Getting around in Sierra Leone

Although I have talked in previous posts about some of the challenges in getting around in this country, I wanted to do kind of a summary post about the various transportation options, and my experiences with them.

One of the problems with transportation options here is that there are the very expensive options and the dirt cheap options, and not too much in between. So, for example, you can the regular car ferry from the airport in Lungi across to Freetown at a cost of 2,000 Le (about $0.60). It’s cheap, but you have to arrive early, wait for the ferry, which sometimes leaves late or early (or occasionally does not go at all) and then it takes about an hour to get across. Or, you can take the helicopter or the hovercraft, which will get you to Freetown in about 20 minutes, but which both cost around $60 US.

By far the best option for getting around the country by motor vehicle is in a private vehicle, preferably a newer, 4x4 type of vehicle. Fortunately for me, this is the way I have mostly travelled. I haven’t rented a car while I’ve been here, but I think it’s fairly expensive – $100/day or so. This is because of the price of fuel (about $4 CDN a gallon) and because you can’t just rent a car by itself, you need a driver too. And trust me, you definitely need a driver! I’ve been lucky enough just to have to pay for fuel, but this is expensive too. For example, to go to Freetown and back is about 250,000 Le in fuel (about $70 CDN). In comparison, if I take public transportation, it will cost me 12,000 Le each way from Makeni (so about $15 CDN).

If you don’t have access to a private vehicle or the money to pay for one, you are stuck taking public transportation. This in itself can be quite an adventure. I’m lucky that in the few times I’ve had to take public transportation, I’ve never had too much of an adventure, but I certainly know people who have. For short trips (like around Makeni, or even Makeni to Mapaki), a motorbike taxi (or occada) is a great option. The only downside of occadas is that it’s hard to carry anything big or heavy on them (although people certainly do – I saw someone carrying a double bed headboard on an occada once). Also, in Freetown occadas can be a little scary because they go quickly and zip in and out of traffic quite a bit. I only took an occada once in Freetown, and that was enough.

Another option is a public taxi or poda poda. A poda poda is a big van that on the inside, instead of the original seats, you will find 4 benches that each seat 4-5 people. Plus at least 2 in the front seat next to the driver. So you’re talking about approximately 20 people in said van, plus sometimes there are one or more sitting on top or hanging off the back (see the photo above!). I have only ever taken a poda poda within Freetown. I wouldn’t take one on the highway, they just seem far too dangerous for that. Happily, they are cheap, only 800 Le for a one way ride in Freetown. Unhappily, they are hot, squishy and generally uncomfortable.

A public taxi is a better option than a poda poda, especially for longer distance trips. They are still squishy and hot – they seat 2 people in front with the driver and at least 4 in the back. But the cars that do long distance trips seem to often be in better working condition than the local taxis in Freetown and the poda podas, and if you wanted to you could pay for 2 seats to be more comfortable.

Regardless of whether you take a poda poda or a taxi, the process is similar. You go to the place where the vehicles gather (each city has a main spot). You find a vehicle that is going where you want to go. You get in to claim your spot and wait for it to fill up. Sometimes this can take 5 minutes, and sometimes hours. Then you depart, hopefully making it to your destination without breaking down or getting in an accident.

Within Freetown, both taxis (regular cars) and poda podas run on predefined routes as the are shared taxis. It costs 1,000 Le one way for a taxi, a little bit more than for a poda poda because the city taxis only seat 5. The problem for visitors is that you don’t know what the routes are. So to find out the best way to get from one place to another, you need to ask around. Often getting to your destination involves taking taxis on more than one route and can be a little confusing.

In Freetown you can also charter a taxi to drive you around for 15,000 Le an hour. Beware of drivers who say they know where you’re going but don’t, and be careful of the condition of the vehicle. Most of the vehicles are in terrible shape, but some are better than others. It’s always wise to check out the car before making a deal with the driver, especially if you’re going outside of Freetown where the roads are not paved. This is a lesson I learned the hard way.

A final word about the roads. From what I know, the only really good paved roads in the country are the highway from Freetown to just past Magburaka (runs through Makeni), from Kenema to Bo, and most of the way from Bo to Freetown (there are small sections of that highway that are currently being improved). On any other road you are going to be dealing with potholes (often more pothole than road) or just dirt roads, which in the rainy season become a mud swamp. Don’t be deceived by distances (“it’s only 100 km it won’t take us long to get there” . . . 5 hours later, we arrived), or by your map, which has roads marked as “primary highway – paved.” Yes, it was paved . . . 20 years ago!

To be honest, if Sierra Leone wants to become a tourist destination, roads and transportation options are one of the major things they are going to have to improve. Right now, travel in this country is definitely not for the faint of heart!

