Looking Back, Tying Up
I’ve been in SL for 2 years and my time here is coming to an end. I need to sit back and reflect think on all the things that I’ve learnt, realised and begun to understand during me time here, once I’ve done that I’ll try to do a final update to my blog, but until that’s done, I’ve been thinking of things that I will (and won’t) miss when I leave here and I’ve thrown them in together- the only order is the one in which I wrote them down:
- The fantastic traffic safety sign- I’m lacking pictures, since I’m normally driving when I go past, but the captions are great (admittedly some of them are on one of the roads with more precarious edges than you’d generally find in Europe):
o Hug Children at home, Belt them in the car
o No Safety, Know Injury, Know Safety, No Injury
o Drive Safely…Today Heaven can wait
- Driving home over the hills in the evening and having a beautiful view down to the sea and being able to watch the sun set into the sea in a myriad of beautiful colours- one time recently, when I’d just finished playing squash, I walked out towards the beach and the sea looked as if it were made of molten gold/bronze
- The potholes in the major roads and the totally potholed other roads
- The totally crazy taxi drivers-including the ones that drive around at night with no headlights on in order to save fuel, or only have one headlight that works, so use that on full beam, or have decided to have the ‘coolest’ car on the road, full blinged out with loads of lights and stickers and toys and ski racks (yes- even tho’ I don’t think SL has ever experienced snow)
- Being able to buy fresh bread from the car window (as well as fruit, sweets, toiletries, DVD’s, school books, fried plantain, new windscreen wipers and other car accessories/essentials, boards games and probably anything else you can think of). I was recently offered two cows horns while I was driving by- with bits of the brains still attached in the middle, I wasn’t keen, which prompted one of the wits who I was driving to question why didn’t I want to buy the ‘bloody’ cows horns? I wonder…perhaps it was the anticipated smell, the likelihood of not being able to get it through customs and the fact that it really wasn’t something I had a hankering to put on a mantle piece…?
- The amazing beaches- beautiful, generally very clean, the water warm and clear and being able to eat freshly caught and BBQ’d fish with locally cooked rice and sauce after having enjoyed a swim in the sea.
- Being overcharged for anything because my nose is the wrong shape (or perhaps it’s something to do with the colour of my skin?) and then trying to barter prices down to something a bit more reasonable… well, sometimes!
- Having to buy cooking gas from the side of the road and hoping that it has been filled up enough such that it’s worth what you paid for it
- The highly erratic electricity and the ‘fun’ of depending on small generators for everything most of the time
- The friendliness of everyone here, especially when you need help or assistance
- The crazy rain, which totally soaks you if you get caught out in it for even a couple of seconds- my umbrella decided that it had had enough by the end of yesterday and now barely works- I’m hoping that the rain stays away long enough that I won’t have to get a new one before I leave! It turns roads into rivers/car parks and has caused some people to die due to the ferocity of the water as it heads down to the sea, sometimes catching people and washing them out to sea
- Coming home to a clean house several times a week, where even the ironing has been done- wow that’s brilliant and not something I can expect to happen for many years, if ever again
- Beach bars where you can sit and watch the sun go down over the sea in the early evening
- The interesting work ethic- some people work really hard and are very good at what they do, some just drift by waiting on handouts from others (ok- this could be any society in the world), but when you see young guys just sitting around during the day on the side of the road, just passing the time with each other, scepticism creeps in about whether they really want to work. It’s also interesting to see in offices how many people aren’t being that productive and also the extent to which friends and family ‘drop-in’ for a chat and sometimes with a request for assistance in the middle of the working day. Also if there’s no power in the offices, work can be difficult- e.g. computers won’t work and neither will a/c or fans and in the middle of the dry season it can get very hot and tiring just being
- The general harmony between people of different religions
- The general rancour between people of different political affiliations
- The huge amount of respect shown to parents- especially to fathers e.g. a friend of mine was told by his father that he had married a woman from a certain tribe who’d turned out not be exactly what he wanted / a ‘bad’ wife and so he wouldn’t allow his son to marry a woman from the same tribe. But this father would apparently have no problem with the son marrying a white woman who he didn’t know
- The huge amounts of chilli that is included in food here
- The 3 genders in development- man, woman and white-woman, with ‘white-woman’ being more or less on an equal footing with man, but with ‘woman’ being a lot lower down the scale. Women definitely have a much harder time of life here than men- they are expected to do a lot of the work in the fields, as well as caring for the family, any cooking and cleaning that needs to be done. I know some of the men work very hard as well, but it seems that it is always the women here upon whom the ultimate burden falls. Women are expected to be utterly faithful to their husbands, whereas not only does Islam allow men up to 4 wives, culturally it seems acceptable for a man to have other girlfriends as well as his wives/wife. Oh and women are expected to bear lots of children- especially boys. Girls tend to get less education, tho’ this is slowly changing, but even if they are educated, some are taken out of school in their mid-teens in order to be married off.
