In Which The Sun Sets on ICT
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 25/Sep/2010 06:01, 34 days ago
At 7.30am my room phone rings. I contemplate not answering it (the last time it rang, at stupid o’clock, there was no one on the line, though I could hear TV in the background). I do this time, though, and it’s reception telling me there’s a message from the school to say we have to be there at 8am and I am to let everyone know. Obviously I’m up, but haven’t been for breakfast yet (just been using the Wifi and eating Christmas 2010 limited edition Chocolate Orange in bed), so I place an order with the slooow restaurant, then go round knocking on doors. Everyone, with the exception of Cheryl, is up, but no one is best pleased at the change of plans, especially when we find out all the others knew last night.We get to VSO on time (through light rain) but of course nothing kicks off for another half hour, when Rick (aka the British High guy, if you believe Kapanga) turns up for a mini lecture on what the High Commission here does, and why we should try not to die of Malaria. He is about 12 years old, and once he leaves we quickly establish he must have gone to Oxbridge, and then debate whether it was Eton, Harrow or where before that.Then it’s field trip time. We get put in taxis and sent to the bank. There is a lot of traffic, but our driver clearly thinks we’re in a hurry, so swerves onto the other side of the road and cuts ahead of all the other cars. He pulls in to drop us off and there’s an ominous clunk that sounds like thebottom of his car has just fallen out. It’s not, quite, but his wheels are stuck down some far too wide metal slats in a grate. In the bank, the fun continues. The office have not brought our photos. Beth and I have our own, having refused to hand over more when we arrived, since we’ve alreadysent 10+ to London. The process of getting an account involves presenting a letter from VSO saying we have an ‘income’, filling in (by hand) a card, sticking on a photo, and then having it laminated. It all seems very...hand made. And yet, when we then queue up to pay in money (armed only with our account nums as the cards aren’t ready yet), we’re already in the system and I get a printed deposit receipt with my name on it.We taxi back to the school bit by bit and then sit and wait for almost 2 hours because everyone has disappeared and no one quite knows what’s going on. Luckily we have enough to talk about. Like Colleen and Wayne. And Jordan and Alex. And ugly men in general. Lunch arrives, and then we have a session on corruption, essentially the same as online RoV. Then it’s final Krio lesson and we get him to explain things like greetings and directions since the text book doesn’t cover these (though I do now know the Krio words for ‘co-wife’, ‘body lice’ and ‘winnowing basket’, not to mention 3 completely different words for eggplant...The hotel posse head out to Roy’s once more, this time finding a short cut down to the beach through a compound / shanty town and past some children with beautiful English accents. Along the way we see more signs offering a competition to win 500,000 Leones ‘for the rest of your life’. The cynic in me thinks that’s fine when life expectancy is so short...We arrive just in time for the sunset, and have a great view from the beachside restaurant. Prices here are just crazy, even though this is one of the more sensibly priced places. It seems wrong that it costs me£3.22 for a Greek salad, but I can get a (shared) taxi anywhere for just 14p. It also seems a tad wrong that a Greek salad is a normal salad, in very precise layers (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers) with a topping of grated cheese, grated carrot, a few olives and a massive spring of parsley, all served on a plate the size of a saucer.