Teaching and Traditional Belief Systems.

It is amazing how a change of location and the passing of a couple of months can affect the ability to appreciate what is written on the printed page. And how, in turn, this it can influence the preparation for teaching in Salone.
“The Springs of Mende Belief and Conduct” was a book we examined in the library at The Queens Foundation, Birmingham last Autumn. I recall reading the following. “Tom Harris was one of the best missionaries I have ever known , and, I believe, one of the best missionaries there has ever been”. The writer was referring to Rev Tom Harris, who described himself as “Weslo-Catholic” and who, with his wife Daisy, had spent twenty seven years in Sierra Leone in the early part of the 20th C. This deeply committed service had resulted in a significant collection of material which became the source for much of the book that was subsequently written by Harry Sawyerr under the guidance of Andrew Walls. Sawyerr, a Salonean and Anglican Canon was in the mid 1980s, I have since discovered, the Principal of the college where teach. In the Autumn of 2009 I recall reading that Tom Harris’s health was “permanently impaired by blackwater fever” and that he died in 1959 within two years of returning to Britain. At the time I found those few words to be both chilling and humbling. Since then, the sentiment of gratitude has also been added.

Before we left Edinburgh, we had been able to send a few personal effects and a much larger quantity of book collected from Methodists in Scotland, for the benefit of the theological college library. After a few months in Freetown we discovered that the consignment of books had also included the Harris and Sawyerr title, which is hugely beneficial as we prepare teaching materials for a variety of courses, including principles of worship and pastoral theology.


A few weeks ago there was a report on the local radio of an incident which involved “paw paw guns”. The shape of individual papayas /‘paw paw’ fruit, offers varies little, but associating them with the image of a gun is not an obvious suggestion. The ‘gun’ element refers to the lethal impact of the wide range of items that have been seized by the police in what is reported as “a crackdown on Witch Doctors” by the Standard Times.

At the ‘Up-Gun roundabout’ in the eastern part of Freetown, the “weapons of terror” are on display to potential clients with the claim that they are agents of the devil and can wreak havoc on people wherever they find themselves. The newspaper reported that, “Relatives of the victims claim that the shots from these ‘paw paw guns’ have left their siblings with rare diseases, sometimes leading to their death.” One woman explained her ordeal and the death of her husband last January in a family dispute over land. Her husband was targeted by his uncle who enlisted the support of a Witch Doctor when he refused to part with some of the real estate bequeathed to him by his late father. Adding, “My husband was inflicted with a rare disease, we took him to all the hospitals in Freetown but with no success. But after his death, his uncle’s wife confessed about the involvement of Witch Doctors in his death.”

The Standard Times claims that in Salone “belief in traditional black magic and witchcraft remains widespread and ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts is rampant”. The newspaper claims that the business of black magic sorcerers, who inflict pain, has soared to an unprecedented degree, prompting the newspaper to protest at the decision of the government, to enlist the support of the Sierra Leone Traditional Healers Association to help them weed out these witch doctors. “How can you put a rat in charge of a grain yard? was the question asked.

When the population of Salone contains a significant percentage of people who adhere to traditional African religion, recognition must be given to the fact that those who adhere to the Christian or Islamic faith are also very aware of practices of traditional religion and animism. Therefore such world views influence the reception and practice of Islam and Christianity and the perception of health, well being, life and death. Such awareness goes to the heart of any course on pastoral studies, especially for those being trained as ministers in one of the many different denominations that are represented at SLTC & CTC.


Harris’s field work took place during his pastoral ministry in the most eastern part of the Mende region, which Sawyerr, working in Freetown, elaborated upon some two decades later, with the publishing of the book in 1968. The book contains only four photographs, one of them is of a Nomoli, a small soapstone piece of sculpture, that for the Mende, possesses the power to protect a field and crop against witchcraft, (see photograph). To do this, it must be placed on an ant hill during the preparation of the land and thereafter a white chicken is sacrificed and its entrails mixed with palm-oil and rice before being smeared over the nomoli. It is then buried in the ground where, hidden from view, its efficacy serves as a symbol of protection that is unearthed at harvest and thanksgiving is offered to the nomoli for its protection against hostile agencies.

It was in the city of Bo, the centre of the Mende region, where I first caught a glimpse of a nomoli. It was being offered for sale by an elderly man, who I met, but hesitated long enough for him to disappear from sight before we could initiate a trade. Now a few months later, having seen other crudely carved examples, a fine nomoli sits in a prominent place in our house. It serves not to protect against those who might be in possession of paw-paw guns but as a reminder when preparing classes, that the hidden value systems of the students’ world view, must be given serious consideration if the harvest of a good and appropriate theological education is to be realised.

Diamonds are not all footballers’ best friend!

