The Chickens and the Konga

A few weeks ago we decided that we didn't want any more chickens, in order to stop the growth of our flock we ate the three cockerels we had.  However, we were not aware at the time that one of the hens was sitting on fertilised eggs, it came as a surprise the other day when I saw nine little chicks pottering around the garden.

Last night I was awoken at 1.18am to the cheep cheeping of these little chicks, I lay in bed for a while wondering what could be the cause of their distress.  Knowing that there is a hole in the back of the chicken house I thought maybe that dastardly ground pig had returned to claim our new arrivals.  Thinking this was my chance to finally get that big rat, I ventured outside to investigate.


I approached the chicken house to see that at least two chicks were writhing around outside, as I got closer I saw that they were covered in ants.  Now, these ants are called Driver Ants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorylus)  in English and in Mende they are called 'Konga'.  They come in different sizes but all have disproportionately large heads with huge jaws that lock shut once they clamp on to something.  I have often seen the Konga moving in lines across roads or paths during the dry season, relocating there nests, but I have never seen the destruction they reek. I am told that their attack of our chicken house is nothing, colonies of these ants can lead whole villages to have to temporarily relocate if they are moving through and little but fire deters them.


Having never had a close encounter with Driver Ants I assumed that if I could brush the chicks the ants would just come off and run away, needless to say this was not happening and they had their grip on them.  The three chicks outside the chicken house were beyond saving and I knew they were suffering, I saw a big stone and attempted to summon the courage to put them out of their misery.  Here it is said that women are not supposed to kill anything because they give birth to children, this thought kept coming into my mind and I was unable to end the chicks suffering, I woke SK (Winston's younger brother) to assist.


SK reluctantly got out of bed and came to assist in the rescue of the chicks.  First we had to put the three out of their misery :(  Then we opened the chicken house whilst hopping around all over the place to stop the ants biting (which they did anyway and it is very painful!)  We removed the remaining six chicks and the two hens that look after them and carried them to the veranda where there was some light.


The Konga had attacked the chicks where they were most vulnerable, around their eyes, under their wings and on their bellies.  We meticulously pulled each ant out one by one.  This is not easy, as I said before, they lock their jaws and you have to twist their heads to remove them.  The ants had also attacked the two hens but only on their feet so we removed those too.  We put them all in a rice bag together to keep them warm and together.  You could see the relief in the chickens at the end of their attack, but all the chicks were covered in wounds.


Returning to bed I was unable to sleep.  I was astounded and the damage that such small creatures could do and images of them over running the house kept coming into my head.  This morning we returned to the chicken house to see if the ants had moved on.  They had not, luckily though, the other chickens were unaffected by the attack as they had been on the upper levels of the house.


The only way to get rid of the Driver Ants is to use fire so this morning we poured kerosene around the chicken house and set fire to the ground (not the house itself.)


Part of me thinks this is silly, but it was actually a traumatic experience for me, I still have ant paranoia (the feeling of having ants crawling on you when there is nothing.)  SK and Hadja thought it very strange this morning when I wanted to clean the chicks' wounds with antiseptic: "but they're just chickens, they will sort themselves out" they said.  This is just another demonstration for me of the difference between out cultures, my desire to intervene and their's to let nature take its course.  I don't know if the chicks will survive, but I hope that our intervention will help them to.

Abdul Rahman helping me set fire to the Konga

It is a little difficult to see them (my camera is not great) but the ants are the red/back coloured specks

A little worse for wear this morning

Poor wounded chickens

Money Palava

Money Palava was a song written by a Sierra Leonean band called Afro National  in 1977, palava is a Krio word which basically means trouble, but it also means confusion, so the song Money Palava really talks about the problems and confusion that arise from money.

Money is a key issue in the lives of most of the world’s population.  I have to say that I have never given in too much thought until now.  I remember my mum telling me that she and my Dad had discussed offering me a financial reward should I get good grades in my A Levels, they decided that it would be pointless as I was not at all motivated by money.  I acknowledge that this is just more testament to the privileged childhood that I had.

My stance has changed now; Winston and I have our own family, which makes money somewhat more important, although not everything.

I am going to talk, in this post about attitudes towards money here and the differences to European/American culture and why I think these differences exist.

