Stunning beaches, Awareness Campaigns & The Bent door – Sierra Leone 06th Jan 2010
Date: Wednesday 6th January, 2010 | Country: Sierra Leone | 8 Comments »After spending the last 2 months trying to have a Mickey mouse conversation in French or Portuguese with many locals both Reka and I were looking forward to spending time in a country where conversation was easy and you didn’t have to turn to charades to make yourself understood! At the Guinea border everything was going quite smoothly with getting past officials until the very last makeshift office, the visa for Guinea was about to expire the following day and yet the ‘official’ decided that for today anyway the time for expiry was 12pm midday and not midnight, at this point I told him he was taking the P, and that he was trying to make some money from me for writing out a new visa extension, the official didn’t like my attitude, what then ensued was a shouting battle in French and English, luckily for me a couple of guys entered, one from Guinea, another from Sierra Leone entered for their own stamps to enter the country. I then witnessed a hilarious situation whereby I explained in English to the guy from Sierra Leone my situation, he then translated this into a form of Creole for the guy from Guinea who then spoke to the official in French! It was hard to keep a straight face at this moment and for whatever reason the official then changed his tune and decided that the visa was still valid!
One noticeable difference when moving into the Sierra Leone border was that most officials here were tipsy or wasted, everyone was friendly and wanted to know what our mission was and many were very happy that we had decided to come to see their own country. After exchanging most of our Guinea Francs to Sierra Leone’s (yes currency is called Leone’s!) within an hour we had managed to exit the border and enter Sierra Leone.
Geography Lesson
After spending the night in the nearest town after the border we decided to make the journey into the capital Freetown, the roads were sandy dirt tracks but were in general flat, so driving these was no problem, we found out later that the government has promised that most of the roads in Sierra Leone within the next 2 years will be tarmac. In one village we passed we saw that the children were lining up outside before they stared their classes, I decided that we should pop in and say hello and maybe get an insight in the schooling that occurs here. When we turned up we introduced ourselves, explained where we had come from and where we were going and the head teacher Richard Camara asked me if I could talk to the kids about this. The teacher explained that not all kids here could understand English as they learn this at a certain stage so for the little kids (5-7) he translated everything I said into Creole.
Top Left: Head teacher Richard Camara, Bottom right: Village Elder(left) and the 3 teachers
One teacher explained to me that the government had not paid 2 of the 3 teachers any salary for the last 10 years and were every few months writing letters to their authority for this to change, it was hard to comprehend why the schooling authority for this district would do this and I could only assume that village was looking after these Teachers so they could continue to teach the local kids. Many of the children were shy when it came to asking questions but when Reka and I visited their own classes some of the kids were more at ease to talk about what they did during their Christmas break. Most children explained that in tandem with their studies they were working with their family either on Farms or selling produce in small markets. Richard explained that most of the girls here underachieve and didn’t know exactly why that was, culturally he said some girls get married young and have children this he said was a problem. One young boy when asked what he wants to become when he gets older told me ‘I want to be the president’, and the class began to clap his answer. Another cultural thing we learnt that day was that it is expected that new arrivals must meet the village elder, the main person that has been put in charge for that village. He was very nice and told us that we are always welcome to come to his village.
Beach Life
One of the key points that Lonely planet was keen to mention about Sierra Leone were how beautiful and under developed the beaches of this country were. We hadn’t really experienced many beaches along this journey so far and it was about time to change that (Stupidly in my own mind, I had envisaged that driving along the west coast of Africa would on the whole be alongside the beach). We drove into Freetown early one morning and were greeted with hot humid weather and the kind of traffic jams you have nightmares about, we read that there were many beaches close to the capital, one in particular called Lumley. When we got through the main traffic jams and got to Lumley we could see that the beach was nice but too touristy seeing as it was so close to the town centre. We read about a place called Sussex Beach which was 30-40 km away but was meant to have some nice quiet beaches, we drove there and all I can say is, if you ever get a chance to visit Sierra Leone, please take some time to go to the beaches around Sussex and Waterloo, they remind me of some parts of Sri Lanka but have a more wilder and remoter feel to them.
