Kenema

Kenema is our favorite city so far...it has all of the convenience of a big city, but the feel/pace of a more rural town. Everything is sold in its own section of the city, whether it be school uniforms, bread, kebabs, dudes on the street waiting to change money, rainbarrels, etc. In Kenema we stay with Patrick, one of the WWOOF coordinators, and his "extended family," which he chuckles about every time he introduces his 20 plus kids who live at his place or come around to play all day. 

 

Patrick and his kitten eat dinner after coming home from work. It is common for men to wear boxers and a tank top as their "relax" outfit when they return home. 

Some of the kids help us carry our treated water back from the well.

His house is in the suburbs and is surrounded by farms and has a very safe and friendly neighborhood vibe. At night we look up at the stars, see the moon reflected off the water, and watch the lightning bugs flutter around us. During the day, we play Sierra Leone games that the kids teach us. One is a complicated versions of the opposite of "monkey-in-the-middle"...you are try not to be hit by the people on either side throwing the ball at you as you try to flip over bottle caps, flipflops, or whatever else you have at your disposal. When they hit you, they yell, "Toast!"  It is really fun!

Matt teaches some of the kids how to make an oragami crane

Some kids teach Matt useful Mende phrases. We will need these when we get to Daru.

Some randomn thoughts/observations:

The best coconuts in the world are found in Kenema.

A typical breakfast here is fried cassava (similar to sweet potato) and plantains and fish with speghetti.

One night, the power came on at midnight, so all the kids woke up and watched a movie.

There are lots of Albinos in Sierra Leone; so far we've seen probably 15.

Two things are found in abundance here: mango trees and school children!

Matt helps plant some crain-crain seeds in the garden.

The South

It's still Matt.

After Kabala, it takes a whole day of travelling to head to the second largest city, Bo, located in the Southern district.  One poda poda to Makeni, and another to Bo.  The second leg of the trip is rough.  The back half of the vehicle had the benches removed and was packed full of a dozen goats, the front half, a dozen humans.  Instead of taking the highway, our driver wants to save on fuel and takes a shortcut.  This road, not on the map, is more direct, but turns a would-be 4-hour drive into a 7-hour one, with significantly more bone-rattling bumps.  Our bums are sore afterwards.

Bo is the second largest city in Sierra Leone, after Freetown.  Though not nearly as expansive as Freetown, it's a nice, if brief, change from the more rural areas.  Paved roads and air conditioning aren't so bad, really.  We don't stay long.  The next morning, we do some internet: Alex works on employment stuff while I find out that the patriots did not win the superbowl.  In fact, they were not even invited.  Then we enjoy a cushy share-taxi for the brief trip to Kenema in the east.

Kenema is the base for the shady WWOOF program in Sierra Leone.  The town is vibrant with plenty of shops, diamond dealers, quiet side street neighborhoods,  and a man walking around (following us?) with a wheelbarrow full of the most delicious fresh coconuts.  African coconut sellers are supremely confident with their machetes, holding the coconut in their hand as they chip the top off for drinking, and then splitting afterward to spoon out the flesh.

On the left you will find a variety of posters, typical of those found anywhere in Sierra Leone. Note that Avril Lavine is there...some other interesting ones are of Barack Obama.

 On the right is a market with stalls lining the walkway. This is also typical of any city in Sierra Leone.

 The bread is delicious and the bread sellers are all lined up next to each other, so whenever there is a customer, they all try to show you how soft their bread is by squeezing it to get your business. Needless to say, trying to communicate that we didn't want them to touch our bread was an adventure in and of itself.

 There are several modern buildings and structures in the cities in Sierra Leone. In Kenema, the banks were by far the most modern looking buildings, but in Freetown there are a variety of buildings that look similar. We thought we should make sure to include this photo as we usually were not taking pictures of the modern buildings, but wanted to make sure that there was at least one photo documenting them.

The North

Hello.  This is Matt.

From Freetown we head for Makeni on a crowded poda poda, a minibus that is the most common transport from town to town.  They rarely follow a schedule and depart once the driver feels he has fit enough people inside, or on the roof.  As a passenger, you might think it's full, but it's really not.  There may be four people on a 3-person bench, but really there should be five.  The roofs are loaded high with cargo, usually doubling the height of the vehicle, and often late-coming passengers (always men), ride up next to, or on top, of the cargo.

 In Makeni, we truly realize how nice the ocean breeze on the coast had been.  It's seriously hot.  There are thousands of motorcycles whizzing around the town.  Motorcycles, known as hondas or ocatas, seem to be the standard local transport method in provincial towns. In Makeni it's a flat 1000Le per person wherever you're going (about a quarter).

