Making a Living Part I: Selling Scrap Metal

I've been wanting to do a series on the ways people scrape out a living in Sierra Leone.

My friend ABJ beat me to it with this touching short film about boys making a living by searching for jewelry and scrap metal in the gutters and streets of Freetown.

It is a glimpse of what it takes to survive among the poorest of the poor in this poorest of poor countries – teenagers elbow-deep in filthy gutters just to earn a few pennies for rice and a roof over their heads – and of the energy and ingenuity that allows them to do just that. Survive.

A Remarkable Sound

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Another day at the children’s hospital.

Not a good day, overall.

Chaos on the streets outside, under a searing sun.

Chaos inside, the junior doctors overwhelmed. Patients and parents line the corridors.

In the hospital courtyard, my little friend Ibrahim – covered in scars from a long-ago kerosene burn – in hysterics. “I beat him for playing in the gutter,” says a man nearby.

A meeting with the maintenance team. Frustration all around. A suspiciously inflated invoice. Still no plan to fix the water pump. Another deadline.

On Ward 2 a little girl close to death, her eyes glassy, her mother terrified. A nurse adjusts the flow on her blood transfusion. “She’s improving,” she says, unconvincingly.

We trudge upstairs to Ward 3, short on optimism.

And then we hear it.

A remarkable sound.

A child laughing.

Towards me, down the center of the ward, runs a little girl in a flowered dress. Her belly peeks out through a missing button.

She laughs again. The sound brightens the ward.

I run towards her and she shrieks with delight, turns and runs away. Her steps are those of a typical toddler, unsteady but fearless.

Children nearby watch us through the bars of their beds. One or two smile weakly.

I ask her mother, who sits grinning on the windowsill, how long she’s been here. A few days, she says. Before that, another hospital. They gave her blood. Her feet and hands still have marks from the IV.

I ask the nurses. She has tuberculosis.

Her name is Mary.

She is playing hide-and-seek. Behind the curtains, around the cement pillars, under the worn metal cots. She giggles while I search.

I catch her and she collapses under my tickling hands, squealing with pleasure.

This is the best part of my day.

I say goodbye and walk away. I have to work.

She sneaks up behind me. I turn and see her impish grin, and can’t resist.

The game begins again.

Mary is laughing.

So am I.


To help support the hospital described here, located in Freetown, Sierra Leone, please visit the Welbodi Partnership.

Cocaine busts

I returned to Freetown a few weeks ago to find a city abuzz with one word: Cocaine.

On July 13, the Sierra Leonean authorities confiscated a plane filled with 600 kg of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $54 million. The Venezuelan plane, a fake Red Cross decal on its tail, landed in Freetown’s Lungi International Airport without a valid flight plan. According to the official story, the pilot and crew fled before the authorities arrived, but left behind a plane full of cocaine. In the hours and days that followed, the crew – including 9 foreigners from Latin America and the United States – were arrested, along with dozens of Sierra Leoneans believed to be involved. In all, some 60 people have been arrested in relation to the case. The Minister of Transport and Aviation has been suspended from office for suspicion of involvement, and other powerful men, including Gbassay Kamara, the former manager of Sierra Leone's national football team, have fled or gone into hiding.

This is all exciting, of course, but is also deadly serious for this small country working so hard to maintain peace and order after a decade-long civil war. In recent years, as demand for cocaine has increased dramatically in Europe, West Africa has become a favored route for traffickers bringing drugs from source countries in South America to the lucrative markets of Europe. In tiny and impoverished Guinea-Bissau, drug trafficking has eviscerated already weak government and security institutions and overrun the legitimate economy, turning the country – according to media coverage – into “Africa's first narco-state.”

To avoid this, or even the perception of this, the government of Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma has treated the case very seriously. Not only have they moved quickly to arrest suspects, and even to suspend very senior members of their own government, but have also taken steps to ensure those already arrested don’t manage to slip away. (Suspects and even convicted criminals have a way of disappearing from police custody from time to time.)

Therefore the police and military, afraid that South American drug barons might swoop in with a paramilitary force to bust their companions out of jail, have blocked traffic all along Pademba Road beside the prison, and on all the smaller roads that intersect with Pademba. They’ve brought in major military hardware – including anti-aircraft guns, I’m told – and have announced a no-fly zone over the prison. On days the prisoners appear in court, they extend their blockade down to the law courts building, on the main drag of Siaka Stevens Street next to the city’s iconic cotton tree.

Now I personally think it’s a bit far-fetched that the drug lords will risk any more men to rescue the small fry rotting in a Sierra Leone jail. Even the quantity of cocaine confiscated – though a record for Sierra Leone – is small potatoes for these guys. And anyway, there is no way the cocaine is being held in the porous and severely under-funded Pademba Road prison. (Best guess on the street is that either the British-led International Military Advisory and Training Team, IMATT, or the few remaining UN soldiers guarding the Special Court for Sierra Leone have been put in charge of the $54 million stash.)

I can't fault the government for what is certainly an admirable show of force and a clear message to any drug lords looking to use Sierra Leone as a gateway to Europe.But it seems to me there are some more practical steps they could take.

For one, they could do something about the laughable airport security. Last time I flew out of Lungi, the female security guard tasked with patting me down for weapons or contraband – because they don’t have a metal detector or any sort of scanner for persons or bags – decided I wasn’t a threat. Laughing, she gave me a big, friendly bear hug instead.

Huh.

Stories I Like to Tell, Part I -- My Friendly Corrupt Policemen

I'm back in the US at the moment, visiting family and friends, and I realized (to my occasional embarrassment) that I tend to tell and retell the same handful of stories about Sierra Leone. It occurred to me that if they make good fodder for dinner-party chat, they would probably also work well for this blog. My apologies to those of you who are family or friends and have heard these already...

This first installment introduces some of my favorite neighborhood police officers. Before I tell the stories, however, I'd like to offer a bit of cautionary context.

1) Not all public officials -- and not all police officers -- are corrupt. Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, not every public official in Sierra Leone is on the make. In more than two years in Sierra Leone -- and in part, I admit, thanks to luck and sheer persistence -- I've never paid a bribe or other "encouragement" to a police officer, immigration official, or government functionary of any sort. (I have paid "kola", a traditional gift now usually given as cash, to local chiefs, but I'd argue that's a greyer area.)

In that time, I've certainly encountered officials looking for some palm greasing, as evidenced by the stories below, but I've also encountered countless individuals who chose not to take advantage of a potentially lucrative situation. (As one example, a friend visiting from the US realized that he had a single-entry visa to Sierra Leone but plans to enter the country twice, on either end of a side trip to Senegal. He was clearly in the wrong, and legitimately owed the government at least the $100 difference in price between the two visas, but when we explained the honest mistake to an airport immigration official, he waved us through without even hinting for a bribe.)


