I wrote this a while ago but completely failed to upload it. My pre-NY resolution is to jump back onto the blog bandwagon. Here’s a story of my trials of tribulations whilst trying to learn Krio. I’ll be back soon with a more up to date update. Xxx
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If it were possible for a language alone to represent the character of an entire country, then Krio does an excellent job of manifesting the many quirks of Sierra Leone. It’s wonderful and dreadful and impossible and simple and unbelievably difficult to learn.
For any of you reading this who had to sit through painful hours of watching me try and get my head around GCSE French and German (and let’s be honest, English) at school – you’d be forgiven for logging off now. You know what’s coming; you’ve had to witness it before. When natural talents were being dished out I must have made repeated visits to the ‘ball games zone’ at the expense of spending anytime at all in the ‘mastering linguistics area’. When it comes to learning a language I’m both surprisingly confident and alarmingly inept.
Thankfully the official language of Sierra Leone is English. On a day-to-day basis it’s perfectly possible to get by without speaking any Krio at all. Reports, meetings, and daily business activities all take place in English. So not being good at Krio is perfectly functional, but it’s not at all desirable. Office gossip, friendly conversations, shopping at the market, trying to get a poda to stop, and any meaningful social interaction of any sort, all happen in Krio.
My first attempts at learning Krio got off to a bad start when it was revealed that in an entire week of In Country Training, only three hours had been put aside for a session called ‘Krio in a Nutshell’. By the end of the three hours I wasn’t at all sure what kind of nut Krio was, and I was absolutely sure that I didn’t possess any of the tools to crack it. We all left the lesson with very little actual Krio in our minds, but with photocopies of ‘Krio in a Nutshell, Volume 1’ clutched hopefully in our hands. (Unfortunately the photocopies are terrible, and Volume 1 is the first part in a three volume set, and apparently no one has seen Volume 2 or 3 since the late 80s).
In our second week in Sierra Leone my housemates and I sit down determined to come up with a plan to help us master Krio.
“Why don’t we introduce Krio Monday?” I suggest. “Every Monday we only speak to each other in Krio. That way we’ll have to learn.” Banke nods in agreement. (It is after all a great idea). Jo’s nodding too, but slower, much slower. Then worryingly she shakes her head.
“If we do that, isn’t there a risk that we just create a whole new language that only the three of us understand?” It’s a very good point, but it’s also another very good idea. Pushing all thoughts of actually learning Krio aside I’m suddenly preoccupied by this new concept.
“How cool would that be? Maybe we should just…”
“No!” Banke and Jo both say quickly and in unison, rudely cutting me off before I even have a chance to present my plan. Unbelievably both of them feel that actually learning Krio is a better idea than creating a new language just for us. Reluctantly I concede the point.
“Fine – so how are we going to do this?” I ask – back on track.
“Let’s just read the introduction and see what happens.” Banke suggests. It seems like an excellent place to start so we all read quietly for a few minutes.
It’s the most bizarre textbook I’ve ever read. Written by someone who was clearly very angry, in a style that is both uncomfortable and insulting. Once we’ve battled through the introduction we all look at each other, a bit shocked.
“I think I just got told off by a text book.” I mutter.
“I’m not feeling very good about myself.” Banke replies.
“Maybe we should just look at the exercises.” Jo suggests. Less enthusiastically now, we all turn the pages. I don’t know whether you’ve ever tried to learn a language without listening to it – but it’s actually quite hard.
“Here you go.” Banke exclaims excitedly “page 25.” We all turn to the page and Banke reads aloud. “Krio is very simple. If you just master the sound shift rule, hundreds of Krio words will open up to you.”
“Brilliant – all we need is one rule. So…what is the sound shift rule?” We all stare at page 25 - nothing. We turn to page 26 - still nothing. We flick through the whole book. The sound shift rule is neither explained, nor in fact is it ever even mentioned again. Whatever the sound shift rule is, it’s clearly a very closely guarded secret. A few minutes later the textbook is abandoned forever.
Still determined to learn Krio I come up with another plan. I will take a notebook to work and ask my colleagues to teach me a Krio phrase a day. I start with my line manager Alhassan.
“What sort of thing do you need to say?” He asks.
“Anything that’s useful.” I answer, racking my brains for the phases I need to say most often. “How about ‘He was just here, but now he’s gone.’” I say, thinking of all the times Alhassan disappears without any explanation right at the moment that half of Freetown seems to be looking for him, and asking me where he is. Alhassan nods and writes: i bin de ya bot i don go.
“What else?” Alhassan asks, now clearly enjoying his teaching role.
“I don’t know – what do you think would be useful?”
“How about I teach you some Krio proverbs?”
“Brilliant!” If I’m honest, I’m not all that sure that proverbs are going to be hugely useful in my early Krio conversations, but I’ve always found proverbs interesting and decide knowing a few will give me an insight into Krio and Sierra Leone.
The insight it gives me is one that I already suspected. There’s an awful lot about Sierra Leone that makes very little sense to me – its proverbs are an excellent example of this. When Alhassan hands me back my little book it’s full of Krio proverbs and the direct English translations:
Push ye da pas emti bed (Better to share your bed with someone saying push push, than to have no bed at all.)
Na face e sababu mek nos was (Washing your face gives your nose the opportunity to get clean.)
If kresman tek yu klos, yu no for run afta-ram yu neked wan. If yu du am, den go tek una tu as kresman den. (If a madman takes your clothes you shouldn't run after him naked. If you do, people will think that both of you are crazy.)
Blak got we yu no ebul kech santem, yu no go ebul kech am na net. (If you can't catch a black goat during the day, you certainly can't catch it at night.)
Di tik we yu mit insai kenu, na-in yu go tek padul wit (The stick you meet inside a canoe is the one you use to paddle with.)
I stare at the page.
“Thank you.” Is all I can manage. “What er.. what context do you use these in?”
“I don’t really use them.” Alhassan admits.
“No – I guess you wouldn’t.” Is all I can say. Perhaps surprisingly I still haven’t managed to use any of these proverbs in conversation.
The phrase book is a partial success. It hasn’t really taught me any useful Krio, but it has been good fun so I decide to keep going. The next person I ask is Moses who heads up our drugs and hospital facilities monitoring unit.
“Moses.” I beam – I always enjoy chats with Moses, he’s a very warm and likeable guy. “Can you teach me a Krio phrase that you think I might find useful.” Moses thinks for a second and then says.
“Wetin yu de laf. – It means what are you laughing at?”
“Wetin yu de laf” I repeat liking the sound of it before suddenly realising the implication. “Moses – do you think people will laugh at me?”
“Only when you speak Krio.” He grins. “But when they do laugh now you can say Wetin yu de laf? And they won’t laugh any more.”
“What will they do instead?” I ask, willingly walking right into Moses’s mockery.
“They’ll say – Na yu a de laf – I’m laughing at you.”
“Brilliant – thanks Moses, that’s really useful.” I say through only slightly gritted teeth.
Depressingly, I’ve asked people what they’re laughing at, far more than I’ve told them that washing their face might give their nose an opportunity to get clean.
Thursday 25 November 2010
Thursday 26 August 2010
So, the house is great, but it’s got…issues. We’re lucky – VERY lucky. We have a home with a roof, and the roof meets the walls all the way round. And under the roof we have our own bedrooms. And not just bedrooms, but a kitchen and a living room and a bathroom. And in the bathroom there is running water and a working toilet. And electricity lights up the whole house (except when it doesn’t). So we’re lucky – VERY lucky. There are so many people here with so much less.
But like I said, there are issues. The roof might meet the walls all the way round. But the walls in the drying room are full of un-meshed gaps, and there are holes in the window meshing in all the other rooms. And through these gaps and holes come mosquitoes and cockroaches and, worst of all, rats. And the electricity that flows into our wires also flows into my arm when I touch the plug-socket switch in my room. And it’s great that we can light the house, but not all the light fittings are working and some of them look downright unsafe. And the water that runs into the bathroom also runs down the bathroom walls whenever the stopcock isn’t turned off at the mains. And although we’re grateful that all our rooms have doors, we would prefer it if all the doors had handles and they all fitted inside their frames. So like a said – there are issues.
So here stands our first dilemma. Given that we’re so lucky to have what we have, do we have the right to complain that what we have is broken? Are we naive to be reaching for the standards we expect at home, or are we foolish if we don’t ask for improvements? If we go to the staff at VSO and ask for better living conditions, are we going to sounds like spoilt and insensitive idiots complaining that some of our hundred dollar bills are dirty and we can’t fit all of them in our purse? I’ve literally no reference points for any of this and I feel hopelessly lost.
Two rat interrupted sleeps and one mild electrical burn later, and my mind is made up – we decide to ask for improvements.
The good news is that almost instantly VSO send round a plumber, a carpenter, a pest controller and an electrician. The bad news is that as far as we can tell, none of these tradesmen have had any training in their respective trades.
