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!