My experience in Sierra Leone has shown me that people think I am rich.  We are not, by European standards, anywhere near this description but relatively speaking in Sierra Leone, we are.  From buying oranges to renting a house people here see my face and inflate the price of goods or services two and sometimes three-fold (more if they think they can get away with it.)  This is not only in my case; if people hear the English inflection in Winston's Krio he experiences the same thing.

When it comes to family here there is s a lot of responsibility placed on the person who earns the most money to provide for the entire family, by family I do not mean only their children, I mean their parents, their aunts, uncles, cousins and not even necessarily only their blood relatives.  This burden is especially put upon people who have left Sierra Leone and work in Europe or America.  Winston and I often have family members approaching us for financial assistance.  Even those not related to him are keen to tell Winston how much they did for him when he was a baby and the phrase “do not forget about me” is often introduced into a conversation to apply emotional pressure for this financial or material assistance.  The approach that the family should progress together would be a good one if the burden was not all placed on one member to solve everyone’s problems.  A simple example of this is the following:  Malaria is rife here - no one will deny that - however it is proven that you greatly reduce your chance of contracting Malaria if you sleep under a mosquito net.  Winston and I bought and installed mosquito nets for everyone in his immediate family explaining the importance of using them.  Now the whole family refuses to use the nets saying that they find it difficult to sleep under them; however, when any family member gets Malaria they approach us to pay for their treatment. 

Now we have been here for some time people know us, at least once a month someone will approach us and ask for some kind of financial assistance.  If we ask someone how their business is the conversation will inevitably lead to a request for us to lend them money because “things are difficult”.  Neighbours and members of our church will come and ask us to provide money for medical treatment, their school fees or for their food. 

The money issue has made it quite difficult for me to make friends here, many people are interested in becoming friends with me but I have found that it is rarely for my company alone.  Usually, in the first or second conversation the person's financial situation is stated.  Early into our first visit here, out for a walk alone, a lady approached me and then led me to her house and stated plainly "look how poor I am, you should start giving me money to help me live better."  Walking away I felt ridden with guilt and, honestly, a little outraged, it’s like the extreme version of being accosted by charity workers on UK high Streets.  

Relationships amongst young people here seem to be based on some kind of material or financial arrangement between the parties involved.  Girls and women look for a man who has money (or at least they think has money, read on, I will explain.)  They will often have more than one boyfriend and if one of these guys’ is not providing what he should he will more than likely be dumped.  Men who have no money or job have little chance of getting a girlfriend, young men are supplanted by older men who have jobs and money so you will see lots of young women in their teens and twenties with middle aged men and more commonly now with much older Chinese, Indian or European men (foreign investment brings foreigners who will inevitably be seen to have more money).  There just doesn't seem to be much of that  teenage love around. 

Men with money exploit girls using their money to justify having a lot of girlfriends.  Also because they have money, they seem to think it ok to treat these girls how they want.  The other side of this is it has bred a trend of something that is called “419” or “false life”.  Young men tell girls all sorts of things to gain their interest when they meet them, most of these things are in order to tell the girl that they have a lot of money.  The stories range from telling the girl that all your brothers and sisters live in England to telling them that you have just come from America where you are a famous Hip Hop star.  This seems extreme I know but the aim is to give the girl the impression that you do not have any financial problems.  There is a song about this - 419* - called ‘Buku Talk’ – this means basically talking rubbish or “bigging” yourself up. The song tries to tell people that it is stupid to act like you are something that you are not, it was a very popular song here, but I just don’t know that people know what it means because all the guys do it and all the girls fall for it:

An extreme example of the lack of teenage romance here there are ‘colonkos’ this is the Krio word for prostitute.  Once you know, it is easy to spot these young girls, they stand together in night-clubs at the beginning of the night and as the evening moves on they will identify their client, negotiations will take place then they will spend the rest of the night dancing for them before disappearing with them.  Now of course for some, this career choice is a matter of meeting their basic needs, paying for food or for their school fees.  For others it is about extra money to pay for their hair, the latest fashion or for their nails.  For some it is just an easy way to make money.  I do not mention prostitution out of any kind of judgement, it is a career choice.  I also want to state that there is a serious lack of opportunities for women here, it is still a very patriarchal society and for most girls have few choices that do not involve relying on a man to provide for them in one way or another.