The plumber and his apprentice bash around in the bathroom for a few minutes and then call Jo to tell her that they’ve finished.
“But it’s still leaking.” Jo quite rightly points out.
“It will stop in three days.” The plumber assures her, trying to take on the confident air of a man blessed with mystic powers in aquatic prediction.
“Surely it will stop when you actually fix it.” Jo quite rightly insists. The plumber looks slightly put out, but none the less returns to his task of bashing things about. Ten minutes later he calls Jo back.
“The leak has stopped.” He proudly proclaims, giving the worrying impression that this is the first time he’s actually achieved such a feat.
The electrician comes with no fewer than four assistants. They spread out around the house, stare at light fittings, play with switches, poke metal screwdrivers into live electrical sockets, and receive several electric shocks of varying severity. They pull apart the wires in my plug socket (amid actual showers of sparks) and wrap electrical tape around a few loose ends. They tell us they need to buy supplies and will be back tomorrow. They leave with the following reassuring words about my plug socket.
“We’ve made it safe for now. But try not to touch it.”
The following day they’re back as promised and set to work with a flurry of activity. Banke and I can hardly bear to watch, as all five men seem to be competing for the title of ‘most lucky to still be alive’. They lay new cables in my room and fit an entirely new plug socket. They mend the lights on our veranda, and in our hallway, and totally rewire the drying room to install an outrageously and unnecessarily powerful strip light. And for reasons neither Banke or I can quite comprehend, they break the light in our sitting room that didn’t even need mending.
As they leave, one of the younger apprentices whispers to Banke “I’ve left a note on your slipper.” Intriguing stuff. Naturally, as soon as they’ve gone Banke and I head straight to her room to find this fabled note. We look at her shoes expecting to find a folded piece of paper – but there’s nothing there. On closer inspection, Banke discovers the following written in biro, directly onto one of her flip-flops. “U are 2 nice. I really need u 4 friend. This is my line 07x xxxxxx”. We stare at the flip flop for a while and then burst into laughter. If the electrician had been someone that Banke had a blossoming interest in, this would have been quite romantic in an odd sort of way. However, as it stands, it’s just a surprising way to vandalise a stranger’s shoe.
“I can’t believe he wrote on my shoe!” Banke exclaims in amused outrage.
“I guess he wanted to find a direct route to your sole” I reply, feeling very pleased with myself, and relived that all the electric shocks haven’t blunted my quick wit.
As the night draws in we switch on the lights in our dark hallway. Nothing happens. We look up. The good news is the lights on out veranda now work. The bad news is, the electricians have rewired them to incorporate the bulbs from our hallway. The next morning I enjoy the novelty of being able to turn on my fan and radio using my new and improved socket. As I turn it off before heading to work I receive another (although to be fair, slightly milder) electric shock. Brilliant – back to square one.
The carpenter is a lovely quiet man with very few tools and even less English. He sets to work with minimal fuss and maximum effort. (With four doors to mend, one entire room to screen and the kitchen mesh to replace he’s going to be here for a while.) It all starts quite promisingly as he does an excellent job of fitting a handle to the drying room door. Unfortunately it goes down-hill from there. By the end of his first day’s work, we have two mended doors, one door which is now broken in a slightly different way, and one door that is now so broken it no longer locks or indeed closes. We also have a room with an extremely dodgy looking, half finished screen.
That evening we sit in our slightly darker house, looking at our newly broken living room light, and worrying about our now unlockable door. We try to decide whether we’ve just been unlucky, or whether there really is a total lack of training in the trade industries throughout Sierra Leone. The war brought this country to its knees. For the eleven years that it raged, the education system was destroyed, new skills were not learnt and old skills were lost. When things don’t work in Sierra Leone, the war is often cited as the reason. But the war was eight years ago and the country is still nowhere close to regaining its feet. The war was devastating, but the Sierra Leoneones we talk to say they are tired of it being used as an excuse. Things need to improve.
“The carpenter only had three fingers on one hand. Perhaps he lost the other in the war.” Banke muses, looking for an explanation for his lack of skill. My mind is preoccupied by rats and electric shocks and I’m feeling far less charitable.
“I should think it’s more likely that he accidentally cut it off with his own saw.” I say unkindly.
Whatever the reason, the situation is frustrating. We have all spent days in the house when we should have been at work, and lost weekends when we could have explored the city and gone to the beech, waiting for tradesmen to arrive and finish their work. And four days of hard work by some really lovely men has yielded a net result of very little improvement, a few new problems, and one amusingly graffitied flip flop. This morning we woke up to find water running down the bathroom wall again. It’s lucky in a way – we can ask the plumber to come on Saturday – we’re already waiting in for the carpenter and electrician to come back.
But like I said, there are issues. The roof might meet the walls all the way round. But the walls in the drying room are full of un-meshed gaps, and there are holes in the window meshing in all the other rooms. And through these gaps and holes come mosquitoes and cockroaches and, worst of all, rats. And the electricity that flows into our wires also flows into my arm when I touch the plug-socket switch in my room. And it’s great that we can light the house, but not all the light fittings are working and some of them look downright unsafe. And the water that runs into the bathroom also runs down the bathroom walls whenever the stopcock isn’t turned off at the mains. And although we’re grateful that all our rooms have doors, we would prefer it if all the doors had handles and they all fitted inside their frames. So like a said – there are issues.
So here stands our first dilemma. Given that we’re so lucky to have what we have, do we have the right to complain that what we have is broken? Are we naive to be reaching for the standards we expect at home, or are we foolish if we don’t ask for improvements? If we go to the staff at VSO and ask for better living conditions, are we going to sounds like spoilt and insensitive idiots complaining that some of our hundred dollar bills are dirty and we can’t fit all of them in our purse? I’ve literally no reference points for any of this and I feel hopelessly lost.
Two rat interrupted sleeps and one mild electrical burn later, and my mind is made up – we decide to ask for improvements.
The good news is that almost instantly VSO send round a plumber, a carpenter, a pest controller and an electrician. The bad news is that as far as we can tell, none of these tradesmen have had any training in their respective trades.
The plumber and his apprentice bash around in the bathroom for a few minutes and then call Jo to tell her that they’ve finished.
“But it’s still leaking.” Jo quite rightly points out.
“It will stop in three days.” The plumber assures her, trying to take on the confident air of a man blessed with mystic powers in aquatic prediction.
“Surely it will stop when you actually fix it.” Jo quite rightly insists. The plumber looks slightly put out, but none the less returns to his task of bashing things about. Ten minutes later he calls Jo back.
“The leak has stopped.” He proudly proclaims, giving the worrying impression that this is the first time he’s actually achieved such a feat.
The electrician comes with no fewer than four assistants. They spread out around the house, stare at light fittings, play with switches, poke metal screwdrivers into live electrical sockets, and receive several electric shocks of varying severity. They pull apart the wires in my plug socket (amid actual showers of sparks) and wrap electrical tape around a few loose ends. They tell us they need to buy supplies and will be back tomorrow. They leave with the following reassuring words about my plug socket.
“We’ve made it safe for now. But try not to touch it.”
The following day they’re back as promised and set to work with a flurry of activity. Banke and I can hardly bear to watch, as all five men seem to be competing for the title of ‘most lucky to still be alive’. They lay new cables in my room and fit an entirely new plug socket. They mend the lights on our veranda, and in our hallway, and totally rewire the drying room to install an outrageously and unnecessarily powerful strip light. And for reasons neither Banke or I can quite comprehend, they break the light in our sitting room that didn’t even need mending.
As they leave, one of the younger apprentices whispers to Banke “I’ve left a note on your slipper.” Intriguing stuff. Naturally, as soon as they’ve gone Banke and I head straight to her room to find this fabled note. We look at her shoes expecting to find a folded piece of paper – but there’s nothing there. On closer inspection, Banke discovers the following written in biro, directly onto one of her flip-flops. “U are 2 nice. I really need u 4 friend. This is my line 07x xxxxxx”. We stare at the flip flop for a while and then burst into laughter. If the electrician had been someone that Banke had a blossoming interest in, this would have been quite romantic in an odd sort of way. However, as it stands, it’s just a surprising way to vandalise a stranger’s shoe.
“I can’t believe he wrote on my shoe!” Banke exclaims in amused outrage.
“I guess he wanted to find a direct route to your sole” I reply, feeling very pleased with myself, and relived that all the electric shocks haven’t blunted my quick wit.
As the night draws in we switch on the lights in our dark hallway. Nothing happens. We look up. The good news is the lights on out veranda now work. The bad news is, the electricians have rewired them to incorporate the bulbs from our hallway. The next morning I enjoy the novelty of being able to turn on my fan and radio using my new and improved socket. As I turn it off before heading to work I receive another (although to be fair, slightly milder) electric shock. Brilliant – back to square one.
