Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary

Lakka Beach

Road Into Town

River #2

Abraham

In the week before I left Sierra Leone, I wanted to visit the beaches. I felt extremely nervous about my options for getting there. I was hoping James could help me charter a car inexpensively, but we only found a driver willing to do it for a very high price. James had his own private driver and twice it worked out that I could use him, for the cost of gasoline, to get through Freetown. The first day I did this I caught a poda to Godrich Village. Catching one further on to River #2 proved problematic. I ended up in a car with a driver who took me far off from the taxi area – which I had no way of knowing - to negotiate a price. He wasted much of my time trying to negotiate an extremely inflated price. In frustration I called James to ask him to speak to the driver, but James just repeated that he had told me this would happen if I tried to visit the beach. I agreed to an inflated price, but the driver’s car broke down and we had to return any way. Unfortunately not before being stopped by the police. The bizarre site of a white girl alone in a car was clearly enough to make them stop us out of curiosity. At first they may have been trying to discern whether the driver was out to kidnap me, but the interrogation quickly disintegrated into questioning on whether I was married and could they have my phone number and come the beach or New York with me. The driver enjoyed the attention and I managed to end the conversation by continually looking the other way and not responding to their questions (since rudely responding had no effect). The police became embarrassed and let us go.
Fortunately the driver returned my money and left me at the proper car park. Standers-by arranged a ride for me with an honest driver. This driver, realizing their dubious nature, refused to stop when police signaled us to pull over. I had no trouble until I tried to leave the beach. A young man had been following me around River #2. I forcefully told him to go his way and he did, but then he took the same poda back to Godrich as I. I ending up speaking with him at length. Abraham had a masters in teaching from Fourah Bay and was tri-lingual. An older American woman he had met on the beach had agreed to pay for his education. He told me he was not interested in teaching because the pay was so low. He pressed hard for me to agree to hire him to keep house for my home in the United States. Given that I live in a one bedroom and own four plates I tried to convey how unnecessary that would be. He argued that Africans could only be responsible for small jobs. This was a sentiment I heard frequently in Sierra Leone. All I knew to do was state that I didn’t agree, I saw Sierra Leoneans doing great things, and to point out he had more education than I did, knew more about languages, and that I believed he had a responsibility to teach.
We arrived at car park where you need to catch a new poda to continue into Freetown. It became clear to him that I had no idea how to find a poda back into Freetown. He offered to go with me back into the city even though it was far outside his destination. I may have made it back without his help, but certainly not before dark and certainly not without relying on the help of others instead. One mistake I was continually making was in not attempting to ‘make a friend’ as soon as I arrived somewhere new. This is very un-American. We take great pride in our individualism and doing things on our own. But when there are no posted signs or a set of commonly understood rules and infrastructure to abide by, this does not work. My driver would immediately befriend a new person when we arrived somewhere new. He needed an ally to find the correct turnoff, a parking spot, and a lunch.

Fantah's Birth

I had a chance to observe a few births. The first was in Theresa’s home. This was the first birth I have ever witnessed and it certainly took place in unforgettable circumstances. The hygienic quality and lack of comfort in the birthing environment was stunning. The woman, Fantah, gave birth on the floor of the room I had been staying in. A thin sheet of plastic similar to a cheap shower curtain was laid over the dusty floor in the dimly lit bedroom. She had no pillow. Many body fluids are expelled during birth and we had no way of keeping the area sanitary. The same gloves worn while mopping up fluids were worn while delivering the baby; the same towel used to mop up one fluid was passed near the woman’s body again to clean up another fluid. But Fantah delivered the baby quickly with no complication and in nearly absolute silence. This was also my first experience seeing female genital mutilation. Fantah had had everything removed. Only a slit in her body remained. It is absolutely shocking to me that a human body could survive such a procedure, much less be able to birth. It actually wasn’t until I had seen several other mutilations that I understood what I had been looking at – it was so disorienting to see these parts missing. A fifteen year old came in to the clinic with complications in birth (someone had not properly removed the placenta). She had had slightly less removed and the scars were still easily visible which helped me more easily understand what I had seen earlier.