There will be few readers who have not heard of, or seen, the 2006 film Blood Diamonds, which in true Hollywood style, uses the big star status of Leonardo DiCaprio, for a drama based on the little gems that played a central role in Salone’s decade long, civil war. Another film Diamonds, made two years later by a Canadian-South African consortium, addresses the global trade of diamonds in a more thorough but no less entertaining manner. In doing so it gets closer to the ethical complexities of the industry and the paradox, of how such a tiny, geological feature, that is both revered with aesthetic awe and ruthlessly prized financially, was also the epicentre of geo-political madness and human brutality in West Africa and Salone. The current trial in the Hague of Charles Taylor of Liberia, for crimes against humanity committed in Salone, is a reminder that justice and peace building take a long time to be accomplished, internationally and locally.

Diamonds were the heart of the nation’s exports for most of the 20th Century, with sometimes close on two hundred thousand Saloneans mining gems from alluvial sources in the far east of the country. Not surprisingly, the miners, legal or illegal, have not been the major beneficiaries of a trade that has drawn in, not just international mining companies and traders, but mercenaries and others forms of ‘security’.

Today the nation’s mining interests are expanding and include rutile (titanium dioxide) and iron ore, but in a new piece of legislation, the Mining Act 2009, special attention is being given to ensuring that greater control is exercised in the mining and trading of diamonds. The Salonean government, along with over 50 other countries is committed to The Kimberley Process, which is intended to rid the world of illegal, rough cut, conflict free/blood diamonds. The current legal trade in Salonean diamonds is estimated to be worth around £100 million, whilst the United Mineworkers Union is struggling to establish a minimum wage of £1.20 a day. It is therefore not surprising that with the unjust labour conditions, the illegal mining and trade of diamonds is still considered highly prevalent and worryingly problematic.

Freetown couldn’t be much further from the minefields of Koidu and though the country’s international airport is near to Freetown, the corridor for the illegal diamond trade has been traditionally through Liberia to Europe, and in particular Antwerp. This phenomenon may be one reason why Liberia is the only West African nation to remit more money than it receives, with the beneficiaries being residents of the United States.

Frequent reference is made to the ongoing affects that the civil war is still having on the recovery of the socio-economic progress for the nation and its people. Those who have visited the country intermittently since the war, speak of the visible signs of restoration in buildings and institutions and the ease of mobility on the roads across the country.

The War Affected Amputees Association of Sierra Leone has branches in most of Salone’s towns and cities and in North America and Europe too. The organisation includes many who were children under the age of I0 when they lost an arm, a leg or more than one of both. Today in Salone, many of those who lost limbs and their childhood too, are committed to affirming the need for a continuing peace. For some this includes the promotion of sport and some are currently touring the country holding football matches* as means of promoting an ongoing peace. Despite the need for crutches and in a few cases a prosthesis, there are no shortage of talented footballers who want to play for the love of the game and not the desire to emulate the stars of English premier league some of whom, sport a diamond or two in their ears!

* http://www.ampsoccer.org/nation_sites/sierra-leone/index.htm and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6346363.stm

Early morning contrasts

An untypical gloomy morning, with heavy cloud almost offering rain, created a host of images which had been less evident on previous journeys into the city.
Children, young people and adults emerge from humble homes, up the hillside or down in a ravine and today the luminosity of the children’s shirts and blouses are all the more vivid. The smallest of the children are burdened with oversized rucksacks that are manageable only because they are largely empty. Whereas the neatly dressed and immaculately coiffured young women, with plaited, extended or relaxed hair, suffer no impediment in looking chique.

Together, they arrive at the kerbside unnoticed by the car washer, who is stripped to the waist and hurling water at a dusty car using cupped hands, or the man who wields a machete to remove the husk from but one of the thirst quenching green coconuts being prepared for sale.


In the semi gloom, luridly green and orange coloured bottled drinks, sitting on a fragile wooden stall, advertise their availability for a quick sugar rush. Whilst next to them a mini pyramid of cerise coloured cola-nuts, offer a brief high and dulling of appetite/hunger for much longer.


A hunger and thirst for education and schools to provide it, requires that even limited space is used to erect the fragile classrooms that are located at various distances along the road. In one, the pre-school assembly is led by singing teenagers and the rhythmic clapping, tunes and lyrics are that of the ‘shouts’ and choruses heard in many churches.

On the road, an over chromed jeep’s progress is impeded by a wooden hand cart. With cumbersome car tyres, a “rag-n-bone” activity has already collected a few heavy items of metal, causing the two men in charge to lean-into the pushing of their load. The cart’s space on the road is challenged by aggressive poda-poda (mini-bus) drivers and threatened by exuberant okada (motor bike) riders, who offer the pillion place as a taxi service and then choose to weave at speed through the inevitable congestion.

Together the poda- podas and okadas display a commercial dis-courtesy that is not evident among other motorists, including taxis drivers, who give way to pedestrians crossing a road in manner that is at times heart warming.
On reaching the city centre the sellers of newspapers become evident, carrying a small quantity of at least five newspaper titles, of which the customer is expected to buy at least three. Apparently no newspaper has a circulation in excess of 1,000 and there are more than twenty titles published on weekdays only and the cost of the most expensive is only 2,000 Leones (34p). Be it an 8 or 12 page publication and usually in monochrome, it relies financially on governmental announcements and commercial advertising. And the content is largely devoid of investigative journalism and local news but includes at least two pages of Premiership football news, lifted directly from the British press!