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Stefan's Diary
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Below are updates on Stefan and Zogo's conditon and what they are happening. These are intended to be in Stefan's own words.

September 2nd

Today I admit to being terrified for several reasons. Stefan is much better and out of hospital. Indeed, she managed to make it to church this morning (she is deeply religious, though I am not). All of this means that she will now be on the road to recovery and when fully recovered she will want to travel down to Sierra Leone.

Unfortunately she needs to do this journey for two reasons. First of these is to visit her father and I am so sad to have to tell her that my Help Stefan Campaign has been almost a complete bust. Despite plastering the campaign all over my site and having almost 900 visitors a day only two people have made any donations. This is terrible. I spend thousands of hours a week making all the information on my site available free to everyone, but when I ask, plitely, for $1 to help someone else (not even me) the world turns a blind eye. Ah well.

The second reason for Stefan's trip to Sierra Leone is that she needs a passport before she can put in an application for a visit to come to the UK. She had already done this by courier but the passport office in Sierra Leone have been holding her passport to ransom for the past 4 months, requesting that she pay an additional $300 for 'legal documents' before she could get a passport. The only way for Stefan to gain a passport therefore is to get to Freetown and make an application in person.

Even worse I cannot afford the airfare for her. Tomorrow I will have to pay her rent and utiliteis bills (almost $1000 which I pay every month); I have already paid for the hospital treatment due to her malaria ($3500 and I had to really persuade her to go into hospital) so my debts are mounting and I have no money left over to live myself, but that's OK, Stefan is the most important thing in my life).

But this means that Stefan will have to leave her son behind and travel overland to reach Seirra Leone (and travel overland back). She cannot drive so she will be at the mercy of a driver and the dangers of travelling throug Senegal, Guinea and Sierra Leone none of which are exactly for a single woman travelling alone. Which explains why I am terrified and why I am disappointed by the lack of response to my campaign. I am so desperate to be there with this woman, to protect her and to look after her. Her survival is my future and if anything were to happen to her then I could not live with myself. But without your help I cannot do anything and the time is so short now.

I've even been busy creating press releases but none of which have created any additional income for the site and the campaign. I am so afraid that something will happen to this woman I love.

I must give her whatever I have to make her trip safer but this means that what little money I have for myself is dwindling. I will not be able to call her as often as I do, I may not even be able to visit her for Christmas and so, the wedding we had planned as the start of our lives together may not occur in December, if at all. But I do still have the money for her visa application and that's OK.

Now, though, she has to make a dangerous trip through West Africa entirely alone and she will be going to visit her family for the last time, rather than going to see him gain an operation that could save his life. Everything is going so, so wrong for us.

Please visit Help Stefan Campaign.

Remember, if you are a webmaster then your donation will get you a permanent link on the One Dollar Links page. Larger donations will get you a copy of my Poetry eBook or my Cooking with Spices eBook. Soon I will follow this with a book of African Recipes and a 'Cooking with Herbs' eBook.

Just remember that Stefan and her son, Zogo, have survived two civil wars, a journey on foot through some of the roughest parts of West Africa. Both are surviving with malaria and living in Dakar, Senegal they are effectively stateless and have no political or economic rights whatsoever. Indeed, they are not legally allowed to work or earn money in Senegal and like all the other Liberian/Sierra Leonian refugees there they are living a hand-to-mouth existence. This is why I am supporting them every month with money for rent, utiliteis and food but I cannot do much more than that. They now have a chance to re-build a shattered family, to re-unite themselves with a father who they thought was lost (remember almost all of Stefan's family was massacred and she, herself, has been brutally attacked, injured and abused on several occasions). She is a true survivor and would never make this appeal on behalf of herself. But I have the chance, through this campaign, to make her life whole again, to allow her to finally let go of the past and to make a life with someone who truly loves her.

But I cannot do that withoug your assistance. Please support the Help Stefan Campaign and and make a real difference to two refugees' lives. Remember, the refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone are the 'forgotten refugees' or Africa. All moneys beyond that which is necessary to help Stefan herself will go towards the other Liberian/Sierra Leonian refugees in Senegal. Their plight needs to be brought to the world's attention lest they be forgotten forever.

It's not even that Stefan is doing this for nothing. She is dictating recipes to me for the African Recipes section of my Celtnet Recipes site. Please support the Help Stefan Campaign and give something back to a woman who is willing to give to you everything she knows.

Only you can turn her/our lives around, please help Stefan and her little boy Zogo (only 5) gain a new life in the UK. Support the Help Stefan Campaign now.

