Taking a walk

Sometimes doing very little is the most fun.  Once again, I have found myself wandering the market of Freetown.  Walking the cracked streets and dodging trucks, taxi's, and motorcycles.  However, not so successful on the last one.  My elbow met some handlebars on Saturday but seems to be fine now.  My friend Sarah told me that I obey no traffic laws, but I think I have turned into a local while walking down the street.  The rules are easy.  Go fast.  Swerve anyway you need to to get through congested areas and squeeze into tight places you would never imagine you could get through.  All the while watch where you are walking so you don't fall into the ditch of sewage off to the side.  Oh yeah, smile at all the children who call out "hello how are you".  If the crazy does happen and you walk into a mud puddle and your flip flop decided to stay in the mud while your foot travels on, that is ok.  Just stand there and look like an idiot until some nice lady reaches into the mud and puts your shoe back on your foot.  It seems to help if you look very surprised and just keep saying "my shoe, my shoe". 
It is rainy season here.  When it rains it really rains.  If you are at a bakery with friends and just ate a lot of pizza (really, really good pizza) and it is pouring outside, the walk home seems very far.  Therefore you should all pile into a taxi and don't try to negotiate a price.  There is a rain price and a sunny price. 

The market street is by far my favorite here.  There is so much stuff to see and every time many new things.  Today a lady tried to sell me some fish.  When I told her that I don't cook, she said "how do you eat?" a very good question.  It would have been hard to explain that if I cooked I'd only ever eat grilled cheese so I just said that other people cook on the ship and she laughed at me.  How different our lives are.  I'll include pictures of some of the things we saw on our walk through the market.  The walk ended taking a short cut through a churches property.  There is a burned building that I've wanted to take pictures but i didn't expect to meet lots of children and moms down that road.  We had a lot of fun, just talking and taking snaps (pictures).  It was a very relaxing weekend spent with friends.