One Year Later...

It's over. Done-done, as they say in Sierra Leone. Given the rather strange twists and turns of the past year, I'm not sure whether to lament its passing or just breathe a sigh of relief. Mixed emotions, you might call it. Four friends and I gave ourselves the best farewell party in Makeni history, takin' over the hillside Scout Hall with more than 100 friends, coworkers, friends of friends, DJs, scouts, random uninvited dudes, and kids from the 'hood below.

[The banner in the photo is a reference to a very popular song in Africa called "Do Me" in case you were wondering.]













Pa Foday (left) was my neighbor. Monsignor (right) was a cleaner where I worked. I went on a little giving spree before I left, and these two share the award for best reaction to the gift. Pa Foday never asked me for anything -- a simple hello or a wave from across the compound was good enough for him. Monsignor, on the other hand, could beg with the best of them -- "Ohhh my friend, today the belly is empty!" Their happiness at the sight of a used bedsheet or a pair of beat-up shoes was good to see. I liked these two because it was clear that, regardless of their approach to seeking help, a little respect was always more important than the spare change or leftover food I might have to offer.

Mackay, Rachael and I blending together in our crisp new White-Man-Leaving-Africa gift shirts.

Last year in Sierra Leone, in one word? Unforgettable. Whether or not I did any good for the country, I don't know. But I certainly hope Sierra Leoneans can rise out of poverty one day. The government doesn't always give me much confidence. 'Paradise,' the beach bar in this photo, was demolished recently (along with many other popular bars) as part of a government "beautification" project. Read my friend Jared's story from The National.

Moyamba Mamba?

On a visit to our fellow volunteer Dale, who’s been marooned in Moyamba all year, we got a taste of small-town Sierra Leone, where life moves at an even more glacial pace than in Makeni. But that’s what made it great.

Dale’s house sits right on a river near a beautiful stick bridge that he helped build, with pumpkin patches and banana trees all around. I wanted to go tubing down the narrow river, but in the absence of tube-like objects, we decided to float and scoot our bodies downstream. Over the rocks and around the dam we went, and then I saw it. A snake reared its slimy head about 10 yards in front of us and zipped straight across the river with its head above water the whole way. It seemed to have popped up and surveyed the scene like a cartoon submarine (look left, look right), spied us and darted for cover. Smart snake. We did exactly the same, abandoning our simple river cruise in a heartbeat.

Me, Helen, Diya, Dale, James, and a bamboo backyard bench.

My best teenage reporter for Pikin News was jailed a couple weeks ago for stealing various things (including, oddly enough, a laminator) from his parents and selling them off to friends. A visit to a Sierra Leonean police station is a bit like walking into The Andy Griffith Show – minus the electricity. The boy slept a few nights in a cell at the back of the station. As I waited for the cop to bring him out and talk to me, I noticed the number of suspects in custody was written on a chalkboard. That number went up from 27 to 30 while I stood there. I imagined them fighting for the five beds and sitting around with nothing to say but, “So…what are you in for?” “Stole my mom's laminator again.”

My story about the lack of morphine in Sierra Leone aired on a public radio show called World Vision Report. Listen here.

Rainy Routine Breaker

Living in Makeni is kinda like swimming the length of a pool underwater. It’s a fun challenge, but after a while you just gotta come up for air. Itching for a breather, we took a weekend at Sierra Leone’s old faithful: the beach. August is the rainiest month of the rainy season, but we didn’t care. We just wanted out.

On arrival in the tiny fishing village at Mama Beach, we saw the wooden sign nailed to a tree. Warning: Poro Society Area – KEEP OUT. Given the mystery and rumors surrounding this male secret society, we weren’t sure what to make of this. James summoned the courage to ask an old man about it, and he replied, “Oh, that’s just to keep the tourists away.” Ah ha. Tourists. Yes, wouldn’t want to see any of those around here…

Funny thing about the beach in the off-season, the guest houses are all closed. Go figure. So up the hill and down the empty road we trod, four crazy foreigners looking for a taxi in the pouring rain. We took shelter in a cozy security post beside the road, where the guard was reading the New Testament and simply described the jumble of giant, rusted equipment behind him as “The Company.”