The carpenter is a lovely quiet man with very few tools and even less English. He sets to work with minimal fuss and maximum effort. (With four doors to mend, one entire room to screen and the kitchen mesh to replace he’s going to be here for a while.) It all starts quite promisingly as he does an excellent job of fitting a handle to the drying room door. Unfortunately it goes down-hill from there. By the end of his first day’s work, we have two mended doors, one door which is now broken in a slightly different way, and one door that is now so broken it no longer locks or indeed closes. We also have a room with an extremely dodgy looking, half finished screen.
That evening we sit in our slightly darker house, looking at our newly broken living room light, and worrying about our now unlockable door. We try to decide whether we’ve just been unlucky, or whether there really is a total lack of training in the trade industries throughout Sierra Leone. The war brought this country to its knees. For the eleven years that it raged, the education system was destroyed, new skills were not learnt and old skills were lost. When things don’t work in Sierra Leone, the war is often cited as the reason. But the war was eight years ago and the country is still nowhere close to regaining its feet. The war was devastating, but the Sierra Leoneones we talk to say they are tired of it being used as an excuse. Things need to improve.
“The carpenter only had three fingers on one hand. Perhaps he lost the other in the war.” Banke muses, looking for an explanation for his lack of skill. My mind is preoccupied by rats and electric shocks and I’m feeling far less charitable.
“I should think it’s more likely that he accidentally cut it off with his own saw.” I say unkindly.
Whatever the reason, the situation is frustrating. We have all spent days in the house when we should have been at work, and lost weekends when we could have explored the city and gone to the beech, waiting for tradesmen to arrive and finish their work. And four days of hard work by some really lovely men has yielded a net result of very little improvement, a few new problems, and one amusingly graffitied flip flop. This morning we woke up to find water running down the bathroom wall again. It’s lucky in a way – we can ask the plumber to come on Saturday – we’re already waiting in for the carpenter and electrician to come back.
Wednesday 18 August 2010
It’s a bit like shopping – but it’s so much harder…
I guess in many ways the honey moon period is coming to an end now. The real world is starting to encroach. Routines have been formed and have even had time to settle. I’m no longer a visitor in a new and astonishing city - I’m an immigrant trying to find some way of feeling like something close to a resident. Things that were once extraordinary now pass completely unremarked, (though I doubt there are enough months left for any of this to become mundane).
You cannot be a passing observer for ever – you must commit or move on. And if proof of our commitment were needed, it is this: last week we finished stocking up the house. In one final big effort we bought a washing board, a drainer, a clothes hanger, a washing basket, more pegs, more soap, more brushes, more mops, more everything. All things you don’t buy when you’re still trying to find your feet, but all things that become absolute essentials when you’ve found your feet and realised that if you’re going to keep them clean, you’re going to need far more support than the battered and worn out tools you’ve been given by VSO.
The six week delay in shopping activities also stems from the fact that it’s taken us this long to work out where to buy everything. In our first few weeks we were constantly asking people where the best place to buy various items was. The answer we were always given was ‘PZ’. Unfortunately, although everyone was able to tell us that we needed to go to PZ, people seemed far less able to explain exactly where (or indeed what) PZ was.
Between us we have several maps of Freetown of varying quality – none of which shows anything remotely similar to a place called PZ. (To make life slightly more complicated, our best and most beautiful map fell victim to a flood in our first week, and amusingly our two remaining maps have slightly different road layouts and in many cases entirely different road names.) So for the first few weeks PZ assumed a near mystical status in our lives – it seemed to be the answer to all our problems, but remained entirely and bafflingly unreachable.
It was probably about week three that Banke managed to persuade someone to actually take her to PZ. She came back with two umbrellas, the most remarkable portable lamp you’ve ever set your eyes on, and stories of a crowded land full of street sellers, shop owners, black market currency traders, and pretty much everything you could ever need but weren’t sure how to get hold of.
It wasn’t until week five that we had finally worked out a plan for getting to PZ, getting everything we needed, and getting it back to the house. Unfortunately the plan involved two essential ingredients that we just didn’t have - a car and a reliable and patient guide. By the end of week six we had found both through our friend Natalie. Natalie is doing what most sensible people seem to do, and is escaping the country for the worst month of the rainy season. Before she left she lent us her car, and introduced us to her house keeper – the fantastically named Messy.
Messy is brilliant. A very likeable, and extremely humours young woman with a steely determination and a powerful brand of sarcasm that I had been led to believe could only be found at home. She agreed to accompany us to PZ to ensure we bought what we needed and at a price that wasn’t ridiculously inflated. And so, last Thursday, after a long day at work, Messy, Jo, Banke and myself all piled into Natalie’s Land Rover Defender (aka Brutus the Beast), and headed into the land of PZ.
PZ is like every film set you haven’t quite believed. Walking around you feel as if you’ve stumbled into the latest Hollywood blockbuster, and they’ve laid it on a bit too thick with all the ‘Crowded African City Scene’ clichés. It’s truly insane. Every inch of floor space is covered with stalls selling second hand or imported goods. Those traders who don’t have a ‘stall’ have just laid a sheet on the floor and spread out their wares; others have a basket full of goods and have just set it down in the middle of the road. Literally thousands of people are crammed into narrow streets, made narrower still by the traders lining the edge. Occasionally cars, podas and even large lorries try and force their way through the crowd, who have to squeeze together even tighter or jump across the large open ditches that line the roads and allow the rainy season downpours to bypass the stalls.
The noise is incredible. Thousands of people trying to make themselves heard above thousands more. Sound systems and megaphones attached to radios blare out music and evangelical preaching at a speed and volume that makes it more or less unfathomable and very close to unbearable. Despite the chaos it’s all surprisingly well ordered: This street is all electrical, the next just sells plastic goods, the street that links them only has shoes, the one over there is where you can by food, the one next door has all the toiletries. It feels like an endless labyrinth but Messy navigates us through expertly. She has happily accepted the role of chief negotiator and drives a hard bargain. The theatrics of the haggle are fascinating to watch but almost impossible to copy.
Up ahead there’s a sudden commotion. “It’s a clearance.” Messy explains. “What? Like a clearance sale?” I ask naively, thinking that cheap goods going even cheaper might well explain the sudden rush of people. “No – a street clearance. The police are clearing the street.” Although PZ is a well established market, the vast majority of the stalls are illegal and the police sweep through randomly clearing stalls with no permission to trade. Life around the clearance carries on as if nothing is happening.
A few minutes later a boy bumps heavily into Jo. As he stumbles he expertly (although not that expertly because I saw him do it) unzips Jo’s bag with lightening speed and pushes his hand inside. Thankfully the outside pocket is empty and he comes away with nothing. It’s a horrible situation. Rough justice is a big problem in Sierra Leone and people tend to take the law into their own hands. I’m not sure how true it is, but we’ve been warned that if you accuse someone of stealing there’s a chance you’ll then have to watch them beaten to death in front of you. Jo and I look at each other and agree to say absolutely nothing.
We’re in PZ for less than an hour, but it feels like a lifetime. We emerge, hot and bothered but heavily laden with everything we went in for. As we leave the crowded streets behind us we agree that PZ is amazing, and definitely the best place to shop for things. We also agree that perhaps we should try to go there are little as possible.
You cannot be a passing observer for ever – you must commit or move on. And if proof of our commitment were needed, it is this: last week we finished stocking up the house. In one final big effort we bought a washing board, a drainer, a clothes hanger, a washing basket, more pegs, more soap, more brushes, more mops, more everything. All things you don’t buy when you’re still trying to find your feet, but all things that become absolute essentials when you’ve found your feet and realised that if you’re going to keep them clean, you’re going to need far more support than the battered and worn out tools you’ve been given by VSO.
The six week delay in shopping activities also stems from the fact that it’s taken us this long to work out where to buy everything. In our first few weeks we were constantly asking people where the best place to buy various items was. The answer we were always given was ‘PZ’. Unfortunately, although everyone was able to tell us that we needed to go to PZ, people seemed far less able to explain exactly where (or indeed what) PZ was.
Between us we have several maps of Freetown of varying quality – none of which shows anything remotely similar to a place called PZ. (To make life slightly more complicated, our best and most beautiful map fell victim to a flood in our first week, and amusingly our two remaining maps have slightly different road layouts and in many cases entirely different road names.) So for the first few weeks PZ assumed a near mystical status in our lives – it seemed to be the answer to all our problems, but remained entirely and bafflingly unreachable.
It was probably about week three that Banke managed to persuade someone to actually take her to PZ. She came back with two umbrellas, the most remarkable portable lamp you’ve ever set your eyes on, and stories of a crowded land full of street sellers, shop owners, black market currency traders, and pretty much everything you could ever need but weren’t sure how to get hold of.