The next day, we leave the paved roads and take a 5-hour poda poda to Kamakwie, a town in the north, close to Guinea.  As we pass small villages (hamlets?), we notice adults moving at a much slower pace, or not at all.  We also find a street named after me!  The children of the villages are also more keen to notice us, with gleeful shouts of "Abato," "hellohellohellohello," or simply "white!" depending on the ethnicity of the village we're in.  Their faces light up as we wave to them. 

There are mosques in almost every town that look remarkably similar to the one on the right. We also notice that this turquoise/teal color is preferred.

Arriving in the late afternoon, our two hondas fly down a track (barely a road) through jungles and over hills to Outamba National Park.  The large river on the way is crossed by a "ferry," a metal and wood raft pulled along a cable by two men. On the left is a photo of our ferry on the way to Outamba National Park. 

Outamba Park is nice and quiet aside from the steady buzzing of insects and bird and monkey calls through the trees.  We camp just above the river bank in our wonderful mosquito tent (thanks Katie and Elliott), though in the night, we discover that the camping mat we're given because my thermarest broke contained plenty of bugs including a cockroach.  The next two nights we sleep in little thatch-roofed huts.

Our first day there, our guide and I canoe down the river, with Alex on a stool in the middle.  We stop paddling whenever we see the tree branches on the bank shake and look for monkeys.  We're able to see several troops, including the black and white colobus, the spot-nosed, and the vervet monkey.  Incredible birds we've never seen before fly back and forth across the broad river.  Then our guide tells me to stop paddling as we coast towards some objects down river.  One of them sprays water in the air and snorts loudly enough to echo off the trees. We pull off to the side and watch for a while as the hippos disappear and reappear at random intervals like a big game of whack-a-mole.  Occasionally one grunts loudly and exhales a plume of spray.

This should be a video of the hippos...if it does not work, I've included a photo below as well. 

The next day we cross the river walk along wide paths through 12-ft tall grass.  The elephants who created the paths have shown little regard for their impact as we pass countless trampled clearings.  Less-trodden side paths branch off in both directions, and it seems we're on an arterial route.  Our guide points out their footprints as well as those of a 'bush cow.'  We climb a small hill and are amazed at how far the park stretches.

The park is minimalistic in terms of amenities.  Each evening, we would wade out off a sand bar wash in the warm river.  Locals said there are crocs somewhere in the river, but they didn't seem worried, so we tried to put that out of our minds.  We had to pack in all of our food, and our bread was getting stale by day three.  We made a small fire and heated up a can of baked beans and some luncheon meat (Pat should be glad to know that Alex abstained from the spam), that we had purchased from the Lebanese-run grocery store in Makeni.  It's incredible how many businesses here are owned by Lebanese.

We take hondas and poda podas back to Makeni, and scour the town for wi-fi to get the next books of our series on our kindles.  We get lucky at the SOS charity orphaned-children's village on the outskirts of town, where one confused but generous employee turns on the generator and calls his supervisor for the wireless password.

A 3-hour shared-taxi ride later, and we're in dusty Kabala.  A combination of the tapering Harmattan winds (northeasterly winds blowing sand from the Sahara), countless controlled brush fires, and the honda traffic on dirt roads create a lingering haze.  The town is higher in elevation and significantly cooler than Makeni.  That part is nice.  There are three ethnicities in Kabala: Limba, Kuranko, and Fula.  Each has its own language that members speak among themselves.  They also kind of have their own section of town.  If conversing with someone random, like buying something at a store, people would use Krio, the heavily-pidgined english spoken in Freetown.  A Limba boy told me that he can tell the ethnicity of a stranger by their face (Fulas are darker skinned, and Kurankos have wider faces), but it's tough for me.

Kabala

Looming over the town is a broad rock face that we climb up and around, with the help of a young guide.  The hill is one of the Wara Wara mountains, a chain northwest of Kabala, characterized by solid monolithic slabs and cliffs.  We take it slow in the town, recovering from our travels and some sickness.  In the evenings we frequent a bar called Choices (which i think sounds like a great name for a gay bar), which shows european soccer and sells cold drinks.  Through the entire country, if you want electricity, you've gotta make it yourself using a generator, so not many places have cold drinks or lights.  Most hotels and guest houses will have lights for a couple hours in the evening or thru till mornin, depending on how expensive or upscale it is.  The fuel costs determine the prices for many things in Sierra Leone from hotels to transport and even little things like packets of filtered water, which are twice the price in Kabala as Freetown because of the shipping.