Eventually we flagged down a taxi to Kent, where we persuaded the lone guest house to take us in. Despite one ultra-rainy day, the weekend was filled with naps and swims, frisbees and lobsters. In other words, success.

The kids and I went to a rural village to report on early marriage. During the village chief’s interview, he kept repeating something like this: “It is unacceptable to send your child to marriage before she reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen!” After that she’s fair game, sell at any price, he seemed to be saying. Some people have a different definition of the term early marriage.

On the same trip, we went to mass and the priest asked “What is it that brings happiness to your life?” and waited for answers. Right away, a man in a back pew shouted “Rum!” That drew a few laughs (though it wasn’t a joke), but then he was one-upped by the next guy who very earnestly said, “Well, the time that I can really feel true happiness…is after I go toilet.” Amen, brother.

Deep Thoughts...

Sierra Leone is the color of a baseball field. Betcha no one else has noticed that.

As it turns out, burning trash is a great way to pass the time.

If you are a radio station and you play the same 5-second sound bite more than twice in a row, I will not listen to you.

So you have two free hands, but you'd still rather carry that spiral notebook on your head. Really?

I don't care how many mosquitoes he may have eaten. Given the choice between helping a broken-winged bat and watching him die, I shall take the latter every time.

Everyone lives in a 'compound.' I thought that term was reserved for Branch Davidians and Mormon fundamentalists in Texas? At least that's what CNN told me.

Suddenly, corned beef in a can is delicious. What happened?

If I had a nickel for every time I woke up at 6:30 to the sound of sweeping...

It is sometimes more important to get that new phone with the hottest hip-hop ringtone than it is to eat.

I am white, so I must be James or Mike or Jim. Or Lebanese or Chinese. This must be how bald black men felt back in the day when white kids would gawk: "Look! Is that Michael Jordan?!"

If today you have not eaten rice, then today you have not eaten.

The Lone Tourists

People don't come to Sierra Leone for vacation. Except for my parents. On their arrival, we pushed and shoved our way through a crowd of taxi drivers fighting (literally) for our business outside the airport. By the time we reached the motel, it was 2 AM; we had waited three hours for the ferry to Freetown and traversed ultra-bumpy roads, my dad stepped into a hole in the sidewalk, and a man in nothing but a Speedo welcomed us to our room which had no towels and a missing bed. Ah, welcome to my life.

In 10 days of African adventure, my parents zipped around on the back of motorbikes (including once with luggage on the world's worst road), took ice-cold bucket baths, ate street meat of unknown origin, slept under mosquito nets on broken beds, climbed a 15-foot ladder to watch chimpanzees from a treehouse in the forest, nearly got swept out to sea by a strong current, drove through the middle of a political rally, got hassled at police checkpoints, and danced in church. They deserve a trophy. Sierra Leone: If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

The kids of Makeni were thrilled with the white strangers. These are my little neighbors, sporting their patriotic visors and soccer ball courtesy of Mom and Dad.

Some kid stole my watch the other day at the river. Add it to my long list of lost luxuries: Mets hat (stolen while camping), watch (stolen while swimming), $50 (stolen while dancing), laptop (struck by lightning), boxers (stretched by laundry boy), flashlights (too many to remember), college t-shirt (forgotten at friend's house), cooking gas (now unavailable in town), water pump (broken), generator (always broken), towel (vanished in laundry), cell phone (soaked in river), and phone chargers (zapped by unstable power).

There was a huge drug seizure at the airport last weekend. A United Nations friend of ours was evacuated from Port Loko (near the airport) because he is the only white man in town and local residents suspected him of involvement. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the Wild West...

