Week 2

“Feeling the cool wind of the night and smelling the good smell of Africa, I was altogether happy.” Hemingway

Firstly, I wish to thank everyone who donated to Y-Care and ensured I was able to come here. The generosity was very touching and I hope to convince you via this blog that your generosity was worth it!

In case anyone is new to reading one of my blog's, you will soon notice that while they follow a rough chronological order, they are predominately thoughts and observations from my daily life, and as such can be hard to follow, so apologies. Sticking with the literary theme from last week, I shall start with Ernest Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa, which I have just finished, my third book in two weeks. Focused around big game hunting in Kenya, it manages to remain interesting and engaging in Hemingway's simple style, and despite having no interest in hunting whatsoever, I found myself enjoying the book. Yes it is terribly dated, with the attitudes of colonial Africa abounding, yet that is hardly his fault and he manages to inject some sharp observation amongst the hunt commentary. I have included a few highlights here:

“Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be it in and move slowly. I had loved the country all my life.”

“If you serve time for society, democracy, and the other things quite young, and declining any further enlistment make yourself responsible only to yourself, you exchange the pleasant, comforting stench of comrades for something that you can never feel in any other way than by yourself...or when you do something that people do not consider a serious occupation, and yet you know, truly, that it is as important, and always has been as important, and everything currently in fashion.”

“It's very hard to get anything true on anything you haven't seen yourself because the ones that fail have such bad press and the winners always lie so...You get your good dope always from the people, and when you can't talk with people and can't overhear you don't get anything that's of anything but journalistic value.”

“A continent ages quickly once we come. The natives live in harmony with it. But the foreigner destroys...The earth gets tired of being exploited...A country was made to be as we found it. We are the intruders and after we are dead we may have ruined it but it will still be there and we don't know what the net changes are.”

This last quote echoes the position Graham Greene held about foreign influence in Africa, and indeed both men exalt the 'primitive' Africa, despite writing about areas on opposite sides of the continent, as Greene wrote:

“It hadn't been left to itself; the whites had intruded, had not advanced, had simply stuck and withered there, leaving their pile of papers, relics of a religious impulse, sentimental, naïve, destined to failure.”

This talk of religion brings me nicely onto a local proverb I can across in the next book I am tackling, which looks at the role of the British soldiers in ending the recent brutal civil war,

“The same ship that brought the bible, also brought rum” (In Krio, the lingua franca here: Dat ship we bringg Baibul, na-in bringg rohm)

With its message that something bringing good might also bring bad at the same time, it is certainly pertinant to many situations, and its literal message is also accurate. Despite 70% of the country being Muslim, churches abound in Freetown, and their evangelical message is aided by posters advertising visiting pastors and speakers (these will make an interesting photo-essay, and I will look at curating the best ones I see). On my road there is a brand new US funded mega-church, the only new multi-story building in the area. With open sewers, stray dogs, and a huge slum very close, it strikes me that this 'gift' of the bible is largely missing the point of some of the main tenants of the religion. The energy and money directed to furthering Christianity, at the expense of directly and positively influencing people's lives seems a terrible shame to me. This is not to say that good work isn't being done- heck, I see every day what the YMCA is achieving, but there seems to me to be a disconnect between Christian values and practice.

 (Local church near the YMCA)

Rum, a term used to mean alcohol in general, is certainly popular. Imported Becks is seemingly everywhere, and at £1 a bottle, comparable to English prices i.e really expensive here. For example, you can get a meal of rice and potato leaf curry for the same price, and it is therefore surprising to see how much beer is drunk. Also popular are small plastic bags containing double shots of rum or gin (for 20p), and while I haven't yet seen anyone drink these, they litter street corners. Drinking water is also sold in these packets, similar to how milk is sold in Canada, and they contribute to the same litter, but I am not sure if this is worse than the extra plastic and energy needed to transport plastic bottles of water, which also cost twice as much to buy.

