ClarkServInSalone

The Start of the End at Advent

2011-11-27T16:15:00.035Z

Dear Friends

It is just over two years since we arrived to work in Sierra Leone. Our contract is for a period of two years, and so we have extended it by just a few weeks to complete all the semester work at the Theological College, including attending graduation, marking of exams, and handing over of marks for the semester.

All of these will be finalised by 18 Dec, which is the date we leave Freetown, to have 5+ weeks of the local leave we have not taken ‘in-country’, in Spain. We will then return to Britain on 6 Feb, for 3 months of ‘furlough’ which includes a number of speaking engagements in various parts of the UK, during which time we will be living in the Pickering area of North Yorkshire. From the beginning of May, Peter will be involved in the Pickering circuit, and both of us will be doing some advocacy work for the Methodist World Church Relations in the York and Hull District. At the end of August, Peter officially ‘sits down’, a phrase used by the Methodist Church, referring to retirement. Janice has been receiving her pension for 6 years and so Peter joins her in receiving a similar monthly payment into our bank account, and to no longer be in financially remunerated employment!

During the last year, since we last wrote to you, there have been changes insome of the activities that we are involved in. As a result of Daro sending us a UK newspaper article on the conditions in Freetown Central Prison, Peter has been engaged for most of this year with the prison’s inter-religious chaplaincy team. Just prior to our departure the work will conclude with a training day on the continuing development of chaplaincy work in general and on enabling a better understanding on the relationship between chaplaincy and the country’s Correction Services. As an example of mission, this has been a very, fulfilling time for Peter, not only working with the chaplains, but having discussions with the senior management of the prison services to explore how chaplaincy can assist in alleviating some of the effects of appalling conditions, as well as exploring the potential of incoming generating work by prisoners. The Methodist Relief and Development Fund offered a sum of money for humanitarian relief in Sierra Leone, and this has been distributed in the form of food aid to the families of prisoners living in the provinces, where food security is problem, especially during the ‘hungry season’.

We are now attached to the Wilberforce Circuit of the Methodist Church Sierra Leone,(MCSL), a circuit that has excellent leadership, which is discovering more of its history and what it means to be part of a connexion. Both of us travel around the circuit six churches to lead worship service, and once a month Peter chairs the leaders’ meeting at the church in Goderich, a fishing village, which like many other places along the coast has a beautiful beach.

This newsletter was started the day before a group of four people from the British Methodist Church arrived, to join the Methodist Church Sierra Leone, as it celebrated 200 years of missionary engagement between Britain and Sierra Leone. The Methodist Church is somewhat older than this, as the freed slaves, on their return to Africa, to what was then The Colony, to be later called Freetown, brought with them the various Christian traditions they had encountered in their places of bondage. So it was, that those who were Methodists, appealed to the Methodist Church in Britain to send them some helpers, and on 12 November 1811 Rev George Warren, Thomas Hirst, Jonathon Raynor, and John Healey stepped off the boat ‘The Traveller’ onto the shores of Sierra Leone. Peter has been the chair of the celebrations committee and during the last 8 months there has been various events including a lecture and a service to commemorate the four men leaving the shores of Liverpool. Warren Memorial Church was packed for the service of celebration, with the choir singing an anthem written by one of their members for 200^th anniversary of the church, and identifying with some of their ancestors in the faith as the congregation left the church to the music of a hymn from the Caribbean.

Janice’s contact with the MCSL Support Group for people living with HIV continued during the year. The main work has been with the Literacy Facilitators and small community groups. The facilitators are waiting to hear whether they will be accredited by PADECO, the organisation that trained them in 2010, and also gave them a refresher course this year. The process of handing over the project to a small group is almost complete, with the new name of Family Literacy, realising that the improvement of parental literacy impacts on the life of a family.

As a result of the subjects that Janice has taught in the college, she is part of the staff group that observes students on teaching practice, in Junior Secondary Schools ie forms 1-3. The supervision has taken her to the Methodist Boys’ High School, and to three other secondary schools. All have classes of over 50 students, with a number of them not having sufficient seats for all the students to sit down. Tertiary and secondary school teachers have, at various times during the year, been on strike, due to not being paid on time, to lack of a pay increase and improvement in working conditions. The government has offered them a “package” but the motivation for quality teaching, which encourages student participation in the learning, understanding and application process is not very common. Students’ passivity, compliance and lack of interest are disturbing, as well as the teachers’ lack of confidence to do anything that make break this model.

As we prepare to leave Sierra Leone, we are grateful for the privilege of working here, and depart realising that anything that we have done is but a drop in the nearby Atlantic Ocean. The passages of slave trade era continue to have indelible marks on the nation we leave behind. Global poverty and the lack of employment for young people are compounded by a scarcity of clean water and electricity and the high maternal and infant mortality. In stark contrast, roads with cavernous holes support numerous four-wheel drive vehicles, and privately owned prestigious cars, that are parked on the drives of the luxurious houses being constructed at a rapid rate further up the hillsides of Freetown. With national elections due to take place in 2012, a vital step away from the recent history of conflict and civil war, we will watch in the hope that the time of preparation and voting will be one of peace. This will be significant in determining if the eventual outcome is accepted by both loser and winner. We pray that that those given responsibility will work honestly and with integrity. The hope of Africa is that the nation’s leadership will in turn enthuse the people to realise their own responsibility, to not just recognise the challenges that they face, but to be innovative, creative, and hardworking for a society that becomes more self reliant, and that each person realises their God - given full potential.

Advent Blessings

Janice and Peter

Contact details:

clark.janice@gmail.com and peterclark47@googlemail.com

(from 6.Feb.2012): c/o Rosemary Wass, The Green, Fadmoor, York YO627HD, U K

Freetown Central Prison – Today'sRights, Past Wrongs

2011-10-30T17:27:00.011Z

Just inside the perimeter walls of Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, England, there was in the early 1980s, an obscure semi circle of rough concrete. Surrounded by black tarmacadam, its greyness almost glared at the passer-by, as a silent announcement of the location of the prison’s gallows. The last execution performed by the apparatus of the State was that of 19 year old James Farell, on 29 the March 1949. The ageing concrete is the only epitaph to him and his predecessors, and yet I never saw anyone step on the unscripted tombstone.

Known as ‘Pademba Road Prison’, Freetown’s Central Prison, is an imposing structure like that of Winson Green Prison. It borders a major traffic artery of the city, but is closed to Prison Service vehicles for a considerable time each night, isolating the prison and its history. The life of the Pademba Road Prison maybe short in comparison with Winson Green Prison but the stories of those who inhabited and died within it are no less disturbing.

In Freetown on 19 July 1975, it was reported that fourteen men, all of them senior army and government officials, had been executed, having been found guilty of treason. The fourteen, included Dr Mohamed Sorie Forna, whose story has been carefully researched by his daughter ,the London based author Aminatta Forna, in the book “The Devil Dances on Water”. ( Her recent novel, “The Memory of Love” won the 2011 Orange prize for fiction.) Whilst there are many who can vividly recall that day, few witnessed the spectacle that took place outside the prison, where the men who had died by hanging, were displayed for an hour. The message to a shocked nation was clear, the government of Sierra Leone, a one party state, led by Siaka Stevens, would not tolerate any opposition to its authority.

My visits to the Freetown Central Prison and to the Women’s Prison, located in the cells of the former International Special Court, have been frequent for most of this year. During a recent visit Pademba Road Prison, to assist the Sunday morning worship, I asked to be allowed to visit those in the condemned cells. In February the board at the prison gate indicated “Condemned 1” but on that day displayed “2”. The Women’s Prison, with 35 prisoners, registers one.

There in the “condemned section”, close to the chapel, yet isolated from the three-storey high cells, built originally for 325,and now accommodate over 1,200 men, I visited a Muslim prisoner. I found him quietly reading his Quran. As part of the nation’s 5Oth Independence Anniversary, the President of Sierra Leone had pardoned all condemned prisoners who were immediately commuted to serve life sentences. The man I met, along with another prisoner, had, according to The Acting Director for Prison’s Mr. Sanpha Bilo Kamara, pleaded to be allowed to remain in relative isolation, as it was more congenial than the freedom being offered in the bigger overcrowded cell blocks.

In discussion with Chief Imam Sorie Sankoh Officer in Charge of Religious Affairs, and a chaplain for over 35 years, he talked of what aspects of his work he enjoyed most and least. His memory of the early years of his service, when he was physically ill on the days of execution, has left him with an abhorrence of capital punishment.

In mid September this year, Penal Reform International held a conference in London titled “Progressing towards the abolition of the death penalty and alternative sanctions that respect international human rights standards”. Among the statements of the London Declaration from the conference, there are two that resonate with the situation in Sierra Leone : the affirmation “that the death penalty undermines human dignity and can amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”, and “ that the death penalty creates additional victims, the family members of those who have been executed – who are often forgotten, marginalized, or stigmatised by society”. This is certainly true of the events in Freetown of 19 July 1975, as family members of the fourteen condemned prisoner, have frequently alleged that atrocities occurred a few hours prior to their reported deaths. Brigadier John Bangura, , the man he handed power to President Siaka Stevens,found it hard to believe that his plea for mercy had been turned down, and was beaten to death in the cells for condemned, when he refused to walk to the gallows.

The London Declaration expressed the view that the essential aim of the penitentiary system should be the “reformation and social rehabilitation” of prisoners. In Sierra Leone a new bill, “The Correctional Services Act 2010” seeking to replace legislation dating back to 1960, a year prior to independence, is still waiting parliamentary approval. However it remains to be seen if indeed the proposed reforms with their emphasis on “correction” and not “containment”, will receive the budgetary support needed for implementation from the government.

The film “Shawshank Redemption”, a classic prison-based account of hope over adversity, in which Tim Robbins co-stars with Morgan Freeman, has long been a film Janice and I have found instructive and inspiring. A recent BBC radio interview with Tim Robbins, on his work on drama workshops in a prison project, involved him explaining that the State of California’s Penitentiaries had, owing to the State’s massive financial problems, deemed that penitentiaries would only endeavour to incarcerate humanely and nothing more. It was, therefore, only externally funded initiatives, like his own, that were addressing the task of reformation and rehabilitation. Recidivism amongst prisoners was, he explained, due to people, and men in particular, not having the capacity to access alternative forms of behaviour, other than raw aggression and violence. When confronted with challenges they responded in ways which saw them re-offending and re imprisoned within a short time of being released. For Robbins, drama workshops and in particular the works of Shakespeare as a source for improvisation, taught men how to identify hitherto hidden aspects as to who they were and could be.

It is difficult to listen to Robbins arguing the case for rehabilitation programmes in prison without connecting it with Susan Sarandon, in the role of Sister Helen Prejean in the film “Dead man walking” portraying the horrors of the death penalty. It is therefore interesting to see the present controversy following her comments on Pope Benedict.

As the last execution in Sierra Leone was carried out in 1998, the country is therefore considered to be de facto abolitionist. With the commuting of the death sentences on those who had been condemned prior to April 1011, to one of “life in prison”, all the signs are of a movement in the right direction on human rights. Nevertheless the death penalty for treason, murder and aggravated robbery is still in place. The government has neither signed nor ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the total abolition of the death penalty.

WWW World Wide Workers in God’s Mission

2011-07-19T18:42:00.014+01:00

1811-2011 The Bi Centenary Celebration of Methodist Mission in Sierra Leone is based on the arrival of Rev George Warren and his three schoolteacher colleagues, Jonathan Raynor, John Healey and Thomas Hirst, in Freetown on board a ship the Traveller on 12 November 1811.

The year of this historic event provides the opportunity for a number of mission related initiatives, which included a Bi-Centenary lecture given Rev Dr Sahr John Yambasu who on Saturday 9 July addressed the issue of mission with Mende and Methodists: The Untold Story of an Emerging Church. Sahr Yambasu was born in one of the remotest areas of Sierra Leone, but studied for ordained ministry in Freetown, where he later served as Principal of SLTC &CTC. During the war, security issues for his family forced them to return to Ireland, where he had studied for his doctorate. His annual visits to Sierra Leone involve a number of mission related endeavours but are aided by international flights taking about 12 hours. Warren and his colleagues required 52 days, some of the time being chased by pirates. Their arrival was intrinsically linked to the work of Wilberforce and Wesley, for the liberty of God’s people, and as we are now serving in the Wilberforce Circuit, it is only proper that we reflect on what this historic events means for Methodists in mission today.

It is highly unlikely that William Wilberforce or John Wesley ever met George Warren but both men played a significant part in the arrival of Warren and his three schoolteacher colleagues, Jonathan Raynor, John Healey and Thomas Hirst, in Freetown on 12 November 1811.

Wesley and Wilberforce were born in places only 30 miles apart but were separated in age by more than 55 years. Together they shared a great a love of God and the transformative nature of Christian mission. Wesley’s relationship with Wilberforce was that of a teacher and inspirer, in which the young William grew to an understanding of what Christianity required of wealthy and influential young men like him, who entered into political responsibility at an early age. John Wesley wrote his last letter to Wilberforce in 1791, in which he expressed his oppositin to slaveryand encouraged him in taking parliamentary action to bring about a change in the law. The eventual abolition of Britain’s transatlantic slavery in 1807, was of major significance in the arrival of George Warren in Freetown, twenty years after Wesley’s last letter to Wilberforce.

During John Wesley’s lifetime it was the Rev Dr Thomas Coke who had encouraged him to ensure that the Methodist movement engage in mission beyond the British Isles. It was also Coke who insisted that young preachers were sent not just to where they were needed, but to where they were needed most. And that meant sending Warren and his colleagues to Sierra Leone, in response to a letter written by Methodists in Freetown some years previously, which asked for one or more of ‘Mr Wesley’s preachers’ to be sent to assist them in God’s work.

Very little can be learnt of George Warren prior to 1811 and the date and place of his birth are unknown, but we do know he served as one of Mr Wesley’s itinerant preachers in several circuits in England and Wales, before offering to serve God’s mission in Africa. Jonathan Raynor, John Healey and Thomas Hirst were all of from Dewsbury in Yorkshire, and they too were willing to serve the Methodist movement in its missionary endeavour, even if that involved travelling to what was known as ‘the white man’s grave’, to address the educational needs of Freetown and its growing population of returned and freed slaves.

In September 1811 as Warren and his colleagues set sail from Liverpool, and lacking the benefits of radio, television or even photography, they would have known very little about where they were heading for on the ship “Traveller” with Paul Cuffee as its captain. A Quaker and devout Christian, Cuffee was the son of a freed African father and an American Indian mother, Cuffee had been to Sierra Leone and was in regular correspondence with Wilberforce who had encouraged him to seek the support of the Methodist Church in London in establishing ‘The Friendly Society’, a cooperative organisation. With a journey of 52 days at sea, the Methodist missionaries would have had much to discuss and pray for as they headed towards Freetown, to begin their ministry and mission in what became the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone.

This year the MCSL will ensure that the bi-centenary of the arrival of the four missionaries, will asks of us some serious questions not just of who has influenced the growth of the church, but how Wesley, Wilberforce and Warren are still present in what we seek to do today. The bi-centenary programme will involve memorial services with special hymns written for the occasion, public lectures by people who have also contributed to God’s mission in Sierra Leone, and will have the assistance of prayers from across the United Kingdom and the African continent, as we honour the ministries of the first four young missionaries. Their commitment to God’s mission was a costly one, with Revd. George Warren dying of a fever on 23 July 1812. It is therefore appropriate that in the spirit of Wesley, Wilberforce and Warren we too should be asking, “What price are we willing to pay for God’s mission in the 21^st Century?”

Results by Payment?

2011-06-23T22:17:00.007+01:00

Girls Education Week in Sierra Leone takes place in October each year. Opportunities are provided for girls to express their concerns about education, and to challenge the government to make sure that improvements take place.

Sierra Leone's education system is divided into four stages; primary education lasting six years, junior secondary education of three years, three years of either senior secondary education or technical vocational education and four years of university or other tertiary education. Since 2004 all primary education and junior secondary school for girls in the northern and eastern areas. Fees were also abolished for the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) that is taken at the end of primary school which led to an increase in enrolments for the exam . The NPSE is designed by the West African Examination Council and has to be passed in order to progress to secondary education. A the end of secondary education students sit WASCE, the West African School Certificate of Education.

In Sierra Leone, an estimated 64 percent of primary school aged children are currently enrolled in school. However, only 54 percent of enrolled girls successfully complete their primary education. Although attendance rates for boys and girls are almost equal at the primary education level, attendance rates for girls in secondary school stands at only 29 percent. There are many reasons for the poor attendance by girls: they may miss school one week per month as a result of not having access to sanitary protection during menstruation, lack of financial resources, early marriage or pregnancy, heavy household responsibilities for girls, lack of appropriate educational resources, primacy placed on boys' education, mothers' heavy workload.

“We need to give a voice to the other girls who can’t be here. Pregnancy and poverty and are some of the biggest problems affecting girls’ education. And when people are aware of the problem, they can start to make changes for the better,” said Salamatu Bangura, 15, from the Methodist High School, which is just over the wall from where we live, during her presentation at the Girls Education Week.

As part of Girls Education Week, Fatmata, from Bo and over 75 girls from around Sierra Leone presented a petition to the Speaker of Parliament and a cross-section of parliamentarians which called for stricter legislation to support girls’ education.

“2015 is around the corner. Every country will have a report card. If you work hard, you will get good grades. If you don’t work hard, then you will fail. We need to start working hard now,” remarked Fatmata to the Speaker of the House of Parliament.

We were sitting on our veranda having our evening meal, after dark, when the gatekeeper came to inform Peter that Isabel wanted to see him. Not knowing any Isabel he was intrigued, and later returned with Isabel’s story. She was to speak at the Independence Celebrations at the National Stadium with the task of thanking the President for what he had done to help children in school. She needed money to get her hair done, so assistance was given. Isabel then came, again in the evening, on the day of the Independence celebration to tell us how it went, but to say she had not had enough money to get her hair done. A few days later she returned again, this time with her hair plaited, so we could see it, and as Peter escorted her to the gate, she asked for money for her school fees. We later discovered that they were not for her actual fees but for the cost of private lessons, offered by a teacher, with the promise that she would be able to sit her WASCE exams privately, and earlier.

Isabel had been sent to Freetown, following the death of her mother, by her father, so that she could continue her education. She was to live with an aunt who would support her.

The nightly visits from Isabel continued and included a story already told in an earlier blog of being evicted from the house she was living in with her aunt.

More recently she appeared and was sick, with stomach problems. Assistance was given to get it sorted out, and within days she was back, in tears saying she had been told she was two months pregnant. Always visiting at night, and often when did not have power or the generator on, it was difficult to note her physique. So she was taken to the clinic, and with just a glance the nurse indicated she was 26 weeks pregnant. This was later confirmed, but with the ante natal tests she was discovered to be HIV+, and to have a number of STIs.

Treatment for HIV is free in Sierra Leone, and Isabel needed to get started on the treatment for herself and the baby immediately, as well as iron to combat anaemia, and treatment for the STIs. Isabel’s father was informed of her pregnancy and he came to collect her, to take her back to the village to have her baby. She returned with a letter of referral from the clinic in Freetown for the local hospital in Port Loko. Hopefully all her treatment will continue, but will she continue her education?

Casual sexual encounters, for money, but not as “a street girl”, are not unknown amongst teenage girls. When the odds are against you to get your school fees, and all the additional expenses where are you to get the money? Education does not just involve fees irrespective of what level you are in. Teachers may demand the students bring in food, or fresh vegetables, suggest that private lessons will ensure good results, envelopes are presented to teachers at the time of examinations, or girls may be asked to meet privately with male teachers. There is also the cost of the school uniform for daily wear, and a special uniform for events such as the school thanksgiving. Some teachers will expect students to buy photocopies of materials and if you don’t have them, then the chance of passing tests and exams is limited. You have to pay for all the exams that you take. The hidden costs of education are multiple. Teachers’ salaries are low, and so they will find creative ways of supplementing their income, often to the detriment of the students.

But many parents are committed to educating their daughters, as is Isabel’s father. Another example is Salena McCaphy who lives in the town of Waterloo to the East of Freedom. She is the mother of six children- five girls and one boy. She lost her husband earlier this year, leaving her to raise her children alone. Surviving on a very modest salary from selling vegetables from her garden, Salena faces financial uncertainty which could force her to put her children to work. In spite of all this, Salena sends all five of her girls to school – something rare here in rural Sierra Leone.
“Investing in our girls’ education will have big rewards for us,” Salena says. “I want my children to be educated so that they won’t have the problems that I have – like financial troubles. I want them to grow up to be happy.”
The oldest of these children, Humu Aruna is 13 years old. She recently passed the National Primary School Exam (NPSE), a required exam for students throughout Sierra Leone. “I want to be a nurse when I grow up, so that I can take care of my mother and grandmother. I’m so proud that I passed the exam, and I made my mother proud too!”
For more pictures on the challenge of girl education in Sierra Leone see: http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/2799.html

Fresh Footsteps Across Old Education Boundaries

2011-05-31T09:20:00.009+01:00

My name is Jasmine Dingley and I am seventeen years old. I was recently given the opportunity to visit Sierra Leone with my Nan, as she wanted to visit friends and the school she sponsors. I attend a Steiner school, which is an alternative method of education which focuses on educating the whole child, not just the mind. The references within my reflection to ‘main lesson’ and ‘middles,’ are in relation to my experience of school. As a Society and Culture student, I believed that the experience would give me depth to my studies and an appreciation for other cultures, but what I actually gained was much more; I came back having truly gained insight and life experience. The following text is a reflection on my time in Sierra Leone.

I stepped out of the airport into a wave of dry heat. All around, bodies pressed in on me, smiling, laughing and talking in a language I didn’t understand. The lack of regard for personal space, so unlike the norms of western culture, unnerved me and I had to remind myself to refrain from judging a culture on my own values and beliefs. The feeling of truly being a minority, a lone white face in a sea of black, was alien. Over the next ten days, as I began to put aside the cultural mores and norms that form the basis of my understanding of the world, I gained insight into and appreciation for a culture that is so vastly different to anything I have experienced.

The Sierra Leoneans ability to be content and happy with what little they have is something that touched me, and something that I feel has long been lost in western culture. Consumerism and materialism are values so entrenched in our modern day society that the words ‘wealth’ and ‘status’ are essentially the same thing. The happiness that was evident in the face of so much poverty was truly shocking, I couldn’t comprehend that people could be content with so little.

