Looking Back on Salone

I’ve been home for just over 3 weeks now and I've had lots of people ask me how my trip went but to be honest I never know where to start. It sometimes feels impossible to explain the things we did, what we saw or what we were told as there was just so much. It was however, without doubt the most incredible experience I've had so far and it had a real effect on me. We were taken away from our comfortable surroundings and stayed in a place living in poverty where malaria is often seen as the common cold, and families live in a house of 20+ people surviving on one meal a day. People in Sierra Leone have a life expectancy of just 48 years; the country itself is 8^th from the bottom on the Human Development Index which isn’t good and it is recovering from a brutal 11 year civil war which was between the years 1991 to 2002. 

I was told many stories of the hardships of life in this country and the one which I will always remember was told to me by a teacher. We were discussing the war and he went on to tell me about his family. They lived in Makeni which was a strong hold for the rebels at the time and one day his father was cycling home when a child solider stopped him and told the farther to give him his bike. The farther refused and said he had worked hard to afford the bike so wouldn’t give it to him. The child solider continued to argue that it was his right to have the bike so he should give it up. After a long confrontation the child solider pulled out a gun and shot him in the head then went away with the bike. The body of the farther was left in the road for 3 days as no one was allowed to move it, maybe as a sign of warning I'm not sure. The rebels also took two of the teacher’s sisters, one he later found in Freetown and the other he has never seen again. He now looks after his mother who is losing her sight as well as being a part time sports teacher. I was mesmerised when he told me his story as well as many others that I heard and I don’t know how these people get through it but they do. And what the statistics and negative stories don’t say about this place is that the people are the most friendliest and kindest you’ll ever meet. Some are just as intelligent as us, which as bad as it sounds surprised me as they don’t exactly have the best educational system and many can’t afford it anyway. But some people will put their all into learning as much as they can because they understand the opportunities education can bring to them and how it can help them out of poverty. It just seems unfair that some don’t get the chance to shine. Alusine however is one person who is pretty special. He was our house boy but in the end became one of our good friends. He is currently trying to pay to go to university as there's no such thing as uni loans here, so he’s saving up the money from this job to pay the 1.5 million leones per year which is about £250 so he can study a computing course. He told me that he always had to work so he could pay for his schooling as his parents could not afford to put all of their children through education. He used to sell things but now he has the job with The Collective at the house and during our stay he also managed to get another job where he was putting together ID cards for the upcoming elections. In the meantime he was working through a computing book that a previous volunteer bought out so he could keep up to date with his studies. Before we left we all agreed to contribute money to his fees so he could attend in September and he recently told me that he just bought the forms to sign up which I was very happy about. People like Alusine are a real inspiration to others. It really is true that we take our education for granted here. It’s a shame you don’t realise it at the time. 

Living in Salone for 3 months taught me a lot about the world outside of England. I’d never been away from home that long or been to a place quite like it and to see a different side to life and a completely different culture really opened my eyes. It’s also given me the travel bug as I can’t wait to have the chance to do something like it again. I learnt a lot about myself and built on some important skills that will help me in the future. I also met some amazing people on the way who made the trip pretty special and who I hope will always be a friend. I suppose that does include the volunteers I went out with to, even though I took my fair share of banter from them we shared many memories together and I'm sure we’ll always stay in touch.

Since I've been back its fair to say I've missed everything about the trip and one day I would love to go back and see everyone again. I can’t wait to find out how Alusine will be doing at uni or how Mohamed Sally’s son has grown and if Sally herself is still smashing running records. I’ve also got my fingers crossed for John who got through to the second stage of the academy trials and Cisse the coach for Nosdo FC who I'm hoping will be involved with CBF after we did a profile on him. Even though I'm back in England now I still get texts and phone calls from these people which I'm so happy about as I can always keep in touch with them. I’m sure my phone bill will be enormous but I love hearing from them and it’s a constant reminder for me not to take things for granted. It always reminds me just how lucky we really are and the thing is you just don’t realise it until you go to a place like this. I'm not going to lie, there were some pretty shocking things about Sierra Leone. One of the things that made me most uncomfortable was the fact that they are very open about beating kids, and I saw it a number of times especially at the schools I went to. I was also completely stunned by the Freetown slums. I’d never seen living conditions quite like it and observing their life out of a taxi window I couldn’t help but stare at the tiny metal shacks practically on top of each other, with kids playing in the rubbish or in the water with god knows what in and people dodging their way through the maze like paths busily selling, doing each other’s hair or watching life go by. But it’s all part of life for Sierra Leonians and once you go there you begin to understand properly how things work. You see the stuff on programmes like Comic Relief and those adverts which make you want to donate money. They paint a very negative picture of countries like this. They’re not exactly lies, but they show only the worst cases and yes life is very tough for these people but you don’t hear them constantly complaining about this or that. They accept it and try their hardest to make life better for themselves and their families and any sort of help you can offer they’ll welcome with open arms and a smile. I always remember one of the first things I saw in Sierra Leone, and it was the sign at the crazy Freetown Airport which just said “Welcome to Sierra Leone – The Place of Smiles.” And there’s nothing more I can add to that. 

