Sunday 17 July 2011

This is a really old entry that I never got around to putting online – I’ve probably seen you all since and told you all about it but oh well, happy reading and I promise to put something more recent on soon!

Things that are not strange anymore

•    Meetings starting at least an hour late
•    Receiving at the very least a fizzy drink and some chicken and rice at every meeting (and often some sort of payment as well!)
•    Christian and Muslim prayers before every meeting
•    Filling up a bucket every time I go to the toilet to flush it
•    Putting mosquito guard on every day
•    Only wearing tops once before washing
•    Buying items in lowest denominators
•    Smelly money
•    Hardly being able to see my toes through dust
•    Taking a torch everywhere
•    Keeping food in closed buckets to keep rats away
•    Walking straight past chocolate and cheese in shops because they are all so corrupted with supermarket funk!
•    Post-meal luxury being fruit or fruit juice – unheard of in my previous life!
•    Calling the swimming pool before I go to check if there is any water in it
•    Yelping with glee when the power is on


The mountain
Mount Bintumani is the highest mountain in West Africa (although with a very tight definition of West Africa which excludes certain other high mountains), and I decided to try and climb it during Easter.

First of all, it is a day long drive from Freetown to Kabala (the same town in which we celebrated new year). Oh and it still has the charm – cooler temperature, glorious views of hills and valleys, safe(r) motorbikes to ride – love it! From there, it is another day’s drive to get to the foot of the mountain. This didn’t bode well given that even on the smooth Freetown-Kabala road, our tyre had burst and the battery had started smoking! We set off quite late from Kabala (three climbers, an unknown driver and a ‘fixer’ – a police officer recommended by our next door neighbour, who wore his uniform the entire time and only carried a flannel and a bag of water sachets as his luggage) and thus only reached the bottom at around 5.30pm. The setbacks along the way were the ridiculously bad roads – ‘pot holes’ doesn’t even come close, these roads were treacherous, up and down huge valleys, through rivers and back up the other side (I had to keep getting out as I was convinced the car was going to tip backwards), thankfully broken up by lovely villages with children jumping up and down madly and shouting ‘bap bap bap’ (which apparently means white man in the local language).

Once you get close to the mountain, you have to start negotiating with the chiefs in the neighbouring villages. We had been tipped off that we should take presents for them, so we arrived with salt and Maggie (jazzy stock cubes) which seemed to go down well. Next we had to meet with the village elders, youth and everyone else, to sign the guest book and then agree on a price for continuing. We elected a leader (all groups have to have a leader in SL, even if you show up at the beach in a group you will be asked, who is the leader of the group. I was the leader once, didn’t enjoy it – too much pressure!) So our elected leader (Fred) and the fixer (Marah) first moved away to suggest a first price to the youth, then the youth present this amount to the elders who thankfully agreed. After the same dissemination process in reverse, we all knew that everyone was happy with this price and paid it, and then were consented to continue onwards. The final village at the foot of the mountain was more of a struggle as this time we had to negotiate how much to give the chief, as well as how many porters to take and how much to pay them and the guide. Towards night time, we were finally on our way and climbing the mountain.

The terrain changed considerably throughout the climb. First we were strolling along flat farm land, passing fields, banana trees, palm trees and small huts. Quite quickly it got steeper and before long we were actually having to use vines (‘natures handles’ as they became known) to hoist ourselves up each ridiculously steep mud bank. The grandiosely named ‘Camp 1’ was just a slight clearing by a stream but it really was the great outdoors. We cooked outside, washed and drank from the stream (with a little help from some silver purification tablets) and listened to the sounds of the forest. The next day there was further cause for using nature’s handles , before we came out very sweaty at Camp 2 – a much more justifiable name for an amazing stretch of grassland, unlike anything I had ever seen in SL, with an amazing view of mountains in one direction and valleys in the other. There was even a waterfall to wash in! After a brief re-fuelling, a slight paddy from the guide (brought to reason by Marah), we set off to make the final ascent. I couldn’t stop exclaiming how much it looked like Devon, or when the sun went in, Wales. It was so nice to have a cool breeze, and I didn’t realise how much I had been craving different scenery. Although at times very steep, the climb to the summit was essentially quite short and we all made it, just in time for the clouds to clear and reveal the view across the valleys we had just hiked. Downwards was a lot more difficult (although the photographs don’t do it justice), as often we opted for running and hoping for the best.

