The poverty of Crewe Bay
Someone I know was working down in the Crewe Bay area recently, they were involved in a survey of illnesses and difficulties faced by the families there. Crewe Bay is one of the slums in Freetown, with well over 500 households in the community. It is an illegal build, along one of the watercourses that runs from the hills down to the sea. The household sizes vary immensely; some had 29 people (man, 3 wives and 25 children), living in a single room, whereas some were just couples who had come to Freetown in search of a better life. Since at least 70% of people in Sierra Leone live below the US$1 a day poverty line (79% in rural areas, with a lower proportion in Freetown, tho’ it’s much more expensive to live in Freetown than in the rest of the country), it’s understandable, why people look to move somewhere else, but often the difficulties and diseases that they face in the city are at least as bad as in the rest of the country.
The unemployment rate remains very high, despite the government’s drive to increase youth employment (youths are anyone between the ages of 18 and 35). The elections are just round the corner, so there are a lot of attempts at providing short-term jobs (both for political gain and also to try and increase stability by providing an activity other than ‘rallying’ for the youth to be involved with).
Anyway, back to Crewe bay- the ‘streets’ between the houses are so narrow that you cannot stretch out your arms to either side because you will be pushing into/through the walls of people’s homes. There isn’t running water, and electricity-well, take a guess. Very few of the children had clothes on and despite the warmth of this country for most of the year, when the rains are persistent (and don’t drain away), it can does get quite a bit cooler (low 20’s). All of the children have been suffering from respiratory problems- probably due to a mix of coldness and lack of good nutrition. The inhabitants of the Crewe bay slum cannot afford packaging, yet the watercourses are jammed with rubbish- most of it from New England and other communities based further up the hills; they just throw the rubbish into the rivers and wait for the rains to wash it out to sea, but instead it gets jammed up round the Crewe Bay area and causes flooding into the houses people have built there- the waters can come about 4ft high and are a mix of rubbish and sewage, since the drainage systems are overwhelmed by the rains. There are even stories of some people/businesses throwing the rusting shells of old cars (once all useful parts have been removed) into the watercourses and waiting for the rains to wash them out to sea. Instead, it just makes life even more unbearable for people.
The annual rains/floods make life very tough- children’s school books being washed away (in the middle of their exams); make even attempts at self-advancement that bit more difficult. Illnesses ranging from chicken pox (needs to be kept away from adults who could get shingles), to respiratory problems, to leprosy, to the ever present threat of malaria make earning a living harder-there isn’t really such a thing as unemployment benefit here and for many casual jobs, it’s the amount you produce that you get paid for and the work often requires physical exertion, which if you’re ill is difficult- you either end up producing less (and therefore get paid less), or can’t find work, or need to borrow money to pay to medicines (although I haven’t heard much about loan sharks here, I know they exist in other countries’ slums, so assume there’s a similar system in operation here).
So what can be done- well, in some ways very little- the buildings are not precisely legal and anyone who tries to put in place permanent structures will not end up in the government’s good books. However, there are things that can be done- the local youths can be employed to clear the rubbish out of the waterways (the main city dump is less than a mile away), locally made tools and wheelbarrows can help in the rubbish clearing and removal and will also produce a small multiplier effect on the local economy (local being a particularly small geographical area in this case). If the necessary equipment is made available, it has been suggested that the waterways are deepened, since there’s probably been a lot of build up of gunk in the watercourses over the years- if the rains had somewhere to go, they wouldn’t need to flood the alleyways and homes of the Crewe Bay inhabitants, which may make it slightly easier for them to survive.
Labels: floods, malaria, poverty, rain, rubbish, slums
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
