Lungi departures

I recently traveled home to the U.S. for a wedding, a reunion, and some family time, and am currently posting from a friend's apartment in New York City. What follows is nearly verbatim from my journal entry while waiting to depart Lungi (Freetown's airport) a few weeks ago.

I love this airport scene. Okay, I love it and hate it, as I am stuck in an interminable line in steamy heat. But still...

I’m in Freetown’s Lungi airport, several stages into the rather extended departure process. First step was lugging – with the help of a very kind housemate – my enormous suitcase along the dirt road from my house to Wilkinson Road. Second was the taxi – crammed with 5 passengers, 1 driver, 2 suitcases and a backpack – to the hovercraft launch. Then the hovercraft itself: a large ferry, of sorts, bottomed with an enormous black inflatable tube, which brings you from Aberdeen across the bay to Lungi in 20 minutes. (For a bit more money, you can save 10 minutes and take a helicopter, but this time I decided to try the water route).

And now I’m standing in line for what seems to be security, to be followed (I presume) by immigration, check-in, and boarding. Three hours after leaving home, I still have three more hours to my 10:30 p.m. scheduled departure – if the flight departs on time, of course, instead of the frequent 8-12 (yes, twelve) hour delay.

Meanwhile, I’m entertained by the scene at the airport. Jostling and loud, chaotic and confusing, the crowd is a pageant of colors and personalities.

I’m dazzled by the array of West African matriarchs, splendid in their colorful regalia, serene, dignified, and utterly immune to the chaos around them. The elder aunties sit in a line against the wall; my favorite, even plumper than the rest, is bedecked from head to toe in shocking baby-meets-fuscia pink. I probably like her best because she smiled at me when I first passed, stepping gingerly over her toes and trying to maneuver my massive suitcase without any casualties.

I’m amused by the patchwork of uniforms. Policemen wear silly blue shirts with white sleeves, or the slightly more dignified pressed blue sleeves. (I’ve yet to discern the reason for the difference). The porters wear either mechanic-style light blue shirts and everyday pants, or ridiculous orange jumpsuits – a choice that seems roughly generational. And of course there are the white foreigners, too many of whom are outfitted in safari-style khaki, often involving too-short, too-tight shorts on pale white legs.

I’m intrigued by the occasional altercations that pop up intermittently around the hot, crowded terminal. The most recent was a shouting and shoving match between a cop, a well-dressed Sierra Leonean man, and a disheveled, wild-eyed white man with a mop of wiry black hair and the obligatory khaki green uniform. It ended peacefully, as far as I could tell, and provoked only mild interest from the crowd.

The line snakes endlessly back and forth, a parade of towering luggage carts, some pushed by passengers, others by porters. The cart in front of me has been abandoned – I think it had something to do with a noisy argument earlier between a plainclothes porter and an airport official – and is left to be pushed along by passing porters and, sometimes, me. Eventually, the people behind me in line convince me to skirt the lonely cart and push onward. As we leave it behind, I wonder what will become of it – or its owner – and I clutch my own cart tightly.

Of popcorn and peanuts

So for those of you thinking that Freetown seems to offer little more than frustration and privation, I’ve got two words for you: peanuts and popcorn.

Both of these everyday delicacies abound around town. Peanuts, known locally as groundnuts, are a staple in Sierra Leone, grown widely and used extensively in local dishes. But this does not detract from their deliciousness when purchased, warm and roasted, from a roving streetside vendor. They are carried in a large flat tin platter, balanced (like most loads) upon the head of a (usually young and female) salesperson. Measured out by the cupful and wrapped in newspaper, they cost just a few pennies for a healthy handful.

And such taste! Forget your can of roasted Planters, munched from the living room couch in front of the Patriots game. Forget, even, those steaming carts of roast nuts that pepper the streets of Manhattan. These Salonean peanuts are simply a delight: carefully roasted and then exposed all day to the beating rays of the African sun, they are an explosion of hot salty flavor.

If peanuts are a predictable Sierra Leonean treat, popcorn is an unexpected delight. I can't remember the first time I noticed, while winding in a jam-packed taxi through Freetown’s maze of narrow streets and alleys, an old-fashioned, movie-house popcorn maker perched incongruously in front of a tiny tuck shop. Dazzling beside the dusty street, these red and chrome poppers – seemingly more at home in a circus tent than an African capital city – are a common sight around Freetown. Much of the time they sit silently, bellies full of fresh, uniformly delicious (seriously, PopSecret can’t hold a candle to it) popcorn.

But sometimes, when you’re lucky, you find one in action: popping cheerfully above the whirr of the generator, tempting nearby noses with the heavenly scent of newly-popped corn. I think the proprietors of one particular popper, along the main road through Tengbeh Town, time their popping to coincide with my commute. They sit grinning beside their trusty machine, knowing that its smell is torturing those of us stuck in taxis in the crawling, often standstill evening traffic. When I (inevitably) cave and buy a plastic baggie-full of that delicious, freshly popped corn – available sweet or salty – they calmly take my few hundred leones, utterly unconcerned that they’ve ruined my dinner.