September 1st

Stefan has been in the hospital because of her malaria. She needed an emergency transfusion. Hence this is the first email I've been able to send sor a while. I'm just afraid for Zogo as the cost of the hospitalization (which I do not begrudge) has cleaned me out. I just wish that there was some way that I could be there in Senegal to look after both of them. But the visitors to my website seem totally cold-hearted. Despite almost 900 visitors coming in a day I've only had one person sign-up as a supporter of Stefan. Is it me, or is everyone just gifted-out? Can't anyone simply help any more? I'm making my website freely available so why can't every visitor afford $1 to help Stefan and Zogo? If everyone had done that for the past couple of days then I would have enough money now to travel out there and look after the two people I love more than anyone else on this planet. But I can't do that as all my spare cash this month will go towards paying their rent and utility bills. I'm keeping them going, but need your support to actually give them a life.

August 29th

Stefan is much better today thanks to an (expensive) stay in hospital. The total bill will be about £1500 (almost $3000). What this means is that there is no way I can now afford to send her to Sierra Leone to see her father and there is definitely no way that I can even envisage affording the $10000 for the operation to try and save Stefan's father's life. Everything just costs so much! What I would like would be to take Stefan to Sierra Leone, to at least meet her father once, to see him through the operation and then to take time off work to care for my family. But that will cost $25000+ and I don't know where the money might even come from; especially as donatons to this site are few and far between. All I can think of is publicizing this page a little more and maybe putting the information here on a blog. But I don't know whether or not that will give me any more exposure and it's exposure that I need now as the need is acute.

August 27th

It's just past 07:00 here and I can't sleep. I'm thinking about Stefan and worrying myself sick thinking about her. It's too early to call Senegal now and I don't want to wake her or call her too early in case she's resting. But I want to know if she's feeling any better — because if she's not then it's off to hospital for her. There's no other option here. I just wish that I could make the money needed both to help her and so that I could travel to see her and look after Zogo. It's so frustrating and frightening being so far away and being unable to help. Five more hours and I will be able to call. The hands of the clock are most certainly going to be creeping today. Please, please, if you can help me only a little I would be so grateful. Remember, if you are a webmaster a donation guarantees a link to your site. Improve your SEO by helping Stefan and Zogo.

August 26th

Stefan is still incredibly unwell. If anything the Novoquine injection she had on Friday's made the malaria even more rampant. Today she was so bad that a friend actually intercepted my call. Tomorrow I will have to arrange something to get her into hospital. Which only leaves the issue of what to do with Zogo. If only I had the funds to make the trip to Senegal. But I don't so I might as well not even ask the question. The issue of Zogo is a more general one as well. He turns five in October and in the UK he would have started school next week. He was attending the UN school in Dakar last year. But that's shut down now. The only option in Dakar seems to be the Catholic school. But that's $800 a month for the fees. The only other option would be to send him as a boarder to The Gambia. But that's expensive too and Stefan is (fairly) unwilling to even contemplate this. Always assuming that Stefan will recover and that life will continue. I obviously want this but part of me is very uncertain of the future at the moment. Oh, if only I could be in Dakar right now...

In an attempt at creating more money I've also put the Guide to Spices eBook on eBay to try and generate some additional income. No purchases yet, but I remain hopeful.

August 25th

Despite Stefan seeming to be better yesterday she is much worse today. Delirous and incoherent. The only way to help her will be hospitalization, but there is no way that I can affort the treatment. Or, the only way I can afford the treatment is to borrow yet more money, which is going to push me over the edge of debt. But, unless I can gain your help then I cannot see what I can do. After all Stefan needs the treatment. It's so frustrating being sturck here in the UK whilst she is so ill in Senegal. If only there was a way I could affrod the treatment and to fly out there to look after Stefan's son, Zogo. Which, of course, is the next problem. If Stefan goes into the hospital, what happens to Zogo in the meantime. I'm just so very afraid about what's going to happen in the next few days...

August 24th

Stefan has now been to the local doctor. But all she's had is a novaquine injection and some vitamin B complex. The novaquine won't make much difference to her condition and we can't afford the hospital fees so things are complicated. I have at least persuaded her to take some of the anti-malarials that I brought over on an earlier trip (like most good mothers she'd been stockpiling these for her son, but as I've told her if she's debilitated then she can't look after Zogo). I'm still desperately worried at her condition though and only wish I had the money ($4000) to send her to a proper hospital. All I can do is worry over here and hope that she takes care of herself as best she can. I wish that I could go over there to look after her but the cost is prohibitive and I must continue working to support her as best I can.

August 23rd

This was meant to be the first posting but has turned into something else completely. Stefan is currently very ill, now suffering with malaria and having liver complications. As you can understand I'm more than a little anxious so this first report is going to be very brief.

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