Now, whilst I am no social anthropologist I think that the country’s modern history can give you a good clue as to why this attitude towards money is the status quo.  During the war women were brutalised beyond belief, used by the rebels, soldiers and Kamajors alike to cook for them and for sex, if captured, and not used as soldiers the women were effectively slaves (this is another blog post entirely.)  When the war ended food was scarce.  Men, including soldiers from the ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) and UN (United Nations) forces that had money or food would be the ones who got interest from women; it was a matter of survival for these girls.  This seems to have stuck but now, less than being about survival, it is about clothes and hair. 

I know too that relationships that are little more than a material or financial transaction is not exclusive to Sierra Leone, if we look at popular culture for reference Kanye West's Gold Digger it is pretty clear that wherever you go there are women who are just in it for the money.

I know that in the ‘West’ we do not necessarily have the money / community balance right, I think that people there are far too selfish, myself included, and there is far too much focus on self-progression – I think that the current trend for ‘anti-capitalist’ protests in England and the US show that our selfish attitude has gone too far and people know it.  I also acknowledge that the relative wealth of opportunity in Western countries means that self-progression is a much more viable option.  However, it has to be acknowledged too that some people are lazy; they would much rather that someone else solved their problems for them than they do it themselves.  Look at people who take advantage of the welfare system in the UK or the attitudes towards family and money that I talked about here.  Whilst opportunities here are not as available, there are opportunities but they require a lot of work and because capital is lacking and you have to make up for that loss with work.  The basic fact is that people are not willing to put this work in and would rather that wealth was handed to them on a plate.  It can be argued too that NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) and foreign aid have gone a long way to add to this imbalance but again that is a different blog post entirely.

Sierra Leone is a far cry from the Capitalist countries of the West.  It's funny though, in a country where people are so poor few die of starvation, there is always someone to help.  So does this approach to money work for society?  Well, I think that I would have to say no, even though in the West we are focused too much on progression of the individual here it is too much the other way, everyone wants money and the solutions to their problems handed to them if not from another human then from God.  The expression ‘By God im power’ is used so much here; it means that if God wills it, it will happen.  People seem to think that God has not done what he is supposed to do by giving you two hands and two feet and the strength to get up every day.

Living in Sierra Leone I have been able to see how lucky I have been in my life, especially growing up, money was not an issue for me, all my needs were met and more.  People’s attitude here to Winston and me and money has been difficult to deal with at times and I have spent a lot of time feeling guilty because we cannot help everyone.  But the reason we came to Sierra Leone to start a business for our family and for our family’s future which means we have to draw a line.  In the matter of friends I am learning that it is ok to say no to requests for help, people will accept this and those who do not understand when I say no would probably not make for very good friends.  Family is more complicated, but again we have to draw a line.  We help where we can but try to measures in place so that family members can help themselves rather than maintaining the status quo.  In the case of relationships here I think it is really a shame that girls have to sell themselves to men in one way or another to get the things they want.  They don’t get to fall in love with a boy just because he’s gorgeous or just because he makes her laugh like Western teenagers do.  For the boys, they suffer too, they don’t get to use their wit or their charm to get the girl they want, if they don’t have money they have to lie and pretend that they are something that they are not.  I hope that Sierra Leone’s future holds opportunities for its young people that mean the boys don’t have to pretend that they are Hip Hop stars to get a girlfriend.  I hope that girls have a future of opportunities that mean they can get a job, buy the things they want themselves in the way that I did and that they can fall in love with the man they want and together they can build their own future, the way we are.

*the expression 419 came from Nigerian internet scams of the 1990s, you have probably seen such email subjects in your junk mail as “Beneficary, please contact.” The number "419" refers to the article of the Nigerian Criminal Code (part of Chapter 38: "Obtaining Property by false pretences; Cheating") dealing with fraud.  For more on this see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud

Children

Not until I gave birth to Thea did I understand the love one could feel  towards their offspring.  Often I had wondered at my mother's determined love of me despite my treacherous teenage behaviour, and both my mum and dad's support of me no matter what.  Nothing could have prepared me though for the intense love that I feel for her.

I cannot express therefore, how blessed I feel that Winston and I have the privilege to parent Thea in the way we can.  Should Winston and I have chosen to remain in London to begin our family both of us would have had to work, we would most likely, not have the financial option for either one of us to stay at home with our children.