- There’s a huge disparity between rich and poor in SL- a recent article in the economist put the gini coefficient for SL (a measure of inequality) at above 0.60- according to the data they had collected this meant that SL was one of the most unequal countries in the world. This picture came from the
Economist website
- Handling dirty money the whole time…perhaps I should rephrase that- handling cash where the notes have varying levels of dirt and germs on and having the constant desire to clean your hands after handling money here. Mind you, since a lot of the money is often kept hidden somewhere within various pieces of clothing, it’s hardly surprising that it isn’t especially clean
- The newspapers and their sometimes unique versions of English grammar and syntax
- The fact that almost everything in SL is sponsored by one of the mobile phone companies
- When the weather gets too cold (below 25 degrees centigrade), Sierra Leoneans will don thick jackets and woolly bobble hats, despite the fact that in the UK as soon as the temperature hits the 20’s, everyone starts wearing shorts and summer dresses
- That almost all buildings and compounds employ guards
- That you can measure how wealthy someone is by the type of wall they have round their compound and the thief deterrents placed in the top of the wall- ranging from bits of broken glass to electrified fences
- When something happens e.g. a car touches another car, people are having an argument, everyone comes and stands around shouting at the tops of their voices and joining in
- Shouting is used as a normal method of communication
- The difficulties of just living when you don’t have money
- The large amount of long complicated words that are used in documents so that the author can sound educated- so far as I’m aware, the ‘Campaign for Plain English’ obviously hasn’t put up offices in SL just yet
- The generosity of mind and spirit of so many people here, which is so lovely
Okay, that’s enough for now- I'm sure there's more I should include, but that's enough for a start. Overall, I’ve loved my time in SL, tho’ it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster-especially emotionally- and I know there’s still loads for me to learn about the country and people etc. I think living in any country that you don't know well/haven't been brought up in can bring difficulties, confusions and emotional highs and lows, I'm sure it's not just in SL that you can go from being pretty depressed to very happy within the space of half and hour, even when the reasons for each emotion are entirely different. Maybe it's just that I've been taking more time to examine how I react to situations, but I think it's also the effect of Africa and for me in particular, from living in Sweet Salone.
I’ve also really enjoyed travelling around the country, both for business and pleasure. In my time here I managed to visit all the districts, including Bonthe island and the Turtle Islands just off the coast and I definitely agree with people who say that Freetown is definitely not fully representative of Sierra Leone as a whole and that although you can get an idea of SL from being in Freetown, to really know what it's like you need to go upline and meet people there and know and understnad more about their lives. It has been an incredible experience and I can’t quite believe that it’s coming to an end. However, I’ve still got two weeks to enjoy being here, so it’s not quite over yet……
Labels: beach, car, poverty, power, rain, roads, weather
Tyre bursting records and other travels
What with trying to develop a new PRSP (the poverty reduction strategy paper, which will be the guiding force behind the development plans of the government for the next 3-5 years), as well as various other projects that I’m involved with, I really haven’t had much time to sit down and write recently.
I managed to escape from Freetown over the Easter weekend (longer than normal due to a Muslim holiday being on the Thursday as well!). A group of us were trying to go and see the dam at Bumbuna- a large edifice which has been about 40years in the planning and construction (depending on who you speak to) and will eventually provide power for Freetown- it being a hydroelectric power plant. As far as I’m aware, it’s currently empty and they’re finishing off the final points that need to be constructed with the hope that this rainy season (or possibly the one after that) will fill the dam and they can start using it to produce much cheaper power for the capital. On the subject of power, NPA has been much better recently. We’ve had power most evenings in the house- which given the fact that we’re now in the warmest part of the year is very useful as it means I can use a fan all through the night which helps me sleep a lot better.
