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on Shona in Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone), 04/Nov/2010 21:53, 34 days ago
Bunce IslandA couple of weekends ago all the hospital NGOs (Welbodi, Cap Anamur and VSO) hired a Pelican water taxi and went to visit Bunce Island– where the old slave fort was/still is although very run down. For those of you who have seen the film Amistad – this is the fort that the good old Brits blow up at the end of the film after the abolition of slavery. We had a great journey and then were shown around by the caretaker – in fluent Krio! Luckily Sandra could translate what we couldn’t understand. After a really interesting tour we headed back to the buzzing traffic of Freetown and off to Alex’s at Lumley beach for dinner and drinks.Weird and Interesting things in FreetownSo the Chinese have decided they are kindly going to make the main road out the west side of Freetown into a dual carriageway. In principle this is a good idea; the traffic is dreadful and the current road is full of potholes. In practice it means they have had to knock down large chunks of walls, buildings, peoples’ front rooms, even a great restaurant has been knocked down! (we are reassured that it will open again soon as the kitchen is still standing!) So now there are piles of rubble all over the place by the road and the West side of Freetown looks like Beirut. Or maybe people in Beirut would say thattheir city looks like Freetown (meaning I shouldn’t make judgements on places I haven’t been – as so many people make judgements on SL – like thinking there’s still a war going on – which there isn’t and hasn’t been for 8 years!)I was in a supermarket earlier in the week and saw some imported magazines and newspapers! I stood astonished for a moment, then realised that The Sunday Times was actually from August! And cost the equivalent of£5. I think I’ll make do with the BBC webpage to keep me updated from time to time…Another weird thing was probably us! Beth (another VSO) is a qualified yoga instructor. She arranged a class for us last Sunday so some of us did yoga on the beach as the sun was going down. It was just so relaxing, but also really funny as we had crowds watching us, and a few people also who joined in!