Thea and her cousin Pious

When someone gives birth here, planned, or unplanned, it is a joyous occasion.  Women with young children (or KOMBRA in Krio - please do not rely on my spelling, I have written it as it is said) are celebrated, thanked, protected and guarded, guided and helped.  Many a time I have been thanked for caring for Thea by a complete stranger, this gives you a sense of pride and responsibility in what you are doing as a mother.  Help has often been offered to comfort a screaming Thea on a flight to Freetown.  This is a stark contrast to the distasteful looks you get in England in the same scenario.  An incident comes to mind in which a young woman told my friend that her breastfeeding her 3 month old daughter in MacDonald s was disgusting!  Attitudes towards motherhood are very different in Sierra Leone.

Attitudes towards children are very different too.

Generally, children in Sierra Leone have a lot set against them.  The infant mortality rate is still high (78.38 deaths / 1000 live births -for comparisson in the UK it is 4.62 deaths / 1000 live births) (The World Factbook 2011 jDictionary Mobile) as it is anywhere that poverty and bacteria reign.  Once they have overcome the small matter of staying alive, for most their childhood is relatively very short, most children do not have toys to play with, a lot do not get the privilege of attending school and many will be working to supplement the family income by the age of 5 or 6.

I heard on the BBC World Service a discussion about human rights and whether there are any internationally shared ideas of a 'human right.'  One thing that al of the experts on this programme agreed was that where ever in the world you go people strongly feel that all children have the right not to have to work and to get an education.

It must be excruciating to deny your child or children this 'basic human right' because you need them to work in order to sustain your family.  Or to have to choose which of your children you send to school because you cannot afford to send each of them.  I have seen families walking on the highway back from a day at the farm all carrying 'size appropriate' bundles of wood or cassava leaves, it looks more like a team effort to me than the image of child labour I used to have in my mind.

Young boys hang around rivers and quarry's offering to help move sand or stones in between their play to get some change to buy extra food or to take home.  Often too, you will see small children moving around neighbourhoods selling wood or plastic bags of cold drinking water to supplement the family income.

It would be easy to consign these children to the image we have fed to us by all the big charities but I think that is to ignore how amazing humans really are, especially children. They do smile, they do enjoy themselves and they are very resourceful!

One day Winston and I were walking home and a young girl of 9 or 10 years was looking on the ground around her crying, I mean really wailing.  We asked her what had happened to which she replied that she had dropped 2000 Leones (about 27p) that she was supposed to take to market. Of course, we gave her 2000 Leones to take home so that she wouldn't get reprimanded. The very next day I heard a familiar sounding wail outside our compound, the same little girl was doing the exact same thing.  I don't know if she knew where we lived or it was just a coincidence but I had to smile at her acting ability.  I suppose you have to use what you've got to get what you want.  Several children have tried this trick on me since and I have to say that I still get sucked in, after all, you never know.

young boys messing around,
photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents' 2010 visit.

photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents'  2010 visit

Victorian games,
photo taken by my Dad (DMG) on my parents 2010 visit

photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents'  2010 visit

photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents'  2010 visit

Keeping cool,
photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents' 2010 visit

photo taken by my dad (DMG) on my parents'  2010 visit

Coming Home

I try to go back to England at least twice a year, I miss my family and friends there, but I also miss England.  It is funny to me that as I have grown older, the more English I feel – I suppose thought that this has a lot to do with living in a culture so different from my own.  When I am in Sierra Leone I remember England as Hardy  or Wordsworth wrote it, the country side with its hedgerows and quaint cottages.  Although funnily enough I have never lived in rural England I remember it in summer, temperate, or I remember it in Christmas time, cold but lovely!

These are the times I try to return, summer and Christmas.  My parents live in what is probably the nicest area of London, a little village outside of Richmond-upon-Thames called Petersham.  I could only feign to live in this area myself (it is very expensive) but it has the perfect balance, it is a short train ride into central London but it has a real village feel to it.  When Thea and I went back this July we went to the Petersham Horticultural Society Flower Show, which my parents help out with.  This is serious stuff!   Members of the community put on show their vegetables, flowers, cooking and baking skills, arts and crafts, photography, knitting.  All are judged and given prizes.  I placed entries in a couple of categories and I have to say it was quite embarrassing to see my poor attempts next to the professional work there.

Decorated cakes - mine is the one with Tinkerbell, I got 'Highly Commended'

The photograpy

Jam and Lemon Curd entries

 It is a very traditional affair and they have an original Punch and Judy show (which Thea loved!)  It was really a lovely day, to me epitomizes a typical English fête and takes me right back to hazy memories of summers of my childhood.

Thea and me enjoying the Punch and Judy show.

