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!