Nutrition Education is Important

I’m not sure the effects and extent of a lack of knowledge about nutrition in this area can be overstated. Once while out walking, Adrienne and I happened past a woman with a severely starved infant. We stopped and spoke with the woman encouraging her to bring the infant to the clinic (which was about a two minute walk away) for formula. Again, there is really no overstating how extreme this infant’s condition was. The woman said it was 9 months old; it was the size of a one month old. Everyone has seen photos of the starving babies in Africa, but it is incredibly disturbing to see a baby in this condition face to face. The baby’s eyes were protruding, the bones in the neck sticking out, the ribs protruding, the sagging skin around her hips where there was no fat surrounding her femur. She barely moved or held her head on her own. To make sense of this, we in the West usually tell ourselves that these people are so poor they cannot afford food or are so poor they want the child to die so they do not need to pay for its food or school or clothes. We learned from the mother that the child’s biological mother had died and the infant was left for this woman to care for along with four others. Watching the foster mother and grandmother interact with the child in the clinic it was very clear that they loved it. They knew she was ill, but I think they were genuinely unaware of how close to death the baby was. They were feeding it cornflakes. Which is shocking to hear, because it is so clear to us that an infant fed exclusively cornflakes would starve, but is even more shocking because cornflakes are the most expensive food available in Kabala. The family apparently had quite a bit of money available to buy food for the infant. Theresa spent some time with the mother and grandmother explaining how to prepare baby food from bananas, sugar, salt, and rice, and other techniques she had used to raise an orphaned infant herself. I am not sure how things progressed in this case, but hopefully the family believed Theresa. Without understanding the nutritional value of cornflakes verses the baby food, it is simply trust that would motivate them to prepare the food Theresa described. I believe they wanted cornflakes for the infant because as the most expensive food they must believe it to be the most healthy. I am sure it does not help that when radiantly healthy Westerners visit, we buy cornflakes religiously.

Too Many Men

The evenings I generally spent writing, reading, visiting with the family or the other North Americans in town. Theresa took me along several times on nights out with friends of hers or evening events related to her community work. Samuel, her son, took me out to films a few times as well. I greatly appreciated their entertainment, not only for the obvious enjoyment of their company and the opportunity to get to know the town a little better, but I tended to draw unwelcome visits from men in the evening otherwise. I was often confused by Hawa’s announcements that so-and-so wanted me to go out and talk to him. I usually told her I did not know him and I wanted him to leave, because I was never able to place a face I knew to the names I was being told were here to visit me. I am concerned that I may have offended people I was on friendly terms with though. I took the risk of just asking them to leave for three reasons. One, even if I did know the man he was clearly there to propose marriage or just proposition me for sex. Two, I had a very difficult time ending these conversations. And three, the Sierra Leonean notion of the home not being a private space is something I never adjusted to. If I was in my room for the evening, I did not want men lining up on the porch waiting for me. Few actual difficulties came from this other than a vague sense of unease in the house. One of the construction workers building the new clinic took to spending quite a bit of time waiting for me at the house. Being rude enough to these men to keep them away came easily to me, but with this guy I would actually need to physically shove him out of the door and brace against it to keep him out. I was of course aware that women in Kabala do not enjoy a status equal to men the way I am used to, but it was shocking to realize that men in Kabala did not take what I said very seriously. It became clear over time that many men did me the favor of conversing with me because I was a stranger, but they did not consider me a partner in conversation. A second very strange thing I experienced with men was the use of the phrase “I want to take you by force.” I had several men say this to me as though conversationally. Once this happened at the house in the presence of other women. They did not seem bothered by this statement. My best assessment of what this meant is that it is slang in Krio with a meaning similar to having victory. I noticed “take by force” on a poster in Freetown advertising a soccer match so I think these men were telling me they would “win my heart.”

