The party that is my life in Sierra Leone just don't quit! It's basically been a week of celebrations (religious, royal, and other) from the moment we left the office last Thursday. “Quiz night” at the local Irish pub, followed by a sojourn into Freetown’s latest (and absurdly posh) night club, O-bar, to a late-nighter dance party at Atlantic bar, started off the extended holiday weekend in proper form. It was at this last bar the week prior that I sighted Katy – a gal that I had been e-introduced to when I was planning for work in Uganda, 6 years ago, by an undergraduate professor; despite a few online exchanges and a handful of mutual friends, we never met outside the context of facebook - who I creepily sauntered up to and inquired if it was in fact she. After both of our brains basically exploded by the serendipitous nature of the encounter at a beach bar in Sierra Leone, we became dear buddies, and over the past week, travel pals. Our adventure over the four day Easter holiday weekend took us to the Banana Islands, a paradisiacal retreat about 2 hours from Freetown, touted as Sierra Leone’s answer to Robinson Crusoe. The three islands, once a bastion for British slave trading, are now home to about a thousand people, with the ‘capital’ island offering a lovely guest house with 3 thatched roof huts, solar power, and beach-front bon fires.
After a quick 30 minute fishing boat trip from mainland, Katy and I stepped ashore to find a handful of familiar Freetown faces who would ultimately serve as excellent jungle-trekking partners and volleyball (err, banana-ball) teammates. We made our way across the island in search of relics and faunal-delights: half-buried canons and gravesites from British Navy men who passed on the island while stationed there after the abolition of slavery; washed up Portugeuse Man-O-War and massively tall termite hills; monkeys and babies; and fisherman and their finds (sea cucumbers!).
[local fisherman dive in the middle of the night to sources these sea cukes, which are then processed by two Chinese men that live on the island for the sole purpose of availing these buggers for consumption by the many Chinese who are working on infrastructure projects in SL]
The overall shortage of fresh water was made up for by the abundant lobster and fresh fruit, the absence of AC and fans by the sound of the sea crashing outside our quarters and a magnificent morning view.
Me and Katy by the sea, post volleyball
breakfast vista
While it wasn’t easy to peel ourselves off of the isles of Bananas, we mobilized and headed to Tombo town, home of the biggest fishing industry in Sierra Leone. Katy’s work is focused on fisheries and environmental protection, and a trip to Tombo meant a chance to speak with the leaders of Sierra Leone’s Artisanal Fisheries Union, SLAFU and a chance to tour the mainly Muslim coastal village.
In addition to telling us about their efforts to crack down on illegal fishing practices, sensitize fisherman to the hazards of overfishing, and a variety of other resource protection and capacity building initiatives, the guys of SLAFU were up for hosting a visit to the elite, and yet to be used, Tombo Fish Landing Facility. This facility, the nicest of any I’ve seen in the country thus far, was financed by foreign donors to alleviate the burden on the current landing zone in Tombo, as well as to enhance opportunities for industrial fishing fleets and export potential. The site hosts a fish bowl (for live catch), a boat repair shop, a huge processing unit (with maybe 50 sinks), a large drying room lined with clay stoves to dry fish, lockers, ice storage, bath houses, fuel stations, and a massive dock so that large boats can land and properly collect/hygienically process fishies for sale elsewhere (as opposed to the illegal offshore trade between artisanal fisherman and boats headed north to the Canary Islands).
Despite these glamorous features, it’s been about 4 years since this facility has been developed and it has yet to be launched for use by the fishing communities. Moreover, the extent of artisanal fishing, shrimping and trawling activities here in Sierra Leone, where 80% of dietary protein comes from the sea, demands such robust landing sites for fish to be cleaned and processed, as well as facilities for boat and net repairs to keep the industry moving; here in Tombo the need is even greater as this coastal area is the most productive in the country. The fishermen of SLAFU gave us a tour of the fringes of the existing (hectic and filthy) landing zone, following the tour of the new facility, which made the need for the pristine and functional facility’s opening seem even more great. I heard a handful of reasons for why the site remains ‘unlaunched,’ ranging from the fact that there were too many rocks in the surrounding waters, to something about not being able to get fuel into the fuel tanks, but nothing that sufficiently justified the scenario.
net making and repair at the ‘old’ fish landing
Tombo’s boats and fisherman
Both excited by the visit and bewildered by the circumstance, we continued onwards up the peninsula for a late lunch and swim on Bureh beach hosted by a lovely gentleman named Prince William. After a few snaps of cute kids and beachfront football we wrapped up the natural-history/regional industry/relaxation tour that was our awesome first-weekend-out-of-Freetown adventure and headed back to the capital for continued celebrations…(to be continued!)
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