Upcoming elections in Sierra Leone

As most of you know, Sierra Leone is going to the polls this weekend, August 11th (HOW RUDE IS THAT ON MY BIRTHDAY?!), for the second time since the decade-long civil war - it is the first election that will not be supervised by the United Nations or by international forces. So far, there have only been a few fairly minor incidences and most were upcountry. Most people are being cautious, but are not overly worried about any major resurgence of violence in the country. If there is any trouble, it is likely to be upline, in the provinces, where people's living conditions are worse, they are less educated and they have a lot more spare time on their hands to make trouble. Many people just want trouble to create instability, so they can loot. Hopefully, it will all go well without any problems.

In the mean time, security in our compound is beefed up and we have a huge supply of water and food and BEER/WINE, just IN CASE anything should happen and we end up cooped up for days. I can't sit in a compound for days on end without alcohol now, can I? We are going to skip 100 metres down the road and stay at a friend's house on Saturday night, so we can celebrate my birthday with some close friends over pizza and groundnut stew. I am not expecting any trouble, but we are being cautious anyway. I am registered with the british high commission so no need to worry about me. I feel very safe in my surroundings.

The West Africa office and ward have been closed for a week now and will be for another two. The girls all wanted to go home (even those who are not operated) so they could cote in their constituencies - absentee votes etc. are not available - you must be at your own polling booth when the day comes. They have promised to get back in touch to return for treatment when the elections are over and things stabilise again. We are also doing renovations on the building during this time. So, besides hammering and welding noise, it is very quiet up here at WAFF and we have very little to do! Dr George is supervising the only two remaining patients who are safely staying in our ward at the government hospital in the east end of town, while the medical director, Dr. Lewis is away in Texas on a scholarship, gaining some experience in a big hospital in America for three months.

I will not be online, as I won't be coming to the office until next week, so if you want updates (which are hard to find unless you know where to look), you can check out the following sites for local newspaper articles (some are great, but they can be very sensationalistic and silly, so take them with a grain of salt):

http://www.awoko.org/

http://www.thenewcitizen-sl.com/

http://awarenesstimes.com

http://standardtimespress.net/

And for a more international, less biased view, the ever reliable BBC World:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

They also have some really interesting new photos of the slums in Freetown:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/07/africa_sierra_leone_slum/html/1.stm

Talk to you next week! Hope everyone is well xoxo