Right then, I’m back on the bloghorse after an unintentional break. We’ve been...blah, blah...crazy...blah, blah...busy.
It’s been an interesting few weeks, with no less material to comment on than during December. Alas, here goes...
What’s in a name change?
So there are numerous NGOs here in Freetown, that is pretty obvious as soon as you arrive. Almost bar none, they have numerous brilliant white 4 x 4 vehicles with their insignia on the side, just so (a) you can be totally sure it’s an NGO car and (b) so NGO workers like us can wave at each other as they go by. Simple.
I’m perpetually intrigued by the weird and wonderful make up of the sector here. You seem to meet people all over the place who work for this one, or that one, who are all doing the same, same but different work in places across the country. One that intrigued me a lot on arrival was GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), who are something akin to DfID but do a lot more work on the ground. Their office is right next to mine, and we’ve got to know some of the GTZ people, who are all very jolly. They also have a very affordable and palatable canteen within their compound, owned by Sierra Leoneans, with a variety of African and Western food on offer at a reasonable price. I’m a regular.
When coming out of the office a week or so ago, I saw what my eyes could only convey as being a hilarious joke. Someone had changed the lower-case logo of gtz to ‘giz’ – yes, that very wonderful slang term for you know what. When I told a friend about the graffiti, expecting them to laugh and for it to be removed soon after, I was informed that this is their new name and no joke whatsoever! How could they not have consulted anyone about this? In fact, thinking about it, I don’t much care. It gives me a bloody good laugh every day as I leave the office, and when I tell Laura (who often joins me) and friends I’m going for ‘giz’ at lunch we end up in hysterics!
I must stay away more often
Being a big sport fan, surprisingly I have very few superstitions. My only one is that when I’m out of the UK, my teams tend to do well. Sod’s law and all that. Thus it has come as no surprise that England won the Ashes and Wolves have had high-profile performances recently, which have not gone unnoticed and put down to my absence. Very rational, I think.
In terms of my football viewing, it has been sparse but spectacular. I’ve only watched two matches, those being Wolves’ wins against Chelsea and United – what a choice! The experience of watching a game at a local bar is something else. Picture a room about the size of a school classroom (maybe a touch bigger and a lot warmer) with around 40 seats in rows and 3 TV’s at the front showing 3 different games concurrently!
On both occasions, I was more than happy to enjoy supporter anonymity since the fanaticism for both teams is something else. At the end of the United game, there were cries from non-United fans of “we are all wolf!” which almost tempted me to shout and scream that “I am a real wolf!” but thought better of it for fears of reprisal and of people questioning my mental state. I am clearly not a real wolf, by any stretch of the imagination.
One thing Laura gave me advance knowledge of was the misspelling of some team names that are not so well known, on the chalkboards that are outside local bars that show the games. The best one so far is for the recent League Cup semi-final – Arsenal vs Piswich!
Truly, truly brilliant.
Animal magic
The environment here is all around you. It’s green and lush, the atmosphere is extremely dusty and it’s very difficult to not think about the temperature every waking hour – whether you’re hot or cold, which happens daily as a result of my office’s air conditioning unit. Grrr.
On a different level, there are animals wandering around everywhere. Chickens (and their chicks), cats and dogs – so many dogs – are always in view when walking down the street, often trampling through the raw sewage that is in the gulleys and drains. Barking dogs in the dark are a scary prospect, for which we often need to call on someone to help us find our way past. No surprise for Laura and I there, then.
One of the most amazing things we’ve experienced here was last weekend, at the beach. At around 1.30am in the morning, the chat turned towards phosphorescence – where plankton emits light in water – which occurs in the sea off the coast here. This means that you can get in the sea in the dark, which we promptly did, and wave your hands and body around to actually see it! It’s hard to explain, but if you can imagine waving your hand in the water and ‘sparks’ coming off it, you’re half way there. Wonderful.
Another fascinating experience we had recently was the sound of toads (or frogs, maybe) on the roadside, in the drains. The noise was almost deafening, and when you have to walk past them you feel like you’re about to be enveloped an army of them!
This blog’s random sport shirt
After a bountiful start, I’m becoming picky about what I consider to be random enough to feature here. To be topical, with the Super Bowl around 8 hours away as I write this, I was very interesting to see the following beauty:
Atlanta Falcons (NFL), No 7 – Michael Vick
Given that Vick has not quite covered himself in glory in recent years, and done some bird as a result, I had to wonder whether dog fighting goes on here. Regardless, the chap who was adorned by a Vick jersey seemed perfectly happy despite it being around 15 sizes too big.
Signing off
Given the dearth of a blog for over three weeks, I’m going to assemble another later this week. Lucky you – there might even be a few snaps here, too, in the next few hours. Bandwidth depending.
Again, hope all is grand with all. Keep in touch, and keep it Bebop and Rocksteady.
Ciao, D.
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