On our last day, we take a motorcycle over a long bumpy track out around the Wara Waras to Kakoya village (the supposed origin of the Limba people).  We sit down with the brother of the chief and the whole village gathers around us.  We try to explain we want to hike the mountain behind his village, and he seems skeptical.  Eventually he provides us with two teenaged guides and we start up a track.  The mountain had been recommended in the guide book which came out two years ago, and I guess other owners of the book had passed before us, because one of our guides asked me why my colleagues all want to climb the mountain?  The majority of the young children in the village follow us initially and several stay with us the whole way.  The track disintegrates and we bushwhack our way up to the top for a splendid view and a glimpse of the elusive "stone goat," a marmot-looking creature.

Hiking the beaches along the peninsula

John Obey Beach

We spend the next two and a half days hiking north up the coast along the stunning beaches of Sierra Leone, and over the occasional rock bunch along the water. We relax on beaches in secluded coves, with a sea breeze lulling us into a peaceful state. We stop for lunch and get fried plantains and fresh fish and rice.
Then more hiking along soft, fine, empty, long stretches of beautiful white or yellow beach. Swimming in the ocean is perfect, the shallow slope of the beach, the extremely warm temperature of the water (mom, even you would swim here), and the clear and colorful water make it absolutely ideal! A river follows parallel to the coast in many places, so rinsing off in the fresh water, was also helpful.

 Some beaches have hotels or guest houses, but we opt for the more secluded beaches which only have a camping option.  There is generally a dude hanging out on the beach who says it's his stretch of beach.  You pay him a negotiable fee (we're pretty good negotiators) for a spot for your tent, a bonfire, "security," and breakfast in the morning.  They'll also cook dinner: rice, tomato and onion sauce, and "catch of the day".  Sometimes the catch is fresh, other times, smoked.  The fishing villages smoke a lot of fish and crab so they can bring them inland to sell.  Without a steady refrigeration method, smoking is the way to do it.  One beach we walk pass, River No. 2, is more touristy and an odd German tells us that it was ranked by a tv show as one of the best beaches in the world. 

Estuary at River No. 2

At one point, the rocks became impassible, and we scrambled up through the brush to find a road, where we were introduced to the spicy baked bean sandwich.  Also, there are different varieties of bananas here that are not for sale in the states.  They ought to be.  They're delicious.  Once our time on the beach sadly comes to an end, we fit on to a motorcycle with my bag on the handlebars, the driver, myself, and finally matt with his bag, and drive through the red dust back to Freetown.  Our faces are filthy!

Freetown Peninsula-Chimps and the Banana Islands

We take a taxi on the Mountain Road, which is dirt with many holes and rocks, to our drivers chagrin, up to the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary up in the hills. You should look this place up, if you have time...interesting fact, Lush, the bath-bomb company based in Canada, is one of its sponsors.  (Have I mentioned that there are many hills in and around Freetown, which adds to the place's beauty?) Here is a photo of a typical hillside in Freetown...

We go on a Chimp tour, through a variety of enclosures, seeing a few different family groups and some younger chimps playing in a playpen area. I am run off by a boisterous chimp at one point, even though there is a very sturdy electric fence in between us, and Matt still finds this humorous. They love to throw rocks though...kinda scary...although not really. I'm just trying to make myself feel better about being scared. :)

We stay in a bungalo in the hills near the sanctuary and hear birds and chimps as we fall asleep. Matt goes up to the sanctuary to get some water and meets a girl from Capital Hill, Seattle who is in Sierra Leone working for the special court trying war crimes cases! Small world. 

We walk to a nearby waterfall and the cool water is....wonderful. On the way there we see pineapples growing next to us on the path and walk through a mango grove.

Get a taxi to Waterloo, on our trip towards the southern tip of the peninsula past small villages like Grafton, that was originally set up by the UN for refugees during the war. We stop for water and get a shared taxi to Kent. Matt and I share the front seat; I hang out the window and catch the sweet breeze a little and there are 5 people in the back seat, as well as a boy who shares the drivers seat with the driver!
We meet Dalton in the sleepy fishing village of Kent, who happens to be the owner of the guest house we are headed for on Banana Islands in Kent, so we get a ride from him in his large wooden boat. When he attaches the motor it takes about 30 minutes to get to the islands, passing a sunken ship on the way. We found out later that people dive and get metal parts from ship wrecks to sell as scrap metal later.