This became all the more evident on our visit to Goderich Waldorf school in Rokel. The first Waldorf school in West Africa, it is little more than three tarpaulin classrooms held up by sticks and rope. With just over ninety students and three teachers, the school is located in a tiny village where the main trades are fishing and stone breaking. As I stood at the main entrance and looked at the tiny structure that supposedly housed almost a hundred children, I couldn’t help comparing it to my idea of a Steiner school, beautiful buildings, open land and shady trees. This became my main learning curve over the course of my trip, to fully understand that everything is relative to the culture in which it is located. To judge another society on the values and norms of your own is not right, although we subconsciously do it. You have to consciously think about it and make the decision to view everything with unbiased eyes, difficult though this may be. So I looked again, and this time saw the children’s faces, how happy and grateful they were to be there at all, how the lack of classrooms, of proper equipment didn’t matter to them, all that did was that they were there and learning. The teachers were happy to be there and to be working, though they received an incredibly low salary by our standards. Amongst all the vast differences I found many similarities. The days were structured in all too familiar ways, main lesson beginning the morning. The children enjoyed morning tea, and then began middles. This little oasis in the centre of poverty amazed me, and truly changed the way I view the world.

It is hard to describe the feeling of entering a completely different culture with little previous knowledge of the place, to be thrown straight in the deep end so to speak. The capabilities Sierra Leoneans must possess in order to live and survive in such a harsh social climate are hard to believe. Little or no water reaches most residential places, and electricity is temperamental at best. These conditions produce a different race of people, not just in nationality but in their incredible outlook on life. The incredible experience I underwent enabled me to get a glimpse of a culture so vastly different to my own. It truly did change the way I view my own culture. It was an amazing journey and I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to take it.

Women and Children First - by Deidre Homer

2011-05-21T16:30:00.006+01:00

Each time I travel, there is something new to learn about a place and the people, so even though I had heard quite a lot about Sierra Leone, to see and experience it had a great impact.

To have some an insight into some of the work that is been done through the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone and other NGOs was a privilege. I was shocked to hear that about half of the GNP of Sierra Leone comes externally from NGOs and other countries.

I visited 3 health related projects whilst staying with Janice and Peter, as well as seeing 5 out of the 6 churches in the Wilberforce circuit, to which they have recently been attached. The contrast between resources and personnel in Salone and the UK was very evident in the health projects, which is not surprising given the huge health needs of Sierra Leone country. In Salone, a woman has a 1 in 21 lifetime chance of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth compared to 1 in 4700 in the UK (Unicef 2008), and the maternal mortality ratio is 970 per 100,000 births compared to 12 per 100,000 in the UK.

The Aberdeen Womens’ Centre is situated in Aberdeen, an area fairly close to the beach. This charity is supported by Freedom from Fistula Foundation. It provides healthcare for pregnant women, runs a daily children’s clinic for the local community, and is a centre for the correction of vesicovaginal fistulae. This is a condition caused by prolonged labour that results in a connection between the vagina and bladder or bowel, causing faecal and urinary incontinence, and thereby isolation, rejection and stigmatisation of those women who are affected. Women stay at the clinic for a number of weeks whilst being prepared for the surgery and being nursed afterwards, are offered basic literacy instruction and health promotion, as well as opportunities to share fellowship and stories with other women . For more information see http://www.freedomfromfistula.org.uk/fistula_clinic.html .

In the children’s clinic , which I sat in on, there was one doctor, a team of assistants, and over 40 children to be seen that morning. Basic measurements such as height , weight and temperature were taken before each child saw a doctor, and patients were triaged with the most unwell being seen first. At least a couple of children were referred on to a nearby hospital for inpatient treatment and x rays if needed. Tests such as a full blood count and a rapid test for malaria was available at the centre and results were returned as the doctor saw more patients. I left at 13.30 and the doctor still had at least 10 patients left to be seen. The WHO recommended guidelines were used, which included everyone with a fever being tested for malaria. If a child wasn’t too unwell with malaria then a test dose of oral medication would be given at the clinic and then after observation, he or she would continue the treatment at home.

The next project visit was fortuitous as Peter developed a dental problem and the nearest dentist, other the Mercy Ship’s dental clinic, was in the UK next year. Fortunately he was able to access some temporary treatment at the clinic, which had been set up in a compound near to the docks. This again was highly organised, with patients being registered and then waiting to be seen in a large waiting room. As they waited for treatment, mostly dental extractions, and after singing some choruses , 2 staff members spoke of how to look after your teeth. In Sierra Leone there are only 2 dentists per million of the population, compared to 6000 per million in the USA.

The Mercy Ship is staffed by volunteer medical staff drawn from many countries, who spend several weeks working both on the boat and on land. This is the 5^th time that the boat has visited Sierra Leone and it will be there for 10 months until November 2011. It is working in partnership with the Aberdeen Women’s Centre. As well as providing free healthcare, it also offers training to local staff to improve long-term health care and build capacity. The ship has 6 operating theatres and 78 beds, as well as land -based eye and dental clinics. Potential patients who might benefit from treatment such as cleft palate repair and removal of cataracts are scouted out ahead of the arrival of the Mercy Ship by clinics set up beforehand. Here is a link to read more of their work in Sierra Leone.http://www.prweb.com/releases/Mercy/Ships/prweb8152864.htm and see also http://www.mercyships.org.uk/ .

On Good Friday I was very pleased to renew my acquaintance with Lillian Lahai, who I met at the last World Assembly of the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women held in South Korea 5 years ago. Lillian runs a small clinic funded by the Methodist Church, which offers care for pregnant women. It can accommodate up to 6 inpatients as well as seeing outpatients for antenatal care and common ailments. Unfortunately the need for antenatal care and care during and after labour is great in Sierra Leone. With poor maternal health and high infant mortality, the government has gone some way in trying to improve this situation and since April 2010 free medical care for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and children under 5 years old has been made available. However, when the government announced this plan they forgot to include or liaise with faith based organizations, who provide a fair proportion of health services. Lillian was delighted that finally, a year later, her clinic will get government funding to provide trained midwives (she is the only trained midwife presently), and funding so that those entitled to free care will no longer be charged, and medication and emergency drugs will be provided. I sat in with Lillian at an antenatal clinic, which began with an education and health promotion session , before the women were seen individually. I especially enjoyed the simile of a woman’s womb being like an overused handbag, that is in danger of splitting open if too many babies have been delivered from it.

The reality of MDG 5 came home to me as we saw a woman with massive swelling of her legs and abdomen. She had been for a scan, but there was so much fluid that we couldn’t hear the baby’s heart beat. Lillian sought advice on management of this patient from medical staff at a local hospital. I was saddened to hear that for whatever reasons, less than 2 weeks later, first the baby and then the mother had died. In the UK both mother and baby would almost certainly be alive now. The reasons why so many mothers die are complex but I only hope that provision of free maternal care will lead to better uptake of antenatal monitoring and hopefully prevent some deaths. However in a country where most folk live in poverty, on less than a dollar a day, problems such as lack of food, difficult access to clean water and the risk of malaria inevitably will continue to affect the health of the nation.

All of the projects visited seek in different ways to empower people to live positively and to make the best of their situation. I was humbled to see how medical staff, often in difficult circumstances, were doing their very best to help their patients, and I greatly admire their ability to keep on going, whatever happens.

I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to visit Sierra Leone and will hold the country and people in my prayers, as they move forward from their celebration of 50 years of independence.

Remembering for the future...

2011-03-27T15:33:00.019+01:00

It is acknowledged that the first gunshots in the Sierra Leonean civil/rebel war were discharged by the Revolutionary United Front at Bomaru in the Kailahun District on March 23^rd 1991. To mark the 20^th anniversary of this event and to pay respects to the hundreds of thousands who died in the ensuing 12 years, the Inter-Religious Council of Muslims and Christians organised a remembrance service in the national stadium. Peace marches of both faiths began in the early evening from both the east and the west of the city and, following their respective brass bands and banners, converged in the stadium, to provide a gathering of 4-5,000 people to observe a Muslim and a Christian remembrance service liturgy.

The nation had been asked to observe a minute silence at mid-day, but it was difficult to assess how much recognition was being given to such a gesture, and as we sat in the failing light of a stadium which holds 20,000 people, it was quickly evident that seating would not be a problem. First, the motorcycle/taxi riders swept into the stadium en masse, completing laps of the track in an exuberant style, not similar to the bravado they demonstrate every day on Freetown busy streets. These men, in their early 20’s, are of the same age group as those whose expressed deep frustration with the lack of employment and economic opportunities in 1991, and who became key participants in the conflict as it grew and spread from its remote beginnings. Following the motorcyclists were the marchers of both faith groups, dressed in white, dancing their way into the arena, reminding us that in Sierra Leone, being a hijjab wearing woman is no barrier to boisterous celebratory behaviour.

With the nation’s President, Ernest Bai Koroma, a Christian, being called to Nigeria for emergency talks on the worsening situation in Cote d’Ivoire, the State was represented by the Vice President, Al Hadji Sa Sadiqui Samuel Sam-Sumana, a Muslim. The government had declared the remembrance service to be the first official event in the Nation’s 50^th Independence Celebration. This overlooked the presidential decree that declared every Saturday morning from mid March to be a time of “pick up plastic”; in an attempt to ensure that Freetown’s litter strewn streets would be relieved of their unsightly mess before 27^thApril.

The city’s streets are gradually being decorated with bunting, and in fashion shops the green, white and blue of the national flag is making an impact on the style of women’s dresses as we approach the celebrations , while the famous 500 year old Cotton Tree’s trunk is festooned in the same colours.

As we left the stadium late in the night, carpenters and painters were still busy at work, mounting simple exhibition stands in preparation for a trade fair, in which national companies will demonstrate their wares and potential for national development. With few new work opportunities being evident outside of the extractive industries, and with a high and rising cost of living biting hard, astute questions are being asked about the anniversary celebration budget. When a budget of US$50 million was announced late last year, the public response was far from celebratory. Municipal workers facing the demands of Christmas festivities without the payment of their salaries were vociferous in their opposition, whilst the comment within our compound is “imagine what that money could do for schools, clinics and hospitals”. Since then the government has been embattled not just by criticism but suspected fraud scandals within the organizing committee for the celebrations. The political manoeuvring has been swift with dismissals and new appointments being hurriedly made.

Individual Saloneans, including international football super star, Mohamed Kallon, and music and movie star, Jimmy B, have been keen to demonstrate their support for the celebrations, as have commercial enterprises including the mining industry, whose enthusiasm included a donation of US$ 1 million to the activities.

This being Salone, the events calendar remains tentative as independence day is still, after all, a month away. A few weeks ago Peter asked a Sunday morning congregation how many of them could recall the events of 27^th April 1961. Less than a handful of people of some 150 people raised their hands, the vast majority were all under forty years of age. Afterwards we heard one elderly woman’s account of that first independence day, in an area not too far from where the civil war had begun in 1991. “We were told to stay indoors” she said, “nobody knew what was going to happen, so for more than two days we stayed close to home”. That is unlikely to be the response next month, as despite the many misgivings people have about the current state of the nation and its direction, Saloneans like a party and a multi faceted celebration of music, sport, jubilation and reverential officialdom is likely to emerge.

Tableaux of Hope by Laurent and Joe

2011-03-13T17:24:00.013Z

Going to Sierra Leone was our first experience of Sub-Saharan Africa. We were not too sure what to expect. We knew to not fully trust the media reports on Sierra Leone as they are often based on “doom and gloom”. Civil war, corruption, Aids, terrible social conditions and an economic desert were the pictures we got from the TV and press. Talking to people who used to live in Sierra Leone it was a totally different picture: incredible nature including heavenly beaches, lively and hospitable people, land of opportunities. But often these pictures were also very selective as a "golden year dream" which is the natural reaction from former ex-pats and missionaries. What would we find when going to Sierra Leone? The only reliable certainty was our friends : Janice and Peter. They know us well and managed our expectations wonderfully.

Some say that the first impression is often the right one. Well, arriving in Freetown is a mini adventure in itself. In the middle of the night, you are stunned by the heat. Then the “organised” chaos of the arrivals. Then dragging your luggage - which in our case included a large volume of muesli - to the bus across dust and sand ( not good news for the wheels!). Half the bus is made of white faces who got charged for not too sure what service. There are two ways to see it. The cynical one: "I just got screwed" or the positive one: "I am supporting the local economy". Make your choice! We made ours. After 20 minutes of a dirt road, the bus stopped at the end of the road to the beach. We were offered safety jackets and sent to the boat, two at a time, as the floating pontoon tends to go under water, if there is too much weight on it. The water taxi drives us to Freetown. 45 minutes in total darkness, with only the noise the boat engine and the “clapping” of the boat hitting the sea waves. Very pleasant, as the speed and the fresh sea air made the heat more bearable.

Arriving to Freetown's Alex’s wharf (second stop as advised by Janice) we were reassured to meet the friendly faces of the Clarks. Only two hours late.
This long story is important for Joe and myself as it is our first contact with this part of the world. The heat, the hard working people, the chaos, the colourful life, the lack of infrastructure, the pride were repeated during all our experiences in Sierra Leone.

From the visit to Chimpanzee sanctuary, auntie Hawa 's clinic and training centre, the "touristic high points of Freetown (!)", the HIV literacy project, the Churches, the Krio villages, especially Bathurst and Charlotte, the street markets, the people living on the Methodist compound, leaving the bank with a plastic shopping bag full of bank notes, meeting a priest who struggles with his hierarchy because of his HIV status, all echoed these first hours.

Some other strong pictures stay with us like a human tableau:

Tableau one: The young mother coming to a literacy course suffering from malnutrition, with a tiny baby empty eyed, hanging on her flat breast, fighting with her “a b c” is a lesson of humility and trust in the future. Why go to learn and read if one doesn't hope? Here it was a lesson of humility and courage for all of us.

Tableau two: the pride of the nurses and the management of the Methodist clinic, the training centre and the Development Department of the church- all taking pride in working for the future of their country and their neighbourhood.

Tableau three: Another strong moment was the aggression of a soldier who swore at us because we took a picture of a statue. Nothing to say we could not do it, but we should have known better. 5 minutes which felt like hours of discussion, to avoid being arrested and moving from being shouted at, to that of a friendly hand shake.

Tableau four: Another strong moment is meeting Father Prince, an Anglican minister from Bathurst who welcomed us, guided us and offered us the fruits of his garden, for nothing more than the pleasure to chat and welcome strangers in his village.

Tableau five: We should not forget the communal meals with our friends on their veranda, enjoying the grapefruits direct from the tree, looking at vultures, owls and other birds.

Tableau six: meeting with people. Often we noticed that to get a smile is hard work. But it should not be surprising after the volume of difficulties people have gone through. Once people know who you are and what you want the ice melts quickly. The smile of Mohammed, Adama or Amadu because we ask them for a favour or a small job to be done ... Just the smile.

Despite the past and the obvious struggle to develop a normal social and economic life, people seem to want to manage their future by themselves and avoid the trap of becoming dependent of humanitarian assistance which has destroyed many other developing countries.

For us, as first-time visitors to West Africa it was a worthwhile trip we would have not made without the reassurance of the Clark’s friendship and base in Freetown. It was an eye opener not on misery but on hopes, humility and courage. This trip was a cornerstone in our human and faith journeys.

Aiding and Educating for Life

2011-03-08T20:41:00.013Z

It was quite some time before coming to Sierra Leone, that a friend sent us an article from a British newspaper featuring a school in Freetown. It had been started by Miriam, who as a young woman, in post war Sierra Leone in 2000, recognised the urgent need for access to secondary education for all, and not just those who could afford both the fees and a school uniform. And so, education to aid those who had no means to attend school, started on Miriam’s verandah. The programme is now known as EducAid.

Later on, and still in Edinburgh, we met Rebecca, a psychologist, who had spent some time in Freetown, doing some work with the post conflict Special Court. She had stayed with Miriam, and spoke enthusiastically of the work of EducAid. A year ago, Janice attended a literacy conference, and met Sean, who works at EducAid, and develops materials for the students. More recently a colleague in Edinburgh wrote to say that he had met the chair of the board of EducAid.

So we had heard about EducAid from many different people, and as Janice was preparing a course on curriculum development, a visit to EducAid was well overdue. Situated in a densely populated area of Freetown, called Lumley, it took us time to find it, although we had been sent directions. Housed in an incomplete three-storey concrete building, EducAid demonstrates a unique form of education in Sierra Leone. Unlike other forms of secondary education it is free, and the students do not wear a uniform. Its ethos is that of wholistic education, developing all aspects of what it means to be human. This is done, not through a didactic teacher dominated approach, with passive students, occasionally answering a question or copying from the board, then learning what you have copied for exam purposes. Instead, EducAid has developed hundreds of packs of materials that the students need to work through, at their own pace, following an entrance assessment of what stage they are at. The philosophy of the school is not geared towards passing exams or getting a good job, but to provide the students with critical and analytical skills to gain knowledge, and also to apply that knowledge to other aspects of life.

We arrived at EducAid in time for the teachers’ briefing, which is held every morning at 8am. All the teachers, except for Sean, were Saloneans, and their average age would have been about 25yrs. They were all former students of the school, and had some training as teachers from the school. Their role as teachers is to support, monitor and correct the work the students are doing from their packs. Speaking to Moses, who was in charge of the IT room, he said that he was a founder student at the school, when it started in 2000. He passed his WASSCE (West African Secondary School Certificate of Education), went to Fourah Bay College at the Sierra Leone University and graduated with a degree in engineering. He is now giving back to the school just a little of what it gave him, and for that he receives just a small allowance. There is strong sense of the development of dignity and personal empowerment, and in return, some of the former students feel a responsibility to enable others to have the same opportunity and become teachers. Also present at the briefing were two people working on video recording with students selected from each class, on an issue of concern to the school, that of TB, having recently lost students to the disease. Ensuring equal representation of girls and boys involved was crucial.

After the staff briefing the students came into the school. They had been waiting out in the street for the time for them to come inside. During the night, the 3 floors of the school provide a place to sleep. Of the 600 students, 200 of them are residential. The tables and chairs are neatly stacked up at night, giving floor space for sleeping. There were no signs of mattresses or bedding. Each floor is basically a large open space, and so the girls would sleep on one floor and the boys on the other two. Little space would exist between each sleeping student, but the distance to return home each day was too great. A daily meal is provided daily for all the students.
Once inside the building the students went to their registration groups, and whilst there, were asked to show their merit cards, a form of incentive for better performance and responsibility.

The school has a heavy focus on literacy, and two floors were taken up with literacy activities for the first two hours. The students sat around tables, tightly packed together, but were given the freedom to discuss what they were doing, and share ideas with each other. A number of them had books to read, to find information. We had never seen so many people eager to reading books in Sierra Leone. There was a gentle working hum, and no sign of loud boisterous noise associated with most schools. On the third floor the students were involved in clubs, such as Girls’ Power Club, Belief in Action Club, Art Club, Science Club, Exploration Club, and again packs of material for each of the topics were provided for the students to work on together, with a choices of tasks presented, such as prepare a powerpoint presentation, write a song, prepare a drama. There were texts to read, and questions to consider.

We talked to a number of the students, and all demonstrated self confidence, as well as being able to give their opinions and discuss their ideas. When ready, they will take the BECE exam (Basic Education Certificate Exam) and later the WASSCE. This is not decided by the number of years the students have been at school, but as to whether they have worked through all the units that make up the syllabus to a satisifactory level. EducAid has some of the best results in the whole of the country.

For 4 days in the previous week, we had both been involved in a strategic planning workshop for college staff. One key issue that came out a number of times was the lack of IT accessibility and knowledge by both staff and students. Through the donation of up-to-date computers from a school in London, EducAid has a well equipped IT room with wi fi, where students can do research and work on a variety of projects, including podcasts.

EducAid now has 5 schools in different locations across Sierra Leone. Although heavily dependent on donations of cash and kind in order to ensure that quality education is available to the poor, the characters that the school builds are not dependent on others, as the skills they have developed and the knowledge they have received enhance their personal, social and economic well-being. Being a student at EducAid is demanding, although free, it is not an easy option. If you are not prepared to be accountable for your work, to be challenged, and to think for yourself, then you will not succeed. But with commitment and determination each of the graduating students will make a dynamic and life enhancing contribution to the future of Sierra Leone.

Hominoids Together - Shared Experiences of Captivity and Freedom

2011-02-07T15:18:00.019Z

Only few miles from the centre of Freetown, the Western Area Forest Reserve, a tropical rain forest covers towering mountains, gives space to a sanctuary, conceived as a response to human oppression and cruelty. A short distance from the forest reserve, savannah covers another part of the same mountain range, and is dotted with small communities, whose heritage is also a testimony to an inglorious piece of human history, the transatlantic slave trade. In being able to visit both communities within a few hours, it is difficult to avoid asking the question, why have we been and continue to be, so stupid? There may be no simple answer but thankfully there are a small number of people involved in the task of addressing our stupid behaviour.

The genesis of the Tacaguma Chimpanzee Sanctuary lies in the simple act of Bala and Sharmila Amarasekavan rescuing a chimpanzee from captivity some 150 miles north of Freetown. At the time, 1988, it was thought there were only 2,000 chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. That each one of them could live for more than six decades and would become five times as strong as its captor, did not stop people from imagining that a primate which could be imprisoned as a pet!

The life of Charlotte village was conceived in 1807, when, due in no small measure to the Clapham Sect, it became possible for the British navy to intercept foreign slave ships and rescue their cargo. At the time, it was not known that the transatlantic slave trade had involved in excess of ten million people being taken captive along the west coast of Africa, and that history would be forever trying to comprehend such human barbarity.

There are close on one hundred chimpanzees in residence at Tacaguma Chimpanzee Sanctuary, where, since 1995, they have been cared for in their own age-based social groupings. Each chimp is called by its original name, which reflects their Russian, Belgian, French American or British captor’s choice of names. Each of the four groups, of approximately 25 chimps, are housed in the type of habitat that provides for rearing, socialization and independence in preparation for their release, when and where appropriate. The exact location is kept secret, but thanks to the work of the sanctuary, its trans African network of conservation groups, and newly enforced legislation, it is now estimated that there are 5,500 chimpanzees in Sierra Leone.

