"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.