2) Small-scale corruption is often a matter of survival. When a senior government official embezzles hundreds of thousands of dollars intended for a life-saving project -- such as child immunization, school feeding, or rural road construction -- and buys himself a BMW and a big house, he deserves to be harshly judged. So too does a police detective who refuses to file a rape case unless the impoverished and terrified young victim collects enough money from family and friends to pay for paper, a pen, and transportation for the investigating officer. But when a low-ranking policeman paid approximately Le5,000 ($1.67) per day asks someone like me to give him Le15,000 to let me drive away with a cracked side mirror, I have a bit more sympathy (though I still refuse to pay). With skyrocketing food prices, the officer can hardly afford to feed his or her family on the normal monthly salary.

Certainly the collective impact of small-scale corruption can be enormous, and certainly such demands are more onerous on the transport drivers also scraping to survive than they are on rich expats like myself, but there is still something different -- in my view -- between a poor and poorly-paid small-time official scamming a bit of extra income, and a fat cat "big man" stealing big money. I don't accept either type of corruption, and go to great lengths to avoid paying even the smallest bribe, but I also don't judge the small official as harshly as I do the big man.


So, with those caveats, here are my favorite police corruption stories:

As a driver in Sierra Leone -- or, at least, as a foreign driver -- you generally don't face the kind of aggressive harassment you might be led to expect by typical stories of West Africa. However, police officers do pull you over, frequently, if you are driving a car without diplomatic or NGO (non-governmental organization) plates. They invent moving violations or imperceptible problems with your vehicle to try to extort a bit of money. (Once, when I was still new to Sierra Leone, an officer insisted that my left headlight was a bit dimmer than my right headlight and threatened to arrest me. It was false and rather silly but hard to prove.)

I've discovered that the best approach is to greet them from the outset with enthusiastic cheer, chattering away in friendly Krio before they even get a word in edgewise. "Officer, I am so glad to see you out here on the streets protecting us. How is your day going? Is the work too difficult? Is the sun too warm? Thank you so much for your hard work." Often, this approach preempts even the request for money, and after a quick and friendly chat, they wave me on my way.

Occasionally, I still find an officer who makes noise about this or that invented offence. My cracked side mirror is a frequent target, even though my car passed inspection (without a bribe) with the mirror just as broken as it is today.

The most memorable interactions, however, are with those officers that dispatch with the formality of pretending I've broken a law and simply ask point-blank for money. The first time this happened, I was driving down Wilkinson Road -- the main thoroughfare of western Freetown -- with a Nigerian friend of mine. The officer approached us with a smile and started chatting in rapid-fire Krio. (I remember being surprised, as people usually don't expect me to speak and understand Krio as well as I do.) He told us that he'd decided not to act like his fellow officers and threaten to arrest us for some nonsense offense. He didn't want to bully us, he said. Instead, he would just ask us nicely to give him a bit of money.

I kept a straight (but friendly) face, thanked him for his fresh approach, and politely declined. He looked disappointed but let me drive away.

The second time was during a city-wide crackdown on unsafe vehicles and other offenses. The police department itself was quite open about the purpose of the crackdown -- to generate revenue for the department -- and bragged publicly about the hundreds of drivers arrested in a 72-hour period and the millions of Leones collected in fines. I've no doubt that hundreds of others avoided arrest by contributing directly to the "revenue" of individual officers.

One afternoon during this crackdown, I was stopped by a cheery, ruddy-faced male officer with a somewhat grumpier female colleague. I gave my normal friendly greeting, and he replied with the following (conversation in Krio, English translations in parentheses):

Officer: "U no sae wi dae pa dis check." (You know we're on this "check".)
Me: Innocently. "Oh? Us kin check dat?" (Oh really? What kind of check?)
Officer: Chuckles. "Na u finances wi dae check." (We're checking you're finances.)
Me: "Mi finances?" Chuckles. "Ow u go check mi finances? Bank no dae naya." (My finances? How are you going to check my finances? There isn't a bank here.)
Officer: Chuckles again. "Well, na di finances na u pocket, na dat we dae check." (Well, the finances in your pocket, that's what we're checking.)
Me: Now genuinely amused, turn out my empty pockets. "Ah beg, finances no dae na mi pocket." (I'm sorry, but it looks like there aren't any finances in my pocket.)

He smiled at me. I smiled at him. Then I drove away.
No "finances" changed hands.

A Plate with a View

Here is a gem of a story from the UK's Independent newspaper about perhaps my favorite place to spend a Saturday: Bureh Beach.

Below are a few photos of Bureh, including a table "with a view" and Prince, the proprieter mentioned in the story. The weathered old man is the coconut man, also mentioned, and a wonderful character.

A Blue Bundle

A children’s hospital.

Down the concrete ramp from Ward 2 (general inpatient) to the main entrance comes a group of six young men. Barely more than teenagers, they walk in a loose V formation like soldiers – in uniforms of t-shirts and jeans – to battle. They carry an air of solemn concentration, duty-bound, and the cloud of silence around them pushes back the din of the hospital to a dim distant hum.

One of the boyish men, a few steps in front of the others, carries in his arms a child-sized bundle wrapped in a blue blanket. He doesn’t look at the bundle. His eyes are dry.

Behind this group come two women, also young. Their gaze is riveted on the men in front of them, oblivious to their surroundings. One of the women wails and clutches her breasts, grasping for the child who nursed there. Her face is haggard, and you know she has been crying for hours or days.

The procession passes through the doorway and into the glare of the courtyard. Past parents toting sick children. Past student nurses gathered in the shade. Past security guards and drivers and curious onlookers.

For the small group of mourners, however, all that is far away. The traffic of the hospital and of the street beyond belong to the world of the living. Theirs is the grim task of accompanying the dead.

A dented white pick-up truck waits for them just outside the entrance. The father climbs into the front seat with his precious bundle. The child is small enough to lay across his lap, even with the bulky blanket. I find myself wondering how old she is – was – but shake my head and push the thought aside. Too young.

The rest of the men – brothers, cousins, comrades-in-arms – climb into the back of the truck. They reach down to the mother, to help her up behind them, but she is trembling with grief. Her leg buckles when she steps on the bumper. It is all too much.

As the truck drives away, I can still see the small blue bundle through the front window. I imagine where they are going, what comes next. A tiny casket. A simple gravestone. A memorial service. A lifetime of sorrow. “I had three children, and two are alive.”

I turn away. It is all too much.

To support the children's hospital portrayed in this posting, please visit the Welbodi Partnership.

Sunday is...

… the church drummer warming up at 9 a.m.