A few transportation related photos: http://picasaweb.google.ca/clarepoulev/Transportation#

The "cold" season in Salone

Everyone has been telling me that in December when the Harmattan winds blow in from the Sahara desert, it will be "so cold". Well, the "cold" season in Sierra Leone is now in effect. At night and in the early morning it does cool off, maybe to about 20 or 22 or so (no thermometer here though, so not too sure of the actual temperature). I actually have to sleep with a sheet on me now, and in the mornings everyone walks around in hats and jackets. By late morning it has warmed up pretty good again though :-) I find it really very pleasant.

Also, I heard my first Christmas carol on the radio today, Jingle Bells. It's so strange to think that Christmas is just around the corner. Without the cold weather, and all the incessant advertising and Christmas music we normally have in Canada in the lead up to Christmas, it's a little hard to believe it's so close.

Climate Change - in Sierra Leone and in Canada

This week, as countries from around the world are working to negotiate a new agreement on climate change at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change taking place in Copenhagen, I thought it would be fitting to post something about climate change. I have found that there is generally very little talk about environmental issues here in Sierra Leone. This is not that surprising to me, and I’m sure is the case in other developing countries as well. Both your average person and the government tend to be focused on first meeting basic needs (food, water, shelter, health, education) before they can begin to think about environmental issues. Unfortunately, many environmental problems tend to have longer-term effects, which are generally less pressing than the urgent and immediate needs of survival today. However, environmental challenges, including climate change, will have an impact on the country’s ability to meet its development goals, if not right now, then certainly in the future.

Climate change is already having an effect in Sierra Leone. Over the past few years, changes in weather patterns have been noticeable. The rains are starting later in the year and continuing on longer. This affects farming patterns and timetables, and can reduce agricultural productivity. The longer wet season results in more mosquitoes, which spread malaria. The later start to the rainy season also has the potential to affect the provision of reliable power in the country from the Bumbuna hydro dam which has recently come online. Developing countries like Sierra Leone tend to have the lowest emissions and are the least responsible for causing climate change, yet they will likely experience more devastating effects from climate change (droughts, severe weather, food shortages, rising sea level, etc.) and have far fewer resources to be able to mitigate and adapt to these changes. This actually seems to be one of the big contentious issues in the discussions in Copenhagen – how much will rich countries help poor countries adapt to the problems caused by climate change.

A little more on the negotiations happening in Copenhagen: The intention at Copenhagen is for countries to reach a new agreement on climate change that will replace the Kyoto Protocol (set to expire in 2012). The Copenhagen negotiations are aiming to achieve agreement on greenhouse gas emissions targets (with the aim of bringing developing countries on board to mandated rather than voluntary targets), financial support for developing countries to help them mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, and a carbon trading scheme. About 100 world leaders are attending (including US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but not Canada’s Stephen Harper) and all 192 countries will be represented. (Most of this info is from this BBC article). More info on the Copenhagen conference is available at http://en.cop15.dk/.

Although it is important to bring developing countries into any agreement on climate change, especially the big developing countries like China and India, in order to reach the targets being discussed (keeping global average temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius, or even 1.5 degrees), it is critical that developed countries step up and implement their fair share of reductions. Unfortunately, Canada’s reputation on climate change is currently pretty abysmal. Now, with the new Obama administration in the United States, Canada seems to be performing even worse than the United States under Bush, which is saying quite a bit. We’ve already been awarded the “fossil of the day” award in Copenhagen – awarded by a coalition of 450 environmental groups to the countries “doing the most to obstruct progress in the global climate change talks.” Canada is the only country to actually renege on the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets it agreed to when it ratified Kyoto, and now has the lowest targets among developed countries (a 20% reduction by 2020, but from a 2006 base year – only a 3% reduction from 1990, the base year for Kyoto). This stinging critique of Canada’s actions on climate change (or lack thereof) by George Monbiot (http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-urgent-threat-to-world-peace-is-%E2%80%A6-canada/) has actually made me feel embarrassed to be a Canadian.

All countries must do their part if we are to prevent global warming from having a devastating effect on the planet, and a disproportionate effect on the poor.

Research update

I haven’t yet posted too much about the research I am doing here for my thesis, so I thought I would do a little update. I now have only 10 interviews left to do out of a total of 25. I am going to add 2 more interviews (hopefully) with key informants, so I will probably have a total of 27 interviews when I’m finished.

For those who don’t know, the research I am doing here is for my thesis, for my MA in International Affairs from Carleton University in Canada. I completed my coursework at Carleton last year (08-09) and just have the thesis left to do. I am doing the fieldwork here in Sierra Leone, and will finish the writing when I return to Canada. I’m hoping to graduate in the spring.

My research is on barriers to accessing health care for poor, rural women in Sierra Leone. I am using Mapaki as a case study. The research takes a qualitative approach – I’m trying to understand how women here perceive barriers to health care as well as what barriers actually exist. I’m interviewing 20 women from the community and 5-7 key informants, people in leadership positions in the community, or those that are involved in health work or service delivery.