Sussex and Waterloo Beaches
One word of warning, to get to some of these beaches you have to drive down some very steep roads and the way back up can be a bit scary! We found a beautiful spot halfway between Franco’s dive place and Beach No.2 in Sussex, it is called Baw-Baw beach but poorly signposted, the Co-ordinator of the guesthouses (£40 a night) here is called Mohammed and his number is 033 870 126. He told us that we could either use his guest house which he had 2 on the beach or we could camp on the beach. We negotiated with him that for £1.50 each we could camp on the beach and use the shower/toilet in his guesthouse, for an additional £2 each, he would cook some seafood and rice for us. For me it didn’t get better than that, we had a few km of beautiful beach, it was quiet and the manager was reasonable and only disturbed you when it was really necessary. We stayed there for a couple of days and it was a nice way to recharge and not do very much. The food for a few pounds was great, we had grilled red snapper and fried rice. Even though you have to avoid many bones in the snapper the taste of the fish is worth the effort, it was one of the best fish dishes I have ever tasted.
Top Left: Kombe Bottom Left: The nuts that Kombe cracked with a rock to give to us
We met a lovely 9 year old called Kombe one evening, he lived close by to the beach we were camping on and had finished the day from selling his peeled oranges, he then sat around with us for the next few hours. He brought us some nuts which looked like miniature coconuts from the outside and using a rock, cracked them open, inside was a thin almost sweet almond like nut and they were yummy. He even helped me gather some wood for a fire that I was about to build, helped me light it and then left, he was a lovely kid.
Awareness
As some of you may already be aware, Sierra Leone has had a troubled past and in the early 1990’s a civil war occurred. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) turned the country upside down for a number of years and were heavily involved in plundering the diamond and gold fields. Atrocities and the massacre of several thousand people occurred until Unamsil the largest peacekeeping mission in UN History were able to disarm the RUF in early 2002. From being here several years later I can see the country looks to be aiming in one direction which is a stable solid African country, one thing is clear when driving around the towns and villages, the messages that are being conveyed to locals are to think about what they are doing and to use the services that are on offer by the government. The latter point is hugely important as I have seen adverts for AIDS Awareness, Malaria prevention, HIV Pregnancy tests, TB tests etc. the list goes on. We were told that there are many NGO’s that have basically helped Sierra Leone become the place that it is today and without their help the people of this country in general would still be suffering.
Become a better driver campaign!
One of the clear campaigns that the government have set out to do is to remind drivers to think about how to driver more safely and more responsibly, I have never seen anything quite like it, here is a sample of the messages that are signposted when you drive through Sierra Leone at present:
Another Accident!
I suppose talking about better driving ironically leads me to talk about the third accident that we have had since leaving London. We happened to be leaving Freetown after obtaining our Liberian visas ($75 each!, Sierra Leone was $100 by the way) and after suffering the few hours of stop start traffic in the capital we finally were able to move into 3rd, 4th and 5th gear on the road that leaves Freetown. Prior to the accident I was stopped by a police traffic cop, who in general have been ok, however I had noticed prior to this guy that there are a number of officers that try and obtain their own money in the form of bribes, this guy was no exception. He stopped the vehicle and asked me to step outside. When I approached him, his first words were that ‘you have committed a driving offence’, I was puzzled and he then told me that my offence was that I had stopped (at his request) on a zebra crossing. I have to admit that in most of the countries we have driven through, 99% of the time I have been pretty easy going and laid back about the traffic cops that have tried their best to get some money from us. For some reason this guy really got on my wick, most probably because he very well knew that it was he himself that deliberately stopped us on the zebra crossing. I didn’t give him much of a chance to talk, I told him that he was a corrupt official and that I wanted to speak to his chief, the guy was taken aback and started to laugh..nervously, the commotion I was causing led his colleagues to also join us and basically told the corrupt official to leave us be. Maybe I was getting a bit too bold but in that situation where he was totally abusing his authority, it’s hard to remain silent!
A few km later the traffic was becoming less and we were finally heading out of the city, before I knew it, a truck decided to perform a U turn on the highway without checking his mirror and whacked into Reka’s passenger door, a fraction of a second before he whacked Maggie I could have tried to completely avoid him hitting us but I am pretty certain that swerving so much would have led us to roll over and would have been a much worse result than we actually ended up with.
Repair work to Maggie..Again!
The accident happened outside a petrol station and funnily enough a roadside mechanic, and before we knew it, many people had come to see if we were ok. Reka was stunned for a short period as the Truck had hit her side but she said she was ok, the passenger window had smashed completely, the mirror also smashed (for the 2nd time), and the door itself had been bent. Reka tried to open the door but it would not open, the handle had been smashed from the outside and there was no way the door was going to open by using normal methods. It’s a shame we didn’t take a photo of the damage to the Truck as he had a bent front steel bar and the stairs leading to his door were totally bent, Maggie is one tough Landy.