Hawa's Plight

Hawa’s, a relative of Theresa’s living with her while I was there, ongoing difficulty with her husband stands out to me as a distinctively Sierra Leonean story and as having a number of aspects many Americans can identify with. Hawa’s husband, Sorie, has a history of running away and abandoning his family for periods of time. He both returned and abandoned them again while I was staying with Theresa. He had recently returned from Kono where he had been living “with a very fat woman” until she left him. His newest departure was signaled by the theft of a bag of ground nut seed belonging to the Women Against Poverty group that was stored at Theresa’s house. Sorie stole the ground nut and passed it on to his oldest son to sell in the market. Sorie took the profits and abandoned his family. If the theft of the ground nut didn’t make it clear that he was not intending to return soon his difficulties with the police did. The police had attempted to arrest him a few weeks earlier for debts he owed but Theresa persuaded them to wait since she had hired him to replace the roof on the house. The house would remain roofless if the police took Sorie away so they agreed to wait until the job was finished. He ran off the next day. Without his income, Theresa said she would not be able to support Hawa and her five children and gave Hawa until the end of the week to leave. This sent the usual stoic Hawa (she gave birth alone without so much as a peep) into a state of panic. She refused to eat. She reached out to Theresa’s daughter to advocate on her behalf. They begged money to buy a phone card and call Sorie. Sorie told them they could all die for all he cared and Theresa was adamant that it was not possible for her to continue to provide everything for all of them. It seemed that Hawa’s only option was to move back in with her parents in their village. School would not be an option for her children, but as I understood that was not one of the main issues for Hawa in moving back with her family. Her children had always had a sporadic record of attendance at school. With such a low social status from the abandonment, Hawa would likely effectively become a house/field slave in the village. She would have to work in fields living in the village unlike at Theresa’s house. I imagine rape is a constant concern for a woman in such circumstances. By the time I left, Hawa was still being allowed to stay with Theresa. I had heard that the resolution reached was that Hawa and her girls could stay, but the boys would need to leave. I have heard since that all have relocated.
Having been raised by my mother, I felt particularly upset at Hawa’s situation. It is incredibly difficult in our society for a single person to raise a family because of certain social stigmas and lack of economic opportunities and economic restraints. But in Kabala, there are almost no options for a woman to better her situation. Theresa had long encouraged Hawa to become involved in FAWA, a program which teaches women skills that should be economically beneficial such as weaving and garment dyeing. Hawa resisted becoming involved. I understand her lack of interest to be primarily based on two issues. One, I think there is a serious class stigma against women who sell certain things in the market. It would be very difficult for Hawa to go from sharing Theresa’s large home to placing herself so publicly as a merchant in the town marketplace. Two, there are so few, if any, instances that women have in their own lives of other woman who have become independent entrepreneurially. I do not think most women believe it is possible to earn money independently because they do not see any one else doing it.
In addition to my own identification with her situation, it was difficult to witness the increased discipline brought on her boys. Some blamed the oldest boy for his role in his father’s theft. Samuel, in particular, stepped in to discipline the boys. He is twenty and has had his own family broken apart by the departure of his father. His father died suddenly rather than running off, but the lack of a male head of household left him largely on his own to find money for books, school fees, etc. It requires an immense amount of maturity and good decision making to be upwardly mobile from his position – a goal which he is stridently focused on. Several times I watched all the kids in the house study. Samuel is very good at school. He clearly believes it is vital for Hawa’s boys (about 7, 8, and 10) to be successful in school in order to be successful in life. He watched over their studying, whipping their arms with a strip of tire when they were wrong or not fast enough. Several times at night I heard him whipping the boys for misbehavior. Since it was extremely disturbing to me to listen to the whipping and crying, I went over once to ask him to stop on the grounds that it was disturbing me. The boys, naked but not visibly bleeding, ran from the room. Samuel explained to me that it was not too much, that the boys had been very naughty in not obeying orders to help with housework, and they needed to be taught discipline. He was not happy for me to have intervened but fortunately it did not happen again while I was home.