However, we didn’t manage to go to Bumbuna- there was no room at the inn/holiday resort/construction site, so we decided to head up into the north east of the country to Kabala in the Koinadugu district. The roads are tarmac the whole way (a few holes but probably fewer than Freetown has), with the road to Makeni being very good and the road from Makeni to Kabala being pretty decent. Having said that, when we set out on Good Friday, we didn’t manage to get very far with the journey. We got to one of the first main junctions after the peninsula and just as we’d got about 2 villages beyond that there was a rumbling sound- which didn’t stop. We pulled over and realised that our back left tyre was totally gone- so much so that the rim of the tyre was close to being on the road. Then all the usual fun of sorting out the jack (the alan key was missing, so we went and borrowed a jack-meant for a taxi rather than a Defender- from the next village along). All was going well with the process until the driver decided to take a look at the other tyres- since the road was good and it was strange for the tyre to have suddenly burst. Unfortunately, it was noticed that the front left tyre seemed to have sustained some damage, with a hole exuding air in the wall of the tyre. We only had one spare with us and this was going on the back left, which was really in dire straits.
Half the group were left with the vehicle and the other half walked back to town- fortunately it wasn’t the predicted 2hour trek, since it was now getting close to 11am and therefore heating up a bit. Once we arrived in the town, we found some helpful police who took us to a mechanic’s and I got a good opportunity to explain the situation using my Krio (we’d left one Krio speaker with the car while I went into town to practice mine there). We then took Okada’s back to the car (much quicker than walking, tho’ not my most favourite experience), along with two mechanics- having organised where we could get 2 tyres in town from. As we returned to the spot where the car had been, we found it was no longer there! The two people we’d left with the car (one non driver and one who only drives automatics), had managed to roll it down the hill and off the road a bit more- so fortunately we soon spotted it again! This might be a suitable time to mention the way that Sierra Leoneans mark out that a vehicle has broken down- they/ we take handfuls of grass and earth from the side of the road and lay out 5-6 pieces at suitable intervals leading up to the vehicle. This means anyone coming along the road will know that a vehicle has stopped/broken down just ahead and therefore will be more likely to slow down and keep a wary eye out. However, this green method doesn’t always work as people just leave the organic warning system on the road when they drive off- well it is biodegradable! This can mean people have slowed down for other ‘bits of vegetation’ before for no reason and therefore aren’t always as bothered about slowing down for the ‘real thing’.
The rear tyre had been replaced by the spare and the car was quickly jacked up again and the front left tyre removed. The mechanics carefully balanced the two burst tyres on the backs of 2 of the Okada’s and those of us who had previously gone into town then got back on the other Okada and heading back to Masiaka Junction. Once there, it was decided that the front tyre could just be patched up. They proceeded to do this, using spit, earth and super glue- and possibly a small piece of rubber. The other tyre was properly burst- so much so that there were two huge cracks in the wall of the tyre (oh and a pretty massive nail had gone through the tyre as well- see pics on facebook). A replacement tyre and inner tube were found and after a lot of sweat (and many other Sierra Leoneans just standing round watching the entertainment), they managed to put the rim from the burst tyre onto the new tyre, filled up the inner tube with air and then we got back on the Okada’s and went back to the car, with one new tyre (which we put on the front left of the car) and one ‘patched’ tyre (which now became our spare).
We decided that we wouldn’t go onto Kabala that day (it was around mid day, so we still had plenty of time) since we wanted to make sure we had a proper spare tyre rather than one that had been patched up and we weren’t too convinced about. We’d passed back through Masiaka when things started feeling strange in the car- the driver noted that the steering wasn’t quite right! So we quickly turned back towards the town. Just when we’d got to the sign post for the edge of the town, the tyre decided to give up- and guess which one- yes, the new one that’d we’d just purchased! The inner tube of the brand new tyre had totally disintegrated in the short distance we had just gone-grr. So, that was the third tyre in one day- pretty much a record as far as we were aware, especially since we were travelling on ‘proper’ roads. So, we walked into the town again- not too far fortunately; we found some more mechanics (there were a lot about, this one we’d been introduced to but he’d decided not to come out to the car earlier on). We then decided to just try using the spare ‘patched’ tyre instead of sorting out a new tyre. After this had been changed, we then slowly made our way back to Freetown, and that night, we went out for a meal. Now the person who had been driving us had brought his car to the meal- with the patched tyre holding up pretty well, although he was worried that the front right tyre wasn’t looking very healthy. By the end of the meal, the front right tyre was looking distinctly unhappy and so he very slowly drove back to his house (with an escort) and by the next morning, his front right tyre was totally flat. So, that was how we managed to have four burst/flat tyres in one day!
