Letter Two from Freetown

Despite having just arrived, we were invited to be part of the ministers’ retreat in Salone’s second city, Bo, taking place from 9 - 13 November. Tropical ‘volume’ rain could be heard on the heavy rain zinc-iron roof during the night, and it was still raining when we awoke at 5.30am. So clad in our kagools we went up to the President’s house to await our lift. Our house is at the bottom of a stone laden slope, which fortunately drains well.
We travelled with Arnold Temple, the Secretary of the Methodist Conference, and President elect. His driver collected us soon after 7am, then went to pick up Arnold, and then on to the Church office, where we waited over an hour, to make sure that the bus, taking other ministers from the Freetown area, did not leave anyone behind.
We had been to Bo, on our visit last year, and so were greatly appreciative that all but 5 miles of the 180 mile journey is now good tar-sealed roadways.
The retreat took place at the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Bo, where some people endured somewhat basic accommodation, but which provided all of us with one or other of Salone’s staples, rice or cassava (tapioca), with a soup made up of local greens, peanuts, onions, a piece of fish and chillies, twice a day. The retreat was led by a team of facilitators from the Methodist Church in Britain who had been missionaries in Sierra Leone in the 1960s-70s. Not only did they lead the retreat, but through informal conversations provided us with many stories of their time in Salone. They and we were accommodated in nearby hotel, where we were delighted to meet up with two Christian Aid workers and a team of animators, who were doing some filming for the second animated DVD, for the Methodist Youth Resource Centre, on HIV/AIDS. On one of the evenings we were given a presentation by the young people of the music and dance they use to educate rural and urban communications about the virus.
A mini bus had been provided to transport us between hotel and centre, and like many other forms of transport it had biblical texts painted on it. Others have made up slogans, or references to Allah, usually with words of encouragement. We needed them on a bus with bald tyres, lack of suspension, dodgy steering, and a make shift overhead locker, supported by a pole and wooden slats. The UK car scrappage scheme could do well here! Fortunately it got us safely back to Freetown, and we only needed to get out once, when we hit a boulder on what is referred to as the by pass, a mountainous road which passes through places where internally displaced families are still living in UNHCR tents. We passed through small towns including Gloucester and Regent, locations where anglophile Christian Krios, returning as freed slaves in the early 1800’s , settled among the hills. From there we travelled to Leicester Peak, studded with radio antennae, houses for the very affluent, the British-led International Military and Training Team (IMATT), and the imposing recently constructed American Embassy, evidently it is but a smaller version of what built in other countries. The retreat facilitators were to be housed for their last two nights in Salone at a Catholic Retreat Centre which has a 270o view of Freetown.
It was great to return to “our home” having spent only 5 nights there before going away. Fortunately beginning feeling at home is not a long process for us.