Krio villages including Charlotte, Gloucester and Bathurst, were established early in the 19^th century as vibrant communities consisting of liberated slaves who built schools and introduced small scale farming, and where Quakers and Anglican influence was well represented. The early influence of the Church Missionary Society in governmental decisions, which shaped the ‘Province of Freedom' at the time, continues in the life of St John’s Church, Charlotte, today and where the parish priest, Rev Prince Leigh is keen to share the history of the church and community. Prince, a graduate of the college where we work, stresses how demographic changes, natural disasters and the civil war have reduced the population of the Charlotte village to less than sixty people, one fifth of what it once was. However he speaks with pride on how a threat to the church’s existence was overcome, when the National Power Authority, began to insist that the siting of a high voltage pylon would require the demolition of the church building. The pylon was erected and the church continues to stand but the village still has no electricity!

The enthusiasm and dedication of the sanctuary staff is exemplified by Willie Tucker, who gained an international scholarship and trained in conservation work in East Africa before returning to work with the sanctuary for the last two decades. Like Prince he knows from personal experience the effects of war and the actions of sobels (soldier turned rebels) who are violent and hungry. The physical and psychological damage inflicted upon both the entire Tacugama chimpanzee community and Charlotte villagers is very similar. The similarity of trauma caused to both types of residents underlines more than just the sharing of 98.6% of DNA between humans and chimpanzees. Sanctuary staff are keen to explain that their work in protecting species largely threatened by hunters of ‘cheap bush meat’, represents but a “tip of the iceberg”, in the challenges faced in protecting Sierra Leone’s natural habitat. The educational work of environmental sensitisation conducted by the sanctuary is a vital part of that process. Resilience is also a shared feature of our DNA.

Simple questions about our human stupidity are relatively easy to ask. The answers are rather harder to find. The opportunity to stand on a raised tower in the sanctuary and view the forest and its habitat, or to gaze at the drama of Charlotte waterfall even in the dry season are invitations to contemplate the bigger questions, not just of the past but of future.

We do not need to be located in the tropical rain forests of a country emerging from civil war, to be able to identify our failures and mistakes of the recent past. It is likely that wherever we are we too live in the midst of imbalances of good and evil.

In searching for appropriate wisdom, the thoughts of contemplative masters are helpful. Thomas Merton, in recognising that we are often captive to self acquired attachments, offers his thought on freedom and liberty:

“The mere ability to choose between good and evil is the lowest form of freedom” ... “Freedom is not an equal balance between good and evil choices but in the perfect love and acceptance of what is really good and the perfect hatred and rejection of what is evil.

Moments from Movies and Mosques in Morocco

2011-01-15T17:09:00.019Z

Arriving home from Morocco to stories of ‘no light’ for the previous 10 days and only a meagre supply of water on one or two of them, is the perfect way to be bumped back into Freetonian reality. The practical technology shock demands an immediate concentration upon a daily, survival strategy and not a culturally rich holiday itinerary in North Africa.

Morocco was great. It was a reminder of what West Africa is and is not. However, some of the strongest and persistent features of our impressions were not one of ‘why can’t Saloneans have consistent power and drinkable water?’ but just how frequently we were connected with experiences of the Iberian penninsula and in particular our time in Portugal. Despite having an awareness of how much the Moors and the Arabic language had contributed to the collection, distribution and supply of water in Portuguese homes, we were still not prepared for the socio- cultural similarities. These were more evident among the men, especially those seated outside cafes, than the women, but also the school aged children, both boys and girls, wore what might be called a white ‘laboratory coats’ to attend classes, as they did two decades ago in Portugal. Beautiful, decorative tilework, known as “azulejo” in Portuguese, was to be found inside and outside, public and private buildings.

Religious differences between Islam and Christianity reversed some features of daily life. In Porto, we were accustomed to seeing women entering into the local Catholic Church throughout the day, but especially in the morning and late afternoon. In Morocco of course, it was the men whose devotional adherence was most evident with frequent attendance at prayers in one of the many mosques located in the vicinity. Each day around 6am, whilst lying comfortably in bed and enjoying the stillness, it was not difficult to hear at least four separate calls to prayer, all within the same neighbourhood. Personal questions were even more numerous. How do the men choose in which direction they will move as they leave home? Is geography, parental allegiance or the theology of a mosque the determining factor? How is attendance at prayers affected by the generational differences? And why did many mosques indicate they were only open to Muslims visitors?

From our limited stay in Morocco it was clearly evident that interfaith relationships are different from what we encounter in Freetown. Not only were the mosques of Casabalanca, Marrakesh, Essaouira and elsewhere, invariably closed to non-muslims but the evidence of Sufi spirituality in music, dance and the participation of women in them was also evident too. Morocco is profoundly Islamic, and whilst it had a large Jewish population in the 19th and 20th century (there was as many 250,000 before the founding of Israel 1948) there are less that 25,000 today and only 1% of the 34 million inhabitants are Christian. It was not easy to find either synagogues or churches but we did. We found that the three large churches in three separate locations were all very different, historically and in expression of faith and devotion. But each of them, like the synagogues, had a strong police presence at their gates, but were,nevertheless, clearly marked on town and city maps.

The name Foucauld also appears on many of the same maps. The French priest and hermit Charles de Foucauld spent time in both Algeria and Morocco and understandably his contribution to Catholic spirituality was well recognised in the 19th Century by colonial French culture and municipal planners. Foucauld’s time in the region was a concentrated effort to discover an authentic discipleship, which eventually led to being ordained a priest in Europe. He later installed himself in a hermitage Ben Abbess in the Sahara Desert on the Algerian side of the Moroccan border. His motivation was simple. It was to seek out the poorest and most abandoned people, and serve them. “I wish to proclaim the Gospel with my life” he said; so, not by preaching or administering the sacraments, like conventional missionaries, but by his very way of being. He wanted to be Christ in the midst of people who did not know Him. To achieve this he had intended to establishment a religious community in Morocco.

With reliable stories of as many as twenty Christian being deported in the year 2010 from Casablanca alone, for alleged evangelism or proselytising, it is hard to see how anything other than mere maintenance of a personal Christian identity would be permitted today. Despite the reforms of King Mohammed VI whose Presidential powers are extensive, the country’s main opposition political party has an Islamist agenda which is keen to challenge any indication of religious pluralism in the populace of Morocco. So, what would living as a Christian in Morocco require today and what would or could be a viable, personal and public identity? It was a question we carried home with us, and were quickly reminded of how the question changes with context. As we arrived at the gate to our compound, on the last day of the year, at 6.30am, we met the street-walking, megaphone-using evangelist, who was passing by. Throughout the year, on numerous mornings we have heard the distorted proclamations, without ever comprehending what he said. We discovered that he was simply compelling his listeners, who like us were greeting a new day, to give thanks to God and attend prayers in their nearest church.

We began our visit to Morocco in Casablanca and left from there too. In Michael Curtiz’s film of the same name, there are numerous people arriving in the city. They each possess one of many identities, including being a refugee, but they have only one destination, Lisbon, with neutral Portugal being the gateway to North America for people fleeing the Third Reich. The years 1940 to 1941 were a tense time for the un-occupied French territories, which included the cities of Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis. Recent weeks have seen a sharp rise of socio-political unrest in the latter and as we complete this blog, there are reports of a state of emergency in Tunisia. Morocco and Algeria also face almost identical problems, that of rising food prices, persistently high unemployment (especially among university graduates) and a desire for greater reform. It may be that even wider political changes in the region are imminent.

Today’s cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Algiers or Tunis, are all seen by the European Union as buffer zones in south to north migration including from Sub Saharan Africa. The strengthening of fortress Europe against it neighbours in the south continues in numerous ways, expressing its desire to seal itself off from the forces of internationalism. The legacy and global popularity of the film Casablanca is as great as ever, with its multi-dimensional appeal, one of which may be its hugely multi-cultural cast and of its 22 speaking roles, only 3 of them are filled by Americans. And the director Curtiz, was an Hungarian Jew.

Hollywood, where, in fact, the film Casablanca was shot, is not the destination of choice for those Africans seeking to head north. What they do seek is an environment that offers greater opportunities, and where each will have space to realise their aspirations, and express their own identity.

The African Big C.

2010-12-16T17:36:00.010Z

At the end of long, hot day, our car was well loaded with a mixture of colleagues and students. Despite the heat and the hour, the banter was flowing in Krio and English with laughter in both. We were approaching the time for examinations and tension around a number of issues emerged frequently and humour served as a release from the tensions. From a student who is also a senior school administrator we heard a story from a previous decade and of the malpractice of a teacher who ensured that students, who should not have been able to sit for an examination, found with a little payment that there was a place available on the day that mattered . Suddenly the flood gates opened on the stories of corruption... “Did you see that story on the 80 million Leones that has gone missing from the Anti Corruption Commission?” The carload laughed in chorus and further corruption anecdotes flowed faster than the traffic. 80 million Leones is £120,000, a huge sum of money in a country where the largest denomination 10,000 Leones, is only the equivalent of 2US$, a day’s pay for a 12 hour shift on building site.

In teaching a course on Christian Leadership and Church Management, Peter finds when addressing the formation of conscience and its influence on decision making, the students are over eager to provide evidence of the existence of corruption and struggle to concentrate on its causes. It is as though their experience of injustice, accumulated during the civil war, in society and in the church, is so acute that they need to unload their anger and frustrations, before addressing any analytical thinking as to what creates corruption.

The correlation between income per capita and corruption generally indicates that those nations with the lowest levels of economic inequality perform higher in the international transparency league and demonstrate a lower level of corruption. Recently the BBC world service has chosen to explore the existence of corruption by highlighting two countries at opposite ends of the spectrum, Sweden and Somalia. In doing so, they have highlighted another aspect of cause and effect, that of war and civil conflict. Sweden is nation without a history of war in the last 200 years whilst Somalia has been in civil and international turmoil for decades and where, currently, heavily armed African Union troops are desperately trying to establish government control of the capital Mogadishu.

Corruption in varying degrees is universal and the recent decision to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia has captivated the attention of those who seek to establish transparent good governance in all aspect of life, including in football. By definition corruption is a secretive transaction and as such is difficult if not impossible to measure accurately but this does not prevent attempts being made to determine the consequences of it. In this respect civic education on the end product of corrupt practices seems more beneficial than trying to offer definitions of what it is and is not. In Freetown the roadside publicity seeks to inform the public of what public services are not being delivered as a result of corruption and as such it seeks to promote accountability for individual decisions.

Across the continent corruption is seen as a pervasive problem that creates barriers to development. Transparency International’s (TI) 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released in October 2010, identified Africa as the most corrupt region in the world and Sub-Saharan Africa as one of the most under-developed regions on earth. Whilst Sweden is ranked number 4, of the 178 countries surveyed, Somalia occupies the lowest position. Unfortunately six African nations rank among the 10 most corrupt countries surveyed. As Sierra Leone is ranked 134, anti corruption education and strategies is vital, nevertheless, the costs of providing such is an expenditureis an added financial burden upon the nation.

Being able to afford the funds needed for Krisi Mas is a very high individual priority. The arrival of Christmas is welcomed by Muslims and Christian alike with regular talk of ‘my Krisi Mas’, meaning a personal gift. City life becomes more intense and whilst there are no grand eye-catching public displays, the increased activity of the enormous informal commercial sector is clearly evident along the roadsides of Freetown. The arrival of the Salonean diaspora from Europe and North America for the purpose of weddings and family reunions is never stronger than in December, so that the promotion of beach side carnivals results in rapid improvements to clubs and bars in the Aberdeen area of the city.

Whilst friends and family in Europe are reporting their underfoot struggles with an early arrival of an excess of snow, the return of a cobra, apparently of the spitting variety, to the area around our house, has increased the need for us to watch our step and tread carefully through the vegetation. A cobra of any size is taken very seriously and the one that we are sighting is of considerable length so that the spraying of a little diesel fuel to the surroundings and the cutting back of some of the bush, are the recommended ways to indicate that it is not welcome.

If Janice’s English class were to be asked to give words to describe snakes, many of the words would be similar in meaning to those used to describe individuals who choose to deal dishonestly. However, she would gently remind them of the positive symbolism of the snake on the pharmacy signs around the city. Snakes are also a symbol of health, and wholeness, and this is what we celebrate as the season of Christmas draws closer. With maternal health mortality at such a high level in Sierra Leone, that Amnesty International described it as a violation of a human right, posters around the town that indicate corruption as a cause of poor health care are very pertinent. The good news is that there has been significant improvement in maternal care provision in the last 6 months. However there are still far too many Salonean mothers, who are like Mary, giving birth to a baby in the isolation of the bush, on the road hoping to get to the nearest clinic, or in the most humble of surroundings should they manage to get there, and yet each birth will be honoured as yet another blessing from God.

May your season of Christmas be a time of blessing too.

Glancing at the sky and staring at the streets

2010-12-14T12:29:00.021Z

Janice has just spotted the first signs of winter visitors in the sky. Were they swifts or were they swallows, mingling with resident vultures soaring high above the city? The sight of the smaller species begs the question, are the martins, swallows and swifts constant visitors, be it the northern or southern hemisphere? Do they not have homes?

The question of homes is on the computer screen in front of Peter, as the UK government has just announced a radical package of measures allowing local authorities to offer council houses on short-term lets rather than for life. It is a measure intended to shuffle the homeless to areas outside local government limits in a bid to stop ‘their houses’ becoming a ‘poverty trap’. Not surprisingly housing charities have condemned the proposals for appearing to mount ‘a deliberate attack’ on the poorest in society. British society that it is!

Meanwhile the BBC world service radio, announces that the UN Habitat - The State of African Cities report, indicates that the size of many African cities is likely to triple in the next 30 year with 60% of all Africans living in cities . “No African government can afford to ignore the ongoing rapid urban transition taking place across the continent. Cities must become priority areas for public policies, with hugely increased investments to build adequate governance capacities, equitable services delivery, affordable housing provision and better wealth distribution,” said Joan Clos, the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT.

Known as “The push and the pull factor” in rapid urbanisation in Africa, the effect is clearly seen across Freetown. Salone’s civil war exercised a push that created a huge demographic growth in the capital and with it a massive urban proliferation, a steep economic inequality and widespread human misery which persists today. The pull effect is that individual economic progress is perceived to be available in the big city where options and opportunities are assumed to be greater than in rural areas. Economic growth is most evident in the mining sector, beyond the capital, but the development that includes urban industrialisation with job creation and higher productivity is not evident . If it were, such progress would provide the basis of the pursuit of good governance, proper housing and basic services for all. Meanwhile the number of informal settlements continues to increase both along the shoreline of Aberdeen Creek, Kroo Bay and up the hillsides of Dwarzak and New England. However it is in the East of the city where in 1999, the invasion of rebels caused the destruction of about 6,000 homes in the areas of Kissy, Wellington, Calaba Town, and Allen Town.

One of our colleagues, after completing his days teaching, has never been swift to make his way home eastwards from the college in the centre of the city. To get home, he faces a tough task. There are choices, be it on over saturated public transport (mini-buses) where the competition for even space and not a seat is keen and at times aggressive, or a life threatening journey on the back of a motorbike, or alternatively on foot, with the tens of thousands who choose to walk along the major highway, the Kissy Road, all forms making such journey demanding and problematic. Of late his procrastination and delaying tactics have been even more exaggerated, as he and his family are living under the threat of eviction from a home that is without running water or electricity and for which he pays the owner £25 per month, 25% of his basic teaching salary. The imminent removal comes as result of his protesting at the 100% increase in rent. Explaining the options available, he cites the working of the city housing rent tribunal to which he can appeal and be heard by under-paid public servants who at best would delay the demand for increased rent and at worse be tempted to take the offer of financial support (from the landlord) for urgently needed domestic expenses of their own and rule against the tenant.

A driver, of the Methodist Church connexional office, and his family have just become our new neighbours, living in temporary accommodation . All six members of his family, along with several other families, were forcibly removed from a compound in the heart of the city by bailiffs, supported by police officers. The event attracted national press coverage for a brutal attack on property and provocation of violence but despite the evident injustice no re-instatements have since followed.

An east African catholic theologian Richard Rwiza writes that whilst the urban poor are “the least economically advantaged, the least socially involved and the hardest hit by the housing problem, they are paradoxically the least institutionally assisted people of the urban area”. And as our colleagues, (neither of them being abjectly poor) would testify, it is the poor who can least expect the support of judicial institutions like the courts, the police station, or indeed the health and education sectors.

It would be hard to imagine the Minister for Land, Country Planning and the Environment, in Sierra Leone, Dr Dennis Sondy, quoting the words of David Orr, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation in the UK, who said: “People need the stability and security of a safe home."

However, there has been some recognition made of the dire problems of housing related issues. Some 750,000 residents of slum communities across the Freetown municipality will soon benefit from improved water, sanitation and hygiene conditions through the intervention of the Urban WASH Consortium programme initiated by five international non-governmental organisations operating in the country. Speaking at the official launch of the programme, board chairman Emmanuel Gaima - who doubles as country director of Oxfam - said the consortium was formed to complement government's effort in attaining the millennium development goals (MDGs). "We cannot solve all the problems that have to do with sanitation in this country. 750,000 beneficiaries will be targeted for the next 3 to 5 years of the programme. We will holistically focus on water, sanitation and prolific health program," he said. According to the Oxfam country director, the initiative intends to reduce the rate of water, sanitation and hygiene diseases by supporting and working with the government, adding that the goal of the programme was to improve the health status of selected vulnerable communities in the urban area of the city.

Head of country office DFID, Dominic Oneill, described the initiative as very important as the burden of disease, due to poor water and sanitation, was very huge. He said the long term strategy to ensure the success of the programme should be through national funding, adding that Sierra Leone has the lowest revenue base in sub-Saharan Africa.

However the housing needs of our colleagues and their families continue, but they do not have the same kind of choices as the swift, swallows and martins. Their home is Salone.

The Need for Church Unity.

2010-11-17T16:01:00.012Z

With the closing of the rainy season, nocturnal activity is on the increase once again, in Freetown. It comes in many forms and is very audible and not always melodic. It would appear that the dry season is revival season. Even as dawn breaks, the preachers’ amplified exhortations and alleluias can be heard closing an all night vigil in any one of the many churches and charismatic movements that exist in our neighbourhood. It is unlikely that a recent newspaper article on the subject of “church unity” is an issue for them.

Articles and stories that appear in Salone’s newspaper are habitually picked from the internet and the author’s name and the context from which they are writing never appear. This happens to be the case in the Awoko newspaper’s article “the need for church unity”, so that it is legitimate to ask, whose need, which church and what kind of unity is being referred to and where? The article makes no reference to inter-denominational relationships or ecumenism or mission so that it would be appropriate to ask what kind of church is being envisaged. Besides, it is a question any mission partner, church worker or member should be asking in Salone today.

Our own involvement in ecumenism was nurtured as mission partners with the United Church ofinvariably involved a host of denominations including Anglicans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists as well the Presbyterian and Congregationalist who along with Methodists made up the United Church of PNG and Solomon Islands. Ecumenism is never more vibrant than when it is expressed in missional activity, be it by denominations or collaborative agencies.

In our current appointments, ecumenical endeavour lies at the heart of the college’s mission statement. The churches, movements and ministries from which the students are drawn are richly varied in both their histories and theology. However, they are but a segment of what can be seen in Freetown , as a manifestation of Christian based endeavour and purpose.

The library of Westhill College in The University of Birmingham includes a room dedicated to the work of Harold Turner, whose pioneering enquiry into New Religious Movements spanned decades. His work produced a wide ranging examination, which challenged long held assumptions, as to what was and what was not organised Christian religion. We met Harold very briefly when he was researching “cargo cult movements” in PNG and we shared our superficial understanding of the ‘millennium movement’, in our area of the Baining Mountains of East New Britain. Melki, its leader, was a quiet, rather shy man, but possessed a following with Uramat speaking Bainings, which frequently assembled in specific locations often close to burial sites and performed rites and military styled ritualistic acts which created a serious disquiet among local church leaders.

Known popularly as “cargo cults”, because of the anticipation of material wealth, a common feature of all millennium movements, these movements were evident in several locations across the whole of the country. At times the followers of the cargo cults were numbered in their thousands, in Melki’s case, it was but a few hundred, but like all such movements, they anticipated a day of rich material blessings to arrive in a given location and often on a given day. For Melki, the date was undetermined, but the nearby Rabaul harbour was the point at which riches, sent by departed ancestors, were to arrive at.

The transferability of this experience has become evident during our first year in Freetown. Small and mega gatherings, inspired by church and movement leaders from various parts of West Africa, have been a common feature of religious life. They are usual widely publicised with the invitation to allow “your gates to be opened” so that God’s riches may enter or for “an encounter with divine blessings”.

The phenomena of churches mushrooming on the gospel of prosperity are not confined to Salone or even West Africa, they are a universal aspect of the religious landscape in any nation, but they may well flourish better in tropical climates. It was reassuring to find that the link we have begun to make between the Melanesian “cargo cults” and the prosperity churches has been covered recently by eminent academics in sociology of religion, some of it in response to a short film made in Ghana, “Prosperity Gospel, Behind the Scenes”.

It appears that the holy seal of approval of lust, greed, and consumerism is granted by Neo-Pentecostal church leaders, who organise networks, coalitions and movements, to declare prosperity and material wellbeing to individuals, families, with a demonstration of resources that are naturally designed to impress. Even the names of the organisation alone are intriguing , “Church of the End Time Army of God”, “Battle Axe Ministries”, “Winners Chapel” and “Let My Gate be Open”.

As observant students of new religious movements, we went to the national stadium recently, to witness the first of a two night mega event of “empowerment”. A nearly half full stadium was still growing in numbers, vitality and anticipation as we seated ourselves among people at least a generation younger. As with churches across the city, women were in the majority, but the average age was younger than that which we would meet on a Sunday morning and we were greeted by a few people we knew. Responsive and willing to provide loud “alleluias” when prompted, the congregation was also eager to buy the white handkerchiefs bearing the image of the founding Bishop, ready to be waved at appropriate moments. They were also equally willing to wave the 1, 2, 5 and 10,000 Leone notes (2US$) in the air, before depositing them in large plastic bags to be tied tight and hurled over the perimeter fence onto the running track and collected by the uniformed stewards.