 Going back to England this time it was very interesting for me watching Thea.  She was 22 months (1 year 10 months) when we travelled to the UK this time round and has just begun talking.  As we do not have a television at home it was funny to see her the first time standing in front of my parents TV staring at it like it was the most amazing thing!  It did not take long for her to become mildly addicted to children's TV though and every time we walked in the front door she would shout “ceebees, ceebees.”  It must be very hard if you live in the UK with kids to not just turn the TV on leaving your child engrossed to get on with your housework!  I am quite glad I don't have that option here sometimes it might prove too tempting.

Thea also had the chance to mix with other children at the Children's Centre in Ham (just down the road from my parents place.)  She does mix with children here, but not in a learning environment with toys, singing and games (early learning).  It is such an amazing resource, people in the UK are so blessed to have that, in the six weeks we were there it really helped me and I met some really lovely people there.  It was nice to meet other mothers and understand that all the things that Thea does that worry me are actually really normal!  Here, people do get support but it is with practical things like how to make appropriate food or how to wash nappies, it is sad that no one really has time for early learning and children mainly just hang around the house or with other children in the area. 

You do find though that young children here are very bright, socially, and I am sure this is because they are exposed to a lot of people from a very young age.  Emphasis here is mainly on a child's physical development though; how fast they sit up, or stand or walk.  There is little expectation for a child's academic or mental development until they start school at 4/5 years old, although many children, particularly in the towns can speak at least two of the many languages spoken in Sierra Leone.  Some of Winston's sisters can speak four different languages despite no formal education.

I love England; I love TV and going to the cinema, having a hot shower or better a bath, eating ice cream, macaroni cheese and a whole plethora of other foods not available here.  I love the temperate English summer, hay making season on my grandparents farm, South Devon, fish and chips, soap operas, other trashy TV...the list could go on forever, England is where my soul rests.  Nothing can compare though to coming home to Winston.

White Women are Crazy and Other Rumours

One of the many positives about Sierra Leone is that ‘grass roots’ community still exists and although the Nigerian film Industry threatens, that human contact (i.e. knowing your neighbours) has not been replaced with the soap opera, yet!

This, I feel is a great attribute to Sierra Leone, there is little depression here despite the fact that a lot of people have a lot of dire concerns like feeding their families.  People are supported within the community, disabled people who are not pushed to the borders of society and petty crime is often dealt with in the community too.

However it also means that people talk about each other, a LOT!  As Winston and I stand out a little because he is Sierra Leonean and I am English we are sometimes the subject of people’s speculation.  Sometimes rumours make their way back to us and are the cause of great entertainment:

I remember one incident around 2008 so Winston and I had not been living here very long; we were driving somewhere and decided to stop in a town called Masiaka to ask about buying some pigeons.  We were in the car and Winston was asking a lady about where we could find pigeons for sale, behind her stood 2 boys probably in their late teens.  These boys began to openly discuss us and one said to the other (roughly translated): “It’s all very well that he has a white woman but White women are crazy and if he so much as talks to another woman she will shoot them both, because all white women carry guns and are crazy jealous!”

Commonly in Bo we hear rumours that circulate about why we are here and the most common assumption is that Winston has been deported from England and we cannot go back together.  This, poor Winston, is exacerbated by the fact that we simply cannot afford for us both to go back on holiday so it is always me that gets to go back leaving him here looking after the business.

Winston and I worked very hard to save enough money to come and set ourselves up in Sierra Leone, we lived very frugally in a tiny studio flat in Brentford working full time and never going out for over a year!  So one of the more frustrating rumours is that I give Winston all of the money he wants and the business is solely my investment.  We do understand that there are many reasons why people would think this; extreme poverty has led many relationships being based on a financial arrangement - it couldn’t be that we actually love each other, someone in the relationship has to be gaining financially.

Sometimes I think that people like to see other people fail, in England there are celebrity magazines telling us of actors failed marriages and how much weight a certain star has gained. Television chat shows in which people expose their most embarrassing secrets are very successful.  I suppose it makes us feel better about ourselves.  Here, for the lack of magazines and talk shows, there is plenty of local gossip; about a year ago Winston and I decided to sell our car in order to fund our business venture and to save money on fuel etc.  Around Bo we were seen using the local motorbike taxis (called Ocadas) all the time and Winston would carry a bag around with him that looks like an Army issue ammunition bag.  Now, here everyone has pay-as-you-go mobile phones and the guys that sell the mobile top up travel around with bags such as the one Winston was carrying.  One day a man approached him, angry that he hadn’t received his top up, Winston’s friend Mohamed laughed and explained to him that a rumour had been circulating that we had lost all our money and Winston was selling mobile phone top up.  The rumour was exacerbated by the bag Winston was always carrying.