It wasn’t until week five that we had finally worked out a plan for getting to PZ, getting everything we needed, and getting it back to the house. Unfortunately the plan involved two essential ingredients that we just didn’t have - a car and a reliable and patient guide. By the end of week six we had found both through our friend Natalie. Natalie is doing what most sensible people seem to do, and is escaping the country for the worst month of the rainy season. Before she left she lent us her car, and introduced us to her house keeper – the fantastically named Messy.
Messy is brilliant. A very likeable, and extremely humours young woman with a steely determination and a powerful brand of sarcasm that I had been led to believe could only be found at home. She agreed to accompany us to PZ to ensure we bought what we needed and at a price that wasn’t ridiculously inflated. And so, last Thursday, after a long day at work, Messy, Jo, Banke and myself all piled into Natalie’s Land Rover Defender (aka Brutus the Beast), and headed into the land of PZ.
PZ is like every film set you haven’t quite believed. Walking around you feel as if you’ve stumbled into the latest Hollywood blockbuster, and they’ve laid it on a bit too thick with all the ‘Crowded African City Scene’ clichés. It’s truly insane. Every inch of floor space is covered with stalls selling second hand or imported goods. Those traders who don’t have a ‘stall’ have just laid a sheet on the floor and spread out their wares; others have a basket full of goods and have just set it down in the middle of the road. Literally thousands of people are crammed into narrow streets, made narrower still by the traders lining the edge. Occasionally cars, podas and even large lorries try and force their way through the crowd, who have to squeeze together even tighter or jump across the large open ditches that line the roads and allow the rainy season downpours to bypass the stalls.
The noise is incredible. Thousands of people trying to make themselves heard above thousands more. Sound systems and megaphones attached to radios blare out music and evangelical preaching at a speed and volume that makes it more or less unfathomable and very close to unbearable. Despite the chaos it’s all surprisingly well ordered: This street is all electrical, the next just sells plastic goods, the street that links them only has shoes, the one over there is where you can by food, the one next door has all the toiletries. It feels like an endless labyrinth but Messy navigates us through expertly. She has happily accepted the role of chief negotiator and drives a hard bargain. The theatrics of the haggle are fascinating to watch but almost impossible to copy.
Up ahead there’s a sudden commotion. “It’s a clearance.” Messy explains. “What? Like a clearance sale?” I ask naively, thinking that cheap goods going even cheaper might well explain the sudden rush of people. “No – a street clearance. The police are clearing the street.” Although PZ is a well established market, the vast majority of the stalls are illegal and the police sweep through randomly clearing stalls with no permission to trade. Life around the clearance carries on as if nothing is happening.
A few minutes later a boy bumps heavily into Jo. As he stumbles he expertly (although not that expertly because I saw him do it) unzips Jo’s bag with lightening speed and pushes his hand inside. Thankfully the outside pocket is empty and he comes away with nothing. It’s a horrible situation. Rough justice is a big problem in Sierra Leone and people tend to take the law into their own hands. I’m not sure how true it is, but we’ve been warned that if you accuse someone of stealing there’s a chance you’ll then have to watch them beaten to death in front of you. Jo and I look at each other and agree to say absolutely nothing.
We’re in PZ for less than an hour, but it feels like a lifetime. We emerge, hot and bothered but heavily laden with everything we went in for. As we leave the crowded streets behind us we agree that PZ is amazing, and definitely the best place to shop for things. We also agree that perhaps we should try to go there are little as possible.
Wednesday 4 August 2010
Ministry meetings
It had already been an eventful morning. Starting with a long queue at the bank, several unsuccessful phone calls to my manager, and a strange experience in a poda. (Strange experiences in podas are a daily happening, but this was the first time that a poda decided to change its final destination half way to work). I finally made it to the office at 11:00.
Alhassan looked up as I pushed open our shared office door. Alhassan is my line manager - a quiet man, with a slight build and a constantly amused expression. (I like to believe that the constant look of amusement has been a feature of his since birth, but I’m increasingly concerned it may just be a look he saves for me and my odd Western ways. He looks even more amused whenever I try to talk to him in Krio, or I ask him if he knows the exact time, or even date, something might happen.)
“How de bodi?” Alhassan greeted me.
“De bodi well. How yu sleep?” I responded.
“A tell God tenki.” Krio small talk over, Alhassan moved on to the day ahead. “We need to go to the steering group meeting at the Ministry.” I narrowed my eyes and thought back to the unsuccessful phone calls I’d had with him earlier that morning. The phone calls about whether or not we needed to go to the steering group meeting at the Ministry. The phone calls I made from the bank practically next-door to the Ministry building. The phone calls I made one hour, one poda ride, and one long walk in a rain shower ago – practically next-door to the Ministry.
I could have turned this situation into a long conversation about communication, and how we both needed to get better at it. But I knew from experience that this conversation takes a lot of time and has relatively little impact, and besides – we were about to be late for a meeting at the Ministry.
“We really need to go?” I asked. “Because this morning you said we didn’t”.
“We need to go.”
“But I thought it starts at 11:00?” Alhassan and I both glanced at the clock – it was now 11:05. Alhassan shrugged.
“It starts between 11:00 and 11:30.” This isn’t true. The meeting starts at 11:00. It only starts between 11:00 and 11:30 because people like me and Alhassan never arrive on time. In the end we arrived at about 11:45 because the traffic was bad and we stopped to look at a couple of tellies on the drive over (don’t ask – I didn’t).
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation is housed on the fourth and fifth floors of the impressive nine story Youyi Building - a 1970’s, white concrete gift from the Chinese Government to the Government of Sierra Leone. Each floor houses a different government department; making its complete lack of security all the more surprising. To say that the Youyi building has seen better days is a bit of an understatement. When I first arrived I wrongly assumed that the building had been caught up in the crossfire of the civil war. Once it must have been bright, grand and imposing. But now its crumbling façade of mildew green and concrete grey is a sad shadow of the architect’s original dream.
We were dropped off at the entrance by Ibrahem, the Health for All Coalition driver. (A young smiling man with little English, an encyclopaedic knowledge of Freetown, and friends on practically every street.) We walked into the ground floor lobby which presents the visitor with two options – the lift, or the stairs.
“Lets take the stairs.” I said, at the same time as Alhassan said,
“We’ll take the lift.” My heart sank, the Youiy Building lift is more packed than a northern line tube in rush hour. Not only is it unbearably crowded, it also comes with the added excitement of breaking down every time there’s a power cut – and there are lots of power cuts.
We stepped out of the lift onto the fifth floor, a little more squashed and a little more grateful to be alive. We negotiated our way past ‘security’ (a group of friendly guys sitting at a reception desk who occasionally stop people for a chat, but never actually stop people walking into the Ministry). And slid quietly into the Free Health Care Steering Group meeting taking place in the conference room.
The meeting is held every other Tuesday and brings together all the Government officials, Donor Organisations, NGOs and Civil Societies involved in the Free Health Care Initiative. The Initiative was launched in April with the promise of free health care for all pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five. It’s an ambitious project, made all the more ambitious by the fact that, at launch, the Government had neither the money nor the infrastructure to enable them to fully support it. Health for All Coalition (the civil society organisation I’m working for) has been awarded the contract for the independent monitoring of the free health care delivery. (This in itself is another ambitious project, given that the coalition was only founded in 2008 and the monitoring programme is only one sting of its over-stretched bow.)
Both fascinating and frustrating, the meetings are great opportunity to find out more about the health service in Sierra Leone, and the politics of international funding from giants such as UNICEF, DIFID and the World Bank. Dangerously dependent on international aide the Free Health Care Initiative is vital, but worryingly fragile. Progress is made, but so much progress is needed.
Alhassan looked up as I pushed open our shared office door. Alhassan is my line manager - a quiet man, with a slight build and a constantly amused expression. (I like to believe that the constant look of amusement has been a feature of his since birth, but I’m increasingly concerned it may just be a look he saves for me and my odd Western ways. He looks even more amused whenever I try to talk to him in Krio, or I ask him if he knows the exact time, or even date, something might happen.)
“How de bodi?” Alhassan greeted me.
“De bodi well. How yu sleep?” I responded.
“A tell God tenki.” Krio small talk over, Alhassan moved on to the day ahead. “We need to go to the steering group meeting at the Ministry.” I narrowed my eyes and thought back to the unsuccessful phone calls I’d had with him earlier that morning. The phone calls about whether or not we needed to go to the steering group meeting at the Ministry. The phone calls I made from the bank practically next-door to the Ministry building. The phone calls I made one hour, one poda ride, and one long walk in a rain shower ago – practically next-door to the Ministry.
I could have turned this situation into a long conversation about communication, and how we both needed to get better at it. But I knew from experience that this conversation takes a lot of time and has relatively little impact, and besides – we were about to be late for a meeting at the Ministry.
“We really need to go?” I asked. “Because this morning you said we didn’t”.
“We need to go.”
“But I thought it starts at 11:00?” Alhassan and I both glanced at the clock – it was now 11:05. Alhassan shrugged.