That night at Camp 2 we cooked a veritable banquet – as there were 5 of us climbers (we had acquired 2 on the way), and each person had brought something they deemed to be quite luxurious, we managed to combine our efforts and cook five courses of mini meals on an open fire – glorious! It was so nice to fall asleep to the sounds of the forest; leaves and branches falling, unknown animals calling each other.  We awoke feeling pleasantly peaceful and cooked chocolate porridge just to end the climb in suitable luxury (although we met some people coming up as we were coming down who had pushed the boundaries of luxury to a whole new level and were planning to cook duck at the top!).


Independence
On 27 April 2011, Sierra Leone celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence from the colonial rule of the British. The official slogan was ’50 Years Forward,’ although most Sierra Leoneans I know would readily admit that actually the situation in the country 50 years ago was probably considerably better than it is now. For the entire year preceding the celebration, most people thought the Queen was going to come and celebrate with them, the hysteria got so great that at times we even started to believe it! All of the earnest road building was done in the name of her visit, everyone was talking about the last time she came in the 50s, creating lots of excitement. Then the week before, it finally dawned on people that she wasn’t coming, and a very forlorn front page of the national newspaper read ‘Queen is not coming’ – a lot less humorous than the April Fool’s Day joke stating ‘Colonel Gadaffi lands in Freetown’!

Preparations for the celebration began a long time ago – namely painting absolutely everything that is paintable in green, white and blue as per the colours of the flag. As the painting progressed, clearly the correct colours ran out and areas began to take on a pastel twinge, or the green would change from deep to lime. Nothing escaped the painting and branding – every building in town had huge coloured banners, some even painted their outside walls specially, bunting covered the whole city, plant pots, curbs, poles, bollards, even random lying rocks – everything was decorated. They tried to cover the ‘Cotton Tree’ (an enormous symbolic tree in the centre of town) with three huge coloured pieces of material, but alas someone had forgotten about the hundreds of bats that inhabit the tree who soon turned the white strip of material into a lovely brown!

As my office is next to the house of the Vice President, we managed to blag some 50th anniversary t- shirts, which we wore with pride on the day, with every item of green, white and blue that we owned, and lots of branded jewellery. In true Salone style, there was excitement in the air and everyone had been talking about ‘Independence’ for so long, but actually not much really happened. It was more of a feeling than an event! We went to the stadium, which seemed to be the only place actually hosting an event. In the morning, thankfully it was quite quiet and we could find a spot right near the front from which we could see the VIPs sitting on the lawn, the parade of military and medical staff (they even had a makeshift hospital mock up on a float!), the President doing his speech, Tony Blair’s representative receiving an award (we didn’t clap at that bit!).  After a couple of hours of enjoying the atmosphere but nothing really going on, we walked into town hoping for more excitement. There was no traffic at all which is almost unheard of in Freetown during the middle of the day. Even at the cotton tree that was nothing actually going on, just a general feeling of excitement – but where was everyone?

The beach was slightly more lively, lots of people playing football and enjoying themselves and the festival atmosphere. We were promised fireworks but they never did materialise – this country is so strange, they get things almost right! Maybe we just didn’t stay out late enough, and we trusted the timetable too much. Even the lantern parade, which is the biggest event of the celebration in which every community puts together a ‘lantern’ (or float) and parades them around the cotton tree to be judged by the president, started about 5 hours later than advertised. We didn’t attend the parade, but we did manage to get a sneak preview of a lantern made by my colleague Alfred’s community. It’s really bizarre that at a celebration of the end of colonial rule, actually most activities seemed to praise the British. The majority of the lanterns either showed the Queen, or the Royal Wedding – all in a complimentary manner!

Our new pad
So we have finally got our own place in Freetown after 5 months of living above my office – which was even more of a bonus as the rats there were getting increasingly cocky – strolling along window ledges and venturing upstairs! Anyway, our flat has a glorious terrace overlooking the sea, which sounds more luxurious than it is, given that when the tide is out is exposes the huge ‘dirty box’ – rubbish tip containing all the rubbish from the surrounding community. However, you can’t get away from that anywhere in Freetown, and it’s so nice to have somewhere to sit and eat and watch the world go by. You can see the children heading off to school, people strolling through with a ‘mobile shop’ on their head selling their wares, women having their hair planted (i.e. braided), people chatting, cooking, washing – everything. The best thing is listening to the community around us wake up in the morning. This normally begins with the very tuneful call to prayer at about 5.30am, followed by a woman who always shouts ‘Mustafa...Mustafa...’ – we’ve never met him. Then you can hear people getting their pots and pans ready, chatting, washing up, etc. There is a young girl who is obviously a bit of a tearaway because every morning we can hear her exasperated mother shouting ‘Cecelia.... Cecelia!’