The rumours that initially caused the most problems for us were that Winston would be having an affair, it is almost inconceivable that a man who is perceived to have money here would not be having an affair with at least one other woman.  Once, whilst I was away Winston’s sister Marie brought food to him using an Ocada the driver gave Winston a wink as he answered the gate and still does when we see him around, whether I am present or not!  This is the cause of great amusement to us!  Another instance was when Winston was outside church talking to another of his sister’s called Musukala, another lady who attends the church came over and saw the two of them, she became very nervous and said “oh, I see that I am interrupting something” then abruptly left. 

All these things used to frustrate me and make me feel quite angry but I now realise that gossip is part of what makes us human and really as long as we know where we are and what we are doing what other people think is irrelevant after all we are not politicians!

Made in China, Dumped in Africa

Look at the electrical appliances around your home, in fact look at everything, I guarantee that about 90% of what you look at will be made in China.  It is the same here, however the difference is that the goods you have will last at least a year...here, you probably have about a day and even then when it breaks you have no consumer rights, no warranty, nothing... Our internet modem looks like the small mobile 'dongles' you get in the UK it is, obviously, made in China and overheats in approximately 5 minutes so we have to disconnect it, cool it down, and reconnect it all the time (I'm sure you can understand the frustration this causes.)  When paying the 225, 000 Leones for our month's internet subscription I asked the man about our modem to see if I could get a replacement.  He looked at me like I had asked the stupidest question possible and in fact asked me 'what do you mean?' I asked him "if I bought a modem from you and it broke in the same day..." he quickly said, before I could finish "you would have to buy a new one." ..."oh, OK" I replied, that was the end of that!


Take lamps, I mean lights, they used to used the good old hurricane lamps, you would clean the lamp, trim the wick, fill it with Kerosene, light it and away you go.  A long time ago these were English made and as far as I know pretty good quality, by the time we moved here the market was flooded with Chinese made hurricane lamps, these didn't close properly leading to the glass getting covered in soot and they would extinguish with the lightest breeze or movement .  Now you cannot find these lamps anywhere, instead they have been replaced by plastic 'LED' lamps which are quite frankly, a joke.  They are made up of a number of LED lights (the amount varies depending on the size of the lamp) and are battery powered (batteries are a another story!) They seldom work longer than a week and with no waste disposal system let alone the idea of recycling these end up littering the streets and roads of Sierra Leone.

Chinese Lanterns

This follows true for a multitude of things, the markets are full of 'things,' compact mirrors made of wafer thin glass that break in minutes, earrings, necklaces (which turn your skin green), bangles, watches, belts, clothes, underwear, flip flops, batteries that last little more than 2 hours and come apart in your hand.  Then you have large machinery, the mills, cement mixers.....the list of 'Africa grade' Chinese rubbish in Sierra Leone is endless.  That is how it seems to be, China have differently graded export goods; Europe/America grade and Africa grade.  Africa is full with Chinese flotsam.

Jewelery and toys

Hardware goods - all made in China.

Another questionable Chinese import is MSG or Monosodium glutamate for those unaware this is a chemical flavour enhancer often associated with Chinese food.  My personal experience of it is that 20 minutes after I have eaten anything containing MSG I feel like I haven't eaten for a week!  Now although there is nothing solid that says that MSG is deadly it can have some nasty side effects if used to excess, see article:


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Health_concerns.  


Here MSG is seen as a 'super seasoning' and is used liberally - you can also use it to remove rust stains from clothes!

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and salt are both used liberally in cooking

Now, I am not so naive as to think that the Chinese have done no good in Sierra Leone, in fact the two countries have a relationship dating back decades and the Chinese have donated and built buildings in the country, they are building a railway, they have rice research farms to find the type of rice which grow best and I am sure they do a lot of other work here but I have to question why and does it justify them using the country as a dumping ground for their own bottom grade goods?


I also have to question myself, if China were not providing these good to Sierra Leone, who would?  However, I am pretty sure that everyone would have got on ok with the old hurricane lamps.

