Friday, January 05, 2007

Life in Freetown

This week has been very quiet, both at home and at work, so I am missing people back at home because there’s very little to keep my mind off doing so. The difference between rich and poor and the slender thread of life was brought home to me by my housemate who told me of what had happened to one of our guards while I was away. He’s been ill for sometime and through the efforts of our Krio speaking friends (We’re still learning so it’s pretty basic), the guard’s father was persuaded to take him to hospital (rather than to a traditional witch doctor). Once at the hospital, he was diagnosed with diabetes and treated and is no recovering at home. What really amazed me was the cost of this all-about 400GBP! Which he definitely would not have been able to afford, as a compound, we have paid for his treatment, but I think he’s going to need to get insulin everyday for the rest of his life as well.

Just this disparity- I guess it’s there to an extent in some Western countries, but in the UK, if you’re ill, you go to hospital and it’s free at the point of need-yes there are problems and difficulties with the NHS, but compared to these costs, which I assume are normal by international standards, actually having the NHS is such a blessing for everyone in the UK who’s ever taken ill.

The roads are less chaotic at the moment but I think that’s because a lot of people have been/are upcountry and so fewer people are coming into work in the mornings. The taxi’s are as crazy as ever but there seem to be less horns beeping than normal. In Freetown, the most important part of a car is its horn- at least that’s what you’d expect given the amount of usage! It means any of:

- Get out of my way

- Look- there’s a white person

- I’m turning left/right (not always used for this- in fact indicators often aren’t used either!)

- Don’t stop suddenly in front of me

- I’m pulling out

- Don’t pull out in front of me

- You’re driving on the wrong side of the road

- Look at me- I’ve got a fancy car

- And I’m sure plenty more things that I’ve missed or forgotten


I haven’t got a car and haven’t driven round Freetown yet, but it’s definitely an experience where you keep your eyes and ears open the whole time (and I guess that includes being a pedestrian as well).


Well I guess that’s all for the moment- I’m not expecting momentous things to happen this weekend but will let you know if I get up to much interesting.

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posted by Nenya @ 1:46 pm

2 Comments:

At 6:01 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well that list looks familiar. I'd also add "My horn's louder than that red light so I'm going through it", "My lights aren't on even though it's dark but at least my horn works", and "I'm not honking at you, but I want to pass it up the queue to the one fifty cars in front who might be slowing us down".

I am genuinely concerned I may get back to the UK, walk into the road, hear a car horn, and *not* jump as I'm so used to them, even though in the UK it's usually "get out the way I'm gonna hit you".

The tombstone will read "here lies Tim - he said it would happen on blogger.com"!

 
At 11:12 am, Blogger Nenya said...

What red light Tim?? I think we may have one traffic light in Freetown but I have never seen it working and I don't think anyone would stop for it if it did work.

When I was back in the UK it struck me how queit the traffic is- and also how few potholes there are on UK roads.

Others that I've remembered since include:
- do you want a lift (from taxis)
- I'm full and can't pick you up (also from taxis)

 

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