A former student (and current friend) from my time in Japan has noted that the 'devils' I mentioned in the last blog have striking similarities with a number of traditional ceremonies in Japan. While I remember seeing grotesque wooden masks in Shinto shrines, I never witnessed them in use, and I had forgotten the stories of the kappa – sprite like daemons. In Greene's Travelling without maps he mentions being carried by hammock when sick, and indeed, this palanquin-esque mode of transport is shared by tribal chiefs and Japanese aristocracy. I have also enjoyed the discovery that the use of a rising 'eehhhh' expression to show surprise strongly features here, as it did in Japan. They also both love rice. I am pretty sure we made a major discovery here, anyone looking for a PHD topic?

The increasing influence of China in Africa is hardly new, but it has been interesting to see how what they are doing here in Sierra Leone, and how it is viewed by the locals. Chinese involvement tends to be purely business in nature, lacking the humanitarian aid (or human rights stipulations) that Europe/USA uses, and as such is often viewed favourably by national leaders, if not so by their populations:. “You will build roads, and will buy our <natural resource>, and don't care about our <human rights violation>? Of course I will sign the trade agreement!” Here in SL, the Chinese are indeed in charge of several large road building and renovation projects, as well as attempting to improve the transport infrastructure in Freetown. In return, they have received very good rates on iron ore, and in principle, many more transport projects, including building a bridge across the bay to improve the current ferry situation. Talking with people here, they don't seem to mind this situation at all, as any attempt to improve the frankly terrible roads is popular. Indeed, there is no negative feeling towards the Chinese, and with a decline in the stray dog population being (unofficially) linked to the increase of Chinese workers in Freetown, their popularity is ever increasing. For the government, funding from China means that the endemic corruption, laws banning homosexuality and the prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM, with about 90% of women effected), is not questioned.

This past weekend has been my first real one here (as we had training sessions for the new volunteers last weekend), and it has been great fun. All the UK volunteers (UK-Vs from now on), and a number of their SL-Vs went to a local bar/night club, and it offered the first opportunity to let their hair down. It was a brutal way of finding out that white people just can't dance. We were left looking like wooden puppets compared to the smooth rhythm of the locals, although the overly sexual nature of the dancing was rather a shock. Music for me has always represented an energetic outlet, and the mosh pits at the punk-rock gigs of my youth are a million miles away from what is popular here, although thankfully there is a far better male-female ratio.

Saturday was beach day, although my carefully arranged plans unraveled rather quickly. It was an early - and relatively painless - reminder of the differences in time management and organisation that exists here, and I will both be better prepared, and more relaxed for next weekend. An afternoon on the lovely golden sands of Aberdeen (20mins drive from Freetown) was certainly a reward for everyone, and the football match was the highlight for me, with mixed teams of UK-Vs, SL-Vs and local ringers making for a good match. 30Mins in the sun though, and I had certainly earned my afternoon of reading in the shade. A place popular with the expat community had been recommended, and it was indeed nice, but was twice of price of anything in town.

Sunday, especially for members of the YMCA staff here, is church day, and gosh do they take it seriously. My personal beliefs on spiritually aside, I decided to go with my host family to their service, although at 3 ½ hours long, on wooden pews, I rather regretted my decision. Attending the main Methodist church in Freetown, it was consecrated in 1854, and features this amazing stained glass window, featuring a more multi-ethnic line up than most. 

The service was a mix of English and Krio, and with 200 people in attendance, the singing was rather lively. As if to prove my earlier point about dancing, the 84 year old lady with Parkinson's in front of me danced through the songs with more rhythm than I could ever manage. Letting my mind wander during the sermon (something about unity and holy trinity), I flicked through the bible and came across this passage in Ephesians 6, which struck me rather, being in a country founded by former slaves. 

⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; ⁶ not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. ⁷ Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, ⁸ knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.

It is easy to see how the slave owning classes justified their actions through such passages, hiding behind religious texts while committing deplorable acts. 

In the afternoon, a few of the volunteers went to the national stadium to watch the YMCA basketball team play in the Freetown league. Champions for the last two seasons, they lost the first game of the season last week, and needed a victory. It was great fun, and the crowd were very supportive! The very basic facilities didn't diminish either the quality nor intensity of the play.

Sunday was also the 33^rd anniversary of Bob Marley's death, and despite Rastafarians making up only 1% of the population, they certainly enjoyed themselves, playing his vast back-catalogue at full blast well into the night. I had no idea he had recorded so many songs.