Ginger Beer 'Salone' Style

I have not yet been able to independently make any of the international dishes here like Saki (Cassava Leaves) or Jola (Potato Leaves) (both sauces or plasas served mostly with rice.)  They are both delicious but difficult to make, I don't beat myself up about not being able to cook them yet, most girls here start cooking these dishes at around 10 years old so they have quite a head start on me.

The first thing I have been able to prepare is the local equivalent of Ginger Beer or Ginger as it is known here. When it is 35 degrees Celsius and the sun is blazing hot a really refreshing way to cool down is to drink some spicy sweet Ginger.  I am going to show how we make it here:

First, the ingredients:

Root Ginger

Limes

White Sugar

One of the essential kitchen implements here is what is called a Matowodo  and Matapencil (I state here again that these are Krio words and I am spelling them how they are said because I do not know written Krio and have no dictionary to refer to) or a mortar and pestle in English but I am sure that before I came to Sierra Leone I had never seen them this big:

Mortar or Matowodo

My friend got this for me from a village and had engraved I Love Africa and the date on it for me, this made me laugh because I know very little of Africa and have not travel anywhere else on the Continent but it was very nice of her and I haven't seen anyone else with a Matowodo quite like mine.

Moving on, you need to wash the root ginger very well in water:

Once done, put the ginger in the mortar and begin to beat it:

No tap water here so we have to buy our drinking water in packets:

Put the ginger in a sieve and dip it into the water.

Squeeze out the ginger then place it back in the mortar.  Wash and cut the limes in half adding them to the mortar and beat the ginger and limes together.

Once you have crushed the limes into the ginger sieve the mixture into the water again.  Remove the limes and beat the ginger again, repeating the process until the water has enough 'heat' (from the ginger - Sierra Leoneans love spice and many add chillies to their mixture, for me the ginger is enough.)

Add sugar to taste, for me this is a lot as I like it very sweet!  Here I put the ginger in quite small quantities into these plastic bags, because we don't have electricity much for it to get cold, it has to be in small volumes. 

I put it in the freezer as a gain lack of electricity means that for anything to get remotely cold it has to be in the freezer not the fridge.  The closer to freezing though, the better!

This is a very refreshing drink and though I have not tried it would be very nice with some Vodka and lots of ice!!

Chicken Drama

Over the last four months we have been processing Cassava (a starchy root vegetable and staple food in West Africa) into something called Gari in Winston's village, Luawa.  This involves uprooting the Cassava, grating it, pressing it and roasting it.  The end product is a dry course powder which is mixed with powedered milk, sugar and water and eaten as a snack.  We intend to sell the Gari when the price peaks.

Now, we are having to store the 45 bags of Gari that we have finished in our house.  Poor SK (Winston's youngest brother) has a bedroom full of bags of Gari...

We're pretty sure it won't fall on him as he sleeps.

So, we have a bit of a mouse problem (or 'aratta' in Krio - but they are mice not rats) in the house and we often hear them scurrying around at night.  As we don't want them munching through the gari bags, we had to take the decision to lay rat poison (sorry mum - I should state here that when my parents had mice they used 'humane' traps which just caught the mouse, my mum would then take each mouse and liberate it in the park.)

This was to be quite an operation because we have our 21 month old daughter roaming around the house putting EVERYTHING in her mouth which meant that any remnants needed to be cleared whilst Thea was still in bed.  So one evening the poison was mixed with left over rice and strategically placed around the house at night once the monster was in bed - Thea that is.

Good Quality Chinese Rat Poison.

 The following morning I had to restrain Thea in the bedroom whilst the poisoned rice (and expired mice of which there were 3) was disposed of.  This was for SK to do.

The next day Hadja (for those who have not read previous entries this is Winston's sister who lives with us) called me into the garden to show me a dead hen by the dustbin (this is a big hole in the garden in which we burn our rubbish.)  At night we shut our chickens up in their house so it was strange not only that the chicken was dead but that it was outside.  With no marks on it to suggest an attack the mystery deepened.  I went and opened the chicken house and found inside another dead hen and 4 dead chicks (I have spared you a photo of this.)

Some thinking later it clicked in my nappy brain (yes Thea is nearly two and my brain still works at about half speed!) and I asked SK how he disposed of the poisoned rice, he looked at me like I was stupid and said "I put it in the bin." Oh!  The chickens had obviously thought it was an extra meal!