Emotional expression was at times exuberant but there were also moments of stillness, deep concentration and quiet reflective singing too. A choir item, led by a group who were surprisingly under-amplified for a congregation of 8,000, provided the entry of The Apostle who arrived in a cavalcade of top of the range 4x4 vehicles and a large squad of military styled “security men”, who positioned themselves across the football pitch. The presence of the Apostle/ Bishop caused one or two women’s legs to give way in a show of euphoria, but it was but a momentary phenomena and which passed without exploitation by the event leader.

In his teaching the Bishop made reference to several mission imperatives, that we could also say alleluia to. Included were poverty reduction, the creation of youth employment as well as the elimination of illiteracy and infant mortality. Frequent reference was made to being empowered to use the solution of faith. It was faith alone that would provide the material betterment to eliminate societal sickness.

When staying with Fr Pat Rasmussin, in December 1972, we discussed at length the impact of the cargo cult that had recently centred on Mt Turu, which lay within his area of work and service, in The East Sepik Province. The movement was made up of some 30,000 people, some of whom had abandoned subsistence farming in anticipation of the wealth that would emanate from the removal of a concrete obelisk, a trigo-metrical point on the summit of Mount Turu. The offending object was uprooted and the people duly returned to their villages and the anticipated social unrest from unfulfilled expectation did not arise.

The application of logical thinking, associated with the principles of the enlightenment, was considered to be of no assistance in trying to comprehend this particular millennium movement. And perhaps, despite all the automotive hardware of 21^st century engineering and the electronics of the public address systems, the application of cause and effect, to decipher the workings of prosperity gospel fuelled churches may also be unfruitful. The replication of neo-pentecostal practices , especially in worship, is, in our experience, progressing at an alarming rate into the synodical and historical churches. Could the absence of a rational understanding of the prosperity gospel phenomena be the reason for an ambivalent attitude of the church unity organisations ie Sierra Leone Christian Council and The Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone, to comment on the effect these movements are having on their member churches? Or is their silence an endorsement of the influence of the phenomena on their member churches?

Pre Nuptials, Marriage and Procreation

2010-11-04T09:37:00.026Z

We have been seeing far too much of the petrol pump of late, as we have gone a week without national electricity and needed to resort to frequent use of a small generator. Systems of public safety are not overly visible in Salone, so it was instructive to be told to wait a few minutes on the forecourt of the filling station, as a delivery of fuel was being taken from a tanker. One of the male attendants indicated to his female colleague that Peter was wearing a ring on the third finger of his left hand. This led to a discussion that began with the young woman insisting that a Salonean marriage only involved the exchange of cola nuts and not rings. This progressed as to why Peter’s wedding ring (like Janice’s) is silver and not gold. In the mid 1970s neither of us were keen to support South Africa’s Apartheid gold industry and opted for more ethically acceptable soft silver. The original designs were created using “silver” chewing gum paper and the actual rings were made by colleague friend at Middlesbrough College of Art.

That same day, we read an article in the British press indicating that the UK’s reputation as the divorce capital of Europe was under threat. This arose from the high court ruling on Katrin Radmacher and her French ex-husband, Nicolas Granatino, 38, a former investment banker, who had signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding in London in 1998, in which it had been stipulated that neither party would benefit financially if the marriage ended. By a majority of eight to one, the supreme court justices dismissed Granatino's appeal, saying that after their ruling "it will be natural to infer that parties entering into agreements will intend that effect be given to them".

Marriage, and the ending of it contrasted with the invitation we were given to witness a Krio engagement ceremony the following Sunday evening in the home of one of our students, a short distance away, in Wilberforce village.

Our awareness of this rite of passage had begun in our Krio classes in the first half of this year and in addition to studying how the language operates, we were looking at some of the cultural and traditional practices of the Krios.

Sierra Leonean Krios are an ethnic group whose history dates back to the time of the trans Atlantic slavery. Their ancestors had been captured and shipped to the Americas or Europe as slaves, and following the abolition of the trans Atlantic slave trade in 1804, and a result of slaves having fought for America during its civil war, a number of them were granted their freedom, and to cut a long story short, with great difficulty returned to West Africa. The ancestors of the new arrivals could have come from any of dozens of West African countries where slaves had been taken from. Established as a colony to those given their freedom, Freetown and the Krio language, traditions and customs of those freed, developed and drew upon a variety of West African practices, particularly the Yoruba of Nigeria. Other influences include the practices, belief and rituals of Christianity that had been experienced and appropriated on the other side of the Atlantic.

One such custom that is still practised among Krios today is that of the announcement of an engagement prior to marriage, which takes place in the home of the bride to be. Our invitation to such an event came from Ronald, a student at College, as we were giving him a lift home one night. We eagerly accepted. Having heard the theory, in our Krio classes, now we could now see the experience the ritual.

The Dunbar family live in Wilberforce, a large, well established community, set up on high ground by wealthy Krios, and which features a recently installed statue of William Wilberforce. We arrived just before 7pm, and were introduced to Mr Conteh the spokesperson for the Dunbar family, who was sitting close to the door. A number of friends and relatives of the family were already seated in what is commonly referred to as the parlour.

Soon after 7pm there was a knock at the door. Mr Conteh responded, but did not open the door. A long conversation took place with those outside. Mr Conteh interrogated the people outside. “Why they had come, why and should they be allowed to come into the home?” Represented by an emissary, they had come to find a young woman who had been seen looking out from the veranda of the house, and they had a special message to give to her. Further questions were asked, through the door, about this event, and eventually the spokesperson felt sufficiently confident to let the people in.

There was a delegation of some 12 or more people, all with the intent of meeting the young woman, but only the emissary spoke. Dressed in an elaborate West African outfit, he traded dry, humorous exchanges as to whether there was such a young woman in the house, who had been spotted, as she looked out over the veranda. Eventually one woman was brought out from an adjoining room. No, she was certainly not the person who had been seen. After further questioning, a second young woman was presented. Aged about 2 years old, she was obviously far too young to have been looking over the veranda. Another attractive young woman came out, and much was made of her beauty, contours and breasts all of which invited admiration. The reply was polite and simple “all that all that glitters is not gold” as they were not identical to the shape of the woman seen on the veranda. Doubt was beginning to set in. Had the messenger made a mistake, was he at the right house? He was adamant. Surely there was another room that had women in it? The spokesman said that there was and he would go and make enquiries. After a while he came back, with a young woman who had looked out of one of the windows of the house. She was greeted with eagerness and respect, and yes, she did have lovely curves and beautiful facial features, but she had been looking out of the window and not over the veranda. So back she went.

While all this was going on, a sudden storm of wind and rain had got up, which caused a power cut. The family had a generator, which was started up on numerous occasions, but was not able to keep going. So it was necessary to resort to candles. To assist the inspection of the young women, torches on mobile phones came into play, to make sure that the right person was found.

After further wait, another young woman was brought out and presented. Immediately there was recognition, that she had been the one looking over the veranda. Then the discussion started as to why the messenger was so eager to find this woman. He had come to request her hand in marriage for a family member, and as a sign of the intention, had brought gifts for the family.

A calabash covered in a white cloth, was presented to the bride, which had kola nuts, (to cement the friendship, solidarity and generosity between the two families), needle and thread, (encouragement for the bride to be a good seamstress), bible, (for faith, prayer and Christianity), and a ring (symbol of the betrothal). Also in the calabash were envelopes with money inside, which were given to the bride’s parents, family members, and important supporters such as the local minister or pastor.

Then the messenger indicated that he had other more valuable gifts, non alcoholic whisky – With Honour I Seek to Kiss you/ Watch How I Sincerely Kiss You; that there would be a trip to Italy – I Truly Adore and Love You, and Holland was to be another destination– Hope Our Love Lasts And Never Dies.

The bride-to-be was called Ronty , from the names of her parents, Ronald and Betty. After the ring was placed on her finger, she proudly went round the room, to show her ring to everyone who eagerly waited to see it.

Up until this point in the proceedings the groom had not appeared, and wouldn’t for quite some time. His father, Mr Roby spoke of how Ronty would be welcomed into their family, and acknowledged the importance of both families being followers of Christian beliefs and practices. He then expressed his joy by breaking out into a chorus, which was received with much appreciation.

The time had come for light refreshments, which initially were pieces of cake and locally brewed ginger beer, but this was quickly followed with plates of bulgar wheat, kebabs, fish balls, and bread and butter, with a choice of “colas” or beers.

We chatted to the young man sitting to the right of Janice, to discover that he was a friend of the groom, William Charles and that through text messages he was keeping him informed of what was happening, but Ronty said that it was too early for him to come in. We discussed whether a similar tradition was kept by other ethnic groups such as the Mendes or Tembes, and were told that their practices and rituals differed, but for both groups, one essential requirement was as to whether the potential bride could satisfy the man’s sexual needs. We tried to ascertain whether proof of fertility would be necessary before marriage, and this could be so. The young man was called away by William but each time he returned kept us up to date as to what was happening.

Once people had eaten, they started to depart and eventually William appeared. Ronald introduced us to him, and for us it was then time to withdraw. The account that our Krio teacher had given had been replicated, and we felt honoured to have been witnesses to the drama. Unfortunately we will not be in Freetown on the day of the wedding. What a pity!

(Names have been altered and the "happy couple" have requested that their photos are not included.)

Matters of Life and Death: A Reflection on Health Care in Segbwema, Kenema District, Sierra Leone

2010-10-22T17:09:00.011+01:00

Since my first extended stay in Southern Africa for a year before starting university, there have been several return trips to the West of the continent, both to gain experience with charitable organisations and for holidays. Whether fascination, curiosity or the refreshing change that comes with being in an environment that hustles and bustles to meet the necessities of daily life, there must be something which draws me to the continent. Five years through a medical degree, I have just returned from spending two months at Nixon Memorial Hospital, in Segbwema, a small town in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. At the end of my stay, I joined what appears to be an ever growing list of fortunate people, who have experienced Peter and Janice’s hospitality in Freetown. I hope I can add some reflections and comparisons of health in a very rural region of the country to their blog.

There is a place about a mile outside Segbwema simply referred to as ‘the rock’, where I would sometimes walk to on a Sunday afternoon. A scramble up a weathered track, past the derelict remains of houses that used to accommodate visiting doctors, rewards you with fantastic views across the tropical greenness that surrounds the village, with single storey dwellings and the new school scattered on the land in front of you. From the top of the rock, Segbwema is beautiful, serene and uncomplicated. This impression would be in stark contrast to how you felt on a Monday evening after a long day of clinics and ward rounds, where the complexity of the place revealed itself, both in the detail of malnourished children and women who suffered unnecessarily with complications associated with child birth, but also in glimpses of the compassion and often unanticipated humour that compose human nature.

Anyone who enters a role in the healthcare profession does so with the knowledge that, although many of the patients who they treat and care for will recover, there are some who will unfortunately not. The principle is consistent whether in Segbwema or London; what changes is the proportion of patients who recover or die and the frequency at which this occurs. The child mortality rate in Sierra Leone is among the worst in the world, with approximately one child in every five dying before their fifth birthday. During an earlier 5 week paediatric placement in west Wales, thankfully for the parents and children who visited the hospital, I had no exposure to children dying. On the third day of being in Segbwema, I was asked to confirm the death of a toddler. I had seen the child with the doctor thirty minutes earlier. She was malnourished with sparse, brittle hair and had a severe pneumonia. Antibiotics had been started, although there had not been sufficient time for them to have an effect. Walking across the busy ward to the child, I was facing both an emotional challenge and a practical task I had not had to confront before. I placed my stethoscope on her chest and heard nothing. No heart beating, no breath sounds. No reflexes or response to stimulation. Student nurses quickly wrapped the body. The mother came, stood by the child, sighed, and walked away. Then life continued in exactly the same manner as it had the thirty seconds previously. The routine, normality and acceptance of the situation was perhaps the most upsetting aspect. Child and neonatal death is, unfortunately, entrenched and ingrained within daily life in Sierra Leone. Whilst assisting at the antenatal clinic and recording the number and outcomes of a patient’s previous pregnancies, it was not an uncommon situation for the woman in front of me to be pregnant for the fifth or sixth time, with four or five live births and only one or two children alive. Inspired by my short placements on the labour ward and birthing units in the UK, I was keen to increase my experience of obstetric care. Unfortunately, I only observed two births, both of which were still births, one a normal delivery, the other at caesarean. However, another student who was also at the hospital was involved in births where there was a very positive outcome for both mother and child.

I fear that I am presenting too gloomy a picture of hospital life. It is often difficult to know what to express when trying to give an account of your experiences; attempting to get the balance right between describing the realities of the situation without giving the impression of hopelessness would not be true. There were moments of happiness too, both in hospital and village life. One young boy was admitted with a muddled and incomplete story about falling from a tree. He had significant abdominal pain and initially it was suspected he may have ruptured his liver or spleen, associated with a very questionable prognosis. However, a conservative approach was taken and in addition to other medication, he was given a trial of treatment for typhoid fever, which can also present with abdominal pain. There was considerable collective relief when on the fifth day he had recovered and was standing smiling next to his bed. Hope and happiness also came in the form of discharging children from hospital and seeing how malaria treatment and blood transfusion could transform pale, listless, almost lifeless small bodies into active healthy beings ready to continue being children.

The approach to medical diagnosis in the UK can often focus on the minute detail; a raised marker on a blood test or even down to the smallest genetic mistake in human DNA. In Segbwema, without X-rays, blood tests other than a malaria parasite check, running water or electricity for the majority of the time, medicine is practiced with the broadest of brush strokes. Fever is treated as malaria, diarrhoea often as a worm infestation and a cough as a pneumonia or tuberculosis. Temperature is assessed with the palm of a hand on the patient’s forehead and anaemia is checked for solely by looking at the colour of the patient’s hands or conjunctiva of the eyes.

Concerning treatment, the British National Formulary, the book of all licensed medicines in the UK, contains over 700 pages of small typed print of medications, the majority of which a hospital doctor in the UK can prescribe free of charge with little consideration of availability. In Segbwema there was a price list of drugs covering two sides of A4 to select from, often far less depending on what was currently in stock in the hospital pharmacy and the amount of money which the patient had brought with them. The interface between money and health is something which often does not sit comfortably with those in the medical profession. The questions of who, when, and how health infrastructure and treatment is paid for, dominates health systems all over the world. Limitations of funding occur in every health system, including the National Health Service in the UK, where headlines complaining at the lack of availability of the latest cancer treatments are common place. However, in Segbwema the relationship between money and health is crude and far more apparent at the bedside, with money often changing hands as the patient was wheeled into theatre for an operation.

In addition to spending time at a Nixon Hospital, I was fortunate enough to visit both a government run hospital in Kenema, a town west of Segbwema and a Fistula Hospital in Freetown run by the charitable organisation Mercy Ships. The differences in the standard of care and facilities available in these institutions, compared to Segbwema ,was substantial. The quality of clinical care delivered at the Aberdeen Fistula centre is not far from being comparable to a first class hospital in Europe, with well equipped operating theatres, a pharmacy and laboratory on site. Awareness of the significant differences in healthcare provision in different geographical locations and by different agencies is important for two purposes. Firstly it illustrates how a snapshot of experience gained in one small hospital in one location does no more offer a representative picture of the whole country, than the attributes of a single person could be used to describe the whole population. It also demonstrates the extent of the inequalities that exist within the same country, irrespective of the massive inequalities that exist between countries and continents. As health systems are developed, it could be argued that the distributive justice and fairness of the system is equally as important as the service the health system delivers.

Unexpected meetings and interactions were one of the most enjoyable aspects of my stay in Sierra Leone. One evening, we had a knock at the door of our house in the hospital compound and were surprised to be greeted by a very well dressed man who we gradually discovered had been studying for his PhD in Lampeter in Wales and was now running a campaign to be a candidate for the next president of Sierra Leone. One of the themes of his PhD concerning peace in Sierra Leone was that peace is more than the absence of war. In other words it takes a stable economy, social mobility, employment opportunities and social cohesion for a country to be truly peaceful. The parallels to health are evident. The World Health Organisation definition of health includes that it is ‘not merely the absence of disease’. Hospital life often sees the acute tip of the pyramid in the illness and suffering that walks or is carried through its doors, but medicine and healthcare provision cannot be seen in isolation from the wider context of housing, nutrition, education and employment. The integration of the multiple components that shape human life is needed to truly improve health. Although whilst I am writing this, I am putting off the job applications that need to be done for hopefully my first posts as a junior doctor next year, I look forward to being part of a profession that aims to contribute in a small way to enabling health and a profession that will hopefully enable me to return to Sierra Leone.

Robert Burnie, Cardiff, Oct 2010

Flagging It Up!

2010-10-17T16:06:00.018+01:00

In pre independent Papua New Guinea in the early 1970’s, we witnessed the introduction of a competition to establish the country’s first national flag. Peter was working in a remote area of West New Britain, where a British volunteer was teaching, and so he was invited to take a break from building the new classroom, to take an art and craft lesson instead. Topically, Peter chose the designing of the national flag as his theme. Few of the children had ever ventured more than few miles from their rainforest homes, so the geographical appreciation of something as big as even a province, let alone a nation covering a large land mass , multiple islands and over 800 tribes, was an impossible task. Five years later we experienced the lowering of the Australia’s colours and the hoisting up of PNG’s first national flag, in black, red, yellow and resplendent with a bird of paradise, the country’s unique symbol.

On assuming power in Mozambique, following the long civil war, the victorious Frelimo liberation movement simply established their flag as the nation’s own. That it displays an AK47, the weapon of choice for freedom fighters, has not been sufficient to prompt a revision to be made to the nation’s flag during the last 20 years of the country’s peace. Whilst, this year, neighbouring Malawi, decided that after opting to display a rising sun on its flag in 1964, it was time to make the change to a fully risen sun.

In this year alone, 22 African nations will celebrate 50 years of independence. Last week, the continent’s most populace country Nigeria, which has one of the continent’s most un-distinctive flags, was acknowledging it’s freedom from colonialism amidst serious questions as to whether there was more to be reflected upon than celebrated.

As Sierra Leone begins to contemplate its own jubilee celebrations next April, a group of staff at the theological college are working on a project to combine both the nation’s milestone and the 35 years since the college’s inauguration. There is much to be considered, including how to remember the many people from a variety of nations who have contributed to theological education and nation building during that time. Meanwhile the green, white and blue of the Sierra Leonean flag invites a deep reflection on how it has been utilised, functioned and interpreted, at different stages, during the country’s fragile, democratic growth and for too long, a costly civil war.

The green band, at the top, stands for the nation’s agriculture, mountains and natural resources. As we are coming to the end of the rainy season it is indeed a verdant landscape that we witness across the nation. Agricultural produce is far less than it ought to be but a recent story from the Kenema District is more than worthy of flagging up and not just for lovers of chocolate.

When the war ended, a cocoa group called “Kpeya” which means "give way" in Mende, made a useful alliance with Africa's most successful cocoa cooperative, Kuapa Kokoo (Good Cocoa Farmers' Company) in Ghana. The company is the main source of fair-trade cocoa, in the UK and owns nearly half of Britain's Divine chocolate company, which had a £12.5m turnover last year – a share of which goes straight back to the farmers, including those in Kenema.

The white band at the centre of the flag represents unity and justice. The trial of the former Fisheries Minister concluded this week, with a guilty verdict being handed to Haja Afsatu Kabba, for misappropriating and misusing public funds. She now faces more than US$100,000 in fines or 15 years in prison. The verdict, which many had thought unlikely, given her prominent position among the nation’s political elite, was rightly applauded, as being a positive demonstration of the government’s attempt to eliminate wide-spread corruption wherever it is found.

The blue band, at the bottom, stands for the hope, that Freetown’s natural harbour , the deepest protected port on the whole of the west of Africa, will make a contribution to peace in the world, in the same way that the harbour offered freedom to the tens of thousands people who arrived into it, as a result of the ending of trans Atlantic slavery. Today, as a busy trading port the harbour also features in the needs of vulnerable new mothers and their babies too, as is evident in the story of Agnes and her new born baby girl Sia.

Agnes arrived at the last monthly gathering of the HIV positive group in Wellington, proudly displaying her 4 day old daughter. Both were warmly greeted, as Agnes told the story of how she had already visited The Mercy Ships land based hospital because of Sia’s hair lip. Because of Sia’s inability to suck, Agnes needs to express her breast milk, making feeding a precarious process. Resorting to formula milk alternatives only increases the possibility of life-threatening water born infections. Agnes had been told that an operation was not available at present, but would be so in four months time, when the Mercy Ship vessel will dock in port and begin its 10 months stay, with six surgical theatres on board, to address a whole variety of medical needs.

No doubt there are many more green, white and blue tinged stories in Salone but hopefully this biographical snapshot of the 50 year old flag will add colour to the viewing of your own much older national flag and perhaps the one of the country in which you read this too.

Past and Present in Mission Partnership

2010-10-03T17:26:00.009+01:00

Partnership in mission is the principle reason for our being in Salone, working with the Methodist Church and serving, in particular, in theological education.

Current discussions on the name of the college where we work, the Sierra Leone Theological College and Church Training Centre (SLTC &CTC), have involved the Minister of State for Education, as one of the questions has been of its appropriateness and accuracy – is it the only Theological College in Sierra Leone? If not, then what right has it to use the name Sierra Leone? In answer to the first question there are a number of other theological colleges in the country, representing various positions on the theological spectrum. But in her short speech at the opening service of the first semester of this academic year, Rev Dr Olivia A Wesley pointed out that SLTC is now working in Bo, Moyamba, Kono and Makeni, through its distance learning programme and so it has students throughout the country and therefore can justifiably lay claim to its name.

SLTC & CTC is an ecumenical college, having been established by three historical denominations for the training of their ministers – namely United Methodists, Methodists, and Anglican churches. Since its foundation in 1985, the curriculum offered, and the scholarship achieved, has grown significantly. In addition to degree courses in theology, and Christian education, accreditation has just been received from the University of Sierra Leone for the course in community development. 35 years ago it would have been hard to imagine that students’ numbers would exceed 350 , and that the majority of them would be pursuing studies in administration, information technology, finance and peace studies at certificate and diploma levels.

In 1985 all the students were from the three founding churches and situated in Freetown. Today the majority of the students come from independent African Initiated Churches, Pentecostal Churches and the Roman Catholic Church and some, are Muslims. This is also true of many of the teaching staff on the development, finance, and administration courses. This produces a diverse educational institution, where some courses are taught in a morning programme, but the major attendance is at evening classes, with community worship being an essential part of both programmes.