Overnight in Bumpeh

Last week, I spent five days "upline" or "upcountry" -- meaning outside of Freetown and its environs – touring chiefdoms in Bo and Tonkolili Districts. It was a rich and fascinating experience that I'm sure will provide fodder for more than one posting, but for now I'll start with one particularly memorable night spent in a village in Bumpeh-Ngao chiefdom.

I'm sitting on a hard wooden chair, wobbling a bit on the uneven dirt, and a young girl named Hawe is asleep on my lap. It's nighttime, the moon is nowhere to be seen, and we've turned off the kerosene lantern, so the only light comes from the expanse of stars above our heads.

With me are a small group of new friends. Vivek, the American founder of an organization providing primary justice services in these villages. Joseph, one of the organization's community-based paralegals. A few of Joseph’s family members and neighbors. Our driver Mr. Tarawally. A smattering of children play quietly in the dirt nearby, and from beyond our little circle come the sounds of evening domesticity, mixed with the buzz and churn of the jungle at night.

Vivek and Mr. Tarawally and I have just finished dinner: rice and groundnut stew (canned beans for the vegetarian Vivek) prepared by Joseph's wife. We are tired from a long day of driving on dusty, rutted, rocky, poorly-maintained roads, and from the sweltering heat of the Sierra Leonean interior. This is the third night of our five-day trip, and one of the more remote villages that we are to visit. We are staying at an amputee camp, built by international NGOs to house a few of the thousands of people who lost arms, hands, or other limbs to Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war. (Earlier, when I’d shook the hand of one of our hosts, I felt fingers that had been cut off before the first knuckle. His other arm ended in a stump just above the wrist.)

Joseph is standing in the shadows a few yards away from me, recounting some of this area’s experiences during the war. A slight man with a soft smile, he has a deceptively calm demeanor, but is tough and independent. In measured tones, he tells of one night when the RUF rebels entered a nearby village in search of his brother. Not finding him, they punished the villagers instead, killing dozens and terrorizing the rest. The brother survived, but the village was decimated.

As Vivek asks questions, gently probing the raw wound of the story, I think about Joseph’s brother and wonder how he must feel when he remembers the lives taken in his name. And I think about Joseph, who speaks with quiet rage of the atrocities committed against his neighbors, and wonder where he – like so many of his countrymen – finds his reserves of forgiveness (or resignation?) that allow him to live side-by-side with his former tormentors.

As Hawe’s head lolls heavily against my shoulder, I am overcome by my own exhaustion, and I struggle to follow the conversation. Idly, I realize that these stories of brutality and hardship have become so normal that they barely keep me awake.

***

In the morning, Vivek and Joseph and Mr. Tarawally and I – accompanied by Joseph’s young son – walk down to the nearby river for a swim. We reach the water by way of a narrow footpath, and find a few adolescent boys already there, washing themselves and their clothes upon the rocks. The river is broad and deep and slow-moving, and appears black against the brilliant green of the surrounding vegetation. The locals believe that there are ancestral spirits that live in this river, and on this morning, I am tempted to believe them.

We dive in, and the water feels crisp and refreshing. Vivek and I paddle out and away from shore (to the great consternation of Joseph, who does not swim, and the great envy of his son), stretching our cramped muscles and washing away the sweat and dirt from the previous day – and, perhaps, the stories of the night before. As the men soap themselves and banter back and forth, I float on my back and listen to their laughter.

Things We Take for Granted -- Part 1: Lights

"Salone" (the local name for Sierra Leone) is frequently a lesson in "things we take for granted". Here is the first of many on my running list:

1. Lights

I'd been warned about Freetown's "frequent power outages" -- but it turns out this is more a case of "infrequent power provision." (Note: anywhere outside of Freetown, there is no such thing as a public electricity grid, so even the patchy power here in the capital is a luxury.) The National Power Authority, through some mix of ineptidue, corruption, and scarce resources, can manage to provide power to only a fraction of the city at any given time. If you live near a government minister or NPA employee, you might get light almost every night, for a few hours. If you live in a normal middle-class neighborhood, you might get it once or twice a week. If you live in a poorer part of town, your part of the grid will almost never be turned on.

Wealthier Sierra Leoneans and expats -- along with businesses -- have gas-powered generators, which guzzle expensive fuel and churn out electricity (in homes, usually just for a few hours a day) to power lights and fans, charge laptops and cell phones, and provide other luxuries of modern life. Everyone else just relies on candles.

