Week 6

"Some years ago, having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail around a little and see the watery part of the world"

  I am finding it hard to get through Moby Dick, as Melville's prose, while being beautiful in parts, is certainly slow and can be be rather a chore at times to wade through. 
 

On Wednesday I met my first head of state, the honourable Bai Koroma, President of Sierra Leone. I was with a delegation of senior YMCA officials, showing off plans for a new YMCA building in the north, and we were seeking official approval, as well as general commitment for the work of the YMCA in the country.

 (Spot the President)

His room is full of framed pictures and awards from around the world, with a photo of him with Barack Obama taking pride of place, sitting alongside a massive sword, directly behind his chair. A number of footballs and religious paintings on the back wall, and the rest of the room is taken up with a huge desk (big enough to hold two computer screens, one of which is a CCTV feed for the building), and sofas and chairs for visitors such as ourselves.

The State house is a relic of colonialism, and there is a rather tired feel to the place. Red tiled floors and off-white walls reminded me more of a Kazakh school building, although, granted, having only visited The Houses of Parliament in London, my experience of State houses is rather limited . The air conditioning is Arctic in there, so the national budget could easily be improved with turning that up...no CoolBiz here (Japanese reference).

Inside, the whole experience was one of calm and practiced patience, with officious and well dressed security in every corridor. Outside, back in the real temperatures of Freetown, the usual semi-chaos returned, with workmen from a current building extension, police, soldiers, and an army of drivers washing the cars of the various officials and ministers. In probably the only instance I have seen here, mobile phones were not permitted inside the building, which led to an electronic silence not found anywhere else, need for people to talk with their neighbours to pass the time, a novelty these days!

The only other event of note this week was our trip to Banana island. With the raining season fast approaching – actually, it is late, but the result is the same – it was probably our last beach based weekend.

 (This is actually of Kent beach, on the mainland - Freetown is faaaar left of the land)

A forty minute boat ride from the most southern point of the Freetown peninsular, the island is one of the least touched areas still to be found near the capital, with old growth jungle reaching down to the water's edge. This is not to say the whole island is pristine, with two small villages housing eight hundred or so local inhabitants, and three guest-houses catering to tourists. The combined total of these efforts though, and the small scale cassava farming and poyo collection is barely felt with just fifteen minutes of walking into the jungle. Bird song and insect noises fill the air, although bigger life seems to have suffered the fate shared on the mainland, as I didn't see so much as a footprint of a monkey or deer.

(Typical local hut on the island)

The island used to be an important staging point for the slave industry, and housed a number of Europeans. Their legacy is largely felt in the name of the main village- Dublin- and in a few iron lampposts that still dot the area. Compared with the scrap iron shanty hunts that most of the villagers now live in, they offer a rather striking contrast between old and new. With no electricity other than sporadic generator use, requiring petrol from the mainland, the current village is probably less well lit that it was a hundred and fifty years ago, with public street lights burning whale oil. The jungle has reclaimed what else was left of these slaving settlements, and the overall effect like that noted in the Blood River book I recently read about the Congo, where the standard of life now, is lower than in the past. Issues of development or de-development aside, the island is lovely and peaceful, with golden beaches and great sea food. We went snorkelling the first morning, and generally lazed around reading for the rest of the time. 

 (A street busy enough to warrant lighting, now a dirt track through the jungle)

A highlight was certainly a night swim, and the amazing phosphorescence show it presented, with the light from the moon providing enough rays to light up the water. Even at night, the water here maintains a pretty constant temperature, which is warm enough to allow unlimited swimming, but cool enough to be refreshing. The fish seem to enjoy the temperature as well, as the waters were teeming, and provided plenty for us to eat. However, it was pointed out that the illegal foreign fishing boats (whose similar actions led to the conversion of Somali fishermen into pirates on the other side of Africa), are still trawling the waters here, destroying not only local fish stocks, but also the sea bed. The lack of a navy/coast guard ensures that the the numerous maritime laws are unenforceable. This article does a pretty good job of explaining it, in a Sierra Leonian context. http://standardtimespress.org/?p=2294

 (Jungle!)

On our way back, our sunburnt (why is it always my ankles?) but contented peace was shattered by a car crash ahead. A truck pulled in front of the jeep in front of us, totalling both of them, and causing the jeep to flip. Thankfully no one was seriously injured, but they could so easily have been. If we were ten seconds further ahead, well, it could have been us. Rushing out with first-aid kits and little idea how to use them, our services were luckily not required.