We are now into the first semester of the new academic year, and like all education institutions the college has experienced the inevitable timetable clashes, confusion of people moving from one course to another, and the uncertainty as to who is to pay the students’ fees. Whilst support is expected from the founding churches, the college relies principally on students’ fees, with additional revenue being derived from late assignments, exam fees, repeat examination fees, graduation fees, library fees etc. The list seems endless.

We are involved in both the morning and evening classes. Peter’s subjects for this semester range from The Gospels, to Christian Leadership and Church Administration, and Applied Theology, whereas Janice has English for Theology, Principles of Teaching, and Pastoral Action on HIV/AIDS. All of these subjects present challenges which need to be researched, as well ensuring that the methods used in the classroom do not conform to “I speak, you listen!!” In addition there are B.Th. dissertations and long essays to be supervised, as well as marking of these and other assignments. However, staff meetings are a rarity and almost all key decisions on functional matters (policy is controlled by the college’s board) are taken by a few key people and leaked rather than communicated.

Last semester we were involved in the preparation of materials for Distance Learning, which pursues the principals of education by extension, for the benefit of those living in isolated urban and rural communities. It is both an important aspect of what the college is able to offer as well as a response to the growing number of students seeking to pursue study, whilst also having the security of work in aspects of nation building, at a distance from major urban conurbations.

Within the student population based Freetown there is a reasonable balance of males and females, who vary in age but have in common a keen sense of wanting to learn, understand, assimilate and apply what they are presented with. Their academic backgrounds vary, some with the equivalent of a West African A levels, whereas others already have a degree in another discipline. Very few are full time students, in that they are not in employment, whereas many more are already involved in full time ministry or others working in a variety of occupations. Our academic colleagues are all Saloneans, but there are only two women academic staff members, in addition to the principal. A team of administrative staff and another, offering logistical services (including carrying water up three flights of stairs), provide invaluable support to the various strands of college life. Whilst English is the ‘medium of instruction’, Krio is the lingua franca, for all sectors of the community. For both staff and students football is the common topic of exchange, regardless of the day of the week, with much more being known about the English Premier League than local football.

The college library has a collection of 30,000 books but as yet is lacking a computerised classification system. Reading is a habit that needs much encouragement, and acknowledgement has to be given to the fact that many of the students may not have electricity in their homes, that they have very limited space to work in, and that with the close proximity of housing, finding peace and quiet to study is not easy, where the expectation is that people will socialise in preference to reading a book alone.

Early on in each semester a staff gathering is held which all staff full and part-time are expected to attend, although all are present, the content focuses more on the academic aspect of what is often referred to as the college family. The meeting this semester was a refresher course on learner centred teaching and classroom management, unfortunately with little demonstration of the former from two well respected women in the Ministry of Education.

The college celebrates various events during the year including graduation, which takes place in an open space at the front of the college. Students have a uniform to wear for such events, and if graduating, western style academic gowns. A sports day, and football competition are ‘compulsory’ for all and excitement builds up around these events.

The longer we are here, the more we find out about former staff members. On searching the bookshelves in the library, we came across a book by Margaret Baxter, a lecturer here in the 1980s. Thinking that we might find out more about her on the internet we discovered she had been awarded an OBE for her service to the community, in the New Year’s honours list, this year. The college hopes to produce a small publication to celebrate its 35th anniversary. One of the previous lecturers contacted is F Stuart Clark, and he too, we found, has a book in library.
Given the diversity of the courses on offer, the possible impact that those who pass through the college may have on society, is great. With its motto “The light of the world”, it is hoped that through the graduates’ lives transformation of Salonean society will take place by the imparting of peace building knowledge, Christian ministry and social action.

Helping the Stranger

2010-09-19T19:22:00.016+01:00

In our house, any reference to Freetown or Sierra Leone that is heard on the BBC World Service is quickly seized upon, with eager interest. As Sierra Leone is a small country, our antennae for receiving any global reference to it, seems proportionately higher than it would be if living in the UK. How gratifying it is, therefore, to hear good news about Salone and not yet another negative bulletin on matters of health, education or perhaps bad governance. When the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) announced the World Giving Index 2010, that of all the 153 nations surveyed, Sierra Leone was in 11^th position, in its overall willingness to give to others. Australia and New Zealand may have tied for first place, but Sierra Leone was in first place for the countries of the African Continent.

The CAF World Giving Index is shaped by using an average of the same three measures for all of the countries: the proportion of the public who had, in the previous month, given money to charity, who had given time to those in need and thirdly, helped a stranger or person they did not know.

The news came whilst preparing to preach at the annual thanksgiving service for a local benevolent society, which coincided with hearing of the author J.K. Rowling’s £10 million donation towards building and supporting a Multiple Sclerosis clinic in Edinburgh. In addition an email arrived asking us to donate blood at a local emergency hospital. Together they provided more than sufficient reason to study carefully the consequences of the CAF report on how we respond to need, local and global.

No day goes by without two contrasting experiences, being gently asked by individuals, known and unknown, to support them or their family’s need of food and education fees whilst being confronted with another ostentatious building project which shouts, “we have abundant personal wealth”. The habitats of people near to where we live provide physical reminders of the disparities of human existence for Freetonians. And yet in the midst of such day to day reality, Saloneans demonstrate to their African neighbours the capacity for generosity, for grace and for compassion.

Week in and week out, when attending worship services in various churches, we are aware of the emphasis given to numerous collections that punctuate a three hour liturgy. The obscure reasoning used in encouraging the congregations to be generous, causes us to question what is an appropriate response to such demands. The global rise in ‘prosperity preaching’, (the more you give the more you will be personably blessed), has not escaped Salonean churches, and there is no shortage of mega religious events which invariably promote the idea of benefitting significantly, through one’s own personal giving.

The news of the CAF report, coincided with the request for us to donate blood and our subsequent hospital experience has added further to our consideration of giving and receiving. Women arriving at the Mercy Ships Hospital for fistula operations have often travelled considerable distances on foot and by public transport and in doing so have left behind the vital support of their immediate family. For some women, treatment for fistula can only be conducted following an operation to provide a temporary colostomy at Goderich Emergency Hospital. This hospital is a few miles out of Freetown on a wretched road but it has an excellent reputation and its 200 hundred beds are fully occupied. Treatment is free, but in the event of an operation, units of blood of blood have to be donated, before surgery can proceed. We were asked to show up at the hospital and to offer blood in the name of Fatma, who was awaiting a colostomy before undergoing a double fistula operation at Mercy Ships Hospital.

We had decided to try and take other potential donors with us and so Mohamed our nearest neighbour, having been assured he would have enough blood to offer, also joined us. Others quietly declined. Our offer to give blood in the UK has always been declined, on the grounds of either having spent too many years in tropical countries or having a history of malaria. Mercy Ships had assured us that such circumstances were no barrier to donorship in Salone. Our decision to take others was to promote the giving of blood by Saloneans, as a way of helping the stranger.

In the blood laboratory of Goderich Hospital, a large sign dominates one wall. No Money for Blood Transfusion. Please Bring Donors. The staff were intrigued that we should be donating blood for a person we had not met and knew little of, as we waited alongside others donors, with friends and relatives in the hospital. As the age for donating blood is between 16 and 55 years it was decided that we could offer only one paediatric unit each, whilst Mohamed, if he agreed, which he did, could offer an adult unit. A midwife friend, who works in remote areas of the Kailhaun District, on the eastern edge of Sierra Leone, where Liberia and Guinea meet, has often spoken of how difficult it is to obtain blood from relatives of those needing treatment. If no blood is given, patients are sent home to die.

With our blood taken and stored, but without the usual cup of tea and scone, we were encouraged to say “hello” to Fatma and assured her of our prayers and learnt that she was from the north of the country and far from home.

The CAF report gives a clear indication that personal wellbeing influences generosity, more than a person’s wealth. Clearly most Saloneans have very little money, yet their elevated position in the index is largely due to their immense willingness to help the stranger in their midst. This provides us with yet another question, how is it that a small country which was recently torn apart by bloody atrocities, is still able to generate a degree of compassion which is exemplary on the continent of Africa? And this we witness on the streets of Freetown every day.

My first visit to Africa

2010-09-15T16:45:00.015+01:00

I spent the first two weeks of August 2010 with Peter and Janice in their home in Freetown. We decided that I should write about my stay there, so here I am.

First of all, I need to say that I have never been in Africa before. And I did not have much knowledge or even curiosity about the continent. Since the decision to visit Freetown, I have read and talked a lot about Africa and I am a bit more informed now. I am also enthusiastic in learning and discussing about African countries and people, and this blog I am writing is a way of doing that.

People
I want to start with a dialogue I had with a woman from Freetown while I was still at Heathrow. We were waiting to be called to leave the departure gate and we talked a little bit. She had spent a month in London and was returning home. I asked her what she had missed most and she answered “Warmth.” Then I questioned her if she meant the climate or the people and her answer was “Both”.

After a couple of weeks in Freetown and then back to my hometown (in Porto, Portugal) I cannot say that I miss the hot and rainy season I experienced there, even if I miss the green, but I do miss the warmth of the people from Sierra Leone. I miss the “Hello! How are you?” way of interacting with people, not that we became friends with the people we greeted on the street, even if we eventually could and sometimes did chat a bit, but we had the most pleasant feeling of being in an unthreatening (I owe this adjective to Peter) and welcoming place. And that feeling accompanied me throughout my stay in Freetown, a place where human beings are friendly and also visible to one another, so why not greet each other?

Children are specially warm and affectionate. And they smiled at us, touched us with their hands, played with us, and wanted to see themselves in our photographs.

Once, on a walk with Peter, we passed a man who was listening to the radio, it was the news about the trial of the former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, at the International Court for Human Rights in the Hague. Peter and I got interested and stood to listen to the news, watching the man’s comments and non verbal reactions. It may sound excessive but I felt that the three of us were communicating, were sharing feelings and ideas, and that happened because that man “allowed” us to stand there, let us share his time and space for some moments and he did not feel invaded or uncomfortable by our presence. For Peter and me it was an enriching moment because we were aware that we and that man were quite different listeners of the same news.

I consider that all I have been describing is warmth, warmth that I miss too. My own experience with people from Freetown is described in this way in the Bradt Guide of Sierra Leone: “politeness and warmth can be found in bucketfuls.” It was also interesting to know that in the World Giving Index 2010 published this September Sierra Leone comes on 11th place, a subject Peter and Janice are going to write about in a future blog.

Of course in talking about the way people connect with each other, I am not talking about relationships. This was something that was not possible in a couple of weeks, however I know that African people tend to have a wider net of relations than Europeans or Americans, life is much more communal and much less ‘on your own’.

For me this communal way of living is something that brings a lot of questions. I admit that I do not understand it very well and I need to learn much more about it. In a way being linked to other people to whom we have obligations and duties can lead to lack of freedom, we have to do what others want us to do and are nor free to choose our own route. It also seems very difficult in the African social world to have a ‘room of one's own’. A lack of freedom and individuality is a feature of social relations.

However there is a dark side of the freedom and individuality I praise so much. I will give just one example. Listening to the news of some catastrophe, where thousands of people die and being told that some bodies have not been reclaimed by anyone, has made me realize how some people are completely alone in the world and how frightening that is. I think that such a situation would not be possible if we lived within a communal society as African societies seem to be.

Religion

I am starting again with a dialogue I had with another woman from Sierra Leone while at Heathrow, this time on the queue to the check in. When I told her I was going to visit some English friends who belonged to the Methodist Church she asked me if I was a Methodist. My answer was “I have no religion.”, to which she replied “That is impossible, it is impossible to live without a religion!”
It might be right that it is impossible to live in Africa and not to be religious. From what I have seen and experienced in Freetown religion seems to pervade people’s lives.

As I am not a religious person I do rarely attend any religious services, just weddings, baptisms and funerals. And the church I know is the Catholic Church. I do not have any particular memory of the few services I have been to.

In Freetown I went to three Sunday services. What struck me most was the joy of the people at church. That joy was shown in the singing, on the dancing, on the way people greeted each other, and their dress. As a newcomer I was asked to present myself, something I have never been asked before at church. I did feel welcomed.

I had the privilege of being in the baptism of Ali, a friend of Peter and Janice. Ali came from a Muslim background and had decided to become a member of the Methodist Church, having worked as the President’s driver for more than ten years. It was a beautiful and moving ceremony.

Ali allowed me to live another special moment in Freetown. Ali was feeling ill and Peter and I paid him a visit. Ali rents two rooms in a house inhabited by other people. The house is located in an area in Freetown like so many others: precarious housing, all cramped, with poor, if any, sanitary conditions. To get to Ali’s place we had to pass several other houses and saw people cooking or doing their washing. We greeted them and did not feel we were seen as intruders. On the way to Ali’s home and at his home I felt the dignity of those people in the midst of poverty. While at Ali’s, Peter asked us to pray and for a few moments I believed God was there. Well, at least love was there and if God is love, as Peter said to me a long time ago, maybe God was too.

Believing in God helps people to cope with their daily life which is so hard in so many ways. Talking to a colleague of Peter I asked him if people in Freetown were happy and he said that they were. I could see this on the streets and people would say to me “Tell God thank you”.

The links between religion, wretchedness and happiness have been discussed for a long time but reading about it is very different from seeing it. And I feel divided between a critical perspective and admiration and even respect. I find difficult not to acknowledge that the way people experience religion may promote acceptance of the unacceptable. At the same time I see the dignity of their lives and I cannot but be in awe of the way they manage to live.

War and Peace
Sierra Leone had experienced a brutal civil war which came to an end in 2002. From my understanding of what I have heard from some people in Freetown, peace is the absolute value. Even if people have to live with the physical and psychological scars of the war, even if people have to be neighbours to someone who had killed or raped a relative or friend, even if people’s homes were destroyed, peace must be maintained because war is far worst.

During the war several people had their limbs amputated. Today there is a football league of amputees. I saw them playing on Lumley beach. They were graceful!

What can I say about the way people in Sierra Leone lead their lives after the war? Does God help them? Is there a Sierra Leone genotype? Have they learnt that peace is priceless? Can we learn with them?

Scenery
Freetown has far exceeded my expectations about its beauty. The sea, the light, the hills, the views, the beaches, the trees – especially the cotton trees – make Freetown a stunning place.

All the walks Peter, Janice and I did together were spectacular. I miss those walks!

Peter and Janice
Peter, Janice and I did some calculations and we realized that we met in 1992 when they were living in Porto. It has been a long and very interesting friendship with a lot of sharing: we share thoughts, books, movies, photographs, recipes…

And of course they have shared their present experience in Freetown with me.

I had the opportunity to attend a Sunday service conducted by Peter and Janice at Mercy Ships, where they meet with other internationalists from different denominations, once a month, for a service. On that Sunday it was Peter and Janice’s time to prepare the service. And they prepared it! They dramatized a dialogue between Jesus and the apostle Peter and they were really good. What struck me most was their involvement and preparation even for a simple ceremony in a simple place with not many people. I see the same involvement and preparation in their blog too.

The three of us had some interesting discussions about Africa, Sierra Leone, the civil war in Sierra Leone, the meaning and types of marriage in Africa, the meaning of what it is to be a “person” in African culture. We watched some movies about Africa, read bits of books and articles. And I know we will continue to do all this through their blog, emails, texts, other meetings – that is a feature of our friendship. It is a demanding feature, I am aware of that, that enriches and challenges me and, I hope, them too.

And all this wrapped up with Janice’s cookies, BBC World Service and some good laughs!

For all this and much more I feel deeply privileged and grateful.

Rita Estrada, Portugal, September 2010

A Tale of Three Cities: Freetown, Maputo and Accra and the price of bread!

2010-09-05T10:57:00.010+01:00

On a day when Janice arrived home in state of delight, having found wholemeal flour in a local supermarket, the rioting over price increases for bread continued in Maputo, for the third day. The Mozambique government, having held an emergency session, appealed for calm, as reports of seven people killed and 280 injured in the protests.The army were then called in to clean the city of barricades and restore order and public security.

The rioting had been prompted principally by increase in the price of bread, in one of the world's poorest country, which has yet to fully recover from protracted colonial and civil wars, and with a current unemployment rate of 54%. The government had imposed a price rise of 30%, for the cost of bread, part of the staple diet for Mozambicans, who earn on average about US$37 / £22 a month. The fall of the local currency, the Metical, by approx 43% in one year against South Africa’s Rand, its principle trading partner, also exacerbated the plight of the urban poor. Added to this was the recent increase in both the cost of electricity and water.

Here in Freetown during the last month we have read in The New African and The Africa
Report of Mozambique’s economic success with growth rates of above 6%-7% for three consecutive years, a figure above the 5% threshold considered necessary to make real improvements in standards of living. Foreign investment in Mozambique has increased by approximately 44% between 2007 and 2009 but nevertheless, 40% of the nation’s budget is dependent upon foreign aid, as the country remains 175th (close to the bottom) of the United Nations Human Development Index.

It would appear that, following the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008, the attention that was then being given to the alarming increase of the cost of food on the world markets, had been largely ignored, as multi-national finance houses and western governments were desperate to establish their own economic survival. That is, until the fires which scorched Russia and much of its grain harvest caused President Putin to ban the export of wheat which, in turn, reduced the global supply of wheat by 8%. This has raised the profile of the talks called for by the African Green Revolution Forum held in Accra this past week on the production of food on the continent of Africa.

“This is the time”, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, insisted, “to invest in the thousands of small scale farmers that exist in all countries”. The appeal coincided with announcement of Standard Bank Africa’s support of 100 million $US for 750,000 small scale growers of cash crops, including cocoa and cashew nuts in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. The African continent possesses 60% of the world’s land available for agricultural development and over the last decade food production in Africa in general has shown significant improvements in a number of countries, with the exception being those regions where conflict still persists. But the rise in level of food production in Africa has not protected those on the lowest incomes, who do not have the money to buy food, or have access to land to grow what they need to eat. Across the continent the increase in national populations and the rate of urbanisation have both contributed to the phenomena of poverty, made even worse by a fall in the world’s grain supply.

In Sierra Leone, we have noticed and have commented upon the rise of the cost of living caused by the introduction of a sales tax at the beginning of the year. Now in September, we are reaching the end (if the predictions are correct) of the heaviest rain-falls for the year , when the effect of the wet season creates food scarcity and increases costs. People in Freetown are never heard to complain about excess rainfall, knowing how much they will need in the dry season and those with land have been planting in earnest for while. Living as we do on a compound with gardening land available, we ought to be growing wheat. However in the wettest part of West Africa that is not an option and we shall continue to have to buy bread locally made from imported grain. But with the departure of the goat herd, we have planted sweet potatoes and cassava, for their leaves as well as their roots, spring onions, pineapple, okra, a variety of fruit trees including bananas, pawpaws, oranges, lemons and guava, as well as nursery of herbs. There are still various seeds to go in, such as corn and beans, and as we sit on our veranda at dusk, and wait for the owls to come out, we call to mind the words, “ Give bread to those who are hungry and a hunger for justice to those who are fed”.

The Three Rs: Ridin, Raitin and Riligohn

2010-08-22T19:27:00.011+01:00

Many years ago, we listened to the first hand experience of Inderjit Bhogal, who on entering a book shop would regularly ask “Where are the black writers?”. Inderjit is a Ugandan born British Asian, who grew up in a Sikh household and as a young man became not only a Christian, but also a Methodist minister. He had just completed his year of office as the Methodist Church in Britain’s first black president when he told us of his shopping experience. In a store that sold books and stationery, a sales assistant was clearly puzzled by Inderjit’s question and proceeded to display the variety of black felt tipped pens that were available.
Who are black writers? African writers? religious writers? These are questions with many facets. They have been interpreted differently throughout history, and the various eras of socio-political and literary change have shaped their development. Reading, writing and religion are complex issues.

Graham Greene, the British author, prepared the novel, The Heart of the Matter, when he was based in Sierra Leone and working for the Secret Intelligence Service during World War II. Set in Salone, the story is not just about failure, but about the price we all pay for our individualism and the impossibility of truly understanding another person. As in many of Greene's earlier works the story deals with not just the tension of the individual and the state, but also the conflict of the individual and the church. Greene was apparently annoyed by being referred to as a Catholic novelist, insisting that as a novelist he was also a Roman Catholic.

In an another era, Thomas Mofolo, from Lesotho, had already
written a novel, The Fallen Angel before 1925, when he produced the work for which he is best known, Chaka, based on the life of the legendary Zulu, King Shaka. The book is considered one of earliest literary expressions of African Theology, and by a lay theologian. It is highly likely that Steve Biko, as the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa would have been aware and influenced by the writings of Thomas Mofolo, when in the late 1960’s Biko produced a collection of his own writings under the title I write what I like.

The Salonean writer, Olufemi Terry, said " I write what I like to read", shortly after receiving the 2010 Caine Prize (the African Booker ) for short stories. His award winning story, “Stick fighting days”, is based on ritualised combat conducted by young boys, who inhale solvents to comatose themselves against poverty in Nairobi. As with numerous other acknowledgments of artistic and literary accomplishments, the award ceremony for this African achievement, was held in Europe, in the Bodelian library in Oxford, England. The shortlist for the prize also included, How shall we kill the Bishop? by the Kenyan Lily Mabura, whose quizzical title explores the nature of religious life for members of a catholic community, endeavouring to serve God during the country’s transition towards independence. Both Terry and Mabura’s stories display features to be found in the highly acclaimed book Say you’re one of them by Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, whose short stories are not for those who want a romanticised notion of childhood in Africa .

In Freetown, the most available novel by an African writer, is that of the Nigerian, Chinua Achebe’s first novel Things fall apart, which was published in 1958. It is the story of a traditional village "big man" Okonkwo, and his downfall. The book has been translated into some 50 languages but not Krio, and as a secondary school text in Salone, it is for sale in photocopied editions on numerous stalls on Freetown’s streets. Other than the bible, there is very little literature available in Krio. It is not surprising then, that those entering the world of literacy want to be able to read and write in English. Bank forms, medical prescriptions and children’s schoolwork are all in English. Preparation for literacy classes are now underway for some 60 or more potential adult learners, following the training of fourteen adult literacy facilitators. It is not I write what I like, but I read what I need to know. Entering the world of literacy, for this particular group, who are HIV+, will enable them to do more than sign their name. Literacy safeguards their health, wellbeing and their finances against possible exploitation. Becoming literate empowers a person to not only rid and rait but to have access to the writings of their riligohn.

