Timing is Everything

I am quickly adapting the the slow pace of life here. In Africa you never arrive late, you arrive later. A local guy explained this phenomenon better than I could: “In the UK you are on GMT, here you are on BMT (Black Man Time).”

So the training continues to go well, if a little long. The language classes are good and hopefully useful, though there are not many of them. It gets insanely hot at lunch time and I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on anything other than drinking water.

Freetown is going to be a little hard to leave behind when I go to Makeni. I have made some good friends here already; with other volunteers, some expats and most importantly, local people. The neighbours around the house I am living in are great, I spend ten minutes greeting them everytime I leave or enter the house, and the kids are inquisitive and affectionate. There is a small lad named Ibrahim (4 years old at a guess) who sprints towards me on sight so I can pick him up and carry him. Most of them are very poor and living in makeshift shacks. The good news is I can stay in this house everytime I come to the Capitol which will be often.

One of the lads had his 19th birthday on Saturday night, and they invited Laura and I to a “lollipop party.” Neither of us had an idea of what this entailed, but we were told to buy lots of lollipops and be ready for them to pick us up at about 10pm. Everytime we asked someone what it was all about they just laughed and thought it was hilarious that we didn't know. When the time came we were sitting in the house and we heard the sounds of whistles in the distance looming closer. We went outside to find about twenty young men all blowing on lollipop whistles. They took our hands (people here love physical contact, and its common for two guys to walk around holding hands) and we departed into the night. For the next hour we joined them in walking around the slum areas, blowing our whistles and shouting “LOLLIPOP!” as loud as we could. People would come rushing out of their shacks and we would give them a lollipop each. It was like Halloween in reverse; walking around town giving out sweets. I really enjoyed it, if only for the chance to walk around an area I would never have went near at night, safe in the knowledge that I was the token whiteboy in a Salonean posse.

Life without electricity is proving ok, I struggle more without the running water. It gets a real chore carrying large buckets about and it makes me appreciate how much water we actually use at home. It pays to conserve here, a “bucket shower” can be reused to flush a toilet for example.

I messed up my foot a little bit walking home at night; the combination of no street lights and terrible roads led me my taking a small chunk out of my big toe. I have learned the hard way to take my time!

Which brings us back to time. In some ways I am very settled and I feel like I have been here for ages. I haven't even seen Makeni yet, but I have met a few people who are going home soon and they all pass on the same message; this year is going to fly by!