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.

Rhythm 4 – January news, not blues

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.