For Better, for Worse, for Richer, for...

2010-08-15T21:36:00.006+01:00

Our visitors, be they visiting Salone for the first time or returning to the country, provide us with insights into where we are and the people with whom we are living. Newcomers ask penetrating question on what they encounter and want to know why “this and that” does or does not happen. Whilst those who are re-visiting, produce fascinating illustrations on historical events and ‘life as it was then’, they often provide introductions to a network of people who shape church and society.

Recently, former mission partner Ken Todd initiated a visit to see Mary Musa, a stately figure who would, had it not been for ill health, been the current Vice President of the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone (MCSL). In an animated conversation, which included stories which took place nearly 40 years ago, she spoke of her family and referred to several of her grandchildren now living in the United States, courtesy of the ‘DV’ system. The ‘DV’ meant nothing to us until a week later, when a friend spoke of her hopes that the ‘DV’, would provide a passage out of Salone into a future of promise and opportunity. It emerged that a ‘cousin’ within her family had won the ‘DV’ lottery and was entitled to take his spouse with him and so she was intending to become that person, which would, of course, entail marrying him. The Diversity Visa system of the United States government, offers approximately 50, 000 people per annum, from around the world, that same opportunity. It would appear that of the few Saloneans who succeed in the DV lottery, it is extremely rare for them to arrive in the USA unmarried. In Salonean society, the ‘DV’ offers security for more than just the lucky individual, so that marriage and potential procreation become the means of ensuring wellbeing and prosperity for each of the families involved.

Just over 2OO years ago John Lemon, a Bengali hairdresser, won a similar lottery, but in reverse. At the time he was the headman of the ‘Black Poor’ in London, whose occupational experiences had included assisting slave trading in Freetown. A decade later, in 1808, he was back in Freetown having ‘won’ a place on the Vernon, where he married Elizabeth, who was, as one historian described “one of the original prostitute wives”, of which there were many. Together, Mr and Mrs Lemon joined the other 2,000 inhabitants of Freetown and Elizabeth became a shopkeeper who, following John’s death would have had little difficulty in re-marrying as men vastly outnumbered women in the ever increasing colony.

Today in Sierra Leone, three forms of marriage are accepted by the State: customary marriage, which is often polygamous; civil marriage; and also religious marriage, which if conducted within the Islamic faith may also be polygamous. With the Christian Church being a minority faith, (the United States’ CIA’s statistics claims it to be only 10% of the population), it is not surprising that monogamous marriage is a matter of some concern for those who are committed to growth in church membership. Many of the prospective members of the Church are either Muslims or practice African traditional religion. With the exception of some African Initiated Churches, Christian churches are doctrinally committed to monogamous marriage.

In many African societies, the nature of marriage, be it monogamous or polygamous, is not the primary concern of the human relationship between a man and a woman, as it is the birth of children which constitutes the purpose of marriage. The Catholic theologian, Benejet Bujo, argues that no issue in African ethics has been more disputed (at such length and often vehemently) than that of the morality of marriage, especially in relation to polygamy. As a Ugandan celibate priest, he writes on ‘the problem of monogamy’, and its challenge to the African church’s authenticity. However, mindful also of the process of rapid urbanisation across the continent, he asks if polygamy “is compatible in modern Africa with the dignity of women”.

Another Catholic theologian, Laurent Mpongo, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, raises a question that is pertinent in West Africa too, involving the relationship between customary marriage and that of the church. The MCSL requires its ministers who have been married by customary or civil marriage, to have their marriage blessed in church, as “the church’s way of ensuring by means of a special form of service, that her members acknowledge the Christian concept of marriage and vow to live by it”. There are some, including Mpongo, who would be very critical of the Church’s inability to acknowledge the strength of authentic African culture in customary marriage.

Despite the work of those mentioned above, there appears to be no serious theological reflection on the role of marriage in society generally and its place in the church specifically, in West Africa and especially in Salone. It could be easily argued that people in a fragile country are all too aware of their own socio-political vulnerability to address questions on marriage, especially where religious affiliation is a feature of the tension between polygamy and monogamy. This tension is exemplified in the Western Area of the country, which includes Freetown. It is here where Krios form the largest ethnic group and are monogamous. This contrasts significantly with the Provinces, where other ethnic groups are in the majority. Such a demographic detail is not to be ignored when addressing the theological development of African Christianity in Sierra Leone. It may also be a good enough reason to look elsewhere on the continent of Africa for a debate on an integrated Christian spirituality, where people live their way to a new understanding of marital relationships within the church.

However, the pastoral implications of ignoring the question of what kinds of marriage are appropriate within the membership of the Salonean church, may lead to an attitude of secrecy and complicity as opposed to transparency and integrity. It is the task of church leaders to reflect on which of these would be for better, or worse.

FIFA, Famine, Food and Forests

2010-07-22T18:44:00.009+01:00

It is less than a week since the climax of the FIFA World Cup, when, for month, it appeared there was only one story in Africa to be reported on. Our household is uneven in its love of the game dedscribed by one writer as the provider of “the coinage on human discourse” across the whole of Africa.

Before the continent’s biggest ever sports story began to unfold a friend, who knows a little of Africa, sent us a book, “Africa United – How football explains Africa”. And in many ways it does, at least with numerous stories of joy and celebration, conflict and war, international and national political manipulation, as well as of the transcendental power of a game in the midst of poverty, famine, piracy and opulence in a few of the sixty nations that are ‘Africa’.

25 years ago a single story began to emerge from the Horn of Africa, which may have contributed to the notion that there is only one story for the whole continent. It was the famine of Ethiopia, the result of successive harvest failures, coupled with unresponsive superpowers, immersed in the “Cold War Story”. All these impacted on the need for humanitarian aid, to avert the impact of ‘climatic genocide’ upon millions of people.

As the details the famine of Niger and Chad become increasingly evident, the question as to why it is happening and how it could have been prevented will be re-visited. However it is highly unlikely that it will be the prime story from the continent unless there is a journalist of the calibre of Michael Buerk, working for a large media corporation, or a rock star as big as Bob Geldof, to raise the profile of the disaster and demand that the world take note and act with its cash and food!

Thankfully the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico may no longer be the threat it was, but there’s still too much truth in what Leon Uris wrote fifty years ago, in his book, Exodus. “Only the Kingdom of heaven runs on righteousness... The kingdoms of the earth run on oil”. The BP oil spillage has been headline news for the last three months, with reference to billions of dollars. Chad and Niger have rarely featured, and the amount of money needed to feed hungry people is significantly less.

Sierra Leone is now into the rains, the time that is referred to as the hungry season. Crops are planted during this time, to be harvest during the dry season. Last year’s harvest has now finished. Subsistence agriculture depends on rainfall and sunshine and timing of both. If the rains start too early, or finish too late, the nation’s harvest will be affected. For the subsistence farmer the balance of both rain and sun is vital, and neither can be plugged, capped or tapped.

Niger and neighbouring Chad, already among the poorest nations in the world, are at the centre of a food crisis affecting 10 million people in the Sahel region. The average age for Nigers and Chadians is 15.2 years and 16.6 years respectively. Figures last month showed that over one in five children were already facing acute malnutrition in the worst-hit regions. These same children are already the food producers for their societies. It is increasingly apparent that the human cost of last year’s failed rains in the Sahel belt could be as high as they were in 2005, when TV images of starving children shook the world out of its inertia, but it was too late to address the worst of the crisis. An appeal for an increase in the World Food Programme’s aid for Niger and Chad to US$253 million from US$191 million has so far had little impact, with only 58 percent of the required figure having been provided, leaving a shortfall of US$107 million.

In Sierra Leone, where the average age of the entire population is 19 years, the war children of the previous decade are now the fathers and mothers of their own children, and the education process that was severely disrupted, or denied to young parents is still evident. A nation’s informal agricultural education is never assisted by the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of its citizens and unfortunately the need to establish an adequate income forces people to harvest the rainforest. The demand for hardwood timber by the oil rich Gulf States and beyond, has resulted in the growth of both the legal and illegal logging industries. It is therefore encouraging to see that the government’s initiative to ban the export of logs last year, has now been extended for a further three years. Logging for processing and for the domestic markets of fuel, furniture and the building industry are not affected, but the short term economic solution of raising cash from logging will have been seriously deterred.

It is unclear if FIFA’s proposed new goal line technology will involve posts of timber or not. Throughout Salone the soccer goalposts are usually constructed of stout lengths of bamboo. There is an abundant supply of bamboo and huge stands of this versatile crop are often located alongside the nation’s largest and thriving oil industry, the palm oil. But that is another story of food for a later date.

“Ah tel God tehnki”.

2010-07-14T21:37:00.006+01:00

Towards the end of the rebel war ECOMOC soldiers had been brought into Sierra Leone, to try to bring some form of law and order to the country. Like any intervention in a country such groups need to be housed and fed. Freetown already had army barracks at Wilberforce, and so it was to this place that the troops were located. Extra buildings were needed and constructed. “Wilberforce Barracks” is now an residential area of low cost housing in Freetown, and not just the place where troops live. ECOMOC troops left a number of years ago, and some of the former barrack buildings provide housing for many families looking for a place of shelter. We walked through an area of the original barracks with Doran, a nurse from the Methodist Church Sierra Leone - People Living with HIV and AIDS project, to make a home visit to one of their clients who is living with the HIVirus. Hawa, the mother of the family, had been contacted, to ask if she would be willing for Peter and I to visit her. MCSL is very careful in the way that they conduct the home visits, as often the neighbours are not aware of the status of the person they are visiting. This was the case with Hawa. A mother of four boys, all of them HIV positive, she had moved into the room of a house, as her husband had abandoned her, once he knew her status, even though, he himself is also positive. We went into the dark room, made of mud blocks, with a concrete floor, measuring 12’ x 8’. It had a zinc roof, but the rain-filled sky above could be seen through the holes, made from the nail holes when used on a previous building. The only protection for the window was chicken mesh. A piece of foam, covered with sheets, was on the floor. There was just one chair to sit on. Hawa and her four children share this space with a 5 more people.

Confidentiality was just one of the big issues of the conversation. She did not want her neighbours to know her status because of the possibility of being homeless again. All of them are taking antiretroviral drugs, but they are kept in a friend’s house who is also HIV+. The medication is given at 5am in the morning before the rest of the room is awake, so they do not know what is happening. Taking the medication on an empty stomach is not a good idea, and she spoke of her children sleeping a lot. The youngest child was sick, and needed to go the hospital for medication. At least this is now provided free. The three other boys were on holiday from school, but did not know their end of year results as the teachers were demanding almost £1 per child in order to give the results. The teachers have to find another way of supplementing their income, especially if they have not been paid.

Like many other women, Hawa discovered her status from blood tests done at the ante natal clinic. All pregnant women who attend ante natal clinics are tested, given counselling, and prescribed free drugs. She spoke of the father of the children. He too had been tested and is positive. But it is Hawa who is seen as bringing the sickness into the home. He now has another “wife” who is pregnant.Hawa shared with us her own health problems, and that she has been bleeding most of the time for 4 months, but did not have the money to pay for the medication. Hopefully this problem will be resolved in the next couple of days.

MCSL had helped Hawa , with the provision of a home kit which includes a bucket, blankets, and toiletries as well as food, and she spoke in great detail of how this had made a difference to the life of her family. She also highlighted how the fortnightly visits of the volunteers gave her encouragement, and removed the feeling of isolation. Before we left we prayed with the family, and the most common phrase spoken during the time together was “Ah tel God tehnki”.

We then moved to another part of Wilberforce Barracks where we visit Selia, who was recovering well, having been in hospital for two weeks. Feeling strong and eating well, she too said over and over again. “Ah tel God tehnki”. Like Hawa, she had discovered her status through the ante natal clinic, but unfortunately both her children had died. Her husband had left her, but friends had been encouraging him to return, that she needed his support and encouragement. He had not been tested for the virus. Her living conditions were slightly better than those of Hawa, and had friends that she could talk to. Her father knew of her status and though angry at first came to realise that his daughter needed him, and so had started to show more help. We prayed with her and left with the same words echoing -“ Ah tel God tehnki”.

We then drove much closer to the centre of Freetown, and not far from the college where we both teach. We went to visit Teresa, living in a room of the first floor. She had been seriously ill, three years ago, could not see, hear, or walk. Taken into hospital her blood was tested for the virus. Her daughter, 25 years at the time, was with her when she was given the news. She is the only member of the family who knows her status. Teresa’s husband works in the police, and says he has been tested negative. He knows Teresa is taking medication, but she says it is for sickle cell anaemia, which is common in Sierra Leone. We talked about safe sex, when just one partner is positive, and she said that they use condoms as they do not want to have any more children. She has developed some intriguing strategies to hide her status.

I had met Teresa at the monthly meetings in Wellington, and so there was an exchange of humour, when we went in, as I had taught the group the action song, “ Head , shoulders, knees and toes”. Laughing, Teresa told us how, if clients from the clinic meet each other in the street, they touch their head and shoulders as a greeting! Teresa hopes to be at the meeting on the third Friday in the month. Again we left with the words “Ah tel God tehnki”.

All the conversations we had were in Krio. Peter and I do not need literacy classes but we need to learn how to communicate in Krio. The empowerment of such women as Hawa, Selia and Teresa, through becoming literate and numerate, can make another difference to their lives. A group of people from MCSL, living positive lives, are to be trained at the end of July, to make this possible. They will then go on to teach their friends.

The Methodist Church Sierra Leone - People Living with HIV and AIDS project has over 300 clients on its books. Home visits are made to 46 of them, who live in various parts of Freetown. The commitment of the full time nurses is tireless, often not taking their annual entitlement to holiday leave. There is a team of volunteers, counsellors and social workers who work with the nurses, all of them HIV positive, present themselves as positive, optimistic people. For all of them, and organisations like Christian Aid that provides some of the funding for this vital project “ Ah tel God tehnki”.

Note. The training of Adult Literacy Facilitators will take place 19-30 July. Classes for the women who attend the monthly meetings will proceed, subject to funds being available. If you can find time to pray for this, “Ah tel God tehnki”

“Wata, Wata, Plastik, Plastik”

2010-07-10T21:40:00.009+01:00

The collapse of the Nile Basin Initiative talks concerning the waters of the Nile River, has reminded me of just how problematic such conversations can be, even when there are only two countries involved and there are no complicated colonial treaties. Whilst we were working in Porto in the mid 1990s, a 3 day Iberian Summit was held in the same city but despite both Spain and Portugal’s concern on the issue of water, it was thought the subject was too divisive to be placed on the agenda. The numerous major river systems that cross Portugal, including the Douro and the Tejo, all rise in neighbouring Spain, seen at that time, as removing an excessive amount of water before it reached Portuguese territory.

Five East African countries have recently announced their refusal to go back on a deal they signed last month to share the waters of the Nile, despite fierce criticism from Egypt and Sudan. Egypt is of course almost totally dependent on the waters of the Nile and, in addition to the threat of climate change, is also watching the construction of a hydroelectric dams in East Africa. Meanwhile Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya proceeded with the signing of an agreement in May, without the participation of their northern neighbours. The Nile Water Treaty, signed in 1929, is perceived as unjust, having been agreed during a period of colonial rule. Two other nations, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have yet to sign the deal and have so far refused to say whether they plan to so or not.

The weather in Freetown this past week has demonstrated just how wet the next few months are likely to be, with the capital only recently receiving the heavy rainfalls that most of Salone has been experiencing for several weeks. One exceptionally heavy thunderstorm coincided with the announcement that more than 50 water companies have responded to the government’s requirement for certification and licensing from the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone for the selling of sachets of water. This is in response to a number of companies being found to be selling contaminated water. Supplies of piped water into the city are controlled by the Goma Valley Water Company from a reservoir in the nearby hills. However the infrastructure of the operation was designed in the 1960s for the capital’s 400,000 people and today greater Freetown has more than three times that number of inhabitants.

Thirsty people require drinkable water wherever they are and that includes when on the city’s streets as well as in their homes, which generally have no piped water supply. The demand for this most precious of all liquids, results in huge quantities of water being sold in polythene bags that hold half a litre of “treated” water, which unlike Goma Valley water, is considered drinkable. It is not difficult to imagine what happens to discarded polythene bags as they are dispensed with by pedestrian and households alike. Polythene bags quickly provide an impenetrable dam in storm water drains and result in flooding where it is least wanted, with the water packets that do escape the street gutters invariably end up in the sea and on neighbouring beaches.

A degree in environmental science is not required to conclude that water distribution in Freetown is an ongoing disaster in search of catastrophe. So when we heard of the Trashy Bag project from two USA mission partners who were in Ghana recently, we were all ears and cameras. (see www.trashybags.org). The ingenious recycling of 90 polythene bags and sewing them into an attractive and sturdy shopping bag is a huge initiative and provides employment for 150 people and offers a potential, if small, solution to the discarded water packet problem. In Freetown a packet of water costs approximately 5p, but at 10p a litre that is great deal of money to individuals and impoverished communities who consequently have to resort to drinking water without the security of knowing its quality, so that typhoid and other water borne diseases are far too prevalent.

At a time when Salone and Freetown enjoys a more than generous rainfall the problems of the Nile Basin nations can seem far removed from daily living but the issues of water are always multi-dimensional be to the north or the south of the Sahara.

Tiwai island

2010-07-06T21:07:00.030+01:00

The well established ecotourism facility and wildlife sanctuary of Tiwai Island is one of several tropical rainforest islands on the Moa River in the south east of Sierra Leone. Local communities in the area are benefiting from visits by tourists and researchers to provide an income and support the needs of their communities. Since the end of the war, The Environment Foundation for Africa (EFA), with the aim of creating a protected area suitable for biodiversity research, conservation and ecotourism, has worked in convincing local communities that farming, hunting and logging are the not the only ways of prospering from the island.

Arriving on the island by boat you are led to a camp in an opening in the forest which comprises of a main central open-sided building, shower and toilet block and peripheral sleeping areas.

The central building holds information on the island and has dining facilities and is where you are debriefed. Around the edge of the camp there are currently three sleeping areas which consist of a concrete base with tents (without fly sheet) and mattresses under a wooden frame with corrugated iron roof. We soon discovered on the first night that this configuration works extremely well as we were totally protected from the heavy downpour. Extra accommodation in the form of wooden chalets in pockets of the forest which will offer a more luxurious stay are also being built. The facilities on the island are basic but the on-site cook provides good meals of local produce normally consisting of the typical rice, fish and nut stew. Drinks can be bought on island but it is still worthwhile bringing some provisions with you.

Activities on offer include guided walks, boat excursions on the river and spending time on a beach which unfortunately is only worth visiting during the dry season. Visitors can follow guided trails but in order to venture further a field we opted for a morning and evening guided walk as you are more likely to see the various species of monkeys and other wildlife at those times of day. There are several guides who take it in turns to show people around the island and whose knowledge of the grid system of tracks is invaluable. The tracks are designated by letters or numbers that after a while you would get to know but as we were only there for a short period of time its worth leaving the navigation to the guide.

Walking through the cool undergrowth of redwoods, thick vines, large crops of bamboo and smell of formic acid and stopping while the guide provides information of the flora and fauna or points out a group of monkeys you would have either walked passed or easily disturbed without realising they were there. Our guide also pointed out the significance of certain types of tree. The cotton tree is one significant example.

It is highly respected as it is considered to be sacred and that the closest and largest one to a village should not be chopped down, to for example, make a dugout. A striking example of this same symbolism can be seen in the old part of Freetown where a cotton tree provides a roost for thousands of bats most evenings. In traditional medicine, the seeds, leaves, bark and resin are used to treat dysentery, fevers, venereal diseases, asthma, menstruation and kidney diseases. Definitely a tree worth looking after. Another tree with more relevant symbolism in the west and visually impactive after being cut into was the latex tree.

Our guide was very helpful and informative and keen to provide us with the best chance of seeing and learning about whatever we came across, pointing out duiker droppings, monkey footprints and mimicing calls of certain monkeys. The duration of the walks were a lot longer than advertised but as we were so engrossed in the search for the different species of monkeys, chimpanzee being the most sought, we just kept on looking. One major benefit of the early morning walk is the temperature you experience under the protection of the canopy and relief from what would be energy sapping heat.

The most elusive creature in the area is the pygmy hippo. It is a solitary nocturnal animal only found in Liberia, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. Its behaviour is currently being researched on Tiwai by an American lady who has only seen it three times in the flesh and uses motion trigger cameras to track the animals and glean potential information. Previous attempts to capture and tag these animals have proved unsuccessful as two animals ended up in a holding pen resulting in one killing the other. They are also so elusive that even when a BBC wildlife visited the island to film the they were unable to get any footage.

Amongst the various species of butterflies, spiders and vegetation the highlights of what we saw include western black and white colobus monkey, lesser spot-nosed monkey, diane monkey, red colobus monkey and olive colobus monkey.

We also saw several species of the six varieties of hornbill found there who’s call and noise of their wings flapping above the canopy were very distinct. The experience of wandering the forest, enjoying its sights and sounds and getting away from the hustle and bustle of Freetown is definitely worth the trip!

Seeing a need…

2010-06-30T11:07:00.010+01:00

Never before have I arrived in a country and upon entering the immigration hall been ushered directly into the VIP Lounge, effectively bypassing the expectant immigration officers. But this is what happens when Janice and Peter are also expecting your arrival in Sierra Leone!

My 8-day stay with Janice and Peter seemed a fitting culmination of my time in Edinburgh as it immediately preceded the start of my own 3-month training period as a mission partner with the Methodist Church. In time I will be serving in Fiji, thousands of miles away in the south Pacific, and quite distant from Sierra Leone in many respects, not just in terms of mileage.

My visit to this particular part of west Africa was a catch-up time with my hospitable hosts but it was also an excellent opportunity to see seasoned mission partners in-situ and ‘in action’. Inevitably Janice and Peter had arranged a full programme.

What follows are only a few of the many examples of projects and support groups that I was shown, where people, having seen a need, were responding whole-heartedly and in a positive and timely (sometimes far-sighted) way for the good of local communities. All the ventures aimed to provide participants with relevant skills and newfound confidence in their own self-worth.

HIV-AIDS Support Group, Wellington: I was fortunate to co-incide my visit with the once-a-month meeting of the HIV-AIDS support group, held in the nearby town of Wellington. Around 120 people were in attendance, drawn from both the Christian and Muslim communities of the wider Freetown area. The group had been in existence for some time, and Hawa, the project manager, took great delight in accounting how the group had visibly gelled and gained in confidence as a community over that time.

