Mende town- most definitely off the beaten track!

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Before we left England we did some research on what we wanted to do whilst in Sierra Leone, but nothing was booked and we were a little apprehensive about what we were going to do. Susan offered us a chance to go to the home village of Musa with the three volunteers that were staying at AWF, to do a reccy for a possible satellite centre and to look for evidence of chimps and crocodiles. We deliberated for a little while, as the three night trip would eat into our time, but decided to go for it, as it was not a place we could ever visit as tourists.

The journey to get there was pretty epic in itself! A taxi ride, then a 6 hour Poda poda ride (African minibus with wooden benches inside- usually at least double or triple the number of people that should be in there, as well as children and chickens), a walk, a dug out canoe, and then more walking. We finally arrived at Mende town bruised, hot and exhausted. We felt as though we had travelled to another world... no roads, no cars, no electricity, no running water. There was just houses made of mud with thatched roofs, lots of children, goats and chickens. Our accommodation was in Musa's family home, and we had our own room, and the 3 volunteers had another room.

As soon as we arrived in the village we were surrounded by a huge group of children who were almost physically fighting to get close to us, touch us and hold our hands. It started getting a little difficult to walk once I had 8 children hanging off my arms! We went around the village with Musa and were introduced to lots of people. Most people in the village didn't speak English so we had a crash course in the local language. Our attempts at making conversation delighted everyone we spoke to. Now I don't know about the spelling but the phrases we learnt were as below:
Sakow - Hello, how are you?
sakow way- response to Sakow
la pendulya- I'm fine
kasee tener bye- I'm fine (also)

There was some confusion as to exactly what these phrases meant, but if you just say them all then people tended to be happy.

I also learnt the phrase "Snap snap", which every child would shout at us, if they saw we had a camera. They adored having their photograph taken, and would role around the floor in hysterics at the sight of themselves on the screen. We took LOTS of pictures and used up the camera batteries pretty quickly! Even my sunglasses which they could see their reflections in fascinated them. I was surrounded, and had them pulling my head one way and then the next just to see themselves.

I was the first ever white woman to visit the village, and only a couple of white men had been there before (all from AWF), it felt like we were celebrities. Everyone wanted to meet us, which in comparison to living in England, and especially for Luke working in London, was bizarre. In our village we barely know our neighbours, yet in this village we made strong connections with many people.

During the three days we spent in the village, we went looking for chimpanzees, and found nests, which is good evidence of them. We took a canoe ride to check for crocodiles and found one baby one (the water level was too high to see the adults). So there is definitely scope for the AWF to set up a research station here. The village elders agreed to rent a house to the foundation and to fix it up, as there were some big holes in the roof!

The rest of our time was spent visiting other villages, where we witnessed "African culture", well that's what it is referred to by everyone we asked. "African culture" is the spiritual and ritualistic side of life in Africa. We witnessed a traditional dance with music from drums and singing and chanting. I got the jist that it was to do with devils, which seems to be a common theme throughout Sierra Leone. I found that superstition was rife, for example I found out that owls drink the blood of children, and if a pregnant woman see a chameleon, her child will become one, without the help of a witch doctor! These kinds of superstitions are very hard to relate to from a Western perspective, but the people are convinced and hand over vast amounts of their incomes to heal these things......

The women living at the house were interested in getting me to help them with their daily tasks, and I was happy to oblige. However they found all of my efforts absolutely hilarious!! Cutting vegetables, picking dinner from the fields (and being attacked by ants), chopping coconuts, grinding cassava...... there wasn't much I could do to the standard they did. I didn't mind though, it was nice to learn how people live in such a different culture.

The food in the village consisted of lots of ripe fruit; mango, pineapple, coconut. Rice, fish, chicken and spicy palm oil sauce. We had a couple of things I didn't like such as Kola nut (very bitter)

On our final night in the village we were asked to give some money to buy fuel for the village generator so the school could do a show for us. Later that night we headed over to the school to watch the show, and quickly realised that we were the show! They had set up a a huge speaker set (no idea where they had been hiding those) and a DJ deck (well a DVD player linked up to the speakers). We then had to dance for hours and everyone in the village watched. It felt slightly weird and as it was so hot and we had no water it was extremely tiring. Luke managed to get one of the local women up to try a bit of salsa, which she loved, and eventually we got all the children up dancing, and managed to sneak off to bed. The music went on until late in the night.

The people we met were some of the poorest I have ever encountered, they live off the land and most of them just have a few clothes and not much else. When we left the village we were given coconuts, mangoes, chillis, handfuls of peanuts, half a sweet (I guess the little boy who gave it to me couldn't face giving it all up!) and two chickens (who we named Delilah and Charlie). I was overwhelmed by the generosity of the people. It made me feel bad as we hadn't really brought anything for them beside a few pens and exercise books. During our whole time in the village we weren't asked for money by individuals, and the family we stayed with wanted nothing for the food and accommodation that they provided us with. Having been to other parts of the world and visiting local people, there is always an underlying agenda... crafts to buy, donations for dances, songs. It was amazing to find somewhere that hasn't been touched by that and people actually want to meet you for you and not your wallet!

When it was time to leave we headed to the river to get on the boat that heads out to sea and back to near York. It felt like half the village came to see us off, and gave us a big send off. Mende town was one of the most amazing, genuine experiences of my life and I am grateful to the AWF for giving us that chance, even though we weren't officially volunteering with them!

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