Coming back to Freetown I was heading to The Place Guest House. I called them in advance, I had to try many times, to make the reservation of the room, which was a good idea, as the place was quite popular, and often full. I got a small single, self-contained room. There was a bed, a fan, a chair and a small table. There was just enough space to open the door. It was right at the end of the hall, which seemed nice, but quite soon, when the evening approached, I found out that the hotel's generator was positioned somewhere on the ground floor, right under my window. The roar was loud, some of the fumes came up, I couldn't hear my thoughts, so I searched all over my bag for a pair of ear plugs, thought I had them somewhere in there. Next day I tried to change my room, but without success, the place was full. I could manage for another night I thought, and then I did for another one as well, and used my earplugs, that stayed in my bag from one of my last flights.
That evening I met for dinner at Angel's with my American friends, one of them doing his research here in Sierra Leone. We had a lovely night, talking, about Sierra Leone, about our impressions, also about my adventure. We ordered some fresh baracuda. It was nice to meet them, we first met in Fes, Morroco several years ago, in Accra, Ghana a month before, and now here, but never yet in our home towns. I started talking, and realised I couldn't stop, I had been accumulating so much all this time, it just started erupting. And they were patient listeners. Later on my flight friend, who just got back from Gambia called, to meet for a drink. I was leaving Freetown the next day, and he was flying back home to Europe, so this was a goodbye meeting. I wanted to give him something for his birthday. I had the book I finished reading, it was a novel by a Scandinavian writer, which won awards, but not really an easy read. I was not sure if he would like it, but didn't have another one at hand. He wanted me to write something on one of the front pages, so I used one of the sentences from the book: “If you want to live in the world you have to sometimes live out of it.” Wasn't that more about myself? We somehow knew we would not meet again. Our worlds were different. We talked a bit, and out of courtesy exchanged addresses, he tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, hunched in the chair, but people still noticed him, and kept coming over to greet him.
***
I came to the bus station early next morning, to take the bus to Kabala, but it wasn't leaving. At first they said they weren't sure, and suggested me to wait another fifteen minutes. But there were no other passengers than me. Later on I found out, that a government bus to Kabala hadn't left Freetown in a while, I wondered why didn't they tell me right away. I was at the station a couple of times before, enquiring about the schedule. Two young street boys behaved a bit delinquently, showing off, and tried to engage into a conversation with me. They acted as they were in charge, and supposedly wanted to help me, a man waiting at the bus station walked over to me to warn me to be careful. I wanted to catch a taxi to Kissy, the boys followed me, one of them grabbing my bag. I asked a standing-by police officer where could I stop a taxi, and he told the boys to go away. He asked another police officer to accompany me, and gave me his own cell phone number, to call him, if anything went wrong. I was wondering if I really needed it or if he just wanted me to have it. I gave the boys a couple thousand leones, and they started a bad fight for them, when I left. Sometimes I don't know how to do the right thing I thought. On the way to Kissy I saw the overcrowded bus, and changed my mind in an instant, taking a shared taxi to Port Loko instead. I wasn't in a mood for long travelling just yet.
The journey to Port Loko was smooth. Arriving there, I mounted a motorbike, and the boy driving, took me to one of the guesthouses. It was full, inhabited by some construction workers, working on one of the sites. The next one was basically a family home, where they rented out one or two rooms. The rooms were still inhabited by the family when I arrived. I wanted some more privacy. There were a couple of more guesthouses. One was occupied by a group of Canadian teachers. Someone on our way suggested to check out the Education College. The place was right at the edge of the town, it was quiet, with nice sorroundings, but I would have to buy fuel for the generator, if I wanted electricity at night. I checked another place, which looked like a regular guesthouse, it was busy, and more in town. In the end I opted for the college, I thought I would maybe get to see some of the college life, and get to know some teachers, but it was actually very quiet and laid back. There were some young women in the next room who were just leaving. They came to have an interview as prospective students, would-be-teachers, they were lively and bubbly, wanted to be my friends right away, even though we just met. We talked for five minutes, and they all wrote down my European address. Then they rushed to catch a podapoda back home. One of them in the short time we had, invited me to her house in Lungi to be her guest. All three of them waved me goodbyes, sent me kisses and told me they loved me. My, that was like a fast forward motion film scene, I thought. Slovenians are usually nice and friendly but much more reserved. One of the young women called me next day to ask me if I was coming, and then later again, and had her mother speak to me as well, but unfortunately I couldn't come to visit in the end, my time was running short. When they left, the place became really quiet. Now I wished I had some more of their company. So I set off to town, which had a lot of Portuguese architecture, houses with front verandas. Many of the old houses in Portuguese style were just skeletons overgrown by plants, sometimes they served as a small field, a newer simple house at the back. The porches were lively places, inhabited by children and adults alike. The children called me “opoto” and waved me, and I waved back.
I took pictures of the children and whoever wanted me to, and many did once they realised, that's what I was doing. I took a picture and then showed it to them on my digital camera. They thought it was a lot of fun, and laughed, and thanked me. And I got a lot of family portraits.
Port Loko was also full of Guinean traders, as we were near Guinean border. They were selling all kinds of goods, from posters to plastic slippers. Often they were just passers by in town, travellers stopping by just like me, and hoping they would get something sold there. The profit was mostly meager, as they told me. There were too many of them.
Much of the day some of them would spread out their products at the side of the road, and then sit in the nearby tea or coffee shack, have a drink and talk. One day I sat on the other side for quite a while, one of them was selling some obscene posters. None got sold in that time, but it was an interesting exhibition.
Port Loko was the place where I got to see the final FIFA match between Italy and France. I chose to watch it at one of the public venues. I asked the organisers when to come, and when I came back just before the game started, the place was packed full, hot and stuffy. There were two TVs for our convenience, one next to another, ready for our viewing. The boys at the entrance took me to a great aisle seat they reserved for me right in the middle without my asking for that. I was greatful.
It's great to watch the game in the collective euphoria as well. I found it interesting that spectators seemed quite equally divided pro-France pro-Italy. Therefore there was a lot of cheering all the time. When either team gave a goal, people lifted their hands and shouted for half a minute. Great. I took some pictures of the spectators, in the end I found them even more interesting then the game itself.
I walked back to the college in the dark of the night, and called the Honda driver to come pick me up early in the morning. I was moving on.
1 comment:
Port Loko sounds like a really interesting place.
Post a Comment