Through the eyes of visitors.

When living and working overseas there is always a sense of eager anticipation when you are about to receive a visit of family or close friends, who for a short period will be sharing your new habitat with you for the first time. Such visits are even more significant when the people concerned have visited you in numerous locations over several decades and in the case of Barry and Jan Eldred, had shared our own first-time encounter with Salone fifteen months previously. What follows are their impressions from a visit that was initiated by a conference on literacy held in Freetown in late February. What is not, and cannot be included, is a full account of the hours of conversation that emerge in reflections and analysis of the cross-cultural encounters, which inevitably flow at the end of the day.



“To get to Janice and Peter’s new home from the UK involved an overnight journey to Heathrow, 6+ hours flight to Lungi Airport in Sierra Leone; a short bumpy mini-bus ride to a simple wooden jetty; a 35 minute water taxi ride in a motor launch which hits the waves with force and a 45 minute wait at the quay side until we realised that the text we had sent to Janice and Peter never got there. After a friendly negotiation with the booking official who called a taxi and agreed to accompany us we drove into the city to The Old Railway Line (the name of J and P’s road) where the driver enquired of a group of women sitting outside a Methodist Church where the Methodist compound might be. They directed us to the Christian Churches of Sierra Leone compound where we enquired where Reverend Peter might be living and, sure enough, they were able to direct us to The Methodist Compound, 19A The Old Railway Line. The gateman ensured that we were expected and the familiar, welcoming voices of Janice and Peter rang through the warm night air; we’d arrived! They were dismayed that we had not been able to contact them but we were all delighted with the care, consideration and guidance offered by the local people to ensure we were safely delivered to our destination.

This tone of care, respect, interest, politeness and good humour are lasting features of this, our second visit to Sierra Leone.


We had accompanied J and P on their discernment visit to Sierra Leone in November 2008 and now we were able to see how well they are settling into their new home and work. It was opportune because Jan had been invited to speak at a conference on Family Learning and Literacy in Freetown, organised by the British Association for Literacy in Development and hosted by the British Council; Barry agreed to carry the bags and we extended our stay by a week in order to spend some ‘quality’ time with our ‘old’ friends. The 2 day conference was stimulating; a great opportunity to make links and network and resulted in resolutions for action. Janice and Elizabeth, from the MC Training and Skills project, were able to attend too. The following week was spent in a mixture of activities meeting adult literacy and learning organisers and providers; visiting the Training and Skills project; talking with the Institute of Sierra Leonean Languages (of which there are 16); taking part in a Krio literacy class and discussing and debating how best adult literacy and adult learning could/should be provided in a context of development and many competing resource priorities. We visited an HIV-AIDS support group – approximately 130 people, organised by the MCSL, heard moving testimonies about living positively and stimulated interest in possible adult or family literacy learning (30 people immediately put up their hands to express interest and we estimated 80% of attendees signed in with a thumb print). We talked with health workers and learned of the realities of child mortality and maternal health but also how the opportunities for training can have a huge impact, such as through the introduction of triage in a hospital. We took gifts and letters from Mary Jefferson and have a bag of tie-dye products as well as letters to return to her.



How best to use aid/donations/support was a recurring theme of our conversations. Should industrialised nations offer aid at all except in emergency situations? Does it encourage dependency? Does it encourage power relationships which developing nations don’t need and want? Does aid distort what developing nations really want to do? What position should churches take when they want to respond with care and compassion but don’t always see the best way to express it? We recalled both the writings of Dabiso (Dead Aid) and Pasini (The Wisdom of Whores) in challenging received/perceived wisdom about how best to work in partnerships between industrialised and developing nations and communities. We were able to have a lunchtime conversation with Steven Poxon and John Spencer from the North Lancashire District of the MC as they passed through Freetown en route to Kailahun where another Training Workshop, supported by the MC, was being opened and dedicated; the same issues arose and were aired.



But it wasn’t all celebral! For Barry there was an international football match in the national stadium and numerous personal conversations with some of the thousands of stall holders and street traders, keen to tell their stories and even offer to have their photos taken. (Unusual in a city where most people are shouted at and threatened for taking photos in the street.) We shared worship on Sunday morning – albeit brief because the real celebration was to be a church family picnic on the beach- and an early morning Ash Wednesday service in the guts of a new, large, partly built, M Church in the city centre. We had several beach walks at Lumley – a long white strand close to the city – and a day at No. Two River Beach where the idyllic setting is run by a village co-operative including car-parking, thatched open-sided round houses to provide shade and hospitality, chairs and umbrellas and freshly cooked lunch on a beach most of us only imagine in our dreams or, at best, see in brochures.



However, we were constantly reminded of the abject material poverty of this country; the unmade roads, the rubbish, the unclean water and the daily challenges of simply surviving in a context of massive unemployment and no welfare support. This is the setting in which Janice and Peter are living, teaching at the Theological College and working with and alongside the Methodist Church, as well as other faith communities, to have the greatest possible influence on change. We were impressed by how they have created a welcoming home, with good food, laughter and their inimitable hospitality, in spite of non-drinkable water and intermittent power supplies, endless dust, unremitting heat and the nightly calls of the dogs and the goats which roam the compound. They are relaxed, energised and clearly in their ‘zone’. We are delighted that our joint discernment visit of 2008 seems to have resulted in the potential for great rewards and satisfaction for all in the mission partnership.”
Jan and Barry Eldred
February 2010