A New Year adventure
We set off on Friday morning for Kabala, a small town in the north of Sierra Leone famous for its wild parties on New Year’s Day, the best and most extravagant in the country! We stopped for lunch in Makeni, and had to persuade the restaurant to buy an egg and a bread roll for me to have an egg sandwich, which surprisingly, given the palaver, was absolutely delicious. We travelled through beautiful scenery, distant mountains, roads framed with dense foliage and palm trees. We had arranged to stay in the VSO house which was empty – it seemed like a flawless plan. Then around 15 miles away from Kabala, the engine started to make a strange noise and we smelt a smell which resembled pork scratchings but turned out to be something more sinister. Finally the accelerator gave up and the car stopped.

Almost immediately, a car stopped and tried to help us – it was something of a Mary Poppins car with what looked like 15 people and a newborn baby squeezed in. Unfortunately they didn’t have a tow rope, but sent someone back to save us. He turned out to be a saviour in more ways than one, when it turned out that the VSO house in which we planned to stay was actually abandoned and uninhabitable. Immediately he invited us to stay with him and took us back to his compound. We did feel slightly bad when he obviously turfed someone out of one of his rooms in favour of us - he came scurrying out looking bleary eyed from sleep and we were welcomed into the room in his place. But our Sierra Leonean friend (and owner of the broken car) assured us that this was just the Sierra Leonean way! As our friend was returning to Kabala after many years away, we really felt that we were the entourage of a local celebrity and that his presence was attracting some of the hospitality. Still, it really was remarkable the lengths that this family went to to make us feel welcome and to care for us during our stay, cooked all of our food and guided us everywhere. I couldn’t help but wonder whether this level of kindness would ever be bestowed on random strangers who broke down somewhere in the UK or whether we would be too suspicious. And this in a country that has so recently experienced civil war, to have come back from the situation of not being able to trust anyone to being so trusting and giving, really is remarkable.

So the party did not disappoint. It began on Friday evening at pretty much the only pub in town, ironically titled ‘Choices.’ And from there to the club, which was employing the lost art of ultra-violet light – making everything white stand out brightly – teeth, dust, bras! The club was absolutely jam packed with people of all ages, in fact some seemingly as young as 13 drinking gin from sachets, which was quite worrying! It really felt so surreal to be counting down to 2011 in a random club in North Sierra Leone, but at the same time amazing!

The night took a slight turn for the worse when our camera got stolen – these ‘teef men’ really are like Fagin – you don’t even feel a thing before you notice it’s gone, and then you really can’t tell and wouldn’t dare accuse anyone of taking it. And so suddenly you can’t trust anyone again, and everyone could have been the person who took it. I know we shouldn’t have taken it there, but you really do get so swept up in how friendly everyone is and how welcoming, that it is easy to forget that actually we do still stand out and if someone has a camera and there is the opportunity to steal it, of course they will. Having said that, all of the Sierra Leoneans we were with and those we had met that evening, took it as a real insult to them that this had happened. They were so apologetic on behalf of their country and so mortified that this had happened in their presence. There was even a shout out from DJ Wise appealing at least for the memory card but we presume the thief had already left by then with his/her ill gotten gains. It really didn’t ruin the night though thankfully, we just had to face the fact that there was nothing we could do about it and therefore should just enjoy the evening, which we duly did. We rounded it off perfectly with a slightly drunken ‘okada’ (motorbike) ride home, which in the haze of the morning really felt like we were all on broomsticks flying home (or maybe I had had more to drink than I thought!).

