CBF Work

I’ve had my busiest week so far and it’s all been really enjoyable. I spent the first few days getting on with my research at the schools which involves doing interviews with head teachers and questionnaires with the other teachers who are linked with CBF. I’ve had to do speeches to classes and in assemblies and got to know the teachers and schools a lot better which has been really interesting. The standards of teaching and general ideas of schooling here are very different. In most of them they have to sing the national anthem every morning and because they can’t afford caretakers the children have to clean up all the leaves and rubbish in the playground by hand. I was also told that in government schools the teachers don’t actually get paid but instead the community and city council helps to fund them. Schools which have been running for 3 years and have more than 4 classrooms will only then qualify for the government funding. Classrooms are also full of children, some with up to 45 which must make teaching here pretty difficult. 

I was also invited by Kelsey, who works at the CBF academy to go with her and Richard, another CBF worker, to Bo and Kenema and help with some research they were doing on the physical and social wellbeing of the girls who are involved with CBF and compare it to those who are not. It was also a trip to hand out money to all the managers and coaches. So I went up to the academy in Tombo Wednesday evening and straight away got involved with the boys training session. The boys are aged from 13 to 16 and I’ve never seen anyone that age play at the standard these guys are at. One of them who was 15 and was taller than me could probably strike a ball better than Roony. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see some of these players in the Prem sometime soon; in fact I can’t believe that there are no Sierra Leone players already there. Wenger could probably do with some of them in his team next season and we might actually have a chance of winning something. After training it was time for dinner and then they had to do their homework before going to bed and getting up again for a 7am training session. We set of for Bo at 8 and 3 hours later met the first batch of coaches and managers. It was good to speak to them all and find out the difference of how their league works compared to Makeni but they seem to have the same sort of issues. We then left for Kenema which is a 45 minute drive and met with all the coaches and managers there to. We found out here that one of the boys in the CBF league had passed away due to malaria and typhoid, so we decided to pay the family a tribute and go and visit them. The family were obviously distraught and it was sad as his death was so preventable. CBF have decided to have an award in honour of him to be given out every year. After the visit we went to meet a girl’s team to have a game of football with them. The standard was pretty good and a huge crowd of people quickly gathered round us all to cheer us on. We then went back to the team mangers house we were staying at for dinner and got ready to go out to the local club. A few Stars later and we were all hitting the dance floor and getting all the local goers involved, who didn’t need that much persuading.

The next morning we were feeling a bit fragile but managed to get ourselves up to do some questionnaires and interviews with all the girls teams who were coming to the house to meet us. The information we got in the interviews gave me a real insight to how these girls live, some have lost both parents, others live in big families or only have one meal a day. I found it really interesting to find out what they go through, a daily routine would go something like this: get up and go to work selling, go to school, come back and sell or do chores, go to football training, do homework, go to sleep and start it all over again. Their main worry seemed to be paying school fees. I think the CBF leagues really keep the children motivated. They learn new skills, make new friends and it gives them something positive to focus on. 

After the interviews I left Kenema to get back in time before it got dark. It turned out to be quite a nightmare of a journey. It seems travelling here is never straight forward. I started by getting a taxi from Kenema to Bo which took about an hour. I was then told that I was in the wrong place so had to get a quick ocardo ride up the road to get on a government bus. However the buses don’t leave until they are full and I was the 5^th person on so had to wait at least another hour before we could leave. As soon as we left some lady started throwing a hissy fit about something and started shouting at the other passengers. The man next to me said this lady was crazy and I felt rather uncomfortable as they were all laughing at her and clearly winding her up for fun. It got to the stage where they called a policeman on board to try and sort it out. Luckily she wasn’t arrested and it did keep her quiet for the rest of the trip. The bus took ages and I had to get off about an hour and a half away from Makeni to get a poda poda. By now it was dark and had started raining so I sheltered with a lady and her family who helped me get on the right poda poda. 20 minutes later I was on my way again until for some reason we were all made to change onto another poda poda. The journey was starting to take its toll on me. I was tiered and cold and desperately wanted to get back but instead I was ushered on and crammed in with 20 other people. Nodding off on my last stretch the poda poda kept stopping for unknown reasons and then finally 7 and a half hours and 5 different transport modes later I arrived in Makeni and had a feeling of relief. I came to the conclusion that public transport here can only be summed up as shit, but on the positive it was an exciting little adventure and I was so grateful for all the help people gave me on the way.