We decided to try again on the Saturday and since I had borrowed a vehicle suitable for up country travel, we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately one of our group had to drop out, since they planned to use the bank holiday Monday for work (some people here are very keen) and we were now not planning to be back until later on the Monday afternoon. So, we travelled up to Kabala, smiling sweetly at the police en route- although we did get stopped by the military so that the Vice President could hand over some new tractors from Libya to one of the villages on the road to Makeni. The recipients took great pleasure in racing the gifts up and down the fields (at least that’s what it looked like from the road). It was hot when we stopped and got out to watch the tractor racing- the area was flat and fairly low lying, so lacking in breeze and just sitting there taking in all the heat that the sun offered- the agricultural work here is back-breakingly hard and the heat of the sun does nothing to alleviate the difficulties. Where we stopped there were even no trees for what felt like miles around, so no shade to stop and rest in at any point. These people are really Tough- they’ve been doing this type of work for years and were then interrupted by the cruelties of the civil war and are now back trying to scrape a living from the sun boiled landscape in which they live. Seeing small glimpses of this just makes me so thankful for all the huge opportunities I was given in where I was born and grew up- I am so amazingly blessed.
We did make it to Kabala, with no car problems. We found the guest house without too much trouble and they had kept the rooms that we booked and then had rebooked due to the problems on the road the previous day. After relaxing for a bit and eating our packed lunch- we had a lot of bread and cheese and bananas that we’d brought with us (and two tins of tuna that stayed shut the entire time), we wandered round the town, met one a friend living in Kabala and just enjoyed being away from the business of Freetown. That evening we had couscous and vegetables at the ‘JustInn’ restaurant and bar- delicious and not too spicy! On the Sunday, we went walking up a mountain/hill overlooking Kabala- the views were beautiful, the breeze gently cooling and the company… (well pretty good actually). We chatted about why we celebrate Easter, what actually happened at the first Easter and why that matters for the salvation of our souls.
Our time in Kabala was good for getting away from the Western peninsula, reading, chilling out and just chatting about life, the universe and many other things. It was also much less exciting than out first attempt at a journey to get there and since we were trying to get away from the stress and hubbub of Freetown that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing! Discussions about materialism came up several times- particularly given the state of existence in some of the villages that we’d seen on the roads and these were the villages that had access to ‘easy’ transport to get to the main towns. There are many others living in villages that are much harder to reach (although the National Electoral Commission did manage to reach almost everyone who was eligible to register to vote when it was doing the elections last year).
This is getting to be an extremely long post, so congratulations if you’ve made it all this way! Just to say that we stopped in at Mama beach on the way back to Freetown on Easter Monday, which was fun but the beach isn’t a patch on John Obey or Bureh town beaches. There were also at least two large outings of Sierra Leoneans on the beach, plus sound systems, which made it somewhat noisier than it would otherwise have been.
Labels: bureh, car, kabala, power, roads
Sunshine and showers
It has been far too long since I've written anything on my blog- I fully admit this, but life has been pretty busy here recently- lots of conferences and work to be done as a result of them and then just getting on with life as normal.
We've also been lacking internet at work since last Friday and I've had to take a few days off sick (tho' am now feeling much better). The walk last Saturday was up Sugarloaf (great views from the top but a bit of a clamber to get up there), which I avoided due to being ill for the previous 2-3 days and instead watched far too much Spooks at a friend's house.