… a sermon in my bedroom.

… a lazy breakfast of papaya and mangoes on the balcony, or chocolate croissants and smoothies at Bliss Patisserie down the street.

… the long drive to Bureh Town: over the mountain, past the waterfall, through villages that once were refugee camps and towns that once were villages, past scenery so stunning it takes your breath, again, for the thousandth time.

… sun and surf and freshly-caught barracuda for lunch.

… outings, outings, and more outings: a caravan of buses, taxis, jeeps and poda-podas bound for beaches out of town; stereos blaring, bodies crammed in every available space, and clinging to roof-racks and bumpers. On the beach, speakers piled high, music drowning the waves and the seabirds, revelers bumping and grinding, helped by free-flowing alcohol and the occasional joint. Attention-seekers climb atop rocks, then seduce the beach with their swaying hips and chiseled bodies. Others splash in the waves and chase each other – squealing and shouting – across the stark white sand, against the most beautiful backdrop imaginable.

… back in town, an evening walk on Lumley Beach, where Freetown gathers each Sunday to promenade. Playboys plying the beach road in sports cars and Hummers; boys playing football in bare feet and boxer shorts; girls dancing in the sand; children chasing the waves; lovers walking hand-in-hand.

Friday is...

... the call to prayer.

... the hum, the murmur, the humble din of beggars outside a mosque.

... noble men in caps and robes.

... statuesque women in their Friday Africana, stunning from their elaborate head scarves to their pointed heels, wrapped in eye-dazzling color, texture, and pattern.

... walking through the crowded East-End streets en route to the Children's Hospital, dodging motorized poda-podas and hand-drawn omalankis, the former packed tight with bodies, the latter piled high with goods. Tip-toeing through sludge and garbage and over open gutters, ducking under panbodi zinc and 10-foot wooden poles carried recklessly atop the heads of quick-moving bodies. Sweating and sweating and sweating under the searing mid-day sun.

... walking back through markets teeming with Friday salesmanship: a wall of vendors flooding the streets, channeling pedestrian commuters through a narrow gauntlet of flashing goods and shouted prices. A bit of cardboard hung with cheap gold-painted earrings; a basin of ice-cold water packed in plastic bags; a woman’s skirt (slightly used) for $0.30; a hundred metal spoons jangled to grab attention; an armful of fake designer sunglasses; a sequined handbag; a pickled pig’s foot; a live chicken.

... suffocating traffic, where the crippled man with legs twisted from polio pulling himself along on his hands and knees moves faster than you in your car.

... a cold shower to wash off the day.

.... a beer at sunset at Ramadas Beach Bar, with the hills of the city behind and the waves before you, and your bare feet buried in the sand.

Aging Gracefully

I was sitting in front of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation last week, trying to arrange my hair into something more respectable before my meeting with the Minister. (In the April humidity, my curls generally explode into a frenetic and chaotic mop, and in Sierra Leone unruly hair is a sign of madness, destitution, or both.)

In my car vanity mirror, I noticed a smattering of grey hairs sprouting cruelly from the top of my head. Though I don't generally stress about such things -- I am almost 30 and a few laugh lines and grey hairs seem like part of the bargain -- I do usually pull them when I find them. And so I did, yanking the most obvious before combing my hair into a semblance of order.

But then I started thinking: in Sierra Leone, as in most of Africa, grey hairs are actually an asset. While America continues to worship youth, Africa reveres its elders. On this continent, with age comes respect, power, and gravitas.

So perhaps I should have left the greys. Maybe the Minister would see me in a different light if I looked a bit older. Perhaps I’d no longer be a “small girl” to most of my colleagues and acquaintances, but someone more serious and important. Perhaps people would call me Madam or Aunty instead of Sister.

Perhaps… but for now I think I’ll stick with my more American approach. Yank away, Yankee.

Supernatural Wealth Transfer

Sierra Leone is a very religious place. Some 99% of the population identifies as either Christian (24%) or Muslim (76%), though the majority combines these beliefs with various traditional beliefs.

It's also an amazing model of religious plurality. There is good-natured teasing but absolutely no tension between Christians and Muslims. Intermarriage is so common as to barely merit a mention. If a Christian lives in a village without a church, he or she will often turn to the Imam for guidance, and vice versa. Muslims all go to church on New Year's (because that's what you do).

This religious tolerance is worthy of a much longer and more serious post (one I've been meaning to write for some time). For now, however, I want to be a bit lighter.

One of the most visible trends of Christianity in Sierra Leone is big, bold, unapologetic, fire-and-brimstone evangelism. Posters and banners adorn walls through the city, announcing visiting preachers -- many from Nigeria -- special redemption campaigns, and revivals in the national stadium. I used to live down the street from one of many branches of the Flaming Bible Church, with its logo of a burning cross, and I now spend every Sunday morning lying in bed and listening to a hundred exalted voices calling "hallelujah".

I'm certainly happy to live-and-let-live (as the Sierra Leoneans do) when it comes to religion. People find faith and guidance in many different forms. But sometimes I can't help but giggle a bit at the more notable campaigns.

One of my favorites was from a year or more ago. Operation P.U.S.H. -- Pray Until Something Happens. I wonder if anything did.

Then today I saw an enormous poster (taller than me) for a month-long crusade. Among the many miracles on offer was a declaration that 2008 was the year of Supernatural Wealth Transfer.

I imagined money falling from the sky, or a mysterious transfer into all believers' bank accounts from the Bank of God.

Hmm, maybe I should give this church business a try... a Supernatural Wealth Transfer doesn't sound too bad.

Your face here?

There’s a somewhat disconcerting practice in many African countries – and probably elsewhere in the world – to create (and wear) fabrics that feature repeating patterns of politicians’ faces. I suppose in principle it’s no different than a Barack Obama t-shirt – or, for that matter, a New Kids on the Block bed sheet, which I am proud to say I did NOT own, but which were quite popular in my pre-teen years – but it still always strikes me as a bit funny.

Imagine someone walking down the street, dressed head-to-toe in a gown or pantsuit made from Democratic- or Republican-inspired fabric, with dozens of Senator Hillary Clintons or President George Bushes peering out from every bit of the body. Makes you cringe, doesn't it?

In an effort to embrace and perhaps understand this cultural practice, I went to the market a few weeks ago and bought myself a length of Ernest Bai Koroma (President of Sierra Leone) fabric. Here I am in a makeshift dress, with the President staring jauntily from my hip. What do you think?

Bintumani ho!

I just climbed the highest mountain in West Africa.

