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Gambia - visited in December 2005

Freetown, Sierra Leone 9th of December,

A 12 hours and 350km journey brought us from Conakry to Freetown by the end of the afternoon. Checkpoints and the omnipresent corruption took the major and most painful part of our day and of our stress...Cops of the two countries are really shady. I wonder who would win the Oscar... Some of them are very direct in their approach; others are more conservative and prefer to create an unhealthy atmosphere without asking directly for their Christmas gift. This last attitude is more time consuming and painful than the direct one.
The "good" thing is that we have the feeling that they don't see us as walking moneyboxes coming through. Most of the time, local passengers are on the same level and suffer the same aggressiveness as we do. Solidarity links are created between us and the other fellow passengers. Another positive point is that with a couple of smiles, we have always succeeded quite easily to negotiate our bribe debt and reduce it to some cigarettes or some small and insignificant notes....

Freetown is quite a big melting pot of countries I've visited. It reminds me a little of Colombia and its small fishing villages; but also of the port of Aden in Yemen, with its swarming markets and its non-stop singing mosques; or also the 7 hills of Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar; but it is probably more similar to Rio de Janeiro, with its green hills and favelas.
Crossing the city, I try to go 2-3 years backwards and remember the attack of the rebels on Freetown. "No Living Thing" was their motto. Trying to picture this bloody slaughter is a very painful exercise. How can we imagine that just a couple of months ago, Freetown has been the scene of 6000 brutal deaths, and that some other thousands were tortured, raped, etc..? And all this for nothing, except some precious stones worn by the wealthiest of this planet.

The famous Bintumani hotel has been destroyed quite entirely and requisitioned by the rebels during their occupation. I can't imagine what happened in our room during those days. I see rebels everywhere, and my head imagines fields of battles on the gardens that edge the hotel. I have pain in my head and the anger is unbearable. It is very difficult to describe our first impressions of Sierra Leone, as we saw only a luxuriant vegetation, paradise environment, hot delicious food, and charming people. How can we imagine there was war only 2-3 years ago?
How to believe the awful stories that one tells you with a thin voice?
How could the people forgive the rapes, murders, torture from their neighbours?
How to trust the taxi driver, the waiter or the street seller?
How not to imagine that some of them took part to the atrocities?
How to presume that rancour does not exist in this country?

We met a judge of the war criminals. He told us that soldiers are sent to reinsertion camps for a stay of 3 weeks to 6 months.. Either Sierra Leoneans adapt to their environment as well as chameleons, or they were, as said, drugged soldiers - but what a rapid adaptation to a new normal life!!

We have been for about a week in Sierra Leone, and I couldn't resolve the mystery of the reintegration. I believe that it is necessary to divide the topic in two. First of all, the children soldiers whom one tried to bring back in the society, and secondly the society itself that must try to reintegrate and tolerate those young criminals. How can families forgive the committed barbarisms so quickly..?
A big work has apparently been done with children soldiers themselves, but less effort has been done within the society in itself or with victims of rapes, crimes, etc... How could these martyrs accept so easily the return of mercenaries under the lemma "forgive but don't forget ". As a sceptical European, I could not trust their sincerity, but today I want to believe it ingenuously, as the sierra leoneans do.

It hurts me to write on the atrocities that have been committed. There are so many stories. I cannot translate them in words and spread the emotions of people without travestying them. Others would have more talent to do it.

We worked with the UNICEF in an Islamic school inland in a small city called Makeni, eastern Sierra Leone. We observe that there is still a huge job to realize in Education. The level of instruction is low. For teens it is often also their first years of schools as they couldn't attend during war times.

After spending the morning in the school working on the poetry, drawing and pictures, we trained the local UNICEF staff on digital photography.
We wander afterwards around the small communities in the village. As usual, we were welcomed with the gleeful eyes of children. They became once more crazy when they saw the camera. They were smiling, playing, running as every child does in front of the lens.

A sinewy lady, dressed of yellow, brings back the water of the dwell. She hisses me, seems to shout at me. A hen and some black pigs run behind her. With her some words of English and my first words of Creole English, I now understand that she asks me to take her in photo in order to show at home how the African women suffer at work, but also to explain their good will. I grant her wish and continue my way under this vivid sun into the small humid village...

As a last image, I can say that Sierra Leone is a marvellous country by its beauty and its invigorating nature. A country that would have been rich thanks to its minerals, earths of agriculture, its beaches and tourism. I wish it for the future. I want to believe they are taking the good path. The United Nations made an outstanding job here! I hope that they will be able to transmit to other missions as Liberia or in Ivory Coast.

Anthony
Cape Coast (Ghana) January, 15th 2006

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