The interview process so far has been quite a learning experience. For many of the women, this is one of the first times they are really being asked their opinion about health services, and it seems to me as though this is something they have not given much thought to before. Sometimes the interviews are difficult because the woman I’m interviewing just doesn’t really have much to say. Also, with the language, cultural and class barriers, it’s very challenging to make women who are shy feel more comfortable. It’s difficult just to be able to have a casual chat with a woman before beginning the formal interview when you are using an interpreter. It’s also difficult to interview people who are currently suffering with a health issue when there’s nothing I can really do to help, except to sympathise.

In some of the interviews I have gotten very interesting nuggets of information, like stories about the effect of the belief in witchcraft on health, or about how fees for health services have affected people. I am looking forward to finishing the interviews and really being able to start the analysis to pull out all the interesting bits of information. As my supervisor told me, sometimes it’s hard to see what’s interesting or important when you’re in the middle of doing the interviews, and it’s only afterwards when you can really see the results of your work.

One thing I have struggled with so far is getting official information on health statistics and the health system here in Sierra Leone. There is some information on the Ministry of Health’s website, but a lot of it is old and outdated. Last week when I was in Freetown, I visited the Ministry of Health offices to see if I could find out anything, get copies of reports, etc. Unfortunately, the whole planning department was out of town for the whole week, so there wasn’t even anyone there I could talk to. Luckily, I have made contact with a VSO volunteer from Australia working in the Ministry offices, and I think she will be able to help me with access to some reports and information.

I also just did an interview this morning with someone from the District Council, and they let me know about the launch of the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey results that is happening this Thursday. I will be able to get a copy of that report on Thursday or Friday, and that should have a lot of good data. That will really be helpful to my work, and I'm so glad it's being released before I leave. A breakthrough in the search for data!

With only 2 weeks left before I leave it seems like there is a lot of research work remaining. Wish me luck in getting it all done!

Teacher workshops #2 - Using Play in the Classroom

Last weekend I finished the second set of teacher training workshops for volunteer teachers at cdpeace pilot schools in Paki Masabong and Gbonkolenken chiefdoms. Like the last set, the workshops were well attended, and I think the teachers really enjoyed them.

This set of workshops focused on using play in the classroom. They were facilitated by Delia Kay (photo at left is Delia with teachers in Gbonkolenken). Delia is from the UK and currently working as a volunteer at the Fatima Institute in Makeni. I met her in Makeni, and one day we were talking about our work and interests, and she mentioned that she was a teacher for many years in England, and was head teacher at a primary school. She also said that she was interested in doing more volunteer work with teachers while she was here in Sierra Leone. I immediately took advantage of the opportunity to ask her to facilitate some teacher workshops for us, and happily, she agreed. Since I am not trained as a teacher myself, I was happy to have someone else with actual classroom experience help me out with the training.

In the workshops, Delia set the context by talking about how students learn. She reminded the teachers that students learn not only by listening (auditory learners), but also by seeing (visual learners) and doing (kinaesthetic learners). So much of the teaching style here is teachers standing at the front of the room and talking at students, and many students just don’t learn well that way. Games are a great way to offer stimulation to different learners and also to give the kids a fun activity to do while they are still learning. Delia also talked about using games as a behaviour management tool, something which fits well in our overall efforts to eliminate the use of corporal punishment in schools.

Delia then taught the teachers a series of games they could use in their classrooms, and the teachers themselves actually played the games to see how they worked. The games they learned were Housie, Housie (hangman, but with a drawing of a house instead of a hanging man, which is really quite gruesome when you think about it), several math games involving math problems as clues (Ten Numbers and Multiplication Bingo with actual bingo cards), a couple of word/spelling games (one with homonyms and one with scrambled letters that you make into words – kind of like Boggle), and charades.

The teachers seemed to enjoy playing all the games, but my favourite by far was charades. No one had ever played this game before, so the teachers were a bit unsure of how to go about it. The things they had to act out were all animals, things like lion, frog, butterfly and monkey. To be honest, they all kind of looked the same to me when the teachers acted them out, and I had no clue whatsoever which animal they were trying to portray :-) But the teachers seemed to be able to guess, and there was lots of laughter, so it worked well for them. I have some good videos of the charades as well – they’re posted with the photos from the workshop at http://picasaweb.google.ca/clarepoulev/TeacherWorkshops2#.

Delia also mentioned a website which has many resources and ideas for primary school teachers in particular: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk.