At 1,995 meters (6,542 feet), Mount Bintumani in northern Sierra Leone lacks the body-taxing altitude and snow-covered peaks of its larger sisters. (Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, stands at 5,895 meters above sea level, while Everest is 8,850 meters high.) It is instead a gentle giant, with sloping grass-covered skirts rising to an improbable rocky plateau, which perches like a slumbering stone bulldog upon an oversized knoll.

Climbing Bintumani is even less daunting than it might be because 1) if you go by the shorter eastern route you have just one day’s hike to the summit, followed by another day down; and 2) for $5 per day plus food you can hire a porter to carry the bulk of your things. I felt a bit foolish sweating my way up the mountain in my high-tech hiking shoes with only a daypack on my back, while Musa followed in flip-flops and a rucksack packed with 6 liters of water (for me, plus the 4 liters in my own pack); oatmeal and sugar for 17 breakfasts; a pot packed with cooking and eating implements; extra socks and warm clothes (also for me); and various other “essentials.” But I probably wouldn’t have made it otherwise – or at least it would have hurt a lot more.

Here is one of our porters, Saiyo, ready to leave his home village with someone’s pack on his back, and then further up the mountain with a bunch of plantains on his head.

The plantains – harvested partway up the mountain – were the only food, besides a few cups of uncooked rice, that the porters brought along. Despite our request that each of them bring a pot of rice and sauce for their dinner, they came empty-handed. They also brought nothing to sleep on or under, nor warm clothes for the damp and cool mountain evening. We’d been warned and had budgeted food and some water for the 9 guides and porters as well as the 8 of us, but did not have extra tents or sweaters. (In fact we were somewhat under-prepared ourselves: my friend Aongus slept in a makeshift shelter under the “porch” of one tent, while a couple snuggled in a mosquito-dome made for one. And all of us were cold at night.)

It made for some gentle joking as we made 17 peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, stirred a pot of oatmeal for the porters’ dinner, or handed over our extra tarp (meant to cover our bags in case of rain) for the guys to sleep under. And joking turned to frustration as we shouted and struggled to keep pace with our guide, who had a tendency to hurry off with the porters, seemingly unconcerned that we trailed behind without a clue to the path.

But the guys were good-spirited and we eventually grew on one another. I even got to play doctor, which probably redeemed me in their eyes for not having a spare tent to share. As we settled into our mountain camp, in the shadow of the summit, we discovered that our guide Pa Mara (see photo below) had a festering axe wound on his thigh. Two days old, the wound – though seemingly minor from the outside – was probably deep and definitely infected, swelling his knee and thigh and giving him a mild fever. We unpacked our UK government-issued first aid kit – actually more of a mobile hospital – and I began washing Pa Mara’s leg with bottled water and dressing it with layers of sterile gauze (thinking all the time, “If my Mom could see me now.”) Another dressing in the morning and a few paracetemol (Tylenol) and he was in much brighter spirits.

Helped by moments like this, we all made friends in the end – not only through our mutual gratitude (how can you not like someone who totes your heavy pack up a mountain or ministers to your festering wounds?) but also through the exhilaration of our shared experience. Most of the porters had themselves never scaled the mountain, and a few shared our nervousness as we neared the top. Our banana-toting porter Saiyo became particularly anxious as we scrambled through a thick morning mist up the steep upper reaches of the mountain, just short of the rocky plateau, until my friend Drucil started teasing him that if Drucil, a “Freetown boy” could make it, so could the country-born Saiyo.

As we emerged on the top, a vast rocky expanse, the porters and guides stepped immediately aside to pray, before joining in our more secular revelry. When I later asked if the mountain was a sacred space, they said simply that Allah could hear them better when they were up so high.

Most of the porters also refused our offer of celebratory champagne, which we raised in our own tribute to the gods of the mountain. (We even poured a bit in libation, in case the mountain god were more a reveler than a teetotaler.) But they did enjoy posing for light-hearted photos, as well as exploring the summit and its breathtaking views.

After a long trek back down the mountain, and a bumpy, dusty, 11-hour drive back to Freetown, I’m struck by how happy we look in all the photos from the trip. Scratched legs and sore knees and sweat-soaked packs and all, I think Bintumani refreshed and rejuvenated us.

Perhaps Allah or the mountain god were indeed listening from the top.

A sad postscript

In a sad postscript to the trip, we returned to the porters’ home village of Sangbania to find that Saiyo’s son was vomiting blood and had been moved that day to a larger neighboring village to seek medical attention. Saiyo grabbed a ride on the roof rack of our Land Rover, and we drove through the quickly-failing light until we reached the village. While we pitched tents and strung hammocks on the newly-built school outside of town, Saiyo went to see after his son, and returned later with news.

The boy, 18 years old, had fallen from a palm tree some months earlier. At the time he’d been very hurt and vomiting blood, but later grew stronger and seemed to have recovered. Then suddenly the vomiting returned, and after vomiting blood for the better part of a day and night, the boy was now too weak to walk or even sit upright for more than a short time.

The village lacked a government clinic and the family – subsistence farmers when not earning a bit of money trekking tourists up the mountain – lacked the money to bring him to a hospital or clinic. Instead they paid a nurse to give him an injection (quite possibly of sugar-water or some other useless substance) and a “native doctor” to find an herbal remedy.

We knew the boy was in serious trouble if he had internal injuries – as it seemed to our inexpert selves – but that his best bet was with a clinic or hospital with trained personnel. So we woke early the next morning to visit the family and offer to bring the boy most of the way to the nearest government hospital (in Kono’s district headquarter town) and to give them money toward treatment and transport.

In the end they refused the ride to the hospital, preferring to go to another clinic where they had some family nearby, but gratefully accepted our contribution (about $70) to the transport and treatment. They promised emphatically not to spend the money on native doctors or anything else except the boy’s treatment.

We’ll probably never know what happened to Saiyo’s son, because we have no way to contact the family. But I hope they indeed brought him to the clinic, and if necessary to a hospital, and that the nurses and doctors somehow found a way to give him the help he needed with the limited supplies on hand. In an act of forced optimism, I envision not the likely tragic outcome but the grin on the teenager’s face as he learned how much money we’d offered his family, and as the terror in his eyes was displaced – momentarily, at least – by hope.

Visit Sweet Salone!

In my ongoing effort to convince everyone to come visit , here are two recent pieces on tourism in Sierra Leone.

The first is a wonderful travel article from last Sunday's edition of the UK newspaper, The Observer. It draws in part on the same island-hopping trip I described in my last post. The cover photo (shown here) is by my stellar photographer/journalist/travel-guide-writer friend, Katrina Manson, who is also responsible for the photo essays on cleaning day and a Freetown slum linked from earlier posts.

The second is a video from the Sierra Leone National Tourist Board, so you can see the sights and sounds for yourself.

