NOVEMBER 29

Today we left Dakar for Sierra Leone. Everyone was really excited about our means of transportation. Well…some were excited, some were nervous. It is the first time any of us have ever ridden a helicopter. It was a lot smoother than I expected. In fact, it was smoother than any airplane that I ever ridden.

Our final destination is Freetown. I guess the name is self explanatory, but I will explain anyway. Freetown was actually settled by freed slaves from the U.K. and the U.S. This explains the language that they speak here. Creole. All words of this language are English, but spoken in a way we would consider completely scrambled.

Tuesday we got a chance to see some of Freetown before we headed to the YWCA. There we gave a workshop on jazz to students of the Prince of Wales school. These young women from Wales where like sponges. They love music and are open to learning anything new. They also put on an enthusiastic performance of marches. We took this opportunity to show the the relationship between military marches and New Orleans second Line Music.

The next day we had off, which was good because we all could use the rest. We decided to take a tour of the Tacugama Chimpanzee Reserve. Tacugama is where chimps who were once people’s pets are held and reprogrammed to survive in the wild. This process takes a lot longer than one would expect. A number of the chimps have been there for years. It has also been the home of what some would say are celebrities such as Pinkie the only albino chimp on record to this date and Bruno the chimp wanted in connection to a murder last year who has not been seen since. It was amazing to learn how these animals function in their self-made society. In fact it’s very similar to humans. I have also included photos from this trip.

(click below for more photos)
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