The rainy season has begun in earnest it seems- some pretty huge 'showers' of rain coming down- well, actually huge thunderstorms that can be pretty dramatic to watch but are more annoying when you're trying to catch a few more minutes sleep before having to get up and go to work! In fact, that pretty much describes a lot of how this morning went- I just about managed to avoid getting drenched between the house and the car, but the rain hits the ground so hard that even if you're using an umbrella you're likely to get pretty wet as the rain that misses you on the way down, catches you as it bounces up again. In fact, the only 'benefit' of the rain was that I didn't face quite as many traffic jams as normal on my way into work, although heading up one road did feel like the car was trying to drive up a river as the deep channels at the sides of the road had so much water gushing down them that they were overflowing into the road. One of my colleagues told me of a 30-car pile up near Lumley roundabout this morning on his way into work- there's a short section between two roundabouts where there's no tarmac and the road is just hard earth/mud, well, under torrential rains, this had become impassable for all but the most able vehicles and please remember that however intrepid the taxi drivers here are, I haven't seen a taxi that I would class among the 'most able' of vehicles here.
We also faced a plague (well, one night) of flies, which we've also been told marks the beginning of the rains, as they 'emerge' after the first big rains. This happened last week and the flies were highly attracted to any light sources and even managed to get in through closed windows- metal bars on the window didn't seem to discourage them at all, but we've been told this is a one-off event, so are settling down to wait for the rains to continue. Having said that, looking outside of my office now, there's gorgeous sunlight and bits of blue sky, so it doesn't feel like we're really in the rainy season at the moment! We'll obviously see how many more trips we can make to the beach before there's more rain than sun on the weekends!
Labels: car, rain, sun, traffic
Last weekend
Ok, so this is getting fairly bad- waiting an entire week after an event before posting it on my blog. However, work has been fairly busy this week- we've had a major meeting between government and donors to look at how things have been going on the PRSP, aid harmonisation, and various sector strategies since the CG meeting in November. The DEPAC is only one day long, so not quite as manic as preparing for the CG meeting, but it's still been busy. Also, the DEPAC is meant to happen every quarter (unlikely with elections coming up, but still possible) so that people at the top are kept informed on how things are going to reduce poverty.
Anyway, that was all out of the way by the end of yesterday and today has taken a more relaxed pace, meaning I can write a bit on my blog.
Last weekend was a break from the walking, swimming, beaching of previous posts. we left town on Friday afternoon and went down to the beach, about 7 cars worth, but there were spaces- but in any case there were quite a few of us.
Those who wanted to be prepared to roll into bed at any hour sorted out mosquito nets and hammocks and various other contraptions that they intended to us to catch some sleep. we then chilled and chatted on the beach, ate fish and rice (with fruit for dessert), listened to music and started the campfire going.
Now, this is meant to be the warmest time of year in SL, but I'm not convinced since I felt slightly chilly when wandering away from the fire (there was a very slightly breeze which also decreased the temperature slightly). We consumed a lot of marshmallows and there was a fair amount of alcohol drunk considering the hangovers several people had the next morning. I didn't go for a 3am swim (too cold and not looking forward to the prospect of going to bed cold and wet), in fact, slept very snugly and warmly to wake up just after 7.
Someone who was very well prepared had brought a camping stove (and cafetiere) with them- I love the smell of coffee and even quite like coffee beans covered in chocolate but still don't like the taste of coffee, despite housemates and friends trying to encourage me that it's really quite nice and probably won't poison me after all ;-)
A morning swim was definitely in order and was absolutely brilliant- the water wasn't particularly cold and allowed me to work off energy without disturbing those recovering from the previous evening's undertakings.
The journey back to town was a slight fiasco- two clutches gone (one recovered enough to get back to town and the other had to be towed), so a journey that can be done in an hour took well over 2 hours, but all made it safely back to town again in the end, which was a relief.
In the evening I was at a leaving party- two of the leaders of the walking club are leaving at some point in the near future and so we had a pot luck supper to say goodbye to them. Being highly unimaginative I took along a fruit salad- I'll see what I can do about tray-bakes in the future, but having spent most of the day at or returning from the beach, I didn't really feel like I had the opportunity to try anything more adventurous.
Sunday I went to church and heard a good talk from a guy who works for YFC and then relaxed and caught up on sleep in the afternoon (so pretty boring really).
This weekend- well, if all goes well then I hope to go up country to one of the parks. Being in West Africa, we don't get the big animal safari's common in East Africa, but we'll see what wildlife is willing to be capture on camera. Will let you know sometime soonish, but probably not on Monday- Sierra Leone being a majority Islamic country is having a bank holiday to celebrate their Isalmic prohet's birthday this weekend.