Island-hopping

There is something deliciously luxurious about boarding a boat (no, not the boat in the photo) for five days of island-hopping. Coolers full of beer and soft drinks. Crates of canned goods and snack food. Waterproof bags protecting cameras and iPods. Backpacks stuffed with mosquito nets, sun cream, bikinis, and beach wraps.

My fascinating and mildly glamorous companions only added to the indulgence. Actors. Journalists. Photographers. TV producers. Presidential advisors. Investment fund managers.

It’s a tough life.

Day One was spent mostly in Freetown, trying to get the hell out of dodge. We finally pulled out of the marina five hours later than planned, still in good spirits despite the delay and the fact that one of our number was struck low with malaria. (He, trooper that he is, simply curled up in the hold and suffered through the journey.)

More than five hours of choppy seas later, and just before sunset, we reached our first destination: Bonthe town on Sherbro Island. The island is a rather large landmass, resembling a peninsula only slightly cut off from land, and its capital town is quite a quaint and pretty place – if somewhat crumbling and battle-scarred – with large homes and wide sandy lanes. The only motorized vehicles on the whole island are two newly-arrived okada motor-bike taxis; a third returned to the mainland after it found business too slow.

However, after two delightful nights at the new and full-service Bonthe Holiday Village – complete with electricity and satellite TV and multi-course meals – and due celebration of one 30th birthday and one engagement, we were ready for the real adventure.

The Turtle Islands lie off the southern coast of Sierra Leone, not far from Bonthe. Unlike their much larger and more-developed neighbor, the Turtles are a string of tiny sandy islands, speckled with palm trees and fishing villages. At least one small hotel operated on one of the islands in the pre-war days, but today you can stay only as a guest of a local village, and only in the simplest conditions. (No bathrooms, no running water, and a bed on the ground...)

Reaching the islands was a bit tricky, not least because we (again) mis-timed the tides and found ourselves navigating narrow channels between very shallow sandbars. After several hours, we decided we’d gone as far as we could until the tide rose again, and three of us set off in a smaller skiff to reach the island where we hoped to spend the night. We left the others (all visitors to Sierra Leone) in the larger boat with contingency instructions in case we didn’t return by nightfall; they seemed less-than-thrilled by the possibility.

As it turned out, everything went swimmingly (no pun intended). Our advance team reached the island in no time at all, and were met by a delegation of villagers and enthusiastic children. We asked the village chief for permission to spend the night, and whether they had fish and rice to sell us and someone to cook for us. The answers to all were yes.

While my companions made the necessary dinner arrangements and the skiff returned to collect the rest of the group, I chatted with a few young women from the village. One handed me her brand-new baby boy, Mohammed. ‘A very big name for a very little boy’ I said as he nuzzled, all snoozy one-month of him, into my neck. Mohammed’s mother’s friend spoke clear Krio and a bit of English, so I asked her if they frequently had strangers (visitors) to their island. She laughed and said no. Never.

I then supervised the cleaning of our humble lodgings: a few roofless (and bathroom-less) rooms in the old hotel, plus the surrounding sand, overlooking the water from atop a small embankment. From that viewpoint I watched the skiff and our larger boat (now able to skirt the sandbars thanks to a higher tide) arrive in style with the rest of our group. They were certainly a fascination for the locals!

The island itself was tiny, with a circumference you could easily walk in just a few hours. The village was home to maybe a few hundred souls, all of them making a living from the water. Transport from the mainland arrived every Wednesday and returned a few days later. If anyone needed to reach the land in the interim – for instance, in case of a medical emergency, as there was certainly no clinic on the island – the only choice was a fisherman’s dugout canoe.

In the center of the town I found a fenced-off area filled with fishing nets rolled and put away for the night. I asked and was told this was to keep the women away from them. If a woman entered the area or touched a net, the fisherman would no longer catch any fish.

Returning to our “hotel,” I found the chief helping a few of my friends to string mosquito nets from exposed roof beams and palm fronds. I chose a spot on the sand between two palm trees for my own bed, while the other two ladies went for a swim in the fading light.

Later, filled with fish and rice and roasted marshmallows – and rum – we played silly games and listened to birthday-boy Tom sing and play the guitar. The full moon shimmered off the sea and glimmered through the palm trees. From nearby came the muffled sounds of a village evening: men’s voices, children’s laughter.

In the morning we set off again, with a promise to return soon.

We meant it.

National Cleaning Day in Photos

See photos of cleaning day courtesy of the BBC and our friendly neighborhood journalist, Katrina Manson.

National Cleaning Day

The smell of burning garbage woke me up on Saturday morning.

Still lying in bed, I gazed blearily out my window and found a sky hazy and white, an unusual sight in Freetown. “Fog?” my sleep-addled brain briefly asked, before I put together the pungent smell irritating my throat and the clouds of white outside.

Burying my head under the pillows, I thought with resignation: national cleaning day.

I had time on Saturday to write this blog (after a long period of silence) because I wasn't allowed to go anywhere or do anything until after noon. Friends who ventured out (wittingly or unwittingly) on previous cleaning days have been turned back by police checkpoints and – more commonly – self-styled civilian enforcers. If you’re not going to help clean, they say, go back to your house and stay there. (Fair enough).

I swear I’ll help with a cleaning day at some point, but for now the idea of shoveling out gutters filled with human waste makes me shudder. Instead I hid in my house like a spoiled brat and wrote about it instead.

The idea of a national cleaning day – at least in the capital – is usually credited to one of the handful of military dictatorships that took charge in successive coups in the 1990s. Perhaps the most hapless of these regimes, the NPRC (National Provisional Ruling Council) came to power in 1992 and ruled until 1996, when elections returned the government to civilian hands.

According to conventional wisdom, their coup was mostly accidental; the young group of military officers simply wanted to file a complaint, and then found themselves in charge of the country. They spent most of the next few years throwing lavish parties in the presidential mansion and doing little for the country, but are nonetheless frequently named as the best government in recent memory. The reason? Cleaning Day.

Under NPRC rule, every man, woman, and child in Sierra Leone was required to spend one Saturday morning a month cleaning: their own house and yard, the streets, common areas. Sierra Leone has a long history of communal labor in the rural areas, where (for instance) chiefs will designate a day for “road brushing” – the backbreaking work of clearing and repairing the roads, bridges, and footpaths surrounding a village or chiefdom. Overgrown footpaths are one of the first signs that something is seriously amiss in a given area.

But I’m not sure anyone had ever brought the concept to Freetown before the NPRC, and people loved it. “The NPRC, now that was a government,” many people have told me. “With them the streets were clean.”