On Banana Island we meet a couple from England who are biking from Dakar to Monrovia. For dinner we eat fresh fish that is caught by the owner by spearfishing an hour after it is caught! The next day we try our hands at spear fishing and discover that it is much harder than it seems. We eat fresh caught crab for lunch. We also snorkel around the rocks and spend a decent amount of time in a hammock before walking around the village and exploring some of the pathways through the bush where we see an amazing amount of termites and termite hills. At about 7pm that night, right when the sun is disappearing, hundreds of thousands of bats fill the sky flying towards the mainland for food. The view is breathtaking...

On the left is the hut where we stayed on Banana Island.  On the right, I am walking along the path from the north of the Island where we stayed, to the southernmost tip, which we never reached...it is a several hour-long walk. Below, you can see our private beach at Dalton's Guesthouse.

Freetown

Although the flight to Sierra Leone from Senegal is relatively short, the flight was delayed and then getting from the airport to the city once we arrived was quite a process. Because the airport is on a peninsula, the options for getting into town are to take a helicopter, hovercraft, ferry, or the long 6 hour drive around via land--no joke. We opted for the ferry, which was quite an experience. We were in the 1st class lounge, where people sat in a room while the dj, yes, there was a dj, played loud 30second music videos through the speaker and the tv in the corner. Most of these videos were Christian Rock videos, which made the whole experience even more interesting.

When we arrived in Freetown at night we took a taxi to the hotel through the urban east side and center, over tiny bumpy streets with deep open gutters. We were amazed by how many people were out on the street eating, listening to music, and generally socializing. The taxi was swiped twice by motorcyclists trying to weave in between the cars and through the stop and go traffic (not serious at all, but certainly different from what we have been used to).
After our first full day in Freetown it is immediately clear that Sierra Leone is an amazing country with friendly and interesting people. We are surprised by several things about the country: there are lots of Lebanese people who have started a lot of very successful businesses in the country (grocery stores are possibly better than some in the states--you can even get Corn Flakes!) and there is an amazing amount of NGOs and International Aid organizations present, leading to many more white faces than we expected. When we explain that we are tourists and not working with an organization, we get very confused and surprised faces.

I wear the African fabric I bought in Senegal as a skirt/wrap as many women do here, and am greeted by locals calling out "African woman!" with smiles on their faces.
After we explore around the West side of the city, we head to the beach that is practically empty with a few boys pulling in fishing lines, and a few restaurants across the street for "chop" as its called in Creole.
Many people will come up and announce that they want to be your friend, some with genuine interest, others hoping for some money or assistance with something..."friendship sometimes comes with a price". 

From Seattle to Paris to Dakar

 

After a quick flight to Paris, we had several hours to explore the city, and we headed for Notre Dame and the surrounding area. It was nice to stretch our legs and walk around, and surreal to be in such a different place after only a few movies on the airplane. Walking around the St Germain neighborhood around Notre Dame was really wonderful, stopping at a cafe for hot and delicious crepes and fresh squeezed juice. We walked around some parks in the area and witnessed the abundance of motorcycle riding, scarf wearing Parisians.

This is a small neighborhood named Yoff near where we stayed (also close to the airport). This was one of our favorite places, where we could witness the slow paced life of the people outside of the city.  Kids played in the streets, chickens, goats, and dogs wandered, and colorful laundry and beautiful bougainvillea add to the beauty of each street.  

Our first day in Dakar, Senegal we dive right into the urban market scene, which is very overwhelming, kids leading us through the different sections (some "sections" include chicken, clothes, autoparts, trinkets, nuts, smelly things, etc.) of the extremely large section of town that is the "market". With some sections inside, some in stalls outside, some along the streets, and some on the 2nd/3rd floor of buildings, it was easy to get lost. If I hadn't had Matt with me, who has an impressive inner sense of direction, I might have spent the rest of my trip in this one market.

We spent the rest of the day, and the following couple of days, exploring the city and walking a LOT. We saw lots of Baobob trees, which are beautiful--you should look these up if you have the time--and some boys using a slingshot to get the baobob fruit down from the tree. 

For all of you who have ever been to Muscle Beach in Cali, the Muscle Beach in Dakar is quite something to see as well. They have work out equipment on the beach and the stretch of sand along the road is packed with people running, working out, showing off their bodies, and starting games. Amazing how many people there were!

Dakar is one of the only developing countries I've been where there hasn't been street dogs hanging around...even more surprising is that in lieu of the street dogs, there are goats!

Highlights: There are beautiful African fabrics everywhere and the food is wonderful, partly due to the French influence, I'm sure.