 

P.S. If you want to read more about the work we done and the last of our adventures the next two blogs below will tell you all. Thank you for reading. I hope I haven’t bored you too much and if you ever want to visit Sierra Leone I’d be happy to tell you more and all the good places to go. Also please take some time to look at the charities website and follow the links below for some videos of the boys and charity.
http://www.craigbellamyfoundation.org/

http://vimeo.com/19658919  
http://vimeo.com/19754133
http://vimeo.com/19663160

The Last of Our Adventures

Other then work our last month was spent trying to cram in all the stuff we wanted to do. One of our trips was to a place called Kabala which is north of Sierra Leone. Ben had told us it was a great place to go for some nice walks. It was a standard journey, starting off brightly as we headed to the taxi rank and picking our taxi carefully i.e. it was still in one piece. We anticipated the trip to last about 1 hour 30 but as we headed off down a very dodgy road we started to smell something coming from the car. The driver appeared to ignore it and carried on with the journey until we were about an hour in and the car came to a standstill. We obviously hadn’t chosen our taxi carefully enough. We weren’t too sure how far was still to go but we clearly needed some other form of transport. As a bus came past the driver of the taxi hailed it down and helped us to negotiate a price as we pilled on to the already full bus. It seemed to take another 2 hours or so to get there and once we arrived we met with Alfred, a friend Ben had made on his visit. He took us to his house where we waited for a couple of lads to take us on a hill walk. The walk went up a very steep hill through the bush but it was definitely one of the easier walks I had done since I’d been there. Afterwards we went back to meet Alfred who said he’d take us to a coffee plantation. We were looking forward to seeing all the coffee being made but all of a sudden Alfred stopped at a tree and said “here is the coffee.” Basically we’d gone to see a coffee tree which was pretty cool but I think we were all secretly a little disappointed there was no actual plantation. Our journey back was done in half the time it had originally taken us due to our speedy taxi driver not being able to find the brake pedal, though he probably didn’t even have a working speedometer to know if he was speeding or not. 

Others trips we did were to the chimpanzee sanctuary in Freetown, to Bambuna to see a stunning waterfall, to the CBF academy where we got to spend some time with the boys at training and we also made another visit to Burah Beach. We enjoyed a few nights out to, one being to the local hotel club and another playing a bit of flip cup at the Clubhouse. On our final night in Makeni we decided to invite the team managers and coaches to our house for a few drinks. We asked Sally to bring us a cool box of all her drinks and paid her for them all so it was a free bar. Turns out a free bar in Makeni is not a good idea. Those that turned up all had one too many beers and started announcing all their problems with CBF to us. We couldn’t get a word in edgeways and in the end Charlie had to step in and say that there wasn’t anything us volunteers could do as it mainly went down to there not being enough money. After a little reminder that we were supposed to be celebrating, the managers and coaches took to dancing and going completely crazy with the alcohol. There were pictures being taken left, right and centre and as soon as the cool box was empty they all decided to leave. Most of them left on their motorbikes in a drunken state and others stumbled away into the darkness. It was only 10pm and it had seemed like a tornado just hit our house. A few minutes later and the respectable Nosdo FC lads turned up to say goodbye. We had no drinks left to give them but we had already bought the team a football as a leaving present which they all loved. There were yet more pictures being taken and some emotional departing hugs and handshakes. Afterwards we went back into the house to add up the final cost of all that was drunk. Turns out it came to 300,000 le which is around £45. Realistically I can defiantly spend that much on a night out so it didn’t seem too bad when you put it that way.       

On our last day in Makeni I felt pretty sad to be saying goodbye to everyone. The day was spent going to all the places and seeing all the people who had made our stay so special. We had our last lunch at Global which was the restaurant we went to everyday, and we had our last few drinks at the Clubhouse. We went to Encis for the last time which was the place we went for internet, and we battled our way through the Makeni town streets experiencing all the Aporto calling from the usual kids for the last time. When we got back to the house we chilled out with the local kids giving them a balloon and few little toys to keep them entertained. I gave Mohammed (sally’s son) a toy car which when you pulled the string made a loud ringing noise. I later realised I had probably given him a typical toy which every parent hates because he just kept pulling that string. 

The next morning, after our eventful managers and coaches evening we got up early to say the final goodbyes to those who we were most close to. This included Sally and her family, Fatmatta and her son and of course our main man Alusine. We gave them all presents and for Alusine we told him that we would contribute to his university fees which he was over the moon about. We gathered outside for one last photo of us all and I looked around the house for the last time thinking about everything we’d done. I remember thinking this was probably the cleanest I had ever seen the house since we’d been living there.

We then bumpily drove off, waving to everyone in the distance and hoping that one day I would meet them all again.    