The idea has been resurrected from time to time since then. On the very week that I arrived in Sierra Leone – late March 2006 – the then-Minister of Trade and Industry called for a cleaning day to prepare the city for the investors and businessman that would be visiting Freetown the following week for an International Trade Fair. People responded with enthusiasm, turning out in droves on Saturday morning to sweep yards and shovel gutters and gather garbage.

And yet when I arrived on Sunday, the city was absolutely filthy: covered in massive mountains of rancid garbage. Over the next few days, the piles remained – in places blocking entire lanes of traffic – and began to smolder.

The Freetown residents had done their part, dedicating their Saturday morning to making their city clean, but the government had failed at its task: collecting and disposing of the waste. Some say that money was allocated to hire trucks, but was stolen by corrupt officials. Others say the government simply didn’t think things through beyond asking people to gather the garbage in central locations. In any case, the result was clear: Freetown was had laid out a welcome mat of garbage and filth to potential foreign investors it wished to woo.

To paraphrase Paul Theroux, it’s the old African story: great people, terrible governments.

The government subsequently obtained a number of shiny modern garbage trucks – donated by someone – and figured out the basics of cleaning up after cleaning day. And the new APC government has apparently decided to usurp the NPRC legacy and make cleaning day a regular event.

The most amazing part about all of this is the spirit of collective action. Though the police will turn you back if you’re wandering the streets on cleaning day, Sierra Leone is far from an authoritarian state. In fact, the government and police alike are generally too bumbling to enforce much of anything.

No, people clean on cleaning day because they want to. They are willing to give their time, and to work at a filthy and unpleasant task, in order to make up for the lack of a comprehensive government-run sanitation and waste-disposal system.

Imagine if your local government suggested that. Cleaning Day USA? Would you turn out with a broom and a shovel?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Pomp and Circumstance, Salone-Style

Sierra Leone held its presidential inauguration yesterday, and I spent most of the day at the inaugural events held at the national stadium. For the first time in its history, Sierra Leone opened the inauguration to the general public, reserving only a small “presidential” section for ticketed dignitaries. As a result, the stadium was filled to bursting with tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans, most wearing the APC’s signature red and white colors.

When I arrived at nine a.m. the stands were filling quickly, and the mood was buoyant. Large groups entered together dressed in identical “Africana”, outfits made from eye-dazzling local fabrics. Makeshift bands played boisterously from various corners of the stadium, leading people in popular pro-APC songs: “pak en go” (pack up and go home) one of them tells the past administration; another says their time “don don” (is finished).

Events on the field started well. The Biana Players dance group did a beautiful, if largely ignored, traditional dance to the sounds of African drums, waving flags in Sierra Leone’s national colors: blue, green, and white. Then some of Sierra Leone’s most popular comedians, a troupe of clowns known for bawdy physical humor, put on a witty skit about the election. Clowns dressed in the colors of the major parties – red for the APC, green for the SLPP, orange for the PMDC – staged a footrace along the stadium track, while a woman dressed in a Sierra Leone flag (representing the electoral commissioner Christiana Thorpe) tried in vain to keep order. In light-hearted snipes to the election’s real-life drama, the SLPP runner dashed off before the starting gun, then later dragged at the shirt of the APC runner to keep him from pulling ahead. If not a message of national unity, it was certainly one of optimism and fun.

But the program soon fell behind, the sun grew hotter, the stands became more crowded and chaotic, and tempers began to flare. A smartly-dressed honor guard from the Sierra Leone armed forces, accompanied by a military band, impressed the crowd with their sharp marching and salutes. They were then left standing on the field for hours while the program was on hold for some unexplained reason. (We later suspected that VIPs, perhaps including the president himself, were stuck in the crowds outside.) Several of the soldiers fainted dead away, and first aid personnel in red cross vests scrambled to carry the men off the field and into the shade.

First aid personnel were also busy caring for victims from the crowds, carting away those injured in the crush to enter the stadium stands as well as those downed by the sun and heat. In our section, like most of the others, crowds of people pushed their way into entrances, while those already inside pushed back. Dozens climbed the railings and made their way over the crowd toward the back of the stands. Dozens more simply pushed and pushed and pushed until they broke free into the seating areas, where they then squeezed themselves into a few inches of free space between the already densely-packed bodies. The whole scene reminded me of a football match I attended at the stadium last year, but seemed somewhat unbefitting a national inauguration.

As the stands grew more crowded, some of those seated began to grumble, shout, and fight back, while others called out to the newcomers and made space. “All man wan see,” said an old man next to me, kindly sharing the breeze from his plastic fan. True, I thought, but the stadium would not accommodate anywhere near the 1 million residents of Freetown (not to mention the 5 million residents of Sierra Leone), a staggering percentage of whom seemed to be trying to attend, so a limit would have to be struck.

By ten a.m., the place seemed packed to capacity, but still people kept coming. By eleven the military guard were in place on the field, the VIPs could be seen fanning themselves with programs in their shaded section, and people were literally dripping with sweat, but the events did not proceed. As the clock crept toward twelve, I purchased a small towel for 1000 Leones (30 cents) to try to shade myself from the beating sun, and vendors did a brisk trade in plastic bags of cool water. But still nothing more happened on the field.

Meanwhile, events in the stands were getting more and more chaotic. Fights broke out, with whole sections of people pushing and shoving. From time to time, a person would tumble down one of the stands – thrown, perhaps, when people grew frustrated with latecomers pushing their way through. As the tumbling bodies rolled over the rows of seated spectators and reached the rails at the bottom of the stands, I always gasped, praying the person wouldn’t plummet to the concrete walkway several meters below. I never saw anyone fall that far, but a journalist friend called us from the field and said he’d seen ambulances filled with seriously injured people. He warned us to stay put until the stadium had emptied out to avoid the crush, and then smiled and snapped a photo of us from the field far below.

The announcers came over the loudspeaker several times to beg the security forces to help stop people from coming inside, as the stadium was already full. I wondered why the organizers didn’t have a better way to communicate with the police and military officers than over the main sound system. And I wondered if they didn’t realize that the officers were unarmed and sorely outnumbered, and didn’t have the slightest chance of gaining control.

A friend still outside the stadium and hoping to join us called to report that the main gates to the stadium were still open, and the streets and surrounding areas were packed with tens of thousands of APC supporters hoping to come inside. I cringed; we thought the police had closed the gates hours before.

Then, suddenly, there was a commotion at our end of the stadium; the main gate allowing access to the football pitch broke open, and throngs of people started rushing the field. A few police and military officers fought to hold it closed and hold back the crowds, lashing out with wooden poles and switches. They wrestled it closed but perhaps a hundred people were already inside. Then the gate broke open again, and again. Hundreds of red-and-white revelers now lined the field. Dust clouds rose as police clashed with those hoping to follow them. We grew a bit concerned and wished the throngs pushing in didn’t make it impossible for us to leave. “You can have my seat,” we kept joking about the people fighting so hard to come inside; “there’s nothing much happening here anyway.”