Memories of the war

Sometimes I forget that Sierra Leone experienced a brutal civil war in the not too recent past. People here are generally so hopeful and focused on future plans for development and improvement in the country that I can forget the tragedy that affected everyone here. Although it sometimes comes up in conversation, people here don’t talk often about the war, and I generally don’t ask many questions in order not to pry into something that may be very difficult for people to talk about. Also, since this is my first time in Sierra Leone, I have nothing to compare it to in terms of how the war changed things here. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between what was destroyed by war and what has deteriorated due to neglect.

Two days ago, Mary Hawa Turay, co-founder of cdpeace, arrived in Sierra Leone for a visit (she is still living in Canada). As we were driving back from Freetown together, she talked about some of the changes she could see due to the war, and some of the things the communities I’m working in have experienced. One thing she mentioned was the state of people’s houses. Before the war, the houses used to be bigger and better constructed – whole compounds with several buildings and a wall around where families lived together. Unfortunately, many homes were destroyed during the conflict. Throughout the country you can see the remains of buildings, still charred from being burnt to the ground. When people had to flee their homes as the fighting advanced, they left everything behind, and in most cases lost it all. Although people have been able to build new homes, they are working with much less than they had, and the houses now tend to be smaller and less solidly constructed.

The two chiefdoms in which I’m primarily working (Gbonkolenken and Paki Masabong) were really affected by the war, Gbonkolenken more so. Mary told me that when the rebels were advancing through the country from the south, when they came to the villages in Gbonkolenken chiefdom (which is essentially right in the middle of the country), the people of Gbonkolenken were one of the first groups to put up real resistance to the rebel advance. Because of this, the rebels decided to punish them – many people were killed and injured. Children were kidnapped. People were forced to commit atrocities (raping, killing, maiming) against their family, friends and neighbours. Whole villages were destroyed and burnt to the ground, so much so that there was nothing left. In the village of Mathombo, school children and adults were locked inside the school and it was set on fire. Many people died. The foundations of that school are still visible in the Mathombo community (Mathombo school is one of the cdpeace pilot schools and has just recently been rebuilt by cdpeace with the support of donors from Canada). Mary said that after the rebels made an example of Gbonkolenken, other villages throughout the north surrendered to them more easily.

I repeat these stories not to dwell on the terror and destruction of the war, but to contrast that with the current climate of hope I see here, and to remember what Sierra Leoneans have experienced. In the face of the devastation of the war that was really so recent (the war began in 1991 and was declared officially over in 2002), it is even more admirable and inspirational to me that the people I have met here now live so peacefully together and that their focus is so strongly on bringing development to the country. Of course there are many challenges here, and a lot of work to be done, but it is obvious to me how much people here are ready to move beyond what happened to them during the war and work hard to build a peaceful and prosperous country. It's pretty impressive.

A typical day in Mapaki

With just 3 weeks left in my internship, I thought that I should finally post something about my typical day in Mapaki. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but at least I’m getting to it before the end of the internship! :-)

I normally get up early, around 6:30 am or so. Village life starts early, and most people here are up and about even before that. I wake to the sounds of roosters crowing, people talking, my neighbours cooking and sweeping their yard, and people coming back from mosque.

I usually eat breakfast around 7:30 am or so, and then go and say good morning to Chief, Sallay, the kids, and the other women in the kitchen, plus whoever else is around. Kouame and Mabinty often stop by the guesthouse in the morning to discuss plans for the day.

Some days I stay around Mapaki. I work on the computer (the photo is me in the office in the guesthouse), check my email, write reports, do some research work, etc. Sometimes I do chores like dishes or laundry (although I get in trouble from Mabinty for doing my own laundry instead of giving it to her to do), or sweeping out my room. I usually spend time every day sitting outside and watch people go by, or I read. Sometimes there are events going on here that I participate in – for example, there was a District Council meeting here on Wednesday afternoon that I sat in on.

Other days I visit the other schools and communities that I work with. Usually Kouame and I go by motorbike to these other places, villages like Maso, Makambray, Makonkorie, Mbarr Line, Mathombo, Bumban, Yele, Moria and Mayagba. I visit the students, meet with the teachers or deliver letters from schools in Canada and collect replies from schools here to send back. Visiting the schools is a lot of fun. The furthest schools are a little over an hour’s drive away, in Gbonkolenken chiefdom. The closest ones are outside of Mapaki, just a 10 or 15 minute drive.

Often in the evenings I do an interview for my thesis research. I generally do yoga every other day. Later, after eating dinner, I usually go to the library to read in the electric light. Sometimes I watch part of a movie on my computer, or stay in the guesthouse office to do some work that requires more quiet and concentration than the library provides. I go to bed early, usually by 9:30 pm or so. Without electricity, there isn’t much to keep me up late at night.

It’s a pretty quiet life, but very relaxing and peaceful. I can’t remember the last time I was getting 8+ hours of sleep a night consistently and I quite enjoy it. I might have to keep up my going to bed early habit when I get home!