“It starts between 11:00 and 11:30.” This isn’t true. The meeting starts at 11:00. It only starts between 11:00 and 11:30 because people like me and Alhassan never arrive on time. In the end we arrived at about 11:45 because the traffic was bad and we stopped to look at a couple of tellies on the drive over (don’t ask – I didn’t).
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation is housed on the fourth and fifth floors of the impressive nine story Youyi Building - a 1970’s, white concrete gift from the Chinese Government to the Government of Sierra Leone. Each floor houses a different government department; making its complete lack of security all the more surprising. To say that the Youyi building has seen better days is a bit of an understatement. When I first arrived I wrongly assumed that the building had been caught up in the crossfire of the civil war. Once it must have been bright, grand and imposing. But now its crumbling façade of mildew green and concrete grey is a sad shadow of the architect’s original dream.
We were dropped off at the entrance by Ibrahem, the Health for All Coalition driver. (A young smiling man with little English, an encyclopaedic knowledge of Freetown, and friends on practically every street.) We walked into the ground floor lobby which presents the visitor with two options – the lift, or the stairs.
“Lets take the stairs.” I said, at the same time as Alhassan said,
“We’ll take the lift.” My heart sank, the Youiy Building lift is more packed than a northern line tube in rush hour. Not only is it unbearably crowded, it also comes with the added excitement of breaking down every time there’s a power cut – and there are lots of power cuts.
We stepped out of the lift onto the fifth floor, a little more squashed and a little more grateful to be alive. We negotiated our way past ‘security’ (a group of friendly guys sitting at a reception desk who occasionally stop people for a chat, but never actually stop people walking into the Ministry). And slid quietly into the Free Health Care Steering Group meeting taking place in the conference room.
The meeting is held every other Tuesday and brings together all the Government officials, Donor Organisations, NGOs and Civil Societies involved in the Free Health Care Initiative. The Initiative was launched in April with the promise of free health care for all pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five. It’s an ambitious project, made all the more ambitious by the fact that, at launch, the Government had neither the money nor the infrastructure to enable them to fully support it. Health for All Coalition (the civil society organisation I’m working for) has been awarded the contract for the independent monitoring of the free health care delivery. (This in itself is another ambitious project, given that the coalition was only founded in 2008 and the monitoring programme is only one sting of its over-stretched bow.)
Both fascinating and frustrating, the meetings are great opportunity to find out more about the health service in Sierra Leone, and the politics of international funding from giants such as UNICEF, DIFID and the World Bank. Dangerously dependent on international aide the Free Health Care Initiative is vital, but worryingly fragile. Progress is made, but so much progress is needed.
Thursday 29 July 2010
Things that wouldn’t have happened in London...
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this – but Freetown is definitely different to London. Cold wind and occasional rain have been replaced by warm breezes and prolonged tropical storms. Packed tubes have been replaced by crammed podas, and pigeon scattered pavements have given way to packs of dishevelled street dogs. But it’s not just the fabric of the city that’s so different. On an almost daily basis, events go on that would stop London still, but which pass almost unremarked in Freetown. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, sometime hilarious, and sometimes heart braking, these events stand the city in starker contrast than anything else.
A few weekends ago the traffic in the centre of town seemed worse than usual – which is saying something for Freetown. We jumped out the Poda Poda and discovered the reason after walking just a few feet. A brass band, kitted out in full blue and white American Marching Band regalia was making its way slowly up the centre of the busiest street in the city. Behind the band stretched a parade of men and women, wearing matching t-shirts and carrying large banners displaying the slogan, ‘No Justice, No Peace’. I wasn’t sure whether to it was a statement of protest, or a threat.
A few days later – another road and another strange event. Walking up the side of a steep hill we were passed, at great speed, by a wheelchair heading in the opposite direction. An old man was sat calmly in the chair, and a young boy was stood on the back axel occasionally ramping up the speed with his foot as if were a skateboard he was on, rather than the rickety old chair of an ill and elderly man. They must have been hitting 20 miles an hour, straight towards the traffic, without any form of break.
Another day and the same road had turned suddenly into a gushing river. When the rain falls, it falls hard and comes fast. Great torrents of brown, rubbish strewn, sewage filled water pour down the steep hills surrounding the city, rush through homes, markets and makeshift football pitches, and converge on the roads. We, thankfully, were in a friend’s car, staring out in awe at the speed at which the scene had changed in front of us. And it was just as we passed a stall where we sometimes buy pineapple that Banke uttered the words that will stay with me for ever… “Oh my word” She said quietly, not even believing herself, “I think that’s a dog floating past.”
A different road and this time a Poda. Banke and I had just finished work and were heading home. We jumped onto a Poda and were followed onboard by a strangely conspicuous looking man wearing a smart red jacket, green shirt, and round tortoiseshell spectacles. We crammed ourselves onto the third bench and he sat down on the bench behind.
“Are you Anna?” He muttered quietly in a heavy accent, directing the question at Banke. Banke looked at me confused, then looked back at him. “Are you Anna?” He repeated urgently.
“Am I Allah?” Banke asked surprised (no wonder she had looked so confused).
“Anna!” He said again. Louder now. “Are you Anna?”
“Oh – no. No I’m not Anna.”
“I thought you were Anna. I only got on because I thought you were Anna.” The spectacled man looked slightly panicked as he turned and shouted to the front of the Poda.
“Apprentice, I need to get off. This isn’t Anna.” The Apprentice passed the message to the driver, who looked annoyed to be stopping again so soon. The man apologised softly to Banke, fought his way out of the Poda and then disappeared into the crowed street. Banke and I stared at each other for a few seconds and then burst into laughter. What on earth had just happened? It felt like we had just found ourselves in the middle of a poorly thought through spy novel. Whoever ‘Anna’ was, this man clearly didn’t know her. Had he been given a description of ‘Anna’ and instructed to jump onto a Poda when he saw her? Banke and I looked around hoping to share the confusion with our fellow passengers who must have watched the whole event unfurl. But strangely no one else seemed to even be aware that anything had happed. Even the Apprentice, who had had to open the door for him and get out to let him past, was acting like nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. Banke and I were truly baffled and spent an enjoyable Poda ride home inventing wild explanations as to what had happened and exactly who Anna might be.
On a slightly more sinister note – a friend of ours found herself caught up in a scene from a nightmare when she visited a market recently. She was walking from stall to stall when suddenly a loud crowd of men came dancing past. She thought that one of them was in costume with something taped to the side of his face, but as he came past it turned out that it was his eyeball, pulled out of its socket. Once the men had passed the market women apologised to her and explained that she had just witnessed a ceremony of one of Sierra Leone’s many Secret Societies. Whilst part of me wants to learn more about these secret societies, another part of me desperately wants to pretend that they don’t exist. Definitely the darker side of the city.
I have only been here for five weeks, and already I feel like a have seen more strange things, and been in more peculiar situations, than I could ever cram into a year of living in London. There’s never a dull day in Freetown.
A few weekends ago the traffic in the centre of town seemed worse than usual – which is saying something for Freetown. We jumped out the Poda Poda and discovered the reason after walking just a few feet. A brass band, kitted out in full blue and white American Marching Band regalia was making its way slowly up the centre of the busiest street in the city. Behind the band stretched a parade of men and women, wearing matching t-shirts and carrying large banners displaying the slogan, ‘No Justice, No Peace’. I wasn’t sure whether to it was a statement of protest, or a threat.
A few days later – another road and another strange event. Walking up the side of a steep hill we were passed, at great speed, by a wheelchair heading in the opposite direction. An old man was sat calmly in the chair, and a young boy was stood on the back axel occasionally ramping up the speed with his foot as if were a skateboard he was on, rather than the rickety old chair of an ill and elderly man. They must have been hitting 20 miles an hour, straight towards the traffic, without any form of break.
Another day and the same road had turned suddenly into a gushing river. When the rain falls, it falls hard and comes fast. Great torrents of brown, rubbish strewn, sewage filled water pour down the steep hills surrounding the city, rush through homes, markets and makeshift football pitches, and converge on the roads. We, thankfully, were in a friend’s car, staring out in awe at the speed at which the scene had changed in front of us. And it was just as we passed a stall where we sometimes buy pineapple that Banke uttered the words that will stay with me for ever… “Oh my word” She said quietly, not even believing herself, “I think that’s a dog floating past.”
A different road and this time a Poda. Banke and I had just finished work and were heading home. We jumped onto a Poda and were followed onboard by a strangely conspicuous looking man wearing a smart red jacket, green shirt, and round tortoiseshell spectacles. We crammed ourselves onto the third bench and he sat down on the bench behind.
“Are you Anna?” He muttered quietly in a heavy accent, directing the question at Banke. Banke looked at me confused, then looked back at him. “Are you Anna?” He repeated urgently.
“Am I Allah?” Banke asked surprised (no wonder she had looked so confused).