In recent months, Janice has been busy co-ordinating a two-week long adult-literacy programme to train suitably educated group members as teachers. The vast majority of attendees at the HIV-AIDS support group are not able to read and write and each month sign for travel expenses with a thumb print. The adult literacy training programme will be held during the latter half of July and letters offering a potential trainee placement on the programme were handed out at the meeting to those deemed suitably qualified. Recipients of these letters proudly read and re-read them, and stated that their potential acceptance on the course was ‘very good news’ indeed.

While Janice had secured money for the training programme, the ensuing three-year adult-literacy teaching programme still requires financial support. Unfortunately, while I was there, we heard that they had been unsuccessful in obtaining funding from Feed the Minds for the teaching stage. Janice, having ‘seen the need’, is determined to follow-up other funding opportunities.

Let’s pray that the necessary funding will be secured.

MC Women’s Skills Development Centre, Freetown: Freetown is the home of the women’s training and skills project of the MCSL. Over a two-year period, young women are trained in the art of gara (tie-dying) and taught other needle-craft skills. They are also given access to basic education. Our visit co-incided with a group of 15-year olds just completing their First Year exams. On the classroom board was information related to that day’s lesson: the methods of transmitting the HIV-AIDS virus.

Elizabeth, the co-ordinator, showed the types of products the girls made (bedspreads, table clothes, aprons etc.), and explained that when they arrived the girls often had behavioural problems, though she said that that ‘was to be expected’. The group we encountered were impeccably well behaved, though a little shy at having their photo taken.

The need for a Women’s Development Centre in Freetown is on-going, and the project continues to expand; across from our classroom, the walls of a new classroom were nearing completion.

Let’s pray for the successful expansion of the Centre’s facilities.

Craftshare Technical Vocational Centre, Bo: Craftshare is located on the outskirts of Bo, Sierra Leone’s second city. Rev. Patrick, the head of the Centre, showed us around the site in the pouring rain. The timetable in the staff room gave an indication of the subjects taught: numeracy; literacy; masonry practical and theory; carpentry theory and practical; business management; tailoring (cutting and sewing); designing; cloth weaving; soap making; counselling (HIV-AIDS) and catering. Unfortunately, our visit was too early in the morning for us to sample the bread rolls from their newly-constructed bakery.

Instead we were shown inside each of the classrooms. Most of the rooms were self-explanatory, though owing to the rain, some of them were being used as temporary dry stores for the Centre’s newly-produced bricks. Student numbers were fewer that morning than usual because of the difficulty in accessing the Centre in the wet weather. When we were shown the cloth weaving room only one lone student was skilfully working the loom; it had to be pointed out to us that she was blind.
It was still raining when we left the Centre, forcing us to hurriedly tip-toe our way around deep, muddy potholes to our car. At that moment another blind student arrived on-foot and unaccompanied. He was drenched to the skin and must have walked unaided a considerable distance, somehow negotiating the atrocious road conditions to get to his class.

Let’s pray for the continued commitment of both Craftshare staff and students.

Seeing a need… Julia Edwards

Back On Line

2010-05-21T08:39:00.002+01:00

It is good to be back online, once again. After a severe stroke,resulting in the death of Peter's mother a few weeks later, it was necessary for us to return to England, to assist in her funeral. This coincided with the beginning of protracted period of national powercuts, severely affecting Freetown, which are still continuing today. Consequently the absence of power results in no access to internet.

We returned to Sierra Leone on 11 May for the last two weeks of the college semester, with examinations beginning next week. Last weekend involved a two day round trip of 15 hours of travel, for the inauguration of a new Methodist society in Mattru Jong, close to Bonthe Island. We hope to write more about this later.

Today (21 May) sees the arrival of Rev Ken Todd, the current secretary of MMS Ireland, who will be representing the British and Irish Conferences at the Methodist Church Sierra Leone conference, beginning on Monday in Kono-Koidu, in the far east of the country, close to the Guinea border. Ken served as a missionary in this area some 4 decades ago. We will be travelling to the conference on Monday and likewise will report on this later.

Many thanks for all your support during this time and we look forward to resuming normal services as soon as possible

Janice and Peter

Holy Week 2010

2010-04-05T20:17:00.020+01:00

Our entry into Holy Week was as bumpy as a camel ride. The desire for worship to be as loud as possible, be it from the organ, the drums, the Singspiration leaders, or the amplification system, ensured that in the Palm Sunday service we attended, liturgy, listening and learning were diminished, with destroying the reverence of the first Sunday of the Passion. In Holy Week the theological college activities take a break as a good number of the students are in leadership roles in many different churches. This provided the opportunity to broaden our understanding of what is happening in parallel to our lives and deepen our appreciation for both cultural events and professional endeavour in Salonean life.

The following day we were able to listen to a friend Baindi, as she recalled the week long mourning ceremonies for her grandmother, Bintu Amara, in the family’s home in Kenema. Whilst ‘Mama Bintu’ was a Muslim, her husband, their children and her husband’s second wife and their children were all raised as Christians, so that the extended family only accompanied, where possible, the Islamic rituals held in both the home and the Mosque. What Baindi described, confirmed what is widely known, that in rural Islam and Christianity, the rite of passage for death, includes elements from traditional culture providing a rich syncretism in prayer, vigils, music and dancing, and endless meals involving slaughtered animals and huge quantities of rice.

Some weeks ago we met Michael Fielding, the founder of the Extra-Mile initiative, who we had learnt of before arriving in Freetown. Focussing on the needs of primary education in Salone, ‘Extra-Mile’ involves placing skilled and experienced volunteer teachers from the UK, in Salonean classrooms working alongside the appointed teachers for short periods, often two to three weeks in length. This results in a period of professional in-service and significant moral support for hard pressed teachers who struggle with inadequate resources, large class sizes and all too often delayed monthly salaries. To provide the volunteers with rest and relaxation ‘Extra-Mile’ has built a retreat house a few miles along the Peninsula Road at Baw-Baw beach, and Michael invited us to use it. A house with no running water and no electricity doesn’t sound too inviting at the end of the dry season, with temperatures hovering around 30C day and night and humidity approx 70%.

However, as the house is located on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, with rocks at the edge of the land and mature trees adjacent, it is a stunning location from which to watch birds and monkeys by day and listen to the orchestra of the sea by night. Sadly we could only manage a one night stay.

Maundy Thursday evening in Freetown may not be Jerusalem on the eve of the Passover but dense traffic on Campbell Street and the broadcasting of the Benfica vs Liverpool football match, would surely have rivalled it for noise as we started the service in Grace Brethren Methodist Church. With a familiar, ‘power outage’ on the city’s electricity supply, the church generator provided sufficient light for Peter to see the water turn a rich coffee colour after washing only a few feet. His perspiration on a very humid night quickly added to the water level in the bowl as he and colleague Alpheus Karoma shared the task of bathing hundreds of feet. Small and large, neat and knarled, they are a very poignant reminder of where people have travelled and continue to walk.

We had driven to the Good Friday morning service and had witnessed several effigies of Judas on the roadside . They provide an opportunity for children to demand a coin or two , however unlike the “Guy Fawkes” of the British bonfire night on November 5th, it is probably most unlikely that they are burnt at the end of the day, but are thrashed to pieces. Just how they became a feature of Easter in Salone we have yet to discover how, though it may have arrived with liberated slaves from the Caribbean. The only other place we have witnessed a similar practice, is in the fishing villages in northern Portugal where the effigies were hung and burnt in a central location and the charred remains left for several days. For once, controlled heat from the usually problematic bottle-gas fired oven allowed Janice to complete the baking of a quantity of hot crossed buns, which were distributed to our neighbours and the seller of our daily bread. Not surprisingly, the explanation to both Christians and Muslims of the buns significance made little reference to the goddess Eostre!

Despite the day’s activities it was almost 8pm before we sensed the death and burial of Jesus of Nazareth as the Tenebrae service, (Office of Shadows) reached its conclusion with a loud bang, signifying the closing of the tomb. This was our first experience of a liturgy from the 8th century which is so familiar to Lutherans and Scandinavians. The service was led by Kate Warn, a Lutheran minister from the USA, and held on the premises of Mercy Ships, a medical organisation, which usually functions on a boat and not on land. As we left in silence, we sensed that we were not the only ones in the largely expatriate congregation who were deeply grateful for such a richly expressive, yet simple liturgy. Later as we headed for bed, the National Stadium was welcoming those who desired a night-long vigil for an event billed as the “Transference of Power” by a Charismatic movement that attracts several thousand people to their periodic gatherings that are led by a Nigerian Team of Pastors. So as the night passed we heard intermittent singing and shouted responses, from our house a mile away, and not for the first time considered if a noise abatement society will ever be established in Salone!

The City Mission Circuit, has only two churches which are both well attended and also supportive of working collaboratively. This includes the preparation for the confirmation programme which is held annually at Eastertide. Despite the regular service of infant baptism, there are a surprising number of teenagers and adults who have not been baptised and for several years these have been conducted by full immersion in the sea at Lumley Beach.

So on Easter Saturday, 28 children, teenagers and adults and their supporters met for a service which included the challenge of being beneath the waves of the sea, if only momentarily and with nostrils firmly pinched. Three of the children were brothers and sister and had all been born in Germany but their Salonean parents had waited to be back in Freetown for the baptism with relatives and family at their “home church”.

Some weeks ago we had accepted the invitation of a college colleague, Rev Randolph Spaine, to visit the Methodist Church in Hasting where he has pastoral responsibility, and for Peter to preach. The origins of the village lie in the settlement of disbanded soldiers and liberated Africans, with the church, Lycet Memorial being built between 1864 and 1869. Its tall, deep stone walls are still in good order, whilst the original timber trussed roof has been replaced by one with steel trusses as part of a total refurbishment. Scaffolding poles, open windows and a generous coating of construction dust didn’t stop a large congregation turning out in their Easter best for a service with some good music and an adventurous choir. At the close of worship a report on the building scheme and some energetic funding raising ensured that the event lasted well over three hours. At which point the bar across road began to receive its first customers. We hadn’t appreciated just how popular Guinness is among the women’s fellowship. Having sunk our Maltina, we said goodbye and returned home by the mountain route, so inappropriately named the by-pass, as at present it requires four- wheel vehicle to drive through the deep red road dust on its steepest sections.

A Sunday evening pot-luck supper of SLIBS (Sierra Leone International Bible Study) in The Lutheran Church’s compound on the edge of Aberdeen Creek, at sunset, provided an opportunity to see what birds were feeding in the same location where Janice had an Osprey pointed out to her a few weeks ago. The event was well attended and as usual we learnt more of the amazing work being addressed in economic development- poverty reduction, infant welfare, children’s and women’s rights etc which are provided by international organisations.

The average age of the group is around 30 years of age and their length of stay is relatively short whilst some of those who are nearer 60 have spent several decades in Salone.

We have acquainted ourselves with many of the major road systems in the west of Freetown but our knowledge of the names of the communities and their inhabitants which lie to either side of the those roads is minimal. Therefore the invitation to have lunch with Baindu’s family, and to visit a community known as Simaria Town was most welcome. Located close to the steep and winding Hill Cot Road, the house sits high on a hillside which provides some stunning vantage points of the city. The houses, which hug the hillside, are small in scale and low in height and are built in a mixture of mud and concrete blocks and often on various levels. Most of the families draw water from a communal well, cook in the open air and though individual hamlets have their own pit latrines, they are often clustered in twos and threes and at some distance from their owner’s homes. It would be interesting to know the population density for such an area though it is in marked contrast to the spaciousness of the compound on which we live. For this reason we regularly consider how the land could be better utilised for a greater number of people.

We have received comments from a number of people, who said that they would anticipate our Easter to be very different from the ones that they are experiencing, and this is indeed true.

The Right to Life - Who Pays?

2010-03-28T18:53:00.005+01:00

For Bintu Amara, a grandmother from the town of Kenema, in the south of the country, the news that all pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under the age of five will benefit from the proposed Free Healthcare Initiative was of little significance, since her time of bearing and nursing children had long passed. This dramatic change to health care in Salone is to be introduced on the 27th April 2010, the nation’s day of independence, and is being made possible by the British Government through DFID (Department for International Development).

We met Baindu, a friend and the granddaughter ‘Mama’ Bintu, outside of Connaught Hospital, which, as it was a Sunday, was unusually quiet as we accompanied her to Ward 9. The number of people in the ward indicated that the visiting hours posted on the gate were not being enforced, as there were numerous friends and family of patients surrounding the ten beds. Nevertheless the atmosphere was one of calm and quiet, a sharp contrast to the wards of hospitals we have seen elsewhere in Africa and particularly Maputo Central Hospital. It was a fitting environment for an extremely weak Mama Bintu, who was suffering the effects of advanced cancer of the womb.

A subsequent visit three days later coincided with the second day of industrial action by doctors and nurses, resulting in patients being assisted to the hospital exit in response to the advice to return home as no treatment was available for them. In Ward 9 the family of Mama Bintu were preparing her few personal items and making arrangements to charter a taxi for the five hour journey home. She died two days later.

As the strike action of doctors and nurses in Freetown reaches its second week it has just been announced that the talks, involving the President, Ernest Bai Karoma, to resolve the conflict collapsed on 24. March. The health workers union, which represents doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians, is insisting on a dramatic improvement in the pay and conditions, which the Government acknowledges are inadequate but are unable to increase them to the value demanded. At present Doctors receive approximately US$ 150 and nurses US$40 with no additional transport or housing benefits. The increases being demanded are more than four times those figures.

The military, police, other doctors and nurses in training had taken over responsibility of running the two major referral hospitals, the Cottage and Connaught Hospital by providing basic services but the likelihood of this continuing has been put in doubt by the collapse of talks.

The relationship between the Free Healthcare Initiative and the strike action is not immediately obvious and both local media and the BBC world service have so far avoided reporting what is common knowledge in “health care economics”. The wholly inadequate national salary structure for nurses and doctors, results in a common practice of informal charges to patients for a wide range of services, including laboratory tests, injections and prescriptions etc. However when the free services are introduced, patients and the public will expect that such charges will no longer apply, resulting in the loss of the “hidden income” of health care workers. In addition to this, it is envisaged that the free health care initiative will lead to an increase in the number of patients seeking treatment. For a doctor who sees 40 or 50 patients per day in outpatients, an increased work load is not a very appealing prospect, especially if combined with a loss of income.

Emily Spry, a British doctor working for The Welbodi Partnership in Freetown, has expressed her personal and professional difficulties with the strike, on the British Medical Journal’s blogsite.
“The gut reaction was for us to step into the breach at the Hospital. At least to review those who were too sick to be discharged and field the Emergency cases. To be heroes. But there were lots of questions. Safety for one; Voluntary Service Overseas ordered its volunteers to stay away from the Hospitals, as there could be risks in a situation with angry staff and patients... Secondly, and more complicated, the question of whether we should interfere with the healthcare workers’ decision to shut the Hospital down. Who were we to go against their decision? The healthcare workers know the implications of what they are doing; patients will die. But they feel strongly enough that the upcoming abolition of user fees (the President’s Free Healthcare Initiative), cannot and will not work if their conditions of service are not improved to fill the gap left by user fees. They feel that this is their only chance to force the Government to meet their demands.”
“This also leads on to what our role should be here. The Welbodi Partnership’s approach is to form a long-term relationship with the Hospital that will bring slow but, hopefully, sustainable improvement. Breaking a strike is a strategy that could seriously damage important relationships and raise questions about our role.”

At the Theological College, our Salonean colleagues have, with no exception, been supportive of the doctors and nurses, claiming that the national attitude towards employment law and welfare responsibilities is appalling and that the role of the government in addressing the injustice is clear.

A further meeting, involving the President Karoma and the union’s leader Dr. Freddie Coker, was held on Saturday 25th March but failed in its attempt to move beyond the impasse. The immediate response of the Government was to declare that as the industrial action was invoked without providing 21 days notice, it is illegal and all those not returning to work on Monday 28th March will be dismissed and lose all employment benefits.

Today sees the launch of “CARMAASIL”, a campaign to improve the nation’s maternal and infant mortality rates, which are one of the world’s highest and have led Amnesty International to accuse the government of an abuse of human rights. The World Health Organisation indicates that in Salone, there is no more than one doctor to every 100,000 citizens. If this is accurate then there but 60 doctors serving the whole of the nation of 5.5 million.

In conclusion, Emily Spry added “There is no doubt that sick children will die because of this strike. But I am not here to break the strike of the Sierra Leonean doctors and nurses whose duty it is to care for those children. I believe that I am here to try to help them build a system whereby all children have a better chance at life-saving healthcare. And paying doctors and nurses properly is a must for that to happen.”

STOP Press 12.00h 28 March 2010
The BBC Africa Service has just announced that health workers in Sierra Leone say they will end their 10-day strike, after the president agreed in a late-night deal to increase their pay six-fold.

Salone’s Achilles Heel

2010-03-27T16:00:00.004Z

We had just been listening to the BBC World Service’s and Alan Green’s programme, World Football, as we stepped out of the car onto Lumley Beach. ‘Greenie’ had been reflecting on the Achilles- heel injury suffered by David Beckham earlier in the week and its likely impact on his desire to play the world cup in South Africa later this year, as we set off for our less demanding exercise on a stunning location in West Africa. Within minutes of tracing the high tide line, we met a group of men who were squeezed onto the higher drier sand. All attention was on one of them, a man poised with a whistle between his lips with his right arm vertically extended. A shrill sounded and a flurry of flying sand and physical activity followed as the amputees five-a-side football got under way.

The speed and skills of the eight outfield players and the dexterity with which they demonstrated passing moves and step-over skills were mesmerising. So that it took us some time to realise that whilst both goalkeepers had two legs they only had one arm each so that punching a ball was preferred to catching it. The referee was able to remain stationary on the halfway line but he was still a very busy man, as crutches and a single leg makes challenging an opponent for the ball a very problematic task for all the players. Beach football is extremely demanding for able bodied people but this match demonstrated just how fit and strong these young men were as the initial pace of the game showed no signs of slackening as time elapsed.

It was difficult not to recall the words of the BBC on David Beckham. The man has a global iconic status that reaches far beyond football but as we winced at some of the challenges, it was difficult to compare the pain his injury with what the ten footballers in front of us would had suffered, not on a football pitch but a civilian battle field in the Salonean war, that ended a decade ago. Most of the ‘stars of the sand’ on Lumley Beach would have been teenagers when they lost their limbs, the age at which David Beckham signed for Manchester United.

We spoke to Albert Manley Mustapha, the Public Relations Officer for the Single Leg Amputee Sports Club (SLAC). He expressed his disappointment that when David Beckham visited Salone, “ he was kept away from SLAC”. Nevertheless Albert was enthusiastic about the start of the new season and the competition within the country’s five teams, two of them ‘East’ and ‘West’, being based in Freetown. This is a big year for SLAC as they have been invited to participate in the World Cup which will be held in Argentina in October. However, despite the funding from the Federation of International Football’s Street Soccer Section, funding SLAC from within the country is so problematic as to be almost non-existent.

Our personal interest was warmly received and the clarification of the rules, regarding the improper use of crutches, was responded to with additional information on the improper use of the residual imb. Albert spoke with passion and pride for the sport, adding that it had been Salone which hosted the first world cup. The adapted rules includes three breaks in the hour long game, so as players left the pitch to pick up their water packets, they invariably beamed with delight at the two new spectators. Meanwhile, we were left wondering where future funding might come from, for the beautiful game that is played in such tragically unfair circumstances.

In walking and driving around Freetown we are constantly surprised at the ingenuity of children and young men to create recreational spaces on the smallest piece of ground. In some cases it might be the informal kicking of deflated ball, whereas as others, including a patch of land in Tengbeh Town it is much more. Each working day a sign board in colourful chalk lettering announces the day’s football match, be it between Italy and Brazil, England or the Ivory Coast or Ghana. Then, as the heat of the day relents, a 5 a-side football match will draw a crowd from those returning from work or school and the Old Railway Line will be the theatre of dreams for more than just a few.

Universal male aspirations, be they of David Beckham’s dreams, Mohamed Koroma’s or Samuel Bangura’s, are all vital elements in the hopes of engaging in a meaningful activity. In Salone, the universal language of football transcends the ethnic, linguistic and creedal distinctions with an amazingly simple ease. The global dream, of both young men and women to find meaningful work is as acute in Salone as it in any other country on the African continent, although it is never as visible a sporting spectacle.

The Achilles heel in Salone’s socio-economic political life during the 1980s (and before) appears to have been the lack of opportunity for youthful aspirations especially among men, to be satisfied with meaningful work and the acquisition of an appropriate place in society.

It is acknowledged that it was in the preparations for the Trojan war, that led to Achilles damaging the heel of Telephus, an injury that he was subsequently to heal. However no one we have spoken to has suggested that a remedy for any of the current national problems, be it of atrocious health statistics, an impoverished economy, a fragile educational system, or of national unemployment among young people at approximately 75%, will be cured by another armed conflict.

It is the prayer of Saloneans, women and men, young and old, urban and rural, Muslim and Christian, that the dreams of prosperity and peace will be fulfilled through a democratic process of socio –economic reconstruction, in partnership with international agencies and funding, so that the aspirations of all its citizens are addressed.

“An eye for a bird”.

2010-03-21T14:55:00.008Z

Besides being a great phrase “An Eye for a Bird”, is also a book title. The reputation of Eric Hosking, as a respected bird photographer, grew dramatically, when, in 1937, he lost an eye whilst photographing a Tawny Owl in Wales. “An Eye for a Bird” became the title of his autobiography, published in 1970.

Forty years later, on the veranda of a house in Freetown, it was more of ‘an ear for a bird’ before dawn, as the noises from a family of Scope Owls could be clearly heard from anywhere in the house. Some of the sounds, including the tschh hiss, mixed evocatively with the call to prayer from the nearby Mosque but it was the din on the zinc roof that had us out of bed so early. The legs of the owls are short, thick and sturdy, and rich yellow in colour. We have watched the owls, especially the two young ones, hop around on the tree branches, as well as being stationary when we see them on the nearby school buildings’ roofs. With no ceiling insulation in our house, the percussion noise on our roof was easily heard and we realised that the loud clumping noises of heavy clawed feet were coming from the abattoir above our heads, with the killing and dissecting of frogs and small rodents, that had not been presented on the ground as pre-filleted meals.

