am in freetown! i'm staying with some of julie's friends (she moved out of her place last month as she was about to leave..) and i told the guys that i had come from bamako overland. Overland?! they were impressed. when i told them I'd come overland by Bush-taxi (rather than private car), they were even more impressed. but actually the journey all in all wasn't as grueling as i thought it would be (cramped in taxi-brousse for hours/days) and i am glad i got to see the transition of climate, vegetation, village architecture, people...
i'm sitting in julie's office in the GTZ building looking at freetown through the window. it is raining here, so not much fun for exploring or going to the beach. we're planning to go to the beach and the chimp reserve this weekend.
i talked to 2 college students (friends of julie's boyfriend) about the war yesterday. they say they dont want to talk about it. don't want to remember a thing. or say if they were to start talking theyd talk for 6 months. "we lived by the grace of god."
the war lasted for 13 years in the country, but in the city of freetown came only towards the end. yet 13 years, that is really the whole childhood of these youths. i am amazed by the urge to move on. my first impression of freetown when i arrived on Tuesday night by bush-taxi was that it was a party town. beat music coming out of the road -side stores, the public transport minivans (or "potpots") brightly painted and blaring hip-hop, and youths in hip american rap clothes gleaming and strolling like it were saturday night. There is no electricity and very little running water throughout the city. folks or businesses that can afford it have generators. otherwise things are sold by candle light.
julie says that when she first got here that were no billboards. now the place is plastered with them. Coca-cola and Celltel. The market is crowded with people selling imported clothes, shoes, radios, phones, etc. the fibrancy of the private sector. much of it controlled by lebanese (like the diamond trade).
I hung out with the Sierra Leone students all day yesterday. They were so anxious to show me their university. the place looked like it hadn't received any investment or renovation since the 60s. old chairs and black boards, rusted broken windows. they point out a building that was burnt during the war.
We also drove by the special court for sierra leone. double line of concrete walls. barbed wires, video cameras and watch posts with asian looking military men. Two-thirds of he front page of the Standard Times was covered by the words "Charles Taylor's Concubine arrives in Town." She's here to give support to her lover. He's here on trial for human rights abuses. Julie's friends we are staying with all work at the Court. we later went out to dinner at this expensive restaurant and met other friends of hers (i think the lebanese - sierra leone party at the table next to us smoking cubans were doing a diamonds deal or selling some other one of sierra leones rich natural resources...).
there are a number of resorts on the beach. in fact it is gorgeous here. soft sand, palms, curving shore. the resorts were built before the war. one of them is used as UN headquarters. we went swimming in the pool of one of the resorts. an east-european and a lebanese family were there. it had that air of having been glamorous and beautiful in the past, but now feels empty.
later julie and i went to a little palm frond sort of bar with tables in the sand. we ordered Sierra Leone "Star" beers, dug our feet into the sand to chat and listen to the surf. In so many it could or is paradise here. Enough rains, arable soils, forests, fish... Coming from Mali, it seems like heaven. the cliche phrase describing much of Africa always comes to mind: "wonderful people, bad government." how bad things can get messed up because of bad governments...
i'm sitting in julie's office in the GTZ building looking at freetown through the window. it is raining here, so not much fun for exploring or going to the beach. we're planning to go to the beach and the chimp reserve this weekend.
i talked to 2 college students (friends of julie's boyfriend) about the war yesterday. they say they dont want to talk about it. don't want to remember a thing. or say if they were to start talking theyd talk for 6 months. "we lived by the grace of god."
the war lasted for 13 years in the country, but in the city of freetown came only towards the end. yet 13 years, that is really the whole childhood of these youths. i am amazed by the urge to move on. my first impression of freetown when i arrived on Tuesday night by bush-taxi was that it was a party town. beat music coming out of the road -side stores, the public transport minivans (or "potpots") brightly painted and blaring hip-hop, and youths in hip american rap clothes gleaming and strolling like it were saturday night. There is no electricity and very little running water throughout the city. folks or businesses that can afford it have generators. otherwise things are sold by candle light.
julie says that when she first got here that were no billboards. now the place is plastered with them. Coca-cola and Celltel. The market is crowded with people selling imported clothes, shoes, radios, phones, etc. the fibrancy of the private sector. much of it controlled by lebanese (like the diamond trade).
I hung out with the Sierra Leone students all day yesterday. They were so anxious to show me their university. the place looked like it hadn't received any investment or renovation since the 60s. old chairs and black boards, rusted broken windows. they point out a building that was burnt during the war.
We also drove by the special court for sierra leone. double line of concrete walls. barbed wires, video cameras and watch posts with asian looking military men. Two-thirds of he front page of the Standard Times was covered by the words "Charles Taylor's Concubine arrives in Town." She's here to give support to her lover. He's here on trial for human rights abuses. Julie's friends we are staying with all work at the Court. we later went out to dinner at this expensive restaurant and met other friends of hers (i think the lebanese - sierra leone party at the table next to us smoking cubans were doing a diamonds deal or selling some other one of sierra leones rich natural resources...).
there are a number of resorts on the beach. in fact it is gorgeous here. soft sand, palms, curving shore. the resorts were built before the war. one of them is used as UN headquarters. we went swimming in the pool of one of the resorts. an east-european and a lebanese family were there. it had that air of having been glamorous and beautiful in the past, but now feels empty.
later julie and i went to a little palm frond sort of bar with tables in the sand. we ordered Sierra Leone "Star" beers, dug our feet into the sand to chat and listen to the surf. In so many it could or is paradise here. Enough rains, arable soils, forests, fish... Coming from Mali, it seems like heaven. the cliche phrase describing much of Africa always comes to mind: "wonderful people, bad government." how bad things can get messed up because of bad governments...
posted by Dom at
4:29 PM
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