The party continued the next day with a hike up the hill that towers over Kabala, which is really the main celebration of NY. People from miles around plough through the masses of dust wearing socks and flip flops (we silently mocked them before realising that actually, they were having the last laugh at the top when their feet emerged from the socks clean, whilst ours blended into the ground with all the dirt that we had attracted on the walk). The hill was packed with people, all in their best clothes (many changed at the top from their walking clothes, again having the last laugh!) and there was dancing, drinking and all sort of merriment throughout the day, with the beautiful backdrop of Kabala. It really was a sight to behold and an amazing experience. Here I was approached with the best chat up line so far “I am a promising geologist, here is my compass, I hope you are not married,” – while I sneezed my way through the conversation because of all of the dust – he just didn’t give up! After a two hour power nap (waking up at 11pm which is something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to!), we were out again, this time at the slightly more sedate community centre. Although it turned out to actually be a political rally as well as a dance, and only slightly more sedate than the night club, with the dancing still going on when we left at around 3am. These Sierra Leoneans really know how to party – people of all ages were rocking the dance floor and swapping dance partners like there was no tomorrow!

We were in a very happy daze the next day when we bade farewell to our hosts and thanked them for their hospitality. We got a unique insight into the family life – the compound in which they lived had many rooms and seemed to cater for a very extended family. In fact, even by the end of the weekend we still weren’t totally sure who was married to whom and who was whose child! Amid all this friendliness, we did return from the hill to witness the severe beating of one of the children for supposedly getting a bit drunk on the hill. This seemed so shocking after the personalities that we had been privy to and highlighted the huge contradictions in society, in which the family is so close knit and integrated, and yet an action that is deemed to bring disgrace on the family leads to such severe punishment, even in the presence of strangers. Of course we couldn’t stage a large protest but our disquiet was definitely noted and the punishment stopped, or possibly was merely postponed under after we had left.

Vegetarianism
I was always prepared for it to be difficult to be a vegetarian in Sierra Leone and braced myself for the worst! It really doesn’t compute at all that someone would not want to eat meat. Even when in a restaurant, I explain “I no want meat,” “I no want fish” they will still respond with specific type of meat – “chicken?” Recently I was at the Ministry of Health canteen, and requested a salad with chips, with no meat, chicken or fish, and when it arrived it had ham in the salad and a huge leg of chicken on the top! (And randomly some cold baked beans on top of the salad which seems to be a delicacy here!) Good vegetarian meals tend to come in bouts, so I can have a few days in which I’m living off rice or eggs and then suddenly it’s all go in the vegetarian world. A few weeks ago, I had just had a luxurious vegetarian lunch, and returned to the office only to find that the Xmas dinner time had been changed and there was an enormous vegetarian meal made especially for me, and I was sitting next to the cook – so two huge meals in 2 hours it was for me!

When I visited Kamakwie though, I really had an epiphany of just how luxurious it is to be able to be a vegetarian. To be able to afford to maintain a healthy diet without meat is something almost unattainable to most people here, to whom meat is an occasional luxury to supplement rice, vegetables are even more of a luxury, and vitamin supplements are unheard of. So when visiting the communities, I really felt that it would be so rude to turn down the food that they were providing, even though the smell of the fish and meat (mixed in one big stew!) almost made me retch. I resorted to tactically picking the rice around the meat and hoping that it didn’t look suspicious.

Supermarkets are the most tantalising of all the shops here. Most big supermarkets stock everything you could possibly want – Kellogg’s cereal, Cadbury’s chocolate, Fox’s biscuits – luxurious you might think! However they are mostly always tainted with what we have coined as ‘supermarket funk’ – an indescribably pungent taste that combines mechanical engine type smells with chemicals. Rumour has it that it is something to do with the storage, but every supermarket smells of it, and a lot of the packeted food is just ruined by it. I am now at the point of almost retching when entering the supermarkets at the smell, having to cautiously smell all food stuffs before eating, and having to write off all similar food stuffs after a ‘funk incident.’ I actually returned the first box of cereal that tasted like it, I think it was Mini Chocolate Weetabix, and had to present my case to the supermarket management. I was allowed to take a different packet, only to find out that it tasted the same horrible taste!!! – like the old saying ‘water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,’ except with glorious food!