Labels: beach, car, coffee, leaving party, weekend, work
Puncture and Paddy's night
So really, my weekends are getting somewhat monotonous-at least for you to read about and I don’t think my week days are getting much more exciting. I’ve started playing squash more regularly, which is fun- tho’ the court is not air conditioned, so it’s kind of warm when we’re playing. I’m slowly getting a bit better, fortunately I’ve found a friend who’s about the same level, so we’re able to ‘share’ winnings rather than just have one person exhausted and the other ‘unexercised’.
Well, in case you hadn’t guessed, I went on the walk this Saturday morning and then went for a swim, the leader of the walk noted that obviously the walk wasn’t tough enough and he needed to make sure we had a faster pace in the future. My response was along the lines of however hard he made the walk, even to the point where I would be collapsing, I’d still swim afterwards (tho’ may have a rest first), because swimming (at least for the amount I do), isn’t particularly tiring unless I’m really trying to exercise and therefore pushing myself to swim faster.
Friday night (lets not do this chronologically), several of us went down to Shanghai restaurant for supper- was v amusing because whenever anyone walked into the restaurant they basically did a walk round all the other tables to say hi to everyone else who they knew and then went over to the table where they were sitting- I did this and so did everyone who came in after me. It’s really amusing to be able to walk into a restaurant and know most of the people in there. This was pointed out to me when I was out eating with a friend who was in SL on a shortish consultancy, he said that it seemed like I knew everyone in the restaurant, it wasn’t quite true, but I did know a lot of people there and as they came into the restaurant they came over and said hi. I guess that shows how small the expat community is here (or how few places there are that people eat out at!)
Anyway, on Friday night (to get back to my original story), I had a puncture (v. common in SL). Now, my guards spotted this just as I was about to leave the compound (it was already quite dark) so I went down to the restaurant with one of my housemates instead. Anyway, I found that I did have all the necessary tools to change a tire in the back of the car, tho’ it take us (me and the guards) sometime to work out how to put the jack down.
Punctures happen fairly regularly in Freetown (and in general in SL), fortunately my mechanic was available on Saturday afternoon and took the (now punctured) tire into town in order to get a new inner tube fitted. I do need new tires as the ones I’ve got work, but could be a lot better than they are.
Saturday was St Patrick’s day, so the Irish community (having been practising Irish dancing all of last week) threw a huge party and invited most of the expat community, plus several locals, to a party on Saturday night. Was good fun- they even got some of the non Irish people attempting to do Irish dancing, wasn’t too hard, tho’ is exhausting after a while and seems to be fairly similar to English country/barn dancing but with three steps for everyone one or two that would be done in barn/country dancing. Was a long night most of my friends got home about 5am and I wasn’t home much before that.
Sunday was definitely a day of rest and in the afternoon I accompanied a friend down to Bureh beach. (I’ve been told that this is the correct way to spell Bureh, although one map that I have spells it without the ‘h’). The beach was deserted (well, there were about 2 other people there, plus those who sell the food) and very pleasant. We had barracuda and rice for lunch, which was delicious. I’ve had oysters there before, which are also very nice.
That’s probably enough babbling from me for the moment, next weekend may be slightly different- perhaps staying overnight at one of the beaches, but nothing’s definite yet.
Labels: beach, bouray, boure, bureh, car, puncture, squash, St Patrick's day, swim, walk
the war still impacts Salone
These first 2 pics are of the same car- part of a graveyard in Kono (or possibly Tonkolili)- over in the East of the country. apparently these cars have been here for 10-15 years-long enough for fast growing trees to grow up through them.
what's really scary is the amount of ambushed cars you still see the skeletons of on the roads in the east- admittedly everything that could be useful has been removed, but it's still a scary reminder of a reality that only 6 years ago was life in Salone.
Some of the buildings around were probably beautiful before the war, but are now just shells of their previous states-this one seems less burnt out than many others, but has still lost everything except the bricks it's built of.
Another building that was once elegant but was destroyed by the rebels in their systematic destruction of towns and villages as they left them.
Hidden in the long grass are many more skeletons of cars that were ambushed during the war. I went for a wander round while there was an attempt made to fix our car while we were travelling- there were more ex-cars than I could easily count, plus sometimes not being able to work out where one car stopped and another began- a very sad and stricking scene.