After apologies, my own 5 minutes of quiet mourning and explaining to Thea who was repeating "hush chick, hush chick" (hush is what you tell someone who is ill or has hurt themselves here) but didn't seem too affected, discussions came about the camp about the consumption of the two hens.

Immediately I stated that neither Winston, Thea or I would be eating poisoned chicken but additionally before they attempted to cook any chickens they would need to find out from someone if the poison would affect the meat.  I should explain that the confusion came about because in the villages they use certain poisons in hunting and these do not affect the animals meat.

Winston returned home and said "no one in this house is eating that chicken!"  Hadja and SK were quite dejected but Abdul Rahman (next door neighbour and general odd jobs man) was delighted!

I told Abdul Rahman at this point that should he decide to eat this chicken and he got sick that he was not to come here as we have clearly warned him, with witnesses (witnesses for everything are important here!)

That evening Abdul Rahman told me that he had cooked the chickens and as he had boiled them they were "foaming like soap" and that they tasted terrible, I told him that as the chicken was laced with poison that I was not surprised.  I asked him, "did you eat it all?" a little embarrassed he said "yes", I asked, "does your stomach hurt?" to this he replied "it takes a lot to give me a stomach ache,"  "clearly" I said.

Gallus Gallus Domesticus

One of the good things about living in Sierra Leone is that I can keep Chickens, something I am sure I would not be able to do living in a flat in London, without breaching my tenancy agreement anyway!

I started about two months ago with 1 cockerel, Buddy and 5 hens.  Then hens have no names, I was under strict instructions that the chickens are for eating so not to get too attached so they are nameless.  Our compound is perfect for keeping chickens, we have a large area at the back of the house for them to forage and as the compound is fenced people cannot steal them, as they would if they got half the chance!  We had a little chicken house made for them which they all go into of their own accord at 6.30pm every night.

Our little chicken colony has now expanded and until yesterday morning we had 22 chickens in total but unfortunately the hawk swooped down and stole one of the chicks!  We plan to make a trap to catch the hawk but judging by our failure to catch the ground pig I don't know how successful that will be.  Further I don't know what we would do with the hawk should we catch it.  Everyone here will say eat it, eat it, but it just wouldn't seem right. I suppose in the UK hawks and such birds of prey are so rare it would seem like a crime to eat one.  The other option would be to keep the bird as a pet, but even then tying up a bird feels so very wrong!

It is quite therapeutic to watch the chickens. They have very distinct personalities and you can really see where the expression 'pecking order' comes from. There is a definite hierarchy.

This is Buddy, our cockerel.  He is neurotic and you will often hear his high pitched warning calls which makes all the other chickens freeze, it's like chicken musical statues!

This is my least favorite hen, she has a hold over Buddy though, he loves her and follows her everywhere.  She even led them into the house the other day sqwarking and flapping their wings, Thea got very excited!  I have voted we eat her, she leads Buddy astray and is clearly at the top of the pecking order, she pecks at the other hens and chicks!

This is my favoruite hen, when we got the chickens this one wasn't old enough to lay but even up to today she hasn't!  I couldn't understand why, I asked Mama (Winston's mum) so she showed me. We caught the hen and on her back, near her tail she had a spike (sorry no photo) almost like a feather that didn't grow properly.  This had prevented Buddy from mounting her.  We removed the spike but it must have really put him off, he won't go near her.



This was the latest hen to lay, she hatched five but only has four, it was her chick that the hawk took.

These two hens came together and are very close, the white one has two chicks and the grey speckled hen has four.  They seem to help each other in looking after their chicks.  The grey one refused to sit on her egges once they had begun to hatch so Hadja (Winston's sister, who lives with us) put her under an upturned basket with the eggs, showed her the kitchen knife and told her in Mende (their Tribal language) that if she didn't sit on the eggs she would be killed with that knife and eaten, she put the knife next to the hen.  I don't know if these chickens understand Mende but the hen sat down on the eggs until they all hatched!

These are the teenagers, they make the most noise.  There are four cockerels and two hens, the children from the 'bad' hen.

I feed the chickens rice twice a day, anything left over is eaten by these lovely  and tiny little birds.  Hadja says she wishes she could catch them all - they come at least a hundred at a time - so she could roast them, she says they're very sweet! I say no!

Thea feeding the chickens.

We have great fun with the chickens and I have to admit that sometimes they keep me sane in this crazy place.  They help me keep perspective.