A lot has happened in the last few days; I’ll try my best to sum it up but I’m sure I’m going to miss out on some things. On Friday, I got to see some of the government buildings and spent the day in Freetown walking and taking in the daily life. First of all, Sierra Leoneans know and understand the hustle. Walking through Victoria Park (which is a strip with stalls on both sides), literally someone from every single stall approached us saying; “Eh, Friend/Sista how di bodi? Please, come look whetin we get fo sell. Yu nu haf fo buy, but please come look eh?” Once you went over and looked, they attempted to put merchandise on you, explain to you how good you looked in what they were selling and even offered to lower the original price. Victoria Park is about 200 yards long and we were stopped at every single stall. No exceptions.
I also managed to get a cellphone – a throwback Nokia. I think I’ve spent much more time reliving my childhood by playing Snake than actually calling and talking to people. I’m not ashamed to admit it; it’s one of the greatest games of all time.
In the afternoon, we went and surprised my Aunty Feyi at her restaurant. Great thing about restaurants in Salone is that to me, the food is all home cooked. That being said, eating Jollof rice and stew in a restaurant was a new, and delicious experience. Clearly, I’m her favorite nephew so we got the food for free.
Going back to the part about Sierra Leoneans knowing how to hustle, when we were traveling through Victoria Park I saw a lot of the necklaces and chains that I used to wear as a kid. I got these necklaces from my Aunty Feyi when she came to visit me in England. Now, the necklaces were being sold on the street market for about 1000 Leones. To give you some kind of context, $1 = 4000Leones. When Aunty Feyi came to London, she brought a ton of those necklaces with her – she gave me one and I wore it to school and of course all the other kids asked me about it and also wanted to know how they could be more like me. I told Aunty about it and Aunty Feyi then began selling the necklaces for £1 (British currency, £1 approximately equals $1.50 so essentially a 600% markup) every day after school and made bank. It’s what I call true hustler’s spirit.
Anyway, on Friday night I had my first near death experience. My Aunt has 4 dogs and of the 4 the meanest one is named Lucky. He doesn’t take kindly to people he doesn’t know trying to pet him and the only way for you to get on his good side is to give him some of your own food. I had only been there for a day so I really hadn’t gotten the chance to offer my bribes to Lucky. Anyway, that night I planned on making some food around midnight thinking that nobody would be awake. Where my room is, I have to go outside to get to the kitchen and it just so happens that Lucky loves to sleep in front of the door that leads into the kitchen. I didn’t know this, but I do now – my midnight cravings are going to have to wait until I get back to America. As I came up the stairs and turned the corner I saw Lucky laying in front of the door but didn’t think anything of it, he definitely had an issue with me though. First he growled (but his eyes were closed so I just thought he was dreaming), then he got up and looked me dead in the eyes and started to charge. It had rained earlier so I had an umbrella with me and I opened it up and started swinging (I read somewhere that you’re supposed to make yourself as big as possible when getting attacked by a mountain lion, so I guess in my “flight or fight” mode this is my default course of action. I wonder how I would’ve done this without the umbrella). He backed up and I backed up and I decided that I wasn’t even hungry anymore and that I could’ve taken him if I wanted to but I just didn’t want to of course. Needless to say, Lucky and I haven’t really spoken to each other after The Incident - we’re more polite than anything. Hopefully we can turn over a new leaf but until then every time I need to go outside after 9pm I carry a big stick with me.
Saturday morning while at breakfast, Mohamed (the caretaker of my dad’s land) came to see me. I wasn’t expecting him and so said good morning and didn’t pay attention to him when he walked in the kitchen until he walked up to me and introduced himself. When I was younger, my dad purchased land in Sierra Leone and started developing the property. It’s hard to build and develop when you’re not actually in Sierra Leone so he hired a caretaker to help him and to help guard the property. As a child, this man was named “Mr. Mohamed”. In all actuality Mohamed was probably 15 or 16 when he started working for my dad so we were a lot closer in age than I actually knew and so it was a shock to put a name to the face. Anyway, that morning when he came we dropped everything and went to see my dad’s land. It was my first time on the property even though I’ve always known about it and it was amazing to see it in person. The land is beautiful and overlooks the city. It’s a small hill, and on the top of the hill is our house. Mohamed took really good care of the land and I could tell by the way he spoke to me about what he wanted to improve and build that he had a real passion for the place. I think now that I’ve actually had a chance to see the land I too can help my dad to work on it – hopefully it’ll be completely developed in 5 or 6 years such that whenever we come to Sierra Leone we’ll have our own house to stay in.
Saturday night brought a taste of Sierra Leonean nightlife. My cousin’s friend threw a Moroccan themed birthday party. Now the better part of the day had been spent with my cousins as they tried to find something to wear for this party. I didn’t need to buy anything ‘Moroccan’ because I usually can come up with something creative with what I have. Wearing blue jeans and a black polo to the party, when we got to the house we realized it was going to be an outdoor party. The setup was amazing; there were candles everywhere and mini tables around a dance floor with cushions to sit on the floor – there was even a Moroccan styled bed. However, it is the rainy season and about 20 minutes into the party it began to rain. Heavily. The party was ‘protected’ by a tent made of trash bags so about 25 minutes into the party, the ‘tent’ caved in. Luckily, I had noticed that it was about to give way so Jordan, Namina and I moved to where we wouldn’t get hit by the downpour. After about an hour the rain stopped and the party continued. All in all the rest of the night went really well; highlight of the night was a Muslim guy who got so drunk that he faced east and got on his hands and knees and began to pray in the middle of the dancefloor. Pretty sure he didn’t make it back that night.
Sunday it rained all day so we just watched movies and chilled. If you’ve never seen A Time to Kill you need to reevaluate your life and hit up Netflix or your neighborhood blockbuster. Jordan introduced me to that movie and I owe her my life for it.
Monday morning means I start my research – I’ll be heading to the Sierra Leone School of Medicine and then to Connaught hospital to begin data collection and my first set of interviews. My first 3 days in Sierra Leone have been a great introduction to what I think will be an amazing chapter of my life.
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