Labels: ambush, burnt out buildings, car, war
There and back again- a trip up country in Salone
After two weeks of travel round Sierra Leone, I feel I know the country a bit better- tho’ I did comeback to town last weekend which was appreciated, as it meant I could see friends and go to the beach (harder to do inland). Well, here is a brief resumé of what I have been doing while visiting the provinces up country. There are 13districts, split into three provinces- North, South, East and West, although the Western province is entirely made up of the peninsular that includes Freetown and which is where I have spent most of my time so far, so I won’t say much about that here. We were doing all this travelling to set up Monitoring and Evaluation committees so that we can see to what extent SL is decreasing poverty and to introduce the focal person for doing this in the district to some of the major players.
First stop- Bo (same name for district and district capital), we left Freetown before it was light in order to arrive early enough to hold morning meetings. Bo is the second city in SL- at least that’s what I’ve been told. They’ve been working hard to keep it clean and while we were sitting waiting for the meetings to begin, I saw one group of people come round and sweep the rubbish into piles and then a few moments later another group came round and put it into a cart and take it away. There’s still some way to go, but it felt like a good start. I think attitudes in SL towards rubbish are very different (at least to mine, tho’ I have seen plenty of people throw their rubbish on the ground at home)- there are no (or at least I haven’t seen any) rubbish bins on the streets, so people just throw rubbish into the gutters and roads and paths (anywhere really) and wait for someone else to deal with it. When travelling along roads, people just throw rubbish out of cars as well- I guess it’s to do with the attitude that if I pay taxes then the government ought to keep the streets clean and it doesn’t matter how I behave. Anyway, I didn’t mean to rant about rubbish, so will leave the matter for another time. In Bo there are loads of motorcycles-more than in Freetown, or at least in the ratio between cars and motorcycles. The roads to Bo were graded but not tarmac the whole way there.
In the afternoon we travelled onto Pujehun (town and district name I think), this was a rebel stronghold during the war and they stayed here for some time, as a result, the town and district still show a lot of scars and it was more or less totally destroyed by the war. There was no running water in the main town- hand-wells are the main source of water for many people. Several news buildings have been built since the end of the war but a lot of burnt out shells remain.
We stayed in Bo the first night, the hotel I was in was very nice- even had CNN Europe, so I could catch up on some of the news.
Day 2, (Thursday) we finished our extra meetings in Bo and headed down to Bonthe. Bonthe province is split into 2 parts-the mainland and the island. We didn’t go to the island (the main administrative centre), but went to Mattru, where a lot of the people we needed to meet also have offices. The roads were very poor to get here and due to the Vice President going there on an official visit, to open a ferry (among other engagements) some of our meetings took place at an agricultural fete rather than in the normal office environment. I was informed that it takes 2-3 days sail to reach some of the areas of the province. We met almost no traffic on the roads and it seemed to be very poor.
Day 3, after having spent a second, very comfortable, night in Bo we went onto Kenema- a big diamond area in the east of the country and a therefore an area that the rebels wanted and fought strongly over during the war. It also has a lot of agriculture and is probably the breadbasket of SL. The roads between Bo and Kenema were good (tarmac) and we managed to push up our agenda and make it to Kailahun (in the far east of SL) in time to have meetings at the end of the day. Kailahun was one of the main rebel strongholds and is very poor- tied with Bonthe in terms of poorest district in SL. The roads were very bad- potholes that you had to drive into such that the sides of the roads were as high as the windows of the car. All buildings were destroyed and there’s a big NGO presence in the area. I think there’s also diamonds here and it borders both Guinea and Liberia, making it a ‘good’ area for smuggling during the war. The road to Kailahun was impassable until about 2years ago and I still wouldn’t want to go there in the rainy season at all.
We travelled back to Freetown on the Saturday, and then on Weds 24th we set off again, this time to visit the north and the rest of the eastern provinces. We held a workshop in Makeni (capital of the Bombali district) which went well. Makeni is a thriving town with really good roads between it and Freetown. The city is fairly well developed, tho’ I didn’t get to see much of it (until Friday but more of that below).
