An Afternoon in Kailahun

About 3 pm, the clouds move in and the humidity rises. I’m sitting at my desk. Out of the window directly in front of me I watch women and children balances buckets on their heads as they go back and forth from the river. Through the open door to my right I can see the massive mango tree that shades our office. The temperature directly under this tree is always a blissful few degrees cooler than anywhere else. Now the leaves are beginning to tremble and in a moment the whole tree is shaking in the wind and ripe mangoes are falling like rain. Everyone is laughing and chasing to catch the sweet fruit. Then the rain pours down, sending everyone except the children inside. The children continue to chase the mangoes and then begin to dance in the rain. They are thin, except for swollen bellies, and they are getting the only clothes they own soaked, but they are laughing and playing like children do everywhere.
When the rain stops I get on the motorbike with A., my colleague, and head for the market. There are no stores in Kailahun – as we know of them North America – but there are clusters of stalls that sell the basic necessities - plus hair products, cigarettes, and coco cola. We have an appointment at a stall that sells fabric. Earlier in the week the women who own the stall expressed interest in joining the credit union – the microfinance scheme the organization I’m working with is facilitating. I watch as the lady now puts her thumb print on the signature line – over 90 percent of the women in Kailahun are illiterate. As A. explains how to save and access loans, I listen to the hum a diesel generator somewhere, reggae music, children laughing, motorcycle horns, and neighbours calling out the constant greeting in the local language, ‘Kiegoma’ (thank God).
We cross the road and head to another potential member’s house. We walk carefully through the muddy paths between homes that are one third dilapidated building, one third mud hut, and one third adobe house. We find the lady we have come to see leaning over a huge pile of laundry, wearing just a wrap around her waist – there is little bother with modesty here. She is a laughing, joyful woman, who has great influence in the community. She is one of the most prosperous business women, but to my North American eyes her home is poor. There are only a few wooden benches for furniture: there is no electricity, no running water. Everything is the same mud colour. The children stand in doorways wearing only dirty bits of clothes. Still she produces the initial savings to join the credit union (about $20, an amount many people struggle for) and we are grateful to have such a positive influence onboard.
It’s seven pm by the time we are done and I hurriedly ride my bike home before dark. I’m not worried about crime, but about the motorcycles who are dangerous enough when they can see me. I discover the real threat though is the bugs that splatter into my face as I try to navigate the muddy street. By the time I reach home I have swallowed at least three of them.
As I pull in to the yard I hear, ‘Mrs. Juillette’ chorusing out of the darkness. I have taken pains to teach the children to call me by my name instead of ‘pumwi’ (which means white person). However, as Juilette is much more common here than Julia, somehow I have become Mrs. Juilette. Along with the sing song voices come smiling laughing faces and outstretched palms. One at a time I gently hold each palm face up, tracing circles with my finger singing ‘around, around the garden goes the teddy bear...’ It was my favourite game when I was little and when I introduced it to a toddler here it became an instant hit - I now repeat this game at least a couple times a day.
Tonight I’ll eat avocado, bread and mango for dinner, and then fall asleep exhausted. Sometime around 3 am I will wake up and think ‘oh it is cool’, and then fall back asleep. Tomorrow it will be another day in Kailahun.

Snap Shot from Kailahun

First some context: According to the Human Development Report Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world. Kailahun (the town where I am based) is the in the poorest region of Sierra Leone. This is largely because this was a rebel strong hold during the civil war that lasted from 1993 to 2003.
Everywhere there are children with extended stomachs, young girls balancing babies on their backs and water on their head. There are the skeletons of bombed out buildings. I’ve seen two rusted tanks – one with ‘For sale’ spray painted on the side. There are many people with amputated limps.
Despite all of this one of the first words I would use to describe Kailahun is ‘peaceful’. Partly because it is so far away from any hustle and bustle, because the stars aren’t drowned out by electrical lights, because fresh sweet fruit grows naturally. But also because people are quiet but kind, they work hard (so very very hard), and everyone seems determined to build this into a better place. Perhaps I still have an idealised version of the place, not yet grasping the nuances, but that is my first impression.
Where do I fit into this world? I’m not too sure yet. I start working at a local NGO this week, where I’ll be designing and implementing a study to inform a business plan for further program development, but I haven’t figured out the details yet. In the evenings I sit on my little porch and open my book – by the time I’ve read two pages the neighbourhood children have congregated in front of my smiling and laughing. I try to talk with them but so far I have only gotten far enough to learn their names and if they go to school or not. Mostly they just watch me. They have no toys, TVs or video games so I guess I’m their new source of entertainment (Rezi, another Canadian, and I are the only two foreigners here from what I can tell so we are quite the novelty).
One final snap shot from Kailahun: Its Easter Monday and Rezi (another Canadian and I) are told there is a ‘celebration’. Our colleagues pick us up on motorbikes and we jump on back. Soon we are bouncing over the bumpy dirt roads as the landscape of palm trees and cocoa trees passes by. We get to the banks of a broad river, which we are told divides Sierra Leone from Guinea. There are about 100 people either sitting in the shade drinking coco cola and star beer, or dancing beneath the trees. There is a sound system and a generator. We have no choice but to join the dancing, despite the fact half the people are staring at us - the new comers. It’s a surreal experience – dancing in the late afternoon heat under the jungle shade, beside a tropical river on Easter Monday.