Bintumaniacs

Climbing the second highest mountain in West Africa during the rainy season without a tent or a plan didn't seem like the brightest idea. I went into the trip with a healthy dose of pessimism, but we did indeed scale Mount Bintumani (6,000 feet) -- bottom to top in one long day.

Five of us guys hired a beastly old Nissan Patrol to power us along the "road" from the northern town of Kabala to Sinikoro village near the base of the mountain. Over two rivers and through the woods, the 60-mile journey took us five hours.

We reached the village and slept in the chief's house. Below, Jared presents the chief with some tea and small money to keep him happy. All agreed that our brief stay there was rather surreal.

Four village boys scored jobs as guides and porters for us, and we hit the trail. Though I had a relatively small backpack, it was maybe the most difficult hike of my life. Straight up for five hours. Finally we burst out of the dense jungle and into a grassy savanna that seemed like heaven.

My victory dance after the upward march.

Then some dudes were waiting for us on top of a big rock, and one of them, 'The Director,' was the only one who knew the way to the summit. Yes it was a scam, but we were in a race against the sun so we followed him up and away.

I spent most of that night huddled by the fire with a bunch of strangers under a hut, trying desperately to keep warm enough to sleep through the howling winds. Note to self: bring warm stuff to mountain. But we returned unscathed in the end, albeit with very sore knees.

The next weekend I went to the National Stadium in Freetown to watch the Sierra Leone national soccer team (the Leone Stars) pull off a shocking upset of South Africa (1-0). The best part was after the game: we hitched a ride in the bed of a police pickup truck and ended up right in front of the team's motorcade, speeding through the streets filled with screaming fans.

This is Africa

My Italian friend Anna, who is a United Nations human rights officer, invited a few of us to help her give a workshop on "Journalism and Human Rights" in Kambia (see Dec. 19 post). It turned out to be quite an eye-opening weekend. First, we heard loud screams right outside the gate at our friend Doctor Tom's house. A woman was flogging her 12-year-old sister because she had nabbed a handful of cassava leaves from the family pot. The shirtless girl cried the pain away while her sister laughed and we tried to gently explain why child abuse is wrong.

The next day Tom gave us a partial tour of the government hospital where he works. We saw a just-arrived three-year-old boy with cerebral malaria. He had been convulsing and when we showed up he moaned in bed while his terrified mother wept in the corner and his father tried to take him home. We moved to the newly opened Therapeutic Feeding Center where seven severely malnourished children sat in their mothers' laps. The current global food crisis directly affects most people here as they simply eat less because food is too expensive. Kambia Hospital admits new cases everyday and the demand is far more than they can accomodate. Finally we moved to a much happier ward next door: Maternity. There we saw two sets of newborn twins. Tom had just delivered two of the tiny tots by C-section the day before. Supposedly they've been named Dr. Tom.

On the workshop's final day, we split the reporters into groups and set out to record one human rights-related interview in town. My group chose the local police station to interview a 14-year-old girl who had been allegedly raped by her teacher. When we arrived, she was seated next to another girl and a woman. The woman had accused her ex-husband of quietly selling her daughter to someone in Freetown three years ago, and the daughter had recently been spotted selling water in the streets there. The other girl was being forced into early marriage by her family. Then, after our uncomfortable interview, a rather dishevelled woman arrived holding her two-year-old's limp body. The little boy had a bloody nose, beaten unconscious by his father. They raced to the hospital and Tom took care of them (they were fine). I left there with my head spinning. It was like a roll call of topics from the kids' news show I produce: sexual exploitation, child trafficking, early marriage, child abuse -- all in one small room in the span of about 20 minutes. Just another day at a Sierra Leone police station.

And back in Makeni, the rainy season is on its way and lightning struck my laptop, killing it on the spot. Sigh. All I can do is shrug it off and remember what they say: T.I.A. -- This is Africa.