Nenya.net

A fun weekend

This weekend has been much more interesting than I anticipated on leaving the office on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, after spending a quiet morning at the house we decided to go and see if there were waves suitable for surfing down at Bouré Town beach (that might be the correct spelling but I’m not 100% certain), but en route got invited to a friend’s for lunch at another beach (Tokeh), which we accepted and enjoyed delicious fresh cooked fish and rice. We then swam and enjoyed the sun for the afternoon, some people went out on a boat trip, where they saw dolphins. The dolphins were swimming in and around the nets that fishermen had been using to catch fish and they didn’t want to catch the dolphins-possibly because it is illegal, possibly because there’s no market for dolphins. Anyway, the dolphins were jumping in and out of the nets in order to eat the fish caught therein and if I can get some photos of the dolphins, I’ll put those up here as well. There were at least 5 and possibly more of them at one time.

In the evening, we stayed on the beach, with the intention of staying there overnight, but it was getting pretty cold and most people hadn’t brought suitable clothing to stay the night and there weren’t going to be enough mattresses, so several of us decided to head back to town-after having enjoyed a bonfire on the beach. We went back at around midnight, so there wouldn’t be so much traffic (therefore much safer than going back just after it gets dark when there are a lot more maniac drivers). We took the good road all the back into town-normally we’d cut across country, but because we were heading into town so late, it meant that the traffic coming through the middle of town (that the good road takes you into) and had a fantastic surprise as we passed along Siaka Stevens St (the main street in the middle of town); there were Christmas lights out (or they may be ‘election lights’ all the way down the road). Yes-that’s right, for the first time ever, I saw a whole road of street lighting in Freetown. Not only does this mean that NPA is back and working (at least for the moment and possibly up to the elections),but it’s being used to work the streetlights, so that it’s much safer travelling around in the evenings and amusingly made the centre of the town look like a Hollywood movie set.

On Sunday, we travelled up to Tokeh by speed boat (very fun- much faster and a lot less bumpy than going by road, especially if you don’t take the good roads the whole way). We picked up those who had decided to stay over for the night and then went off to Banana Island which is slightly off the coast of the Western Province. It’s a very basic island but there is both a school and hospital there, although we didn’t see inside of either of them. They have developed an area that has a lot of potential as a weekend retreat for tourists, with some very nice huts that have been newly built to help bring more money to the island. I think I was told that they aren’t properly owned/governed by the government of Sierra Leone because they used to be inhabited by outlaws and there’s not much there for others to want. The locals mainly live off the abundant fish and fruit that’s available on the island. There’s no vehicles there and we enjoyed exploring the village (Dublin) and even met the chief (or his wife- I’m not quite sure if she was the chief or if he was away and she was filling in while he was gone) for a few minutes.

We then went back to Tokeh and en route stopped off at another small island that has had a small pool built into it that is filled by the ocean at high tide. The people we were with explained that they used to have parties on this island and had at one point started building small houses (one room) to make it easier to stay the night, but the local fishermen had stolen the doors (and roofs) so they weren’t really habitable and they just had to bring tents and camp out if they wanted to stay over.

After we ate back at Tokeh- Snapper (fish) and rice, we (or perhaps here I can say ‘I’) drove the boat back to Freetown- was very good fun (and I didn’t crash, which was useful) and also pretty easy, if feeling somewhat hedonistic.

The evening was spent relaxing at Mamba Point and just chilling out (while having a supper that didn’t include fish- I chose chicken which was a nice change).

My camera decided it didn’t want to work, so I didn’t manage to get any photos but hope to get some off a friend to put up here.

Labels: banana islands, boat, dolphins, tokeh, weekend

posted by Nenya @ 12:30 pm