It was time to go home. I packed my things, and though I left some of my belongings with my new friends, the bag was equally full with gara cloth, straw bags, cds and videos with Sierra Leonean music, some books, and other presents for my people back home.
I decided to take a ferry, and for the convenience sake bought a ticket for the Astraeus coach even though it was quite overpriced, I could have hired a taxi for much less. They put my bag on the coach and I made my last up Rawdon street. I had rice with cassava leaves at one of the stalls for lunch, and a guy standing next to it, one of the vendors said,
“I want to talk to you.”
“I don't have much time,” I said.
“I just wanted to tell you, I like your style. I've been watching you for the last couple of days. You're very African,” he said.
“Thank you, I appreciate the compliment.” I did. It was the last one before my departure. I was already getting nostalgic. I knew I was not to expect so many of them back home, who knows why. Maybe because I was too tied up into my everyday responsibilites, too serious to look so free, and happy, or maybe just too busy to notice them. Or maybe Africans just appreciate me more.
I wanted to buy a book a book to read on the plane. It was a night flight, but a book always comes in handy in case I couldn't sleep. I checked the few street book vendors nearby, the choice was scarce. Some classics, some school books, some no name books, it was hard to find something new and interesting, I am well read. The book I finally chose was by a young Australian woman writer I never heard of before. The front cover was nice, with some palm trees. It was a novel with three female characters, dealing with gender issues. And it was in good conditon, the previous owner actually had it wrapped in a plastic cover.
The bus was getting full. It was mostly Sierra Leonean diaspora, going back home. A couple of people I recognised. They were coming in on the same flight as me. People were complaining loudly. Some with a sense of humour, others with irritation, even bitterness. The bus was hot and airless, there was no AC. The ticket fare was far overpriced. There was some chaos around receiving tickets. the bus couldn't leave the spot for another 20 minutes as someone parked in front of it. Several men had to literally lift and move the car. Then we were stuck in the traffic jam. The Freetown traffic was mildly put bad, the roads too narrow and overcrowded with vendors and everyday life. I was in no mood for complaints, and I was a foreign citizen, had no right either. I didn't come here to complain. I was a mere observer.
We stopped at the Kissy ferry port, waiting for the ferry to leave, and some of us got off the bus. There was a group of disabled children. Some without legs, on an improvised wheelchair, some on crotches, they seemed to be children of the streets. They came to beg.
“You should be in school,” I said to one of them who approached me. “Do you go to school?”
They nodded vaguely, I wasn't sure they were telling the truth. I gave them the last few coins I had, their eyes shone, and it was only a few hundred leones. Another gentlemen did the same. Other passengers tried to ignore their begging and poverty.
I didn't go to the first class lounge. I climbed up to the second story to have a bit of the breeze and the ocean view, before leaving the country. I looked down. A wooden boat was being loaded with passengers.
“If I missed the ferry, I could seek my transportation there,” I thought. Some were waving to me from the boat, shouting out something.
The ferry was filling up, until all the seats and benches were taken, and people were seated on the floor and stairs and standing as well. The ferry was overloaded, and overcrowded. I did not want to think what would happen if it sank. I could swim, and I don't think that was the case with most other passengers. Vendors were selling snacks, soft drinks, other ascessories. Two entertainers came, their faces coloured smeared in white, their heads covered with stockings, they were making faces, talking loudly, singing, improvising scenes. Finally they saw me, and made a scene with me. It was something about a white lady marrying one of him. They talked between each other, looked at me, and pointed at me. I didn't understand, they were speaking Krio. Some people were amused, and some laughed. I seemed to be a good material. I was never too interested in this kind of humor. A lady not sitting far from me, said something, and pointed at my arm.There was a green fly sitting on it. My neighbour shooed it away. “It's dangerous,” he said. My attention was diverted, and theirs as well.