“Anna!” He said again. Louder now. “Are you Anna?”
“Oh – no. No I’m not Anna.”
“I thought you were Anna. I only got on because I thought you were Anna.” The spectacled man looked slightly panicked as he turned and shouted to the front of the Poda.
“Apprentice, I need to get off. This isn’t Anna.” The Apprentice passed the message to the driver, who looked annoyed to be stopping again so soon. The man apologised softly to Banke, fought his way out of the Poda and then disappeared into the crowed street. Banke and I stared at each other for a few seconds and then burst into laughter. What on earth had just happened? It felt like we had just found ourselves in the middle of a poorly thought through spy novel. Whoever ‘Anna’ was, this man clearly didn’t know her. Had he been given a description of ‘Anna’ and instructed to jump onto a Poda when he saw her? Banke and I looked around hoping to share the confusion with our fellow passengers who must have watched the whole event unfurl. But strangely no one else seemed to even be aware that anything had happed. Even the Apprentice, who had had to open the door for him and get out to let him past, was acting like nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. Banke and I were truly baffled and spent an enjoyable Poda ride home inventing wild explanations as to what had happened and exactly who Anna might be.
On a slightly more sinister note – a friend of ours found herself caught up in a scene from a nightmare when she visited a market recently. She was walking from stall to stall when suddenly a loud crowd of men came dancing past. She thought that one of them was in costume with something taped to the side of his face, but as he came past it turned out that it was his eyeball, pulled out of its socket. Once the men had passed the market women apologised to her and explained that she had just witnessed a ceremony of one of Sierra Leone’s many Secret Societies. Whilst part of me wants to learn more about these secret societies, another part of me desperately wants to pretend that they don’t exist. Definitely the darker side of the city.
I have only been here for five weeks, and already I feel like a have seen more strange things, and been in more peculiar situations, than I could ever cram into a year of living in London. There’s never a dull day in Freetown.
Saturday 24 July 2010
Red tape and miscommunications
Here’s a story of how I have tried (and so far failed) to get a box of my belongings through the Freetown customs.
(Next week I promise I’m going to experiment with ‘micro-blogging’. I’m aware that this is another ridiculously long blog entry.)
June 16 - London
It’s the last Wednesday before I leave the UK for Freetown. My Mum and I have just spent a strange hour in a railway-arched Bermondsey industrial estate, at the offices of Robert Clare. A shipping company that we have been reliably informed is the best with regular routes between London and Freetown.
Just as we are leaving the office, Clare (presumably the Clare, of Robert Clare) hands me her business card. On the front are her details and the office addresses for both Freetown and London. On the back she has written in Biro the name ‘Mabel’ and a mobile number.
“When you get to Freetown just pop into the office and ask for Mabel. Tell her that Clare sent you.”
“Thank you!” I say, gratefully receiving my first concrete contact in Sierra Leone.
“Freetown’s amazing.” Claire beams. “You’ll have a great time.” And then slightly ominously she adds. “If you have any problems, any problems at all, and not just with the shipping, find the office and we’ll help you.”
“Great – thank you” I repeat, unsure whether I’m feeling comforted or just slightly more alarmed.
June 28 - Freetown
And so, on my second week in Freetown, I reported as instructed to the Robert Clare office in the comfortingly familiar Wellington Street. Walking up a dark flight of steep stairs I emerged into a bright and airy room which was officially the main administration office for the shipping company. I say officially, because at that moment in time it seemed to have been turned into a clothes shop. A crowd of people were gathered around a street seller who had decided to bring his wears off the street and try his luck in the rich looking offices. (This turns out to not be all that unusual. Sierra Leoneans do not have the same attitude to private space and office security as we have in the UK. This means that in most buildings it is hard to distinguish between those who work there, those who just sort of hang out there, and those who are trying to sell things to the people who work and/or just hang out. Indeed rather surprisingly we have found that one of the best places to buy chicken is inside the Ministry of Health and Sanitation!)
Walking further into the room I spot someone sitting behind a desk and guess that she is the most likely person to actually work here.
“Hello” I say rather too cheerily. “Is it possible to talk to Mabel?”
“She’s very busy.”
“Oh – no problem. Is there someone else I could talk to? I’ve got a box of stuff coming over on a ship. Clare in London told me to come to this office when I arrived in Freetown.” I say holding up the business card just in case proof is needed.
“You need to talk to Mabel – I’ll go and see if she’s busy.” This is slightly confusing – but none the less seems like encouraging progress.
Mabel is a large woman who seems to fit well behind an imposing desk. She looks annoyed to have been disturbed.
“Clare told me to come and see you.” I repeat. “Clare from the Bermondsey Office.” I offer dumbly after an uncomfortable pause, just in case Mabel has forgotten her business partner.
“The ship doesn’t dock until July 16. But you need to get a TIN number before that, so we can clear it through customs.”
“Oh – Ok…” That makes sense, except. “What’s a TIN number?”
“Tax Identification Number. Go to the NRA office and ask for a TIN number then bring the number to us.”
“Ok" they didn’t say anything about needing a TIN number in London but apparently it’s a new rule. Mabel wrote an address and some instructions on a piece of paper and then handed it to me.
Back on the street I noticed that the NRA office wasn’t that far away – but then it started to rain. – July 16 was ages away, deciding there’s plenty of time I head back to my office in the opposite direction to the NRA building. This, predictably, was a mistake.
July 13
I entered the NRA office cursing myself for leaving it so late.
I waited for a counter to become free and then explained what I was after.
“You need to fill out this form and give me a photocopy of your passport.” The lady behind the counter explained. This wasn’t going to be a problem – I had a photocopy with me, and I could fill out a form. Correction – I could fill out most forms – this one? Not so much. The form in question had been written for a country that was far more organised then Sierra Leone. In most countries being asked to write down your address would not be such a stumbling block – but in Sierra Leone it was a real poser. We have never been told our address, and bizarley before this form, it had never occurred to me to ask for one. Our house has no number, and is on a road with no name.
I glanced nervously at the NRA lady and then wrote. ‘VSO House, Cockle Bay area, Freetown.’ Several impossible questions and insufficient answers later, I pushed the form back over the counter.
“That’s all I can fill in.” I said apologetically. The NRA lady scanned the form, politely ignoring all the empty spaces.
“It’ll do.” She said to my great relief. “Come back in two days and you can get your number.” Two days! The ship is docking in four, as long as nothing goes wrong, two days should be fine.
July 15
I walk back into the NRA office, wait for an empty counter and step up. It’s the same lady again.
“I’ll go and see if your number is ready. Do you have your Resident’s Visa?”
“Um…no.”
“Well you can’t get a TIN number without a Resident’s Visa”
“Well you didn’t say that on Tuesday.”
“I thought you knew.” – Brilliant.
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you have a Resident’s Visa yet?”
I go outside and phone VSO to ask if I have a Resident’s Visa yet. The answer is no – not yet – it’s with the Immigration Office. Brilliant. I go back inside and explain this.
“You can’t get a TIN number without a Resident’s Visa.” The NRA lady repeats unhelpfully.
“You should have told me that on Tuesday.” I repeat even more unhelpfully.
“I thought you knew.” This conversation is going nowhere. I’m late for a meeting. I leave the NRA office empty handed.
A few hours later VSO ring. I can get my Resident’s Visa tomorrow.
July 16
I walk into the NRA office clutching my shiny new Resident’s Visa. I wait for a counter to become free and step up. Once again, it’s the same lady. There are lots of people in the office, but she seems to be the only one who actually works here.
“I’ve got my Visa.” I say, and triumphantly hand it over. She takes it, turns it over, opens it up, and hands it back.
“You need a photocopy of it.”
“You didn’t say that yesterday.” She looks like she’s just about to say that she thought I knew, so I quickly cut her off. “Can you take a photocopy here?”
“No. We don’t have a photocopier.” I glance to the corner of the office where there is a stack on aging office equipment still in boxes, waiting to be unpacked, and collecting dust. Amongst the boxed computers and printers, there’s definitely a large box with a picture of a photocopier on the side. They do have a photocopier – they just haven’t opened it yet. I look back at the NRA lady. She shrugs.
“Up the street, turn right, second shop on the left. There’s a photocopier there.” Brilliant.
Five minutes later I return with the photocopies. (I took two sets of both sides to cover all eventualities). I hand them back across the counter and the NRA lady walks into the back office. A few minutes later she returns carrying a torn-off-corner of scrap paper. Written on the paper is the word “Burley” alongside a series of numbers and dashes. She hands me the scrap of paper.
“That’s it?” I ask incredulously.
“That’s it.” She confirms.
“Thank you for all your help”. I say, trying not to sound too sarcastic but failing miserably.
I take the scrap of paper up the steep stairs of the Robert Clare office, praying I’m not too late. I hand it to the lady behind the Robert Clare desk, praying that it really is a TIN number. She copies it down in a ledger and hands it back.