Our Last Month of CBF Work

I’ve noticed that I completely failed to keep my blog up to date in the last month of my trip. I suppose it’s a testament to how busy I was at the time. The last 4 weeks absolutely flew by and I’m now sat at home with all the luxuries I could ask for. There's light at the flick of a switch, internet at full speed, a power shower with hot water and all the foods that I missed are in the fridge. I’ve started to question whether I actually need all this after being taken away from it for 3 months it really doesn’t seem all that important.

Anyway before I get all deep and reflectional on the trip I’ll quickly fill you in on the last month and what we’ve all been up to. So, work wise everything started getting busy. We were organising a capacity building session for team managers and coaches on computer skills. This is something not many of them know about so we thought it would be important for them to at least know the basics of some of the programmes. I led a session on Microsoft Word and put together a handout with some information on and came up with a few tasks for them to do. Obviously we knew that not everyone would have computers so we chose a location that actually had a couple to practice on and took our laptops for extras. We also managed to hook up a projector which we got from the Clubhouse. It all worked out perfectly and it was so rewarding to see them all helping each other with the tasks and actually learning something that I’d taught them. Greg then went on to do a session on Microsoft excel and Ben and Adam put together a handout on internet.

All our projects were finally coming together to and I was busily finishing my questionnaires with all the schools and then doing the agonising part of analysing it all, putting it into graphs and then writing reports for CBF. I also put together a leaflet for CBF as a result of the data I had collected. I think it’s safe to say that we all spent the last 2 weeks trapped in the Clubhouse or our office typing everything up. Ben and Adam had the huge task of completing an end of year evaluation of CBF with all managers and coaches in the four regions, where they had to get each person to fill out a 3 page questionnaire. I don’t know how they managed to analyse all that but they did, somehow. The best part of their research was that we all got to go along to the regions with them and managed to get involved with the wellbeing assessments Rich was doing. He’s another volunteer for CBF at the academy and he was responsible for doing these assessments with the kids that basically looked at their life. We got to do interviews with the children which ended up being pretty hard going as we were asking them questions like are you worried about your future, do you have enough to eat, are there people that care about you. It was emotional stuff but so interesting at the same time. Greg was also continuing with his project which was looking at how CBF is benefitting the children involved and identifying whether an U17’s league would be feasible. All this work was then going to benefit the charity as they could use our evaluations to make things better. We had to present our work to Charlie, Pete and Tim who’s the CEO of the charity. This might sound daunting but it was the most laid back presentation I’ve ever done. We each sat there with a beer in our hand and snacks laid out on the table. I wish every presentation was like that. Afterwards we headed out for a big night out in Freetown and didn’t return till the early hours of the morning. 

During our time working with the CBF we also got involved with the regional trials for the academy. This happens once a year in each of the regions, where the coaches come down to select players either from the leagues or from the local kids which they think have the potential to be in the academy squad. The players selected from the regional trials then get to go for a week of intensive training at the academy. If they are lucky enough to get through that stage they will get the life changing opportunity to stay at the academy in Tombo where they will be fully educated and get two football training sessions a day. As I mentioned in another blog, two of the boys this year have been invited to go to America on full scholarships and another two are joining the Liverpool academy for 6 weeks of training. 

It was around this time that we met John or otherwise known by the community as Paul Scholes. Johns a 12 year old boy who we got to know by playing football with Nosdo FC which was our local team. He’d sometimes play with us and run rings around everyone even though they were double his age. John had asked about joining a CBF team in the league and the only way for him to do it was to go along to one of the sessions and see what the coach said. However, we let him know that there were some trials coming up and on the day he was there raring to go at 9am even though they didn’t start until around 12. In his first trial match he played really well and we were all cheering him on. The academy coaches liked him and he got selected to play in the final match. It was a long wait in the baking sun and after 300 kids had been trailed only 16 of them were through to the final round. John was one of them. I was nervous for him as I really hoped he’d get through. It was a tough round and there were some pretty good players but John played in his usual style, nothing fancy but taking control of the back four and making those key passes with brilliant positioning. He only had 10 minutes to impress but when I looked over the coach’s shoulder I could see his name was written down. I was so excited for him and once he was told he’d made it to the academy trials he came running up to me and Greg and gave us each a big hug. Seeing him that happy made me realise how important this charity is and the impact it has on kids like John. When we left I gave him a football shirt and some football socks so he could feel the part at his trails. I’ll have to find out how he does in August.    

Overall, I found the work I was doing at CBF really interesting and I couldn’t have asked for a better charity to be a part of. I'm very grateful that I had the opportunity to work with them and even though I could have spent longer there I think I managed to make an impact. However small it was I'm hoping it improved something. In the future I can see the charity improving as the years go by and changing the lives of more and more children like the ones they have at the academy. One day, I’ve no doubt that we’ll be seeing some Sierra Leonian players from the academy in the Prem and hopefully one day they’ll even be in the World Cup.