Working at the theological college requires sharp eyes and ears for cross cultural information that assists communal integration, as it is the small details that frequently cue the nature of an activity and provide a vital element in the living and learning process.

A recent ‘away-day’ event, to a location just west of Freetown, provided us with a generous opportunity to discover more about our colleagues, as ancillary, administrative and academic members (both full time and part time) were expected to attend the day, as made clear by the Principal, Rev Olivia Wesley. It began with the sharing of transport in mini-buses that would have benefited from the U.K’s “scrapage scheme” long before there was talk of a global financial crisis. “There’s always space for one more” is the mini-bus motto, even if the body of that “one” is more out of the bus than in it.

We were heading south along the peninsular to Ebenezer Church, in Goderich village which is really a small town. There are numerous Ebenezer churches and chapels around Freetown and the one in which we were meeting was of the Methodist variety and built originally in 1841. Until the mid 19th century, Goderich was largely a Krio Christian village. Today it is a densely populated Muslim and Christian community, situated on a peninsula that is bordered by both a stunning beach and a mangrove swamp. The subsequent humidity level was therefore a constant reminder of what working at sea level requires of both mind and body, as even sitting on cushioned church pews was demanding.

The previous day had been a national holiday in recognition of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, and it was quite obvious that it had provided the opportunity for a number of the women to be attended to by a hairdresser. And the chosen dress code was, as it is so often, one of, “as smart as possible” by some of the men as well as all of the women. Keeping to the time-table was also very African too, as we adhered to what is commonly referred to as BMT. ‘Black Man’s Time’. So what if we were two hours behind schedule before we got to “lunchtime”? No one blamed the chair, the retired head-teacher of the Methodist Boys’ High School, Nathaniel Pearce, whose skill and energy for indigenous languages involves trying to ensure that a Krio Old Testament will be published later this year.

We are attending one of his classes at college and find it intriguing to see how mature students’ oral competency in Krio, is not always easily translated into its written form. It was estimated that some 200 different languages could be found in Freetown in the mid 19th Century and despite English having a major influence in the development of Krio, other languages including Yoruba and Portuguese have had a marked effect too.

The first proverb one we were taught was “ ɔkrɔ nɔ ba lɔŋ pas in masta”. In English, “okra does not grow taller than its master”.

This refers not only to the physical height of the okra plant, but that it is supple enough to be bent over to be harvested from, and therefore unable to be superior and greater than the one who planted it. The proverb has several interpretations, one being that as many Krios employ housekeepers, caretakers, office messengers, and houseboys, all of which are always subordinate to their master. This proverb could also apply to a young man who has studied overseas to acquire an academic qualification and then after working for some years, returns home with a European wife and much wealth. In the village square he sees the elders gathered in a meeting but, instead of observing the normal decorum that a youth accords elders, he ignores them thinking his wealth and education have made him higher and greater than the inhabitants of his village. He is then approached by an elder in his semi-tattered dress who reminds him of his origin by quoting the proverb “ ɔkrɔ nɔ ba lɔŋ pas in masta”

It was appropriate that this was the first proverb that we, in this case, as students, were invited to reflect upon, in an institution, which pursues degrees and diplomas in a variety of areas. This was the context for considering such traditional wisdom. The college also offers us a cross culture context in which to consider that, in coming from a British culture where owls are often presented in literature as being wise creatures, who are consulted by others for their counsel, we nevertheless observe the same birds, in a different context and appreciate that for most Saloneans, owls are associated witchcraft and its powers.

Kick Polio Out of Sierra Leone!

2010-03-07T16:50:00.006Z

In the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea in the mid 1970s, it was not uncommon to be buying fresh vegetables and notice that the lady selling her produce was missing part of one or more fingers. Leprosy was prevalent in the region and one aspect of the disease involved the loss or part of the ear, the nose, a toe or two and perhaps a finger. However both the Huli and the Mendi tribes practised a mourning ritual, which involved a widow severing her own fingers with a blow from a hand held rock. It was therefore never easily evident as to what had caused the loss of a food seller’s finger(s).

We were reminded of this episode when encountering numerous people in wheel chairs in certain locations in Freetown. Whilst an occasional wheelchair user can be seen in many places there are a couple of locations where they socialise in groups and demonstrate their chair-skills and occasionally take to mixing it with the traffic and getting a tow from a vehicle by holding onto its tow bar. At first we had thought these young people might have been victims of the war as some are missing lower limbs but it became evident that most had withered rather than missing limbs. They, mostly young men and women, appear to have suffered polio and the need for immunisation programme which has just begun would support such a probability. The West Africa wide programme covering 19 countries was initiated in Sierra Leone, where polio was once thought to have been all but eradicated.

Over the next few weeks, 400,000 health workers and volunteers will be going from house to house to ensure 85 million children under the age of five, are be immunised against polio with an oral vaccine. In Sierra Leone, ten years after the last reported case, new cases of the most contagious type of polio have surfaced in the country. Polio, which attacks the nervous system, has clearly not been stamped out and previous joint efforts by the Red Cross and United Nations. The current programme is supported by Rotary International, who have donated $30 million towards the first round of vaccinations.

Dr. Thomas Samba is responsible for child health at the Salone Ministry of Health. He says the biggest challenge is getting the vaccine to the most remote areas of the country. In the interior and the northern province of Koinadugu, ( see map above) where roads are few and far between, local chiefs have hired bicycles, and on the coastal Sherbro island, the fishermen are helping to transport vaccination teams in boats. Another logistical challenge involves the vaccine which must be kept below 8 degrees Celsius, a challenge in a tropical country where electricity is limited even in the capital, Freetown.
A 2009 polio immunization campaign failed to stamp out the disease because it did not reach enough children with vaccines. This year, Sierra Leonean children will receive an additional dose after three weeks and a third dose one month later to ensure the population builds up immunity to the disease. The success has been impeded in the past by some religious leaders suggesting the vaccinations were an attempt to spread HIV and would cause sterility. The new campaign hopes to reach 1.2 million children under five years of age, across the country.

Through the eyes of visitors.

2010-03-06T21:20:00.010Z

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

Teaching and Traditional Belief Systems.

2010-02-23T09:22:00.005Z

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!

2010-02-06T18:25:00.001Z

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

2010-02-03T17:17:00.000Z

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!

No Ivory Towers in Sierra Leone Theological College & Church Training Centre.

2010-01-27T20:59:00.001Z

To take a look out of a first floor room at the college’s main building, will ensure that theological education and church training is not offered from an ‘ivory tower’.

The staffroom’s only window frames a theatre of two solidly constructed four storey buildings. One identifies itself with a well worn sign, “Complete Solutions-Business Services”, the other states itself to be the home of Culture Radio on 104.3 FM as well as the offices for “Shelter Africa”. Both buildings are inertly solid and provide the ‘bookends’ for a space of domestic and commercial energy, which orchestrates constant movement within, and on the street in front. The scenery of the stage includes an overarching mango tree and an erect papaw tree as well as a huge satellite dish which partly obscures a solid well-painted building further up the hillside. The music comes from an orchestra pit, occupied momentarily by a stream of voluble pedestrians and street sellers, as well vehicles, for which Fort Street is a one way thoroughfare. Enter right and exit left.

The multiple scenarios, which are located around the DVD kiosk, with its bunting emblazoning adverts for Tigo and Comium, (mobile phone top-up cards) includes sales of packets of biscuits, sweets and chewing gum on an adjacent table for the walk on and walk off actors with dry mouths, and a huge cast of street sellers with their wares piled on their heads. Centre stage lies behind the corrugated sheeting, where open charcoal-fired cooking pots provide constant food for occasional visitors, babies are washed in bowls and nursed on stools by young and not so young women and clothes on washing lines are frequently played with. Some of the actors appear only fleetingly from numerous homes constructed of recycled timber and well seasoned zinc sheeting, secured in place by car tyres and concrete blocks. An occasional burst of intelligible krio can be deciphered but the script is largely a babble of sound from the orchestra pit.

After spectating on this epic from the staff room window, the move to the classroom brings an encounter with a different cast, many of them leaders within their respective churches and committed to adult education in response their ministry. As mature men and women who, as part of their registration are asked a series of questions, which including those which will make up their psycho-social profile.
Which of the following experiences did you witness during the war in Salone?
a) the killing and massacre of human lives, b) the death of someone close to you,
c) rape,d) amputation, e) looting of your own property, f) forced labour, g) hunger, h) disease, i) internal displacement, j) external refuge, k) specify others.

It is there in the classroom, with its richness of life’s joys and tragedies, that an interpretation of the Salonian daily drama can be explored, so that students and staff together can ask the question, What does God make of all this? And, what is our response to be?

It is hoped that the responses that appear in the months ahead will continue to be rooted in the theatre of life.

"You are witnesses of these things"

2010-01-23T20:34:00.000Z

As the theme for the eight days of prayer and reflection on Christian unity comes from Scotland and was prepared by the group responsible for the Edinburgh 2010 Centenary celebration*, it has an increased significance as we study the material at a distance from a wintry Europe and in an African city.
As yet there are no visible signs indicating that Salone’s churches are engaging in the annual reflection which began on January 18th and concludes on the feast of St Paul. That may be because the ecclesiastical tradition is to follow the southern hemisphere’s preference, which is to recognise the octave of prayer at the time of Pentecost. Ecumenism in Salone is however, clearly evident in the training of ministers from several denominations at the Sierra Leone Theological College and Training Centre where we work. Our colleagues are from a variety of different churches which affirm the search for unity but not necessarily in the same manner or to the same end.
In taking chapter 24 of St Luke’s gospel as the base of the eight days of reflections, the theme of “giving witness through...” has been a useful lens by which daily life and its events can be examined.
Day One is that of “giving witness through celebrating life”, and is followed on Day Two by “giving witness through sharing stories”. The following account combines the two.
In walking the narrow, rutted road towards the Wellington community centre, some of the hundred or so members of NETHIPS might have been momentarily distracted by a football practice session being played out in front a large mosque. Hopefully the spectators of the football match had not been distracted by the large number of women approaching the centre, would have delighted the organisers of the monthly gathering, as maintaining anonymity and ensuring confidentiality is a key aspect of the work of the Network of HIV Positives in Salone (NETHIPS).
Inside the centre the group gathered for a programme of physical exercise, teaching on health and hygiene, distribution of condoms, eating together and of course renewing friendship. This gathering is but one aspect of the work of Methodist Church’s Primary Health Care Centre in Wellington, where a trained team of nurses, social workers and volunteers coordinate a response to the needs of over 300 clients who are registered with the centre. The photograph below is that of Hawa Juana, a nurse at the centre and Idrisa Songo, its director, who, as people living and affected by the HIVirus, endeavour to give ecumenical witness to a celebration of life through their daily work.
On arriving at the meeting the first person we shared a conversation with was Chris, who as a journalist working in an office close to our home was aware of our presence in Tengbeh Town. He quickly acknowledged his HIV status and that he had suffered for witnessing to it. Two days later he arrived at our home with a copy of The African Champion, a newspaper carrying a report on the meeting held in Wellington under the title “Methodist Church, open doors for HIV/AIDS clients” which he had written.
NETHIPS vision is to work towards a nation in which PLHIVs and orphans will enjoy equal rights and opportunities to live productive and meaningful lives, and claim their basic human rights. And in so doing encourage other to witness to these things.

* In 1910, Edinburgh hosted a World Missionary Conference that is seen a significant landmark in ecumenical development. website http://www.edinburgh2010.org/

Daily Living

2010-01-20T20:09:00.000Z

Given that very few changes of address require no physical or emotional adjustments to be made, it is to be expected that a move from the principle city in Scotland to the capital of Sierra Leone, will involve numerous changes to daily living but some of the differences, apart from the climate, might be surprising.
On rising each day, after stepping outside the mosquito net, the hope is that water will have trickled through the thin plastic pipe into the holding tank to replenish the previous day’s consumption. This will have included preparing and cooking food, showering three times a day and hand washing laundry. The water provided by the Goba Valley Water Company, is not considered drinkable and as we have yet to find a domestic water filter, we buy this precious liquid in the largest available size, 1.5 litre plastic bottles. It has been ten weeks since it last rained and it might be another 12 or more weeks until it does, water conservation is a constant theme running through every day.

As it is the dry season we can eat all meals on the veranda. Whilst doing so, we listen to the radio news on countries and places within Africa that tests our knowledge, especially on their location, with good use being made of the map in the Methodist Church’s Prayer Handbook. When living in the UK, Radio 4’s “thought for the day” was anticipated on most days, whereas as now it is the broadcasting of African proverbs, which gains our habitual attention on the BBC’s World Service, spoken first in the person’s mother tongue, then in English, and sometimes followed by an explanation as to its meaning.

Living without a car also changes the manner in which food is both acquired and transported from the various open markets and supermarkets. To make life easier we ask the gate man, Mr Jalloh, to purchase the daily bananas, pawpaw and oranges from passing street vendors. Numerous food items which would have been on a UK shopping list, celery, broccoli, leeks and mushrooms are not available, whilst others, including hard cheese and dark chocolate are not affordable and in the absence of fresh milk, powdered milk is an essential, as are mosquito coils, but not for eating. Finding bottled gas for cooking is not as big a problem as transporting it home or cooking in the oven that consumes it.

The mosquito coils are particularly helpful if we choose to stay on the veranda long after the sunset at 6.30pm to witness the arrival of the Scope Owl which, in the gloom seems to be watching us as much as we watch him/her. Our observation of other birds and their mating patterns along with watching goats being born and now growing, has been far more than just interesting. Being just 8 degrees north of the equator, the sunrise and sunset times have varied only by a few minutes since we arrived in early November, but without rain the gradual browning of the plant life close to the ground is very noticeable.

Accessing money in the local currency is a challenge. Obtaining cash from the bank involves a lengthy bank counter procedure. There are “holes in the wall” to access it electronically, but, as the largest denomination is a 10,000 Leone note , the equivalent of £1.60, a huge wad of notes have to be carried when planning to purchase significant items. Plastic cards do exist, but are not used for general buying nor are cheques acceptable in many establishments. Having carried sterling with us from the UK, we are still using that, which means deciding which money changer on Siaka Stevens Street is offering the best exchange rate, and then getting him to increase it by 500 Leones on the basis that we are exchanging crisp, pristine pounds sterling for grubby and dog eared Leone notes. The carrying of anti bacterial gel in the absence of running water in cafes and restaurants is a “must” for hygienic drinking and eating.

Just leaving the house to go to the Sierra Leone Theological College (SLTC) is a 20 minute procedure. Laptops are put back into a bag, and locked safely away, keys are hidden, bedroom doors locked, then you have forgotten something, so the procedure in reverse, then sun cream on, water bottles filled, check you have enough money for what you want to do, doors locked onto the veranda, money and bags for Mr Jalloh to do the shopping , making sure you have a hat for the sun, and then out the door, its locked and the key left with someone, just in case the plumber, electrician or carpenter need to get in. Then down the road to find a taxi, greeting folk on the way, all of which has been written about in a previous blog.

And now we are becoming part of the life of SLTC as well as the Methodist Church. Names are being learnt, materials prepared, and the discovery that all photocopying is done elsewhere. The YMCA just up the road is recommended so off we go with our books and list of pages to be copied, to discover that it is Janice who has responsibility for this work, and that she got her name as a result of an American doctor operating on her harelip as a baby. And if our timing coincides with lunchtime, then the YMCA does a good groundnut soup with rice and fish, heavily spiced with chillies which bring an additional sweat to the brow.

As may be evident,the details of daily living add to the delights and surprises of living in Salone.

Religious but UnGodly

2010-01-16T20:06:00.000Z

Whilst our teaching appointments at Sierra Leone Theological and Church Training Centre are our principal responsibilities we are also attached to the City Mission Circuit, which involves establishing relationships with the two large congregations of Balmer and Grace Brethren Methodist Churches. Our colleagues include the circuit superintendent Rev Philip Kaikurah, at present a temporary neighbour, who is awaiting repairs to the manse, and Rev Alpheus S Karoma, both of the Mende tribe from the east and south of Salone.
By the time reached Grace Brethren Methodist Church,(see above left) for last Sunday’s morning worship, we had already eavesdropped on an intense discussion between the Muslim taxi driver and the front seat passenger, on the essential worth of worshiping Allah and the basic requirements of Islam. The conversation was in animated Krio and clearly both men were in agreement on the importance and value of their faith and as we left the taxi at the front of the church, we were given their generous farewells.
During the service there was a baptism and a thanksgiving for the life of one of the church’s long standing servants. The service was therefore attended by two extended families, present to give witness to significant moments in their communal life. Each week it is customary for the congregation to be asked if there are any new visitors present, and to invite those who are from other churches or who are Muslims, to acknowledge their presence in order to be formally welcomed. The carefully prepared sermon offered by Rev Karoma, serious attention was given to day to day security and other ways in which assurance in life is offered. It also included reference to the existence of Salonians who are inclined to be religious but ungodly. I was swiftly aware of those people who I know who would not subscribe to being religious but who I would consider to be godly folk. I mused as to whether they are ‘irreligious but godly’
The words of the preacher soon began to mingle in my mind with the conversation heard in the taxi and continued to resonate far beyond the context of Freetown. I recalled the events of the week: in Malaysia where the debate on the authority of Christians who refer to Allah within their worship was challenged by some Muslims; to Egypt where Coptic Christians had been attacked in a reprisal for the rape of a Muslim woman by a Christian, which had resulted in injury and death; and also to Italy where people, thought to be Roman Catholics by the parish priest of the region, had attacked African migrant labourers with gun fire.
During day to day life in Freetown it is difficult not to reflect on the relationship of Muslims and Christians, of mosques and churches and of Islam and Christianity, as the people, their institutions and their belief systems are lived in such close proximity, that it would be more accurate to describe them as being intertwined and difficult to separate. Be it socially, educationally, economically and even devotionally, they occupy space and share oxygen together so that it is the norm at a local community meeting or official ceremony to commence with the saying together of a Muslim prayer, followed or proceeded, by the Lord’s Prayer.
It has been suggested that both Muslim and Christian Salonians’ desire to express and demonstrate their inter-faith unity is exaggerated. Both are swift to express recognition of the one same God and even suggest that the two faiths are equal , which may stem from their fear of identifying differences, lest it should imply antagonism. The hostility that exists between the two faiths in other West African states and in particular the occasional violent clashes of northern Nigeria, are seen as a consequence of acknowledging differences.
A college colleague suggests that the demographic balance of the similar number of Christians and Muslims in Salone society is responsible for the harmony, that is not to be found in any other West African country. In neighbouring Guinea there is a small Christian community and in Liberia a small Muslim community, so that each faith community functions differently and does not seek integration in the same way. In Salone society with its endemic poverty, Muslims, have no problem in eating imported “hogsfoot” or in sharing locally brewed liquors with their Christian relatives and neighbours. And likewise, adult male Christians are not averse to being married in church and then later in life taking an additional wife. Neither practice is a demonstration of orthodox belief in their respective religions but as my colleague indicates it the complexity of Salone’s Afro-Islamic/Christian lifestyle. The question is, would my other colleague consider such practices to be ‘religious and ungodly’? Or is it more a matter of being ‘irreligously godly’ in the name of living in peace in the midst of poverty?

The round ball - Africa’s third religion.

2010-01-09T14:59:00.000Z

Clint Eastwood’s new film Invictus has yet to be released in Europe but is already tipped for Oscar nominations in a few months time. Based on the 1995 Rugby World Cup, it details Mandela’s masterful political acumen, in giving unprecedented black support to ‘white religion’, by not only defending the emblematic Springboks but donning ‘their’ shirt, and claiming it for the whole of the nation of South Africa, as they celebrated World Cup success.
Ghana’s national football team, The Black Stars, is named after the boat which Marcus Garvey used in 1919, to bring people of the African diaspora back to West Africa. It was Kwame Nkrumah who named the team and in 1957, as Ghana’s first president, hosted the continent’s first African Nation’s Cup. It was but one of his many strategic uses of what is often referred to as Africa’s third religion, football, to unite a nation and reinforce a Pan-Africanism, which is so strongly evident in the game of football in Africa today. Islam and Christianity are the two primary religions, with Traditional African Religion or indeed cricket being overlooked. It is to football that the masses,, men more than women turn to, as a means of transcending the daily demands of endemic poverty and the effects of corrupt political decisions.
The 27th African Cup of Nations, a 16 -team tournament, will open in Luanda, Angola, with the hosts playing Mali on Sunday 10th January. This takes place just 7 years after the end of a 27 year long civil war. The tragic shooting incident, involving the Togo team’s bus in northern Angola, is but one feature of the fragility of an infant democracy. Estimates on the cost of staging this bi-annual extravaganza have been put at one billion dollars, in a nation that has huge petroleum and mineral deposits. The juxtaposition of wealth and poverty are starkly evident throughout the country, with more than 70% of Angolans living on less than £1.00 a day. Preparations for the tournament have coincided with Angola securing its first post-war International Monetary Fund loan of £900m, with acknowledgements from the global lender of the nation’s commitment to political and fiscal reforms. Angola clearly sees itself as a rising power on the continent. The hosting of the tournament, the visits from global notables including Hilary Clinton and the opening of embassies in Luanda emphasise its growing influence.
For the 60,000 Angolan refugees who are still in the forests of the Congo and the majority of the 13 million struggling to repair and rebuild conflict-battered infrastructures, the international soccer carnival will be celebrated with religious fervour. This is the time when the African stars who play in Europe, and are watched on television in Africa, playing in English Premiership games, week by week, return to African soil. This includes idolised Chelsea striker, Didier Drogba, of the Ivory Coast, recently voted African footballer of the year. Poverty, be it rural or urban, never stops anyone from partying in Africa. Such enthusiasm challenges the stereotypes of Africa that only suggest famine, civil strife and unbridled corrupt politicians. It is a mass response of hope in the face of adversity.
The games will be played in one of four newly completed stadiums in four separate cities, which have a total capacity of only 115,000. When compared with the World Cup, to be played in South Africa later this year, very few people will be visiting Angola to give support to their national teams. Travel costs alone are prohibitively expensive with accommodation costing 400$US per night in most of Luanda’s recently completed hotels. Only a few thousand Angolans will attend the games, but hundreds of millions will receive live coverage of the same spectacle, on small screens across the continent, and in every village and town, including Freetown.