We travelled onto Kabala (the capital of Koinadogu district in the north) in the evening and stayed ay Paygay’s guest house (I think it’s pronounced Peggy’s) which was very nice-had running water, a generator and mosquito nets over the beds. We visited the old residence of the British colonisers- it was fairly high up (I think because they though malaria was caused by ‘bad air’ in the valleys so built at the top of hills up to stop them from catching it) and had good views over the town and is not the President’s residence when he comes to visit the district. In the evening, since I was with some fairly keen Arsenal fans, we went out to watch the London derby against Tottenham- in SL people adore football and all support at least one European (usually UK) football team and avidly watch all matches they can , as well as arguing voraciously with each other about tactics etc. Since we had had a pre-dawn start again and I hadn’t slept in the car, I was exhausted and because I ended up sitting on a very comfortable sofa (near the back of the room), I was falling asleep by the end of the first half, tho’ I did manage to just about see the two goals scored for Tottenham. This discouraging result at half time meant that my companions (who were also quite tired by now) were happy to forgo the second half (where I believe Arsenal equalised) and we went back to Paygays to sleep. The road from Kenema to Kabala was pretty good, but I was told it’s the only good road in the district and friends who’ve gone furher up country from Kabala towards the Guinea border said how it recently took them 7 hours to cover 70 miles because they kept needing to check whether the car would manage to get through the roads!
Koidu (capital of Kono) shows the riches of a major diamond town-at one point, you could apparently walk along the roads and just pick up diamonds as you walked along. There are diamond mines in the middle of the town and it’s a bustling place. This was again an area the rebels held during much of the war. The roads are fairly good to get here-not surprising since you get a lot of mining investors coming here. What was really sad was the stark poverty and riches so close to each other- the Koidu Holdings area was well lit (looking like a small town at home, with an orange glow from the street lights) and the surrounding areas in total darkness at night. It was more expensive to eat here than in any of the other districts- due to the riches from the mining. The roads to get here were littered with skeletons of cars that had been ambushed during the war.
Our car broke down (well, something split on the back axle and needed to be soldered back together), so we spent a bit of time in Makeni on our way to Kambia in the far north of the country. This meant I saw a bit more of the town and managed to buy some Africana fabric to be made into more African clothes when I get back to Freetown, the market was busy (and cheaper than Freetown) and I was given goat to eat (by a relative of someone I was travelling with)- it’s nice, but the smell is very pungent and stays with you for ages. Anyway, the problems with the car meant that a 6 hour journey became an 11 hour journey, which was exhausting for all of us and the roads to Kambia were only partially graded so felt a bit like being on a roller coaster with all the ups and downs of the road- tho’ fortunately we never went over our heads! The guest house here was more basic than the one in Kono- not having running water, so it’s a ‘bucket job’ in order to have a shower and you had to fill up the tank in the top of the toilet before you flushed it-but at least it was half connected!
On Saturday we held the necessary meetings first thing in Kambia and then headed off to Port Loko to hold meetings there on our way back to Freetown- Port Loko holds the airport, so is partly well developed but most of the district needs a lot more development. We bought fruit and veg from the many stalls on the side of the road on our way back- it’s much cheaper here than it is in town and managed to arrive back mid afternoon in Freetown, which was nice as it meant I could go for a swim and do some exercise after being in a car for most of the week!
Well, that was my time spent up country in the past couple of weeks- a really interesting experience and although we spent most of our time on the main roads, the poverty we saw is still amazing and I’m sure not as bad as that experienced by those who don’t have so much access to markets and roads. SL is an amazing country and so beautiful and yet so needy in terms of development, but people are very welcoming and friendly wherever I’ve been, which has really helped.
Well done for making it to the end of this post!!
Labels: ambush, bo, bombali, bonthe, car, districts, football, kabala, kambia, Koidu, Koinadogu, Kono, makeni, port loko, roads, rubbish, travel, water
Car Meets Wall
Not my car, not my wall and not my responsibility- fortunately!
One of our friends woke up one morning this weekend to find this car that had flipped over and turned 180 degrees and landed in his wall- the culprits made off with the number plates but they left the tax disc. They returned- with their irate father (who we think had bought the car for them) later in the day. Our friend was just glad that no one had died or been badly injured as a result of this crash!
As people here say 'Eh Salone' (best when done with a Krio/Jamaican accent)
Labels: accident, car, wall
