Final final post from Sierra Leone

After the last post, I still had a couple days in Freetown, and they turned out to be rather exiting, so my final post, I promise.

On Saturday I went for a long walk behind the university, basicly doing a huge semi-circle around Freetown, which is ringed by a range of hills. The villages up here, Leicester and Gloucester, as the names betray, were some of the early Kreo settlements, built by the freed slaves. They are rather interesting places now, being up and away from the hustle of the city, and still maintaining some trees and jungle, they have a very sedate air about them. By the time of independence, the Kreo, who currently make up about 3% of the population, were never-the-less overwhelmingly in positions of power, and many of the houses here have the look and feel of retirement rewards for those initial leaders of Sierra Leone. The understated charm is not something that is being maintained by the new crop of the powerful however, and as I walked further towards Regent, the number of obnoxious palaces of wealth, with their concrete Roman columns and huge gates and walls, increased.

My walk took me to the new US embassy, which re-located to its current hill top position after the war, leaving its central base next to the cotton tree. It was just before reaching the embassy though, that I had one of the most terrifying moments of my life. As I was walking along, deep in thought, a mob of 20 or so young men, armed with machetes and rocks ran towards me, shouting and screaming. Like a deer in headlights, I stood frozen, unsure what to do. Thankfully (for me), they turned off th
e road and directed their anger at a collection of shanty huts and cars, which gave me enough time to follow advice of one of the locals, “Whiteboy, move!” After speaking about it to people afterwards, the general belief was that it was probably over land rights, rather than religious or ethnic violence, but it was a very clear reminder of how quickly things can flair up in a country with huge inequality, massive youth unemployment, and a large population of former child soldiers.

The rest of the afternoon saw me souvenir hunting, and I now have this to hang on my wall, or how about in the hallway mum?

 I also picked up a few newspapers with Ebola based headlines. I can't bring too much stuff, as I have to lug all this booty to Senegal, rather than home, but managed to find a couple goodies.

This evening I went for a wonder near my house, and discovered the Commonwealth War Cemetery, hidden away next to the police barracks. Very well maintained, and an oasis of calm in Freetown, the graves tell of the realities of the war here, with mainly naval and merchant naval deaths in the two wars. There were also a Norwegian, and even a few German graves, alongside the usual Commonwealth ones, which I don't remember seeing anywhere else.

Watching Cartoon Network, hiding from the rain. Not what I really had in mind for my last day in Sierra Leone, but hey, needs must. The storm today is probably the heaviest i have ever seen. The thunder made the house shake, and the water was almost a foot deep as it flowed down the road.

(View from my living room)