“Am I in time? It’s not too late?” I ask.
“No” she smiles kindly. “The ship’s not due to dock until next Tuesday.”
(Next week I promise I’m going to experiment with ‘micro-blogging’. I’m aware that this is another ridiculously long blog entry.)
June 16 - London
It’s the last Wednesday before I leave the UK for Freetown. My Mum and I have just spent a strange hour in a railway-arched Bermondsey industrial estate, at the offices of Robert Clare. A shipping company that we have been reliably informed is the best with regular routes between London and Freetown.
Just as we are leaving the office, Clare (presumably the Clare, of Robert Clare) hands me her business card. On the front are her details and the office addresses for both Freetown and London. On the back she has written in Biro the name ‘Mabel’ and a mobile number.
“When you get to Freetown just pop into the office and ask for Mabel. Tell her that Clare sent you.”
“Thank you!” I say, gratefully receiving my first concrete contact in Sierra Leone.
“Freetown’s amazing.” Claire beams. “You’ll have a great time.” And then slightly ominously she adds. “If you have any problems, any problems at all, and not just with the shipping, find the office and we’ll help you.”
“Great – thank you” I repeat, unsure whether I’m feeling comforted or just slightly more alarmed.
June 28 - Freetown
And so, on my second week in Freetown, I reported as instructed to the Robert Clare office in the comfortingly familiar Wellington Street. Walking up a dark flight of steep stairs I emerged into a bright and airy room which was officially the main administration office for the shipping company. I say officially, because at that moment in time it seemed to have been turned into a clothes shop. A crowd of people were gathered around a street seller who had decided to bring his wears off the street and try his luck in the rich looking offices. (This turns out to not be all that unusual. Sierra Leoneans do not have the same attitude to private space and office security as we have in the UK. This means that in most buildings it is hard to distinguish between those who work there, those who just sort of hang out there, and those who are trying to sell things to the people who work and/or just hang out. Indeed rather surprisingly we have found that one of the best places to buy chicken is inside the Ministry of Health and Sanitation!)
Walking further into the room I spot someone sitting behind a desk and guess that she is the most likely person to actually work here.
“Hello” I say rather too cheerily. “Is it possible to talk to Mabel?”
“She’s very busy.”
“Oh – no problem. Is there someone else I could talk to? I’ve got a box of stuff coming over on a ship. Clare in London told me to come to this office when I arrived in Freetown.” I say holding up the business card just in case proof is needed.
“You need to talk to Mabel – I’ll go and see if she’s busy.” This is slightly confusing – but none the less seems like encouraging progress.
Mabel is a large woman who seems to fit well behind an imposing desk. She looks annoyed to have been disturbed.
“Clare told me to come and see you.” I repeat. “Clare from the Bermondsey Office.” I offer dumbly after an uncomfortable pause, just in case Mabel has forgotten her business partner.
“The ship doesn’t dock until July 16. But you need to get a TIN number before that, so we can clear it through customs.”
“Oh – Ok…” That makes sense, except. “What’s a TIN number?”
“Tax Identification Number. Go to the NRA office and ask for a TIN number then bring the number to us.”
“Ok" they didn’t say anything about needing a TIN number in London but apparently it’s a new rule. Mabel wrote an address and some instructions on a piece of paper and then handed it to me.
Back on the street I noticed that the NRA office wasn’t that far away – but then it started to rain. – July 16 was ages away, deciding there’s plenty of time I head back to my office in the opposite direction to the NRA building. This, predictably, was a mistake.
July 13
I entered the NRA office cursing myself for leaving it so late.
I waited for a counter to become free and then explained what I was after.
“You need to fill out this form and give me a photocopy of your passport.” The lady behind the counter explained. This wasn’t going to be a problem – I had a photocopy with me, and I could fill out a form. Correction – I could fill out most forms – this one? Not so much. The form in question had been written for a country that was far more organised then Sierra Leone. In most countries being asked to write down your address would not be such a stumbling block – but in Sierra Leone it was a real poser. We have never been told our address, and bizarley before this form, it had never occurred to me to ask for one. Our house has no number, and is on a road with no name.
I glanced nervously at the NRA lady and then wrote. ‘VSO House, Cockle Bay area, Freetown.’ Several impossible questions and insufficient answers later, I pushed the form back over the counter.
“That’s all I can fill in.” I said apologetically. The NRA lady scanned the form, politely ignoring all the empty spaces.
“It’ll do.” She said to my great relief. “Come back in two days and you can get your number.” Two days! The ship is docking in four, as long as nothing goes wrong, two days should be fine.
July 15
I walk back into the NRA office, wait for an empty counter and step up. It’s the same lady again.
“I’ll go and see if your number is ready. Do you have your Resident’s Visa?”
“Um…no.”
“Well you can’t get a TIN number without a Resident’s Visa”
“Well you didn’t say that on Tuesday.”
“I thought you knew.” – Brilliant.
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you have a Resident’s Visa yet?”
I go outside and phone VSO to ask if I have a Resident’s Visa yet. The answer is no – not yet – it’s with the Immigration Office. Brilliant. I go back inside and explain this.
“You can’t get a TIN number without a Resident’s Visa.” The NRA lady repeats unhelpfully.
“You should have told me that on Tuesday.” I repeat even more unhelpfully.
“I thought you knew.” This conversation is going nowhere. I’m late for a meeting. I leave the NRA office empty handed.
A few hours later VSO ring. I can get my Resident’s Visa tomorrow.
July 16
I walk into the NRA office clutching my shiny new Resident’s Visa. I wait for a counter to become free and step up. Once again, it’s the same lady. There are lots of people in the office, but she seems to be the only one who actually works here.
“I’ve got my Visa.” I say, and triumphantly hand it over. She takes it, turns it over, opens it up, and hands it back.
“You need a photocopy of it.”
“You didn’t say that yesterday.” She looks like she’s just about to say that she thought I knew, so I quickly cut her off. “Can you take a photocopy here?”
“No. We don’t have a photocopier.” I glance to the corner of the office where there is a stack on aging office equipment still in boxes, waiting to be unpacked, and collecting dust. Amongst the boxed computers and printers, there’s definitely a large box with a picture of a photocopier on the side. They do have a photocopier – they just haven’t opened it yet. I look back at the NRA lady. She shrugs.
“Up the street, turn right, second shop on the left. There’s a photocopier there.” Brilliant.
Five minutes later I return with the photocopies. (I took two sets of both sides to cover all eventualities). I hand them back across the counter and the NRA lady walks into the back office. A few minutes later she returns carrying a torn-off-corner of scrap paper. Written on the paper is the word “Burley” alongside a series of numbers and dashes. She hands me the scrap of paper.
“That’s it?” I ask incredulously.
“That’s it.” She confirms.
“Thank you for all your help”. I say, trying not to sound too sarcastic but failing miserably.
I take the scrap of paper up the steep stairs of the Robert Clare office, praying I’m not too late. I hand it to the lady behind the Robert Clare desk, praying that it really is a TIN number. She copies it down in a ledger and hands it back.
“Am I in time? It’s not too late?” I ask.
“No” she smiles kindly. “The ship’s not due to dock until next Tuesday.”
Monday 19 July 2010
Poda-ing about town
Getting around Freetown can be slightly…problematic. The weather is not conducive to long leisurely strolls from place to place (blog entry on ‘when shopping trips go wrong’ coming soon). In the rainy season the downpours can be so dramatic and so sudden that even putting one foot in front of the other can seem like an epic battle. Outside of the rainy season there’s a good chance that by the time you’ve walked for more than 10 minutes, you’ll be so drenched in sweat, that you may be mistaken for a victim of the rainy season that time somehow forgot.
Added to the difficulties presented by the weather, are the hazards presented by pretty much everything else: The distinct lack of pavements, the open drains and sewers, the aptly named ‘manholes’, and alarming absence of ‘manhole-covers’.
So, in short, walking is out. This leaves you with four options.
Option 1: Taxi. You would be forgiven for thinking that Option 1 is an easy and straightforward option. Unfortunately you’d be wrong. Taxis in Freetown are mind bogglingly complicated. There are a few key rules that you must learn. Once learnt these rules only serve to confuse you further:
• Rule 1: Taxis don’t go where you want them to go, they go where they are going, and its good luck if that coincides with the destination you had in mind.
• Rule 2: Anyone can jump in, or out, of a taxi at anytime. If there’s a spare seat the taxi is not full. (This actually makes a lot of sense now, but at first the idea of successfully hailing a taxi and then having other people hopping in with you seemed strangely galling.)
• Rule 3: (And this is where it gets really confusing). Never tell a taxi driver where you want to go before you get in a taxi. If you do this then it means you have chartered the taxi, and although it slightly increases your chances of ending up in the right place, it also costs you five times as much. Unfortunately the flip side of this rule is that if you get in the taxi without saying where you want to go, there’s a good chance that you’re in the wrong taxi.
