do house and yard work for us, and Ju Ju, who was like a big brother to me when I was a small child and living in the town of Bo (the whole village would look out for me and make sure I didn’t stray too far from home).

R.W.