"I miss Sierra Leone"

This post has a random mix of photos and thoughts from the past few months. Our time in Sierra Leone is coming to an end early and we're heading back to Ireland. Very mixed emotions about going, but definitely ready to leave rain season behind!

Freetown is a city once visited never forgotten.

Anything can be bought at the side of the road - the colourful displays form the backdrop to life here in Freetown.

And sometimes what you see on the road is just amusing

Balmaya is an Art Gallery and restaurant that held a beautiful exhibition by African artists for the Sierra Leone independence holiday at the end of April.

There was a limited amount of kids facilities in Freetown, but one spot we went to a few times was the Family Kingdom playground.

Type of African deer, not sure what its called

An unfortunate horse names Juba walks the length of Lumley beach hoping to find tourists agreeable to photos.

"Let's go to the beach" were the most common 5 words spoken in our house. It was usually just to have a walk (or run) along Lumley beach, but always generated the most high pitched squeals of excitement. And that was just Hassan!

Lumley Beach

Cockle Point

Number 2 Beach

The hardest thing of all about going is leaving family and friends behind. This has been an incredible opportunity for Daniel and Ilanay to get to know their big sister, grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins and to experience the culture that is their heritage. We'll keep it alive as much as possible in pictures, phone calls and memories, but we'll also be back as often as we can for the rest of our lives.

"Monkeys with no tails are chimpanzees!"

On a very exciting Thursday morning we headed up into the mountains above Freetown to visit Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary.

Both Daniel and Ilanay couldn’t keep their eyes off the chimps and Danial lapped up all the information Moses, the tour guide, provided, including how to differentiate between a monkey and a chimpanzee.

The sanctuary is on 100 acres of beautiful rainforest that is the 17k hectare National Park. They were established over 20 years ago to rehabilitate confiscated, orphaned and abandoned chimpanzees with the aim to release them back into their natural habitat. It cares for about 75 chimpanzees in several forested enclosures and run tours every morning. Hunting, killing and trading chimpanzees is unfortunately still practiced in Sierra Leone.

Food is coming!

Chop Time

AJ getting comfortable 

The chimps have a tendency to hurl stones and rocks at visitors so there was netting at sections of the viewing points. The kids found it so exciting when the chimps came up with a stone in hand and they were ushered behind the net by staff. Daniel claims a stone hit his forehead, but I think it’s an embellishment that’ll help him always remember this experience.

We headed further into the forest to see the chimps that are in the largest, most natural enclosure.

Ilanay spent the rest of the day doing chimp noises and Daniel re-told all the information he'd aquired to everyone he met! Every experience here is magnified in brilliance by seeing it through the eyes of our children. 

The White Beach at the end of the Red Road

Tokeh beach is one of the longest beaches along the peninsula. It's also a bit of a trek to get there.

We headed off early one wet morning in the hope that the sun might come out by the time we arrived. The peninsula road has been under construction since before I first arrived in Sierra Leone back in 2008. The road as far as number 2 beach (almost) is now a smooth dual carriageway but, once it ends, travelling is a whole other experience! Because it was an extra wet morning the craters in the road had become lakes and the lack of visibility of what was underneath added a whole new dimension to the challenge of driving in Sierra Leone. Hassan was born for this kind of driving!

I spent half my time taking pictures and other half holding my breath and feeling my heart jump into my mouth. There were ridiculously narrow bridges over deep gorges and on coming trucks around every corner. Daniel, no longer the bad traveller he was in Ireland, absolutely loved it!!

And it was oh so worth it in the end...

This was once a prime tourist location in West Africa, especially for French tourists in the 1980s. The former resort was know as Africana Tokey Village and had hundreds of rooms. The derelict, run down, reminents of Tokeh's heyday now sit beside the newer establishments which are amongst the most expensive along the peninsula.

But it's also still a fishing town and the view always has a boat or 3 in frame.

"This is where papa grew up?"

We spent last weekend in the north of the country to visit Hassan’s family in Gbinti, the village where he grew up. Hassan has been a few times since we arrived, but this was the first time the kids got to see his village.

The first leg of the journey was to colourful Makeni, the main city in the north of the country.

It’s more of a large town than a city and is incomparable in size to Freetown. I’ve so many pictures of the weekend that I’ve bunched many of them into collages, so here’s a flavour of Makeni.

The journey to Makeni from our house in Freetown took almost 4 hours, so after a quick lunch we got some provisions and headed off for Gbinti.

We bought rice, fish, veg and spices to bring to Hassan’s family at the parking ground – the location that vehicles depart from and a market place for everything a person might ever need.

The same place was deserted the following morning as the president decreed at the time of ebola that no selling should happen on Sunday. The restriction has applied ever since.

The village is about 40 miles outside Makeni, but there’s only tarmac road for the first 15. The rest is the photogenic red dirt road of most of Sierra Leone. Even that has improved immensely since I first visited in 2009, when the road was full of craters after rain season and the journey took over 2 hours. Now it’s possible to do it in just over an hour. No coincidence that the presidents’ village is in this area!

The roadside is full of picturesque bridges, rivers, vibrant green bush, trees and grass, and a railway line constructed for the sole purpose of mineral extraction by the mining companies that caused an economic boom in the area a few years ago, before the ebola crisis.

As we got closer to Gbinti, we stopped to show the kids the river that their Papa used to fish in as a boy, though the river bed was almost dry after the last 6 months of dry season.

The houses of Gbinti can be seen in the distance

When we arrived we were the centre of attention of the entire village. A few of the older children remembered me from 8 years ago, but most of the younger kids were fascinated by the Opoto (white woman in local language, Temne) and I had about 30 sets of eyes watching me for most of the time we were there. Temne is the primary language in this part of Sierra Leone and few adults in the village could speak Krio, never mind English. Myself and the kids knew some basic greetings in Temne and our attempts at speaking it were met with delight and laughter in equal measure!

We were staying in Makeni, so we journeyed back for the night and returned again the next morning to spend the day in Gbinti.

That next day Ilanay struck out on her own as soon as we arrived, finding a stick and exploring the area. Daniel stuck closer to me and was taking it all in. When he did venture off to explore the bush he had a trail of kids following him.

We also visited the next village and Daniel & Ilanay entertained the locals by following (scaring!) the numerous goats and sheep.

Ripe mangos high up in the tree and ready to drop

After going house to house to say goodbye to everyone (and leave contributions, as is the Sierra Leone way when someone of the diaspora returns from overseas) we headed back again to spend the night in Makeni.

Throughout traveling I annoyed Hassan by telling him to stop or slow down for photo opportunities, so the following is some of the scenery, buildings and vehicles we saw on the journey.

Road construction is ongoing and in the next pic on the left you can see 2 young girls selling mangos in the midst of the construction work.

Workmen having a break, with hard hats and high vis wear hanging from the tree.

It was an exhausting few days between travel, the excitement and emotion of being in the village, especially for Hassan as his beloved grandmother is no longer there, and the excruciating heat of inland Sierra Leone (high thirties, with humidity making it feel far hotter). The rural countryside is a completely different world and really is a journey into the past.