Rhythm 5 – Reduce, Reuse, Forget about it

Freetings from Greetown. Time is rolling on, we’re almost 3 months into our stint here, which seems like a lifetime and seconds depending on what mood I’m in. It’s a good feeling, whatever it is.

The temperature is starting to rise, in fact my temperature is starting to rise – given the fact we’ve had no power and bucket showers only for the last 2 weeks. The road works nearby are moving on apace, but it does mean you’re doomed if you think you’ll be able to come home at the end of the working day and have enough battery power to waffle on for a blog session.

Anyhoo, enough bluster already. There’s another Rhythm to regale.

Not quite the 3 R’s

I’m not talking about the one with ‘rithmetic at the end here, that Blunkett waffled on about (with some merit, admittedly) in the late 90s. Instead, this is where I break down how unready Sierra Leone is for environmental reform.

Rather than bang on about how dirty it is here, I thought I’d simply witter on about how resourceful people are here with we would consider caput. Yes, water is sold in 500ml bags that end up all over the place, and yes, people burn rubbish here with abandon. However, when it comes to really utilising something as much as possible before the bloody thing just won’t fit any purpose whatsoever, then people here really do have one up on the West.

Whether it’s a pot that’s cooked a million meals, a flask that’s been filled every day for the last 10 years, numerous items of clothing that last 5 years or more, a mobile phone that has outlasted all the phones I’ve had put together or a taxi that has dropped in and out of more potholes than your diaphragm could care to remember – there is very little waste of material items here. And, of course, things actually get fixed when they break.

Admittedly, this is a reflection of the situation people find themselves in, but on the other hand it teaches us a bloody good lesson and dances on the concept of throw-away consumerism (that, of course, I’m not denying I’m part of).

So people reduce what they need to make their life function (or simply don’t have it in the first place), and reuse everything if it can have any random purpose, but there simply isn’t the option for people to recycle. It’s nowhere near the agenda, not even close, which again shows how far from the ‘normality’ of life in the UK the infrastructure is in Sierra Leone.

Spreading the wealth

Like any good Lambrini Lefty, I love a bit of wealth redistribution. So when it comes to purchasing essential items such as loo paper, bread, eggs, candles, vegetables and water, we – like any defensive midfielder worth their salt – put it about a bit.

We live in Murray Town, in the West of Freetown, and have got to know the surrounding area pretty darn well. Along our road and the nearby streets, there are a number of characters whom get a few thousand Leones from us pretty much every day. When compared to the sanitised and Lebanese-owned (many who were born here) supermarkets where you can pretty much get everything, it’s quite the juxtaposition.

So for my two breads rolls every morning, there is A-Boy and T-Boy’s shop. We also bought a crate of Star Beer for a weekend beach jaunt from them, which was on the proviso we brought the crate and empties back (we did, with some difficulty). For loo paper and water sachets, there is the joyously rotund Pa Ba. And finally, I often get my eggs from a currently unnamed old lady who sits chewing the fat with her pals all day, down by the main road (Wilkinson).

Humble pie tastes horrible

Something I’ve always been critical of with British history is its refusal to admit its mistakes from years gone by – most notably, the colonial era. Quite sadly, it seems that many people are almost proud of the brutal power we used to expunge. Scary.

One of the most glaring errors is slavery, of course. A few weeks back now, we and a few friends took a trip to Bunce Island, which was little else but a slave castle. Unfortunately, Bunce was quite the factory for sending slaves to the Caribbean, Georgia and South Carolina when the British had control – around 50,000 were ‘processed’ per year before being shipped across the Atlantic, during the second half of the 18^th century.

The island is now pretty derelict and overgrown, aside from a few ruins, with provisional plans afoot to develop it into something close to a stereotypical tourist attraction. That doesn’t make the stories any less horrible to listen to from the caretaker (who we had to pick up on the way – he looked like Morgan Freeman, ironically) and the official tour guide.

Bunce was effectively used as a way of seeing how strong the slaves were, with only those deemed to be up to the journey across the ocean surviving their experience there. The most dehumanising aspect was the branding of people on their chest – think Ewan McGregor in Angels & Demons – with a different letter (A, B or C), depending on which slave master you were to be sold to. Sobering stuff, when you consider how welcomed you feel when you say you are English to any normal Sierra Leonean on the street.

Hair style hoodoo

One thing that hasn’t escaped my analytical side is the distinct lack of male hairstyles here. You would have thought that with the aspirational culture that follows the interest in Western (and especially US) music and culture, there would be a staggering array, but no – there are probably less than 10% of men who do anything other than shave their head clean on a regular basis.

Cutting hair for many men consists of little else but a small razor blade scratched on the scalp, which I happened upon for the first time a few days ago when walking through the friendly community we pass, when heading to the swimming pool at the UN compound. Seeing a child have his hair cut in this manner, I was taken aback.

All this isn’t to say that Sierra Leonean men aren’t cool, which makes it even weirder that they aren’t dreaded up to nines. Women and girls are quite the opposite, with wigs, extensions or a simple braid (of their real hair) being almost ubiquitous. Also, you can quite easily expect them to have a totally different ‘do’ from week to week, which initially proved a challenge before I’d got to know everyone in the office!

This blog’s random sport shirt

The knowledge of football is second to none here, as many times your watching a game you hear an in depth Krio discussion (at a high decibel level, with little decorum – much like in Europe) of specific refereeing decisions. The Premier League and La Liga are the most loved, of course, but I did find this beauty recently:

FC Nuremberg’s home shirt, 2009-10

The Bundesliga is not exactly big, but is probably the next most popular, with Serie A probably after that. I’d like to think the chap wearing the shirt takes a keen interest and finds a way to stream games over the internet. Or perhaps not.

Signing off

All done for another one of these here Rhythms, hope you’ve enjoyed some more samples of life here in Salone. All being well, there should be another pretty darn soon.

And finally, I have just uploaded some snaps on Laura's Facebook profile and our Flickr account (in the folder Sweet Salone 3, and best viewed in full screen): http://www.flickr.com/photos/18046506@N00/. Enjoy!

Ciao, for now,

D.