Finally, the proceedings began again. A motorcade carrying former president Kabbah entered through the gate (along with another several dozen opportunistic spectators who pushed their way through when the gate was open) and made its way to the staging area. Then, after a long delay while the new president made his way through the crowds outside, the hero of the day finally entered through the same gate: the triumphant new president, Ernest Bai Koroma.

Even Koroma’s arrival was marred by scuffles. As he entered to wild cheers from the stands, resplendent in white robes and waving and smiling from the back of a pick-up truck, dust and police batons clouded his wake. Throngs of his supporters pushed onto the field, seemingly impervious to the beatings they received at the hands of the police forces. As the president circled the track once, then twice, a dozen black-suited body guards shielding his car, the numbers of people on the field swelled. And as he reached the staging area, the police and military gave up entirely and went off to watch the ceremony, leaving the gate unguarded. People began streaming in unhindered as Christian and Muslim leaders offered prayers to open the day’s main events.

At this point, the contrasts of Sierra Leone were in stark relief on the field. First, the pomp and circumstance of a post-colonial African state: the military guard standing at attention at midfield, with buttons gleaming and rifles at their sides; the supreme court justices seated under a canopy, their elaborate red robes and white wigs a holdover from the British colonial era; two men on horseback parading around the track, their steeds elaborately decorated with green, white, and blue ribbons and fabric.

And then, alongside these formal state trappings, were fiery demonstrations of traditional beliefs. Among the thousands of people that now filled the field were at least four or five “devils”: spiritual beings associated with Sierra Leone’s secret societies, clad in elaborate masks and long raffia skirts to erase any notion of a human being underneath. (See photos below) Each was surrounded by a crowd of society members: chanting, singing, dancing, drumming. From time to time the crowd around one of the devils would crouch to the ground, accompanied by most of the people in the neighboring stands. A man next to us explained that anyone who didn’t fall to the ground when told to do so by the devil would be shot by a “witch gun”, a magical weapon that strikes you down with sorcery without making a sound.

One of the societies was carrying a stretcher, covered with a pile of green palm fronds. We later noticed that below the fronds lay what seemed to be a motionless human body, draped in a white sheet. Blood soaked the sheet near where the person’s neck would be, and several of those dancing around were also smeared with blood (or what looked like blood). The man next to us explained that the person under the sheet had been sacrificed in honor of the celebrations, but would come back to life later. “What if he doesn’t come back to life?” we asked. “Well, then he’s dead,” he answered matter-of-factly. Staring in horror, I convinced myself that the body must be either fake or actually alive, just as I’ve generally chalked up stories of ritual murder to overwrought rumor. Surely the society, even if it had sacrificed someone, wouldn’t carry the body so boldly into the stadium, past police and soldiers and tens of thousands of people. Eventually the stretcher disappeared into the crowd. I never saw the body arise.

While we were fascinated by these goings-on, the official proceedings continued unhindered. Prayers were prayed; the national anthem was sung; the new president received the gold baton of office. President Koroma’s speech was perhaps the most surreal moment in a rather surreal day. While his revelers reveled, he spoke soberly of fighting corruption and bringing electricity to the capital and major provincial towns. While society devils threatened people with witch guns and proudly paraded a dead body (real or otherwise), he spoke of peace and prosperity. While the crowds overran the outnumbered security forces, he spoke of upholding the rule of law.

We kept waiting for him to address the situation directly, perhaps ask his supporters to stop their music and dancing for a moment and listen to the ceremony. When he didn’t, continuing instead with his prepared speech, it gave the events a “fiddling-while-Rome-burns” feel.

But then, Rome wasn’t burning – it was celebrating. Once the police stopped trying to hold back the crowds, the situation became much less tense, if still a bit disconcerting for those of us unaccustomed to such traditions (and uncomfortable with such enormous crowds). Perhaps Koroma and the other VIPs weren’t denying the chaos around them, but merely accepting its coexistence with the ordered events at the other end of the field.

All in all it was an exhausting day, filled with all the promise and peril of this newly peaceful Sierra Leone – a day of elation and anxiety, unity and partisanship, celebration and violence. I think the image I will carry most vividly is the proud figure of Sierra Leone’s new president – by most accounts a man of integrity, intelligence, and vision – greeting his people with a broad smile, unfazed by the messy confrontation behind him between the mass of supporters that helped get him elected and the state forces now under his command.

I can’t decide if his (non)reaction represents tremendous denial, or insightful recognition of the complexity of the country he now leads. I might wish the day’s events had been better planned and managed, that the organizers had anticipated that crowds would surpass the stadium’s capacity and that security forces would be hard-pressed to maintain control. I might have preferred an inauguration free of baton-wielding police, angry crowds, long delays, and ambulances full of casualties.

But then, every Sierra Leonean who could make their way to the national stadium got to attend the presidential inauguration, an egalitarian feat unrivaled by most nations. And everyone got to celebrate as they chose, whether with Western-style pomp and circumstance or African traditional beliefs.

And at the end of the day, it’s not my country, nor my celebration. I’m just a guest here.

***

Photo 1 (top): APC supporters outside the party headquarters on inauguration day. http://www.africanews.com/site/list_message/8514?data[source]=rss#m8514

Photo 2 (above): President Ernest Bai Koroma (in white) with members of the military honor guard. Photo credit A.P. http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-11-15-voa42.cfm

Photo 3 (below): Prince Charles with a masked devil and members of the national dance group in November 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6176000.stm

Photo 4 (below): A masked devil and dancing women greet visiting World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz in July 2006. Copyright The World Bank / John Fornah.

Please don't corrupt us

As you drive out of Lungi International Airport, the main airport serving Sierra Leone, a sign greets you:

"If you can help us, please don't corrupt us."

A Cheering Section

I’ve never run a marathon.

I’ve never run a half-marathon.

In fact, I haven’t run a competitive race of any sort since the Turkey Trot in elementary school. (And I didn’t put in much of a showing there, in nine straight years of competition. I certainly never won a turkey to bring home for Thanksgiving dinner.)

But now – in Freetown, of all places – I’ve discovered the joy of a race course lined with cheering fans, the motivation of encouraging shouts, and the extra inspiration of running in a crowd.

Many developing world cities are miserable places to exercise. Crowded, polluted, dangerous… and filled with people who don’t understand why you’re running around in shorts and sneakers, dodging traffic and potholes, breathing heavily and sweating like a pig. At best you get odd stares and lungs full of exhaust, at worst you get harassed by people and attacked by stray dogs.

