Week 1, day 6, Thursday or whatever day it is..

You lucky people are getting two postings in one day. See below for yesterdays news, you might want to read that first…

I’m almost running out of superlatives to describe this place. It’s like every time I post to the blog I’m describing everything as amazing, incredible, unbelievable… sorry about that, but it is.

Another amazing, incredible day. Right now we’re sitting in my room at the hotel. Murray’s sorting his pics on his laptop (if you haven’t looked at their pictures on flickr yet then you should, they’re fantastic and capture the spirit of the place perfectly), Jon’s completely flaked out on my bed. It’s 10 past 5pm and we’re exhausted so trying to get some rest-time in before going out to a Bob Marley Day celebration at the National Stadium – live music, which, judging by what we’ve heard so far, should be amazing, incredible, fantastic etc – you get the idea.

The music blares out of every taxi and van, hypnotic West African ragga reggae… Murray’s planning to buy it all.

Boys HIV Rap

click to start video.

Right now, things are nice. As I write, Franklin’s just turned up and he’s sitting reading the Graham Greene biography I gave him last night. He’s just taken Jon’s shoes off him and made him lie down properly on the bed. Sweet.

Crab Town – the Street-kids film group

Today was the turn of the group who wanted to make a film about streetkids – the hundreds of children who are unsupported by their families (if they have families at all) and who have to make their own way, begging, stealing and prostituting themselves.

The great thing about going out with a group of young people, and putting yourselves at their mercy, is that you become protected. No-one’s going to harm you if you’re with kids. And you get to see things that you’d never be able to see otherwise, things you’d never find. They’re insiders, and because you’ve trusted them, they look after you and return the trust.

So today the kids (age 14 – 20ish) took us to Crab Town and the Clock Tower where the poorest of the poor live.
Crab Town is wharf located just outside of central Freetown. It’s the city dump, basically a huge landfill, but people are living there because there’s water.

Few westerners will have ever seen such squalor.
It’s lively, it’s certainly a functioning community, there are shacks, stalls, huge stacks of firewood (this is one of the places people go to buy firewood) but the poverty is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The harbourmaster comes to see us, a nice guy (but clearly so poor) – he the community organiser and he tells us how the people have organised themselves and they’re trying to get money to improve their conditions. He shows us buildings (buildings?) they’re trying to build. He tells us a little about life there, introduces us to few locals.

Gangs of barefoot kids four years-old push huge handcarts loaded with wood. Pigs root about at the river’s edge. People look at us blank-faced and wide-eyed.

While we’re filming a government surveyor/housing officer approaches us to ask what we’re doing (this also happens again later at Clock Tower). Again, he’s suspicious because these people, particularly government people, are so keen that only positive messages should be broadcast to the world. We explain that we’re rtying to show that people are struggling to improve their lives – this is becoming the stock answer to these people.

He says that these people have no property rights and no real right to be here, but that as they are here, he’s trying to help them ‘regularise their accommodation’.

You wonder how this chaos can ever be sorted out. How many years of stability and investment will it need before these appalling slum shanty-towns are history?

The kids we’re with conduct interviews with local kids. Jon and Murray film them. We go and buy Cokes. Hey, there’s always Coke. Wherever you are, you’re never far from a Coke. Have a Coke and a smile. It’s the real thing.

The iEARN kids are brilliant. They’re checking for us constantly and looking out for each other too, they carry our gear. Some of the older ones just chat – they just appreciate the fact that we treat them as equals, The younger ones want to be your friend – Ibrahim and Mohamed are two 14 year-olds who live together and look after each other, they want to know everything about my son Barney, they want to write to him, visit him. They really do mean it. And they want me to help them with their school fees – well of course they do. Who else can they ask?

Two of the older guys, Alfred and Philip, are our security. They keep everyone tight, circle the group, look out for everyone. They’ll be OK. Some kids are leaders, some have their wits and humour, some have strength. What happens to the others?
The iEARN kids have all found their way to something that will help them.
The street-kids aren’t so smart, so lucky or so blessed.

Clock Tower

A bumpy ride though the city, music booming, a stream of colour and wonder through the window. West African magic and madness.

Wow, Clock Tower is hairy. The centre of town, just like in any capital city, a congregating point for the poor and the mad – but multiplied, magnified and concentrated like everything seems to be here. Then throw in some of that Salonian ‘everything changes, things are happening, that you know but cannot understand’ strangeness, and maybe you get some idea of what it’s like.

Our kids tell us to be on our guard. They take our possessions from us knowing that we will be the targets, not them.

Clock Tower is exactly what it says – a big old colonial clock tower on a traffic island where streets meet.
Our kids find some street kids for us and Jon get’s his DV camera rolling. Then a crowd gathers, maybe a hundred people. We’re surrounded. On all the travel advice websites everything says avoid a crowd, where crowds gather in Sierra Leone trouble often breaks out - and we’re bang in the centre of one. Our kids get edgy, but they’re cool. They surround us, shouldering the pushy people, pushing people away.

The inevitable plain-clothes government heavy shows up: “What you people doing heah? You BBC? Where you from? What your business.”
I’m getting the hang of it now. Murray and Jon are busy filming so I offer my hand and formally introduce myself: “ Hello, how are you? My name is Matt Stephenson and I am an educator from Hull in the UK. We are making a film about how people live in Sierra Leone and how hard they are working to improve their lives. These young people from iEARN at the National Stadium are learning the skills to make their own films.”

“We must have positive message about our country.” He says. “Carry on your business.”

Phew. Again.

Fagin or Philanthropist?

After interviewing a barefoot little street-boy in ragged shorts, Alfred tells us he has arranged for us to see one of the places where the streetkids live.

Round the corner from Clock Tower we clamber 30 feet down some very steep, dodgy stones (you couldn’t call them steps) into a complex of shacks arranged along an open sewer and we meet an older guy (35? 40?) wearing an old Man U shirt and with a scar on his face. Alfred speaks to him and we’re clearly ok to be there. People shake our hands “Hey, White Boy! How are you?”

It’s like a pirates den. They’re the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. There are kids aged anything from 5 to 20 everywhere, some sleeping, some just hanging around. Eventually, after some negotiating in Krio, an interview takes place, but it’s so heavily accented in Krio that Murray, Jon and I have very little idea what’s being said.

I hear something about “give them some skills”.
Later one of our iEARN bunch tells me that that guy makes his living from the kids. He sends them out robbing, begging and whoring. In return, he keeps them safe, gives them a roof and a community.

I’m not really quite sure what we saw. We’ll get the interview translated soon, maybe that’ll make things clearer.

Back at the hotel, Jon sees a Hull City Council dust cart pass by, But doesn’t have his camera to hand.

Things are happening, that you know but cannot understand.