We have been well and truly welcomed into the community. Everyone greets us when we arrive and leave the flat, when we buy our phone credit or drinks, employ the services of a plumber and a carpenter, or even watch football in the football ‘cinema’ shack. Nobody seems to be able to master my name and most people refer to both of us as David. When we left to return home, our immediate neighbours Abdoulie and Musu came running out to see where I was going. When I said I was going ‘to my village’ in the UK, Abdoulie said ‘UK, is that like United States?’ The strange thing is that, seemingly unlike everywhere else in Freetown, the area drops almost silent around 11pm (except on Bob Marley day). Often we end up turning our music down ‘so as not to disturb the neighbours’ – odd as at times during the day you can’t tell which noises are coming from within and outside of our flat, and sometimes have to shout!

Age and respect
The age hierarchy is very significant here, and seems to rule most acts that take place – from daily interactions to high level discussions. The older you are the more respect you command; most community decisions have to be passed through the village elders, which comprises of the chief and their various assistants. Even further down the hierarchy, it is very apparent that the oldest can rule the youngest at every level. The oldest child is often given responsibility to govern the younger children.

I was at a conference recently, in which we were instructed to split into smaller groups to discuss a topic. We were debating who would present and a young girl was trying to persuade an older woman to do it. The young girl was clearly very well educated and high up in her organisation, whilst the older woman had a very poor command of English and didn’t seem as well educated (although I don’t want to judge her on first impressions!). I was very surprised that when the older woman played the age card and the young girl acquiesced immediately. Strangely, there doesn’t seem to be any rebellion against this type of indiscriminate bossing around by older people. Younger people are so keen to obey this older respect, that at first it can be quite disconcerting. Quite often you will hear “I’ll ask the pikin to come with it,” or “I’ll send the pikin,” and someone’s child will dutifully obey to the order.

 I suppose this doesn’t sound too different to the UK, maybe it’s just how readily the youth comply with this respect and obeying of older people. Even at work, the oldest person always gets fed first, and everything always has to be checked by the oldest person. That’s not to say that there aren’t mini hierarchies within each hierarchy – within each professional group, there is a hierarchy which combines both age and status. The oldest/ highest status female is referred to as ‘the Mammy’ and everything will be passed through her first before any action is taken. And for men, ‘Pa’ at the beginning of the name either signifies age or status.

Culture shock
Something that shocked me on the flight leaving SL for the UK, was when we landed and took off in Accra, Ghana, was just how lit up the city seemed. It appeared that every single house had power and was lit, resulting in a huge metropolis of twinkling sparkles. Freetown does not even have enough electricity to light the entire city at one time, meaning that men are actually employed to travel around the city on bikes, flipping switches and swapping power between areas. They attempt to give business areas power during the day and residential areas power during the night, but of course even that is not guaranteed and often you will see the entire city plunged into darkness.  Then it struck me that you just can’t escape the certain aspects of SL that don’t work. However rich you are you will always have to drive along a dirt road with pot holes to get somewhere in the city, you will never have constant power (although of course you might be able to afford a generator), the water might not be constant and you will see poverty and litter as you drive around. There is no way to escape it, there is no sanitised route through the city as there are in some cities, where you could pass through without even realising there is any poverty there. Nairobi seems to be a city like this. Driving from the airport to the hotel I was struck by how the roads are all smooth, have three lanes and rules that are adhered to by all drivers. Huge buildings line each road, and high rise commercial buildings loom in the distance. This is a city that works. I know that there is huge poverty here and the chasm between rich and poor might even be bigger than in Sierra Leone, but the fact that you can take a 45 minute journey, end up in a hotel attached to the national power grid and with constant electricity and water, and see no slums, makes it significantly different to SL. This was a huge culture shock, and it made me realise that I had become immune to so much of the dirt, sewage and general not-quite-getting-it-right of Sierra Leone. How will I cope with London!?