Freetown, it turns out, is an exception to many (though not all) of these rules. First, if you want to escape the pollution, you can head down to Lumley Beach, a great 1.5-mile stretch of flat sand. You might get a bit of attention, but most of it positive – boys wanting to run with you, girls asking to be your friend.

But more importantly, Freetown is a place that respects and understands exercise. People here do lace up their sneakers (or, if they can’t afford sneakers, their plastic sandals or bare feet) and dash off around the city. In fact, the runners are impressive in their determination. I’ve seen guys (because they are almost all men) running through the pouring rain, the searing heat, or along roads absolutely packed with people and cars. On even the steepest hill in a city of jaw-dropping inclines, you’ll eventually see someone jogging – step by painful step – up the hill.

Perhaps inspired by these examples, I’ve recently started running with the Freetown branch of a group called the Hash House Harriers (the “hash” for short). This international movement, originally started by British colonial officials and expatriates in Kuala Lumpur in the 1930s, is often known by the endearing if juvenile slogan, “A drinking club with a running problem.”

The idea is simple. A group of runners set out from a different location each week. They follow a trail – marked by piles of shredded paper, and rife with misdirection, switch-backs, and other surprises – that was laid earlier by “hares”. The switch-backs and other tricks help keep the group together regardless of fitness level, and everyone eventually ends up at a bar, at which group members (or so I’d heard) devolve into fraternity antics complete with silly songs, beer-chugging, and initiation rites.

Turned off by the fraternity reputation, I steered clear. But friends eventually persuaded me to give it a try, and I found that the run was good fun and great exercise, the group friendly and eclectic – an even mix of native Sierra Leoneans, members of the large Freetown Lebanese community, and white expats. Moreover, it turned out the Freetown hashers were more focused on the running than the drinking. (Or at least, they’d let me sneak away before the drinking began.)

So now I spend most Monday evenings on a winding run through Freetown’s hidden corners. The route is different each week, and always avoids main roads, so we find ourselves on tiny footpaths, alleyways, and empty lots. Often we’re running through very private spaces: between houses and their detached latrines, under clothes lines and alongside patches of vegetables and rice, among family members and livestock.

But few spaces in Sierra Leone are truly private, and most people don’t mind at all having a crowd of several dozen people dash through their courtyards and beside their front stoops.

In fact, they often embrace the fun. “No no, they ran that way” yells one man, pointing down a narrow gully. “Keep going, you’re doing great,” calls out another. “You’ve tired,” calls an elderly woman; “don’t give up.” A crowd of children from one household laugh and sing, and two small girls – barefoot and bare-chested – stand along the path with their hands outstretched, offering high-fives to the panting runners. On one particularly exhausting trek through the steep hills of the city, the group passed through a tunnel of cheering, chanting, clapping crowds, all happy to help motivate the runners through that last difficult stretch, much like committed spectators do for Boston Marathoners along the famed Heartbreak Hill.

Between that and my equally enthusiastic fellow runners, I can’t help but push myself a bit further, and maybe a bit faster. And listening to the laughter and warmth of Sierra Leoneans, and looking around at the gems of Freetown’s lesser-known quarters – a cozy domestic scene, with women plaiting each other’s hair while children play in the dust; a dirt lot turned football field, packed with talented young players; a sudden glimpse of a steep valley stretching to the ocean, with the setting sun behind – I can’t help but be reminded how much I love this city.

Election finale

I just realized I left the election story a cliffhanger. My apologies!

It seems ages ago, but here’s the barebones outline: the then-opposition All People’s Congress (APC) won the run-off by a comfortable margin (950,407 votes to the Sierra Leone People’s Party’s 789,651), and Ernest Bai Koroma was sworn in on September 17, 2007.

There were some dramatic final moments. The independent National Electoral Commission (NEC) invalidated 477 polling stations for apparent vote-rigging (including obviously faked tally sheets and vote counts well over 100% of registered voters). Most of these were in strongholds of the (then-ruling) Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which prompted accusations of bias by the SLPP and a last-minute weekend appeal for the courts to halt the count. At 10 a.m. Monday morning, with the court case still pending, the NEC called a press conference at which they surprised everyone by announcing the final tally, arguing that the invalidated votes did not affect the outcome. Hours later, the new president was sworn into office.

Some in the SLPP cried foul, but the party’s leaders – both former President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and former Vice President Solomon Berewa – accepted the results and attended the swearing-in of president-elect Koroma. Most independent observers praised the NEC’s handling of the situation, and just about everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the results were accepted without violent incident. Some SLPP members are still grumbling and calling for an investigation, but I tend to think they should be most angry at their party members who tried so blatantly to stuff the ballot boxes, and therefore led to the disenfranchisement of large areas of SLPP support. (Though by NEC’s calculation these votes would not have changed the outcome even if all went for the SLPP.)

In the end, most people – in Sierra Leone and internationally – were delighted with the election. Despite some sporadic violence during the campaign period and in the immediate celebratory aftermath, the whole experience was impressively peaceful. Remarkably for a country in which military intervention in politics is more a norm than an exception, the army and police handled themselves with restraint. And the Sierra Leone electorate – in roundly rejecting a president they elected by a large margin just 5 years before, but who was largely perceived to have delivered too little in the post-war period – proved itself to be politically and democratically sophisticated.

Since the final vote was cast, President Koroma seems to have impressed almost everyone, including many of his critics. His speech at the opening of parliament was impressive, and his nominees for cabinet ministers drew praise from many quarters, though also criticism for including too few Mende-speaking southerners. For my part, I’m delighted to see the strong, independent (and female) voice of Zainab Bangura – by most accounts one of Sierra Leone’s most impressive individuals, and one not afraid to speak her mind – filling the spot of Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations.

On the streets of Freetown, it is clear that Koroma is the darling of the capital city, which voted for him more than 2 to 1. Unlike former President Kabbah, an older and reclusive man rarely seen outside of the Presidential Lodge where he both lived and worked, President Koroma seems to be everywhere. He drives around town in a caravan of SUVs, escorted by police with sirens blaring, and people flock to catch a glimpse. In what has become his signature move, he always has his window down – the only exception in a row of tinted obscurity – and waves at the people lining the streets. They, in turn, love it.

Koroma’s honeymoon will soon pass and he will have to show genuine progress to keep the people’s affection. But for now there is an air of optimism in the streets that is like nothing I’ve felt since my arrival here nearly two years ago. The people’s expectations are sky-high, and they are watching Koroma and his APC government closely to see if they will deliver the new and better Salone they promised.

If they don’t, I think the electorate – as proven in the just-completed elections – will not hesitate to toss them out.