A shocking lunch
on Freetown Blog (Sierra Leone), 20/Nov/2009 17:01, 34 days ago
It is Friday again and I was disappointed this morning when Dr Sandi turned up in a rather conventional shirt on the very day I took in my camera to catch the Friday dress code. Even Margaret and Hannah were not quite as colourfully dressed as usual (yes, I know the white guy looks a bit out of place, but he is trying).Shortly after this photograph was taken, Dr Sandi produced, as he sometimes does, a big plate of fried  chicken from under his desk and he and I sat down to eat it and to chat.I have often thought to myself how little people mention the war here. In the six weeks we have shared an office, the subject has rarely been raised, except in the most general terms. I knew he had been in Sierra Leone until 2001, when he went to London to study for a year, but had assumed that prior to that he had been working in the Ministry in Freetown. But as we chewed our chicken bones and swigged our coke, he told me things that shocked me more than anything I have heard since I arived, telling the story in such matter of fact terms that he might have been telling about what he did last weekend.In 1997, he was posted as Medical Superintendent of the Government hospital in the Eastern town of Kenema (see A Long Way Gone - Memoirs of a boy soldierfor a feel for the war in the Eastern Region). He stayed there for the next four years, trying to keep the hospital functioning. On one occasion, he and  one other doctor received 1200 maimed and injured in 24 hours, triaging and treating as best they could, and spending 12hours per day, 6 days per week in theatre. There were very frequent attacks on the town, and he was a target for capture by the militia - a surgeon would have been particularly valuable to the rebels in the bush.He explained how his extended family, originally from that area, had been scattered by the conflict, and how his brother had been killed in an ambush. At one point he was offered evacuation from Kenema, but the offer did not extend tohis wife and sons, so the decision to stay was not difficult. As a contingency, in case they found themselves alone, he gave each of his teenaged sons 100,000leones and told them that if ever there was an attack, they should on no account go home, but should run into the bush and go to a prearranged place where he would find them. I asked him if they had ever had to use the rendezvous point. "Many, many times", he said.When we got up to go back to our desks, he said "Tim, those were bitter times. One day when I retire, I will write a book". That makes me feel better for writing this, because I haven't asked his permission to share his story. It would have seemed trite to finish our conversation by asking "do you mind if I write about this in my blog?" I just hope that if he ever does read it, he will understand the sense of respect with which I wrote it.