• Rule 4: All taxi journeys cost 900Leones, apart from ‘two-way’ journeys which cost double, unless of course you accidentally charter a taxi (see rule 3), in which case it costs 5,000Leones. Confusingly ‘two-way’ does not mean return; it just means a journey that is twice as far as a one-way. Even more confusingly some ‘two-way’ journeys cannot be done in one taxi, so you must pay ‘one-way’ to two different taxis. And just to add to the general theme of confusion, I’m not at all sure what journeys constitute two-way and which are only one-way. I just know that if I took a taxi to work I would have to take two taxis and still have a fair distance to walk at the end.
As you may have gathered, I haven’t really managed to work out the taxi system yet. So…
Option 2: The Poda Poda – ahh the Poda Poda. I have an unreasonably soft-spot for the Poda Podas, which baffles the majority of Westerners (and a good proportion of Sierra Leoneons) who refuse to get into them. Poda Podas are like buses, only much smaller and with far more people in them. They are essentially battered and compact mini-busses in various alarming stages of disrepair. Staffed by two men - one Driver and one ‘Apprentice’, (who sits in the back, collecting the money and yelling unfathomable things out of the open window), they rattle and clatter around the city, carrying more men, women, children and chickens then you could possibly imagine.
Officially, if such a thing were written down (which seems highly unlikely), Podas can carry 17 people. Two in the front next to the driver, and fifteen along four crowded benches in the back. The benches themselves are works of impressive ingenuity. The back bench spans the whole width of the van and seats four. The three benches in front can sit three and are mounted so that the far seats are against one wall, leaving just enough room for passengers to clamber in and out via a tiny walkway against the other wall.
Once all the bench space is filled the three-seater benches turn into four-seaters via a sliding panel that can extend each bench to fill the full width of the van. Once full, a Poda Poda is therefore really full and there is no clear etiquette as to whether people sat on the sliding panels across the gangway are expected to move to allow passengers off, or whether it’s acceptable for passengers to clamber over each other in their bid for the exit.
In practice Poda Podas often carry far more than their (already ambitious) allocation of 17. There seems to be another rule (although again, I doubt this has found its way to any form of actual rule book), that if you’re only taking up the space of one seat, you only pay for one seat. This leads to the surprising practice of quite tough looking teenage boys spending long journeys sitting on each others laps. On one of my more memorable Poda Poda rides home, I found my self crammed on the back bench with four teenage boys filling two seats to my left, and two junior school boys sitting on the seat to my right. All six of the boys passed the journey by alternating between singing along loudly to the Rhianna album being blasted from the front speakers, and grinning at me before bursting into amused/bemused laughter.
There is no such thing as a boring Poda Poda ride, and my soft-spot stems from the fact that, although hot and crowded, Poda Poda journeys are also immensely amusing and incredibly good natured. People say good morning as you step on their foot trying to squeeze through the impossibly small gaps, money and change is passed hand to hand through the passengers on the way to and from the Apprentice, jokes are shared and explained, and on the far too frequent occasions I fail to recognise my stop, heart felt apologies and detailed directions are offered to set me back on track.
I have learnt today that Poda Poda translates to ‘to strive and struggle to find a living’, basically the Krio version of ‘makings ends meet’. It’s a philosophy with a lot more meaning on the streets of Freetown.
Option 3: Okada (motorbike taxis). Option 3 is not an option. Although widely acknowledged as the fastest route around town, with the added bonus of being the only transport option that will actually take you where you ask to go, Okadas are also the most dangerous transportation mode known to man – with the possible exception of home-made kerosene rocket packs. The main piece of advice offered to the newly arrived is “check that the driver’s not drunk before you get on.” Ermm…so never use an Okada in Freetown.
Option 4: Friends with cars. This is an excellent option. Thank you Natalie. Thank you John. You’re both stars.
Added to the difficulties presented by the weather, are the hazards presented by pretty much everything else: The distinct lack of pavements, the open drains and sewers, the aptly named ‘manholes’, and alarming absence of ‘manhole-covers’.
So, in short, walking is out. This leaves you with four options.
Option 1: Taxi. You would be forgiven for thinking that Option 1 is an easy and straightforward option. Unfortunately you’d be wrong. Taxis in Freetown are mind bogglingly complicated. There are a few key rules that you must learn. Once learnt these rules only serve to confuse you further:
• Rule 1: Taxis don’t go where you want them to go, they go where they are going, and its good luck if that coincides with the destination you had in mind.
• Rule 2: Anyone can jump in, or out, of a taxi at anytime. If there’s a spare seat the taxi is not full. (This actually makes a lot of sense now, but at first the idea of successfully hailing a taxi and then having other people hopping in with you seemed strangely galling.)
• Rule 3: (And this is where it gets really confusing). Never tell a taxi driver where you want to go before you get in a taxi. If you do this then it means you have chartered the taxi, and although it slightly increases your chances of ending up in the right place, it also costs you five times as much. Unfortunately the flip side of this rule is that if you get in the taxi without saying where you want to go, there’s a good chance that you’re in the wrong taxi.
• Rule 4: All taxi journeys cost 900Leones, apart from ‘two-way’ journeys which cost double, unless of course you accidentally charter a taxi (see rule 3), in which case it costs 5,000Leones. Confusingly ‘two-way’ does not mean return; it just means a journey that is twice as far as a one-way. Even more confusingly some ‘two-way’ journeys cannot be done in one taxi, so you must pay ‘one-way’ to two different taxis. And just to add to the general theme of confusion, I’m not at all sure what journeys constitute two-way and which are only one-way. I just know that if I took a taxi to work I would have to take two taxis and still have a fair distance to walk at the end.
As you may have gathered, I haven’t really managed to work out the taxi system yet. So…
Option 2: The Poda Poda – ahh the Poda Poda. I have an unreasonably soft-spot for the Poda Podas, which baffles the majority of Westerners (and a good proportion of Sierra Leoneons) who refuse to get into them. Poda Podas are like buses, only much smaller and with far more people in them. They are essentially battered and compact mini-busses in various alarming stages of disrepair. Staffed by two men - one Driver and one ‘Apprentice’, (who sits in the back, collecting the money and yelling unfathomable things out of the open window), they rattle and clatter around the city, carrying more men, women, children and chickens then you could possibly imagine.
Officially, if such a thing were written down (which seems highly unlikely), Podas can carry 17 people. Two in the front next to the driver, and fifteen along four crowded benches in the back. The benches themselves are works of impressive ingenuity. The back bench spans the whole width of the van and seats four. The three benches in front can sit three and are mounted so that the far seats are against one wall, leaving just enough room for passengers to clamber in and out via a tiny walkway against the other wall.
Once all the bench space is filled the three-seater benches turn into four-seaters via a sliding panel that can extend each bench to fill the full width of the van. Once full, a Poda Poda is therefore really full and there is no clear etiquette as to whether people sat on the sliding panels across the gangway are expected to move to allow passengers off, or whether it’s acceptable for passengers to clamber over each other in their bid for the exit.
In practice Poda Podas often carry far more than their (already ambitious) allocation of 17. There seems to be another rule (although again, I doubt this has found its way to any form of actual rule book), that if you’re only taking up the space of one seat, you only pay for one seat. This leads to the surprising practice of quite tough looking teenage boys spending long journeys sitting on each others laps. On one of my more memorable Poda Poda rides home, I found my self crammed on the back bench with four teenage boys filling two seats to my left, and two junior school boys sitting on the seat to my right. All six of the boys passed the journey by alternating between singing along loudly to the Rhianna album being blasted from the front speakers, and grinning at me before bursting into amused/bemused laughter.
There is no such thing as a boring Poda Poda ride, and my soft-spot stems from the fact that, although hot and crowded, Poda Poda journeys are also immensely amusing and incredibly good natured. People say good morning as you step on their foot trying to squeeze through the impossibly small gaps, money and change is passed hand to hand through the passengers on the way to and from the Apprentice, jokes are shared and explained, and on the far too frequent occasions I fail to recognise my stop, heart felt apologies and detailed directions are offered to set me back on track.
I have learnt today that Poda Poda translates to ‘to strive and struggle to find a living’, basically the Krio version of ‘makings ends meet’. It’s a philosophy with a lot more meaning on the streets of Freetown.
Option 3: Okada (motorbike taxis). Option 3 is not an option. Although widely acknowledged as the fastest route around town, with the added bonus of being the only transport option that will actually take you where you ask to go, Okadas are also the most dangerous transportation mode known to man – with the possible exception of home-made kerosene rocket packs. The main piece of advice offered to the newly arrived is “check that the driver’s not drunk before you get on.” Ermm…so never use an Okada in Freetown.
Option 4: Friends with cars. This is an excellent option. Thank you Natalie. Thank you John. You’re both stars.
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