My first reaction when the truck driver got out was to knock his block off but violence would not have resolved anything, and then the next reaction is what the hell do we do now! It’s not like in England where we exchange insurance details and get statements etc, this guy looked petrified by the thought of getting the police involved and most likely would ultimately end up in him loosing his driving job. Everyone that surrounded us was talking Creole and it was hard to understand but one guy Mohammed was able to explain that it is now the responsibility of the Truck driver to ensure that we are satisfied with a solution before he leaves. My first reaction was that we need a new door, unfortunately a new door in Sierra Leone where there are only a few Landrovers (military) would cost more than would the offending driver could ever afford.
We then both drove literally 30 metres to the open air mechanics surrounded by a dozen or so vehicles and with the specialist paneller and a few other guys discussed the best way to fix the damage. The bodywork unfortunately was something that was a minor priority right now, the main concern was getting the door back to a condition that we were able to open and close it, lock it and use the window. The offending truck driver then left to see if he could obtain a new window (as close to new as were possible) and someone also accompanied him. In the next 7 hours we met many people that either lived closeby, worked in the mechanics or were just curious as to who we were, everyone that we met there was very nice. At times like this, you need to remain as relaxed as possible as efficiency takes on different meanings and patience is vital! Without going into too much detail, the door was seven hours later back to a condition whereby everything worked as expected, sometimes the workmanship is rudimentary and sometimes clumsy but you can never deny that many African roadside mechanics can get you back into action within a short space of time. During the wait Reka had adopted a small child that was playing in the nearby area, I had met a local that lives in Southwark, a guy in the US Army and chatted about African football with some guys in a nearby makeshift bar, it all worked out ok in the end. If I ever find a good mechanic that serviced Landrovers along the way, I’ll fork out the cost to get her back to tip top condition, in the meantime she has a few scars but nothing to stop us continuing!
Sheku, Ishiaka & Howa’s hospitality
My Dad put me into contact with a friend of his from work Sheku a few weeks before we left London. Sheku is from Sierra Leone but has lived in London for the past 15-20 years, he told me he was flying to Sierra Leone in March but now we had arrived there in January he asked me to call his brother Ishiaka. We eventually met up with Ishiaka who then spent the time to tell out about Freetown and help us find some suitable accommodation, when we told him we were on a budget he suggested that we stay at Sheku’s house that is currently in the process of being built. When we got to his development we saw a grand skeleton of a house that was a year or 2 away from completion but you could see the potential of where it was and the size of the property, many people have been doing this in the last few years in Sierra Leone. Ishiaka then took us to his cousins place Howa in a nearby area called Goderich. Howa was very friendly and had recently moved from Ireland where she had been for a number of years back to Sierra Leone, she said that we must stay with her until we were ready to leave so we kindly accepted her offer.
Howa’s House, Middle Left: Nicholas the security guard Bottom Right: Ishiaka & Howa
We would like to thank Sheku, Ishiaka and Howa & Family (Abdul, Habib, Karim & Crazy Mustafa) for letting us stay in Sierra Leone with them.
Freetown
I think the capital has a love hate quality about it, in one respect it is vibrant, people trade with each other at any opportunity, food is widely available and on the whole for a traveller anyway relatively cheap, to drive through it however can be the stuff of nightmares, there were a few occasions when a 5km stretch could take 2 hours to get through! The city is full of crazy bikers that take huge risks weaving in and out of traffic and as a pedestrian, every day you could seriously have hobbit feet if you are not too careful! There are clear districts to the city with some amazing views from steep winding roads to the hustle and bustle of huge markets near Victoria park. Religion and football plays a huge part in peoples lives, many taxi drivers have their allegiances clearly written on the front and back of their vehicles, Muslim and Catholics reside together in harmony and even celebrate each others festivals when they occur. For football, the only thing people talk about here is the premiership, the only clubs that people support here are the big boys; Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool & Arsenal and you’ll find people even naming their shops after their heroes whether it be players or managers.
