A Night With The Locals

I'm almost a month into my time in Sierra Leone now and so far I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I'm inspired by the people in this country as it is clear a lot of them have so little and have been through so much. The decade long war has had some major affects here. Today you can still see houses which were destroyed during the fighting and act as a constant reminder. I still find it amazing being able to talk to someone who is maybe only a few years older than me but has stories about how they had to flee their village into the bush because of the rebels or one guy even talked about being tortured. It really hits you when you talk to these people and I feel so lucky to have been bought up in a stable country where I've never had to see war first hand. The positive now is that you can see they are making improvements here even though they’re happening at a slow rate and there is still a fair bit of corruption you kind of get the feeling that war is something these people never want to have again. 

On a happier note, I really wanted to tell you all about the night we recently spent hanging out with the community people. A local girl called Sallie who is about 22 often comes to our house to chill out and being the only girl in the house I kinda like the female company. Sallie is such a lovely person, whenever you see her she’s got this huge smile on her face. She’s also got a son called Mohammed who’s 2 but the farther left them both and isn’t interested in keeping in contact. Sallie lives in a small house with about 10 other people, all of them are family or extended family and everyday she wanders round carrying a cool box on her head selling drinks. I don’t know how she manages it cause I've tried lifting it and its pretty heavy. She’s also this amazing runner so we’re hoping she will win the SL Marathon in a few weeks, which will mean she gets some prize money and makes her stand out for other competitions. 

Anyway, we spent the other night at her house where about 20 or so people other people had congregated outside. They were all drinking Poya (wine which has been fermented from palm trees) and I mean everyone even little Mohammed, listening to the radio and chatting while the children were playing. We joined them, sitting in the dark with our torches and the moonlight shining down. Of course it wasn’t long before we soon found ourselves teaching the kids things they hadn’t done before. Just simple thing like trying to tap your head while rubbing your belly got them in fits of giggles. I learnt a good few clapping games that night to and one lady in particular taught me a really good one and found it hilarious when a started dancing to the tune. There was one kid called YaYa who they say is 8 years old but is the size of a 2 year old. Everyday we walk past the house he comes running out to hold our hand with the biggest smile on his face. It was hard not to want to pick him up all the time or treat him like a little kid. A top up phone stall across the road then started playing music and all of a sudden the kids ran over and started dancing. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go and have a little boogie so went over with them and poorly started showing off my dance moves. Obviously they started laughing at me but I was in the zone. Sallie then joined us and another lady was trying to teach me some sort of bum/hip shake which I failed miserably at. The boys stood away from the dancing, maybe trying to pretend they weren’t with the weird white girl trying to dance; I’m not sure on that one yet. It was such a nice feeling to be dancing under the stars and I'm pretty sure I had a smile on my face the whole time. The kids continued to play games till well after 10 and little Mohammed who had clearly had too much Poya decided to leave my top nice and wet after I had picked him up which I wasn’t too happy about but had to laugh at. I explained to Sallie that children that age in England would have to be in bed by 7 and there was no way they’d be allowed to wander around the street playing. She seemed shocked that this happened and that night I really got to see the huge culture differences there are between us and the Sierra Leoneans. I enjoyed my night with Sallie’s family a lot and learnt a great deal about our community here. I hope to spend some more nights with them and experience more about how they live here.