We arrived to the airport, I joined a long check-in que, snaking all the way from the entrance door to the opening into the recesses of the airport leading us into international zone. I was calm, leaning on my baggage trolley, moving on slowly and stoically. We would all get on that plane eventually. They checked our passports, and tickets, checked them again, took photos of them, screened the checked in luggage, and had us wait to identify it, open it and check it again, if necessary. The customs control was quite rigorous, but I suspect it was necessary, because of the abundance of minerals this country has, because of the illegal trading, maybe also because of the recent war.
Once in the duty free zone, I realised I was leaving. I found a seat in the lounge. A nice Sierra Leonean lady and her much younger English friend offered me some pepper chicken. It was delicious. “I always make my own pepper chicken,” she said. “I know how to make it best for my taste,” she added. “It's the best one I had had,” I had to admit.
We talked of my adventures, they were interested.
“You've been to the right places,” she said.
“You've met Temnes, Mendes, not only Krios. Next time you should go, too,” she said to her young friend.
“I would love to,” the other one replied. “But you didn't let me do it this time. You were too afraid for me.”
I had an unanswered call, and still some unused credit on my Celtel sim. I called back. It was my friend from Port Loko, who I never managed to visit in Lungi. Maybe we would have a good time together. But now she was over friendly for a Slovenian taste.
She said “I love you, I'm sending you kisses,”, and gave me her mother to talk to, who I never met. A couple of weeks later, when I was already on the other side of the world, in Vietnam, but how and why I got there is another story for another time, I found a missed call on my Slovenian sim card. It was my Lungi friend again.
“Wow. She is even more passionate than men,” I thought, and smiled.
You see, every journey is a different story. Once in Ghana the travelling turned into a mystical drama. Very close encounters with supernatural, magic, witches, potions, jujus, and imams. I actually became part of that for a while, and even actively participated. I had a close relative very sick,and I thought it couldn't harm, if I tried to do something for her. Surprisingly she got much better, when I came back. Who knows why, she refused to take the required medicine by her doctor, but to my great surprise gulped down the herbal concotion they made for her in a small village in northern Ghana, which smelled and looked like pond water. If someone said I was ever going to go into this, and offer her something like that, before I left, I would not believe it.
Another journey down in the south of ex-Yugoslavia quite a while ago, was like an American action thriller, running away from a crazy man, who tried to rent me out his unmade bedroom, while a woman, god-knows-who-and-why, started moaning in an upstairs room, just to being later taken to a gypsy camp, instead to a camping site, running away from there as well, through a swamp, when men got very drunk with schnaps, and tried to get me drunk too, and not much later running away from real mafia guys, who stopped with their two big black Mercedes cars in dark sunglasses, while I was hitchhiking, as they decided, they could use some woman's company. Oh well, I was quite a bit younger then I guess, and needed a lot of adrenaline. And lucky as always.
My first visit of Sierra Leone was different. I was very much within myself. I felt like being in a cocoon, and out of there I listened and observed. I was never afraid, people were very kind, and I just knew I would always be taken care of. Sierra Leone for me was the many stories people told me. They were all resonating with the experience of the recent war. I didn't encounter a single story when the person wasn't affected by it one way or another. It was either someone close dead, someone gone, someone crippled, someone uneducated, someone hungry. I encountered a lot of sadness, some resignation, and some chaos. But also belief in better times, enthusiasm, and striving to make things better. You don't know what people can go through, and still survive, and even make jokes out of it, dark ones, but nevertheless.
I was ready to go home, but kept having a feeling I had some unfinished business with Sierra Leone. Something was telling me I needed to come back, and stay for a while, maybe to do some volunteer work, maybe do some workshops at the homeless children centre. I was going to give it a thought. I travel a lot, but I don't usually choose the same country for my very next trip. Next time I could explore more of the city night life, go to the famous night clubs, and see the scene for myself. And see some more of the beautiful beaches, that's what newcomers usually don't miss. My paths this time were those less traveled.
You see, every journey is a different story. It is not just who you meet and what you experience. It is about the whole character of the journey itself. Each has got its own substance. It is all a mixture of who you are at the moment, where you went, who you met, and what you did. But it all blends into something that goes beyond all this, and even beyond something you can explain with words.