The lack of electricity is perhaps most striking in the urban center, just after the sun goes down. The first time I stayed late at work and walked out of my building and into a pitchblack street, I was literally struck dumb. Around me were all the trappings of urbanity -- modern buildings, crowded streets -- but in near total darkness. Think about it: have you ever been in a city where things are completely dark? No streetlights. No neon signs. No light spilling out of storefronts or buildings. As I stood on the corner of Siaka Stevens and Howe Streets, smack dab in downtown Freetown, the only light to be found was from the headlights of passing cars -- or the candles set out by curbside vendors to illuminate their wares. It was truly disorienting.

Another casualty is the refrigerator. Only the truly lucky (or well-off) have electricity consistently enough to run a fridge. For most of us, that familiar appliance stands dark and hulking, used for dry storage and to keep food away from insects and scavenging critters. And as for having cold drinks or frozen food in the house -- well, you can imagine.

In my first few weeks here, I kept forgetting about the lack of power. At first I was staying in a hotel with 24-hour electricity (not to mention air conditioning and cable TV), and working in an office with the same. When I moved out of the hotel and in with friends, our generator was out of fuel so we literally had no electricity and no lights once the sun went down. TVs sat idle, and we played music on battery-powered speakers and read by flashlight, or (more frequently) sat on the porch and chatted by candlelight, watching the dark cityscape below us and the coastline beyond.

The lack of power became more of an issue when I was stuck at home for a few days with an eye infection. Unable to read because of my eyes, and feeling too sick and miserable to leave the house, I found myself with literally nothing to do. My portable DVD player and laptop both died with a few hours of use, and my iPod and cell phone eventually followed. With no way to charge any of them, I felt unbelievably isolated, helpless -- and utterly bored!

Now I'm much more aware of the value (and uncertainty) of electricity. I plug in my phone and iPod every time I'm in the office. And anytime our power comes on at home -- in my new house, we're at the whim of our neighbor, whose generator we share -- I scurry with my housemates to plug in computers, portable DVD players, and anything else we might want to charge. We then plop down together in front of our one fan, and bask in the luxury of moving air -- for as long as the power lasts.

Welcome to Freetown

I thought the best place to start my "dispatches from Sierra Leone" would be to paint a bit of a picture of the place itself -- starting with Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone and my home base for the time being.

Freetown is a ramshackle city of probably 1 million people, spilling across a series of lush green hills and marshy lowlands, which in turn cluster around white sand beaches and a complex of peninsulas and inlets.

The city has much of the chaos and confusion that typify urban areas in this part of the world: narrow, potholed or downright crumbling paved streets and even narrower dirt roads, crammed with cars, mini-buses (known here as Poda Podas), pedestrians, street peddlers, beggars, and stray dogs; air filled with blaring music, honking cars, shouted greetings, and the constant whirr of gas-fueled generators to take the place of the almost non-existent state power authority.

Maneuvering the street, whether on foot or by vehicle, is nothing less than an adventure. Pay too little attention to the ground beneath your feet and you may fall suddenly through a large gap in the sidewalk and into the teeming gutter below; pay too much attention to the ground and your may get whacked upside the head by one of the oversized loads people carry on their heads -- everything from building materials to crates of homemade bread to 5-gallon jugs of water. And at all times, watch out for the speeding, veering, careening, threatening traffic; NGO-mobiles, public taxis, motorbikes, and private vehicles of every stripe are equally unconcerned about the safety of pedestrians, and equally likely to veer suddenly and without warning into your path.

Most of Freetown's buildings, like its roads, are in an advanced state of disrepair – due both to wartime damage and the ravages of time and poverty – or have been abandoned entirely in favor of makeshift structures erected from assorted scraps and huddled in the shadow of the crumbling colonial buildings. But the bustle of commerce is clearly evident – not only in the petty traders peddling everything from scientific calculators and cheap flip-flops to cucumbers and CocaCola, but also in the thousands of banners and billboards advertising an array of competing cellphone providers, travel agencies, and brands of beer.

From downtown Freetown, if you wind your way up into the western hills you'll find stunning views and the larger houses of expats and elites. And if you wander down toward the beachfront you'll find beach bars, restaurants and dance clubs -- many of which are bustling nearly every night of the week, and filled to bursting on Wednesdays and Fridays. Even in the nicer parts of town you'll see heaps of garbage left to smolder and rot on the street, because the promised collection trucks never came; and even there the municipal electricity may come just once a week, or even less.

But in the city and the environs alike, you can feel the warmth of this nation's people; their rush to celebrate at the slightest excuse; and their love of life -- even when it seems that life has rarely loved them back. Shouted greetings abound: "Padi, kushe?" (friend, how are you?); "Ha de bode?" (How the body?); and the common and friendly (if off-putting), "Hey, white girl? Will you be my friend?" In response to that, there's little to do but smile.


(Photo credit: Y. Zhou)