Bottom Left: Fried Plantain (Amazingly good!) Bottom Right: Mum, this could be your next car
Promises
We have made a few promises that we said we would do, the first was due to a chance meeting with a guy called Henry Noah in Guinea, we met him outside the garage we were at and he told us that he left Sierra Leone during the war, I mentioned that I was going there and he asked if we could deliver a letter to his father that he hadn’t seen in 10 or so years, it sounded reasonable and his father lived in Freetown,no problem so far. The next day in Guinea we left to head to Sierra Leone, no sign of Henry as he had promised to meet us at the garage. 4Hours later on the road out of Conakry he managed to grab Reka’s attention and he was basically waiting on the one road that he knew he had a chance of seeing us. Not only did he give us a letter but a suitcase (a large one!) to give to his father. We had to check the suitcase to check for narcotics, weapons or anything kinky that could get us arrested at the border and it was all fine a few watches, some clothes and a stereo. When we finally met up with his father David Noah in Freetown you could tell he was happy that he son was ok and he was grateful for the package.
Henry & David Noah
The second promise was to promote the Entabuy Agency a printing & office supply company in Freetown (89 Circular Road). We spent a good 4-5 hours one day looking for a flag of Sierra Leone that I could stick onto Maggie, this wasn’t easy, we had virtually exhausted all our options after people pointed us into all directions and various shops, we ended us asking the owner Foday Dainkeh to print us a couple of stickers which he kindly did free of charge for us. So thanks to him and his associates!
Right: Foday Dainkeh MD
The third is for Luckystar (Reka’s best friend) who for some reason is tired of seeing my face and wants more to see more of Reka (Stange, I know!), well here you go:
Reka – HUN: Sierra Leone-be eleg keso, mar sotetben ertunk, ugyhogy egy hatar menti vendegfogadoban szalltunk meg, hogy masnap folytassunk utunkat a kozel 100 km-re levo fovarosba, Freetownba. Kuldetesunk is volt, mert meg Conakryban talalkoztunk Henryvel, aki miutan felajanlottuk, hogy szivesen elviszunk egy levelet, vagy ajandekot az apukajanak, aki Freetownban el; megjelent egy hatalmas boronddel, de artatlan targyakkal volt tele, ugyhogy kezbesitettuk apukanak…
A varos hatalmas es nagyon zsufolt, ugyhogy a Lonely planet Africa konyve alapjan levezettunk a partra, ahol alig napi 5 dollarert satoroztunk es ettunk. Pedig nagyon vedekeztem, nem sikerult nem leegnem a napon, de gondolom ezt a kepeken ugyis latjatok. Az volt a legjobb az itteni tengerparton, hogy rajtunk kivul szinte seni nem volt, a viz ejjel-nappal kellemes homersekletu es csak nagyon mersekelten hullamos volt.
Noel apukajanak a munkatarsa Sierra Leone-i es megadta a testverenek a szamat, aki aztan bemutatott az unokatestverenek, aki felajanlotta, hogy aludjunk az o nemtudomhanyszobas nagyon nagy hazukban. Csak ket ejszakara maradtunk volna, mert mar eleget idoztunk, es a liberiai vizumot is beszereztuk, de nem sokkal miutan nekivagtunk az utnak a hatar fele, egy ujabb balestet szenvedtunk…
Agyament ket oras dugo utan vegre kiertunk a varosbol, amikor egy baromi nagy teherauto ugy dontott, hogy barmi tukorbe nezes vagy iranyjelzo nelkul kb. 50-nel kivag elenk. Noel szerencsere nem rantott akkorat a kormanyont, mint amekkorat en rantottam volna, mert akkor felborulunk; ahelyett inkabb hogy az uton maradjunk, nekivagta a bal felunket a teherautonak, ami persze leszantotta az egeszet; levitte a tukrot es kitorte az oldalso ablakot. De nekunk megintcsak – az ijedtsegen kivul – semmi bajunk nem lett. Sajnos az ilyen helyzeteket meg a legnagyobb ovatossaggal sem lehet elkerulni, mert ha valaki allat modon vezet, akkor az masokat is bajba sodorhat (annak ellenere hihetetlen birkan vezetnek itt, hogy az ut tele van igen bolcs figyelmezteto feliratokkal). Szerencsere egy autoszerelo muhely kozeleben tortent az eset es a sofor elismerte a hibajat, ugyhogy ropke 5 ora alatt meg is javitottak, amit lehetett, persze maradando kulserelmi nyom boven maradt igy is.
Holnap ujra nekivagunk a hatar fele vezeto utnak, remelhetoen ezuttal nagyobb szerencsevel.
Ja, es az eszmeletlenul finom haletelek meg nem is emlitettem, de nalam a csilis sult banan az abszolut nyertes.