SLPP Article of the Month about Sierra Leone

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My wife, Ann, and I visited our first African village three years ago, and we are anticipating a series of two or more Church trips to an African village in Sierra Leone starting May 2006. (See the “Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership” Web site at www.Plymouth.org.) We took our first trip because our daughter and her husband, Jessie and Joe—Peace Corps volunteers—invited us to their small, remote posting in Niger .

Their village was a two-day journey from the capitol, so we told Jessie we could find our own way there. She basically told us (in a nice way) we were crazy. Firmly she said, “We will come get you.” We discovered later that unsuspecting foreigners often are charged outrageous prices, are besieged by beggars and subject to pickpockets, and even can wonder into dangerous areas, as in large American cities.

She also cautioned us to be aware of our wealth compared to villagers’. “Imagine,” she said, “Bill Gates visiting your home for four days.”

After several days and trips by plane, bus, and bush taxi, Ann and I arrived two hours away from their village, Icharanawa, south of Zinder. It was late December with days a dry 80 F. and nights in the 50s. As there was no road for the last two hours, we traveled by bull cart. (I was raised on a farm, so I warned Ann to give the bull clearance if it lifted its tail.) Our driver, Kanta, was one of the richest villagers because of his cart, his bull, and a herd of goats—the equivalent here of owning a ranch and a truck hauling company. As a good Muslim, his riches made him responsible for supporting two wives.

As we entered the village, people followed us to the Chief’s home. Dozens crowded into his compound: a packed-dirt yard surrounded by a stick fence sixty feet across with several wall-less buildings and small, round, mud-brick huts. People smiled and stared as the Chief, his eyes gentle and intelligent, greeted us and introduced his chief wife (of three), chief son and favored nephew. Jessie told us he liked pictures of where people lived, so we gave him a calendar with photos of Minneapolis . We explained each photo as people around us pointed and talked quickly.

Then Kanta drove us to Main Street (our name for it), where Jessie and Joe lived. Their compound, reserved for Peace Corps volunteers, was much like the Chief’s—but smaller and newer. We were introduced to neighbors as children crowded near, seeking our attention. Then we napped on a bamboo-slat bed in a bedroom with no walls, ate and then

strolled on Main Street . Everywhere people noticed us and waved. The second I would lift my camera, a dozen kids appeared from thin air for a photo; in ten seconds their parents followed.

Main Street was a wide, almost straight trail of packed sand clear of plants (as were most compounds, to keep out lizards and insects). There was no road’s edge, just stick fences of compounds, a few small businesses, and several public buildings. As we walked, people with open gates or short fences smiled and waved while pounding millet or scrubbing laundry on rocks. Kids ran along the street day and evening, calling and playing while male elders sat under shaded trees at midday—or in the morning and evening, against sunny walls—and talked. Even in the cool blackness of the new moon, shadows hurried by Jessie and Joe’s compound while electronic wedding-party music from battery-run speakers pulsed over thatch rooftops hours past midnight .

One of two mosques was near us on Main Street . Both mosques’ walls and those of the grain-storage building were the best in town. We were surprised and honored when the Imam allowed us to take pictures of an outdoor service. His chant rang through the village, mixing with the call from the other mosque, as a small group of men on prayer rugs bowed toward Mecca .

We brought the tailor on Main Street a pair of slacks and a skirt—special travel clothes we’d ripped on African thorns sharp as steel. He happily chose patches of different colors, sewed them on with big, wide stitches of a third color and happily presented them. Slaves to local fashion that we were, we thanked him and wore our patches proudly.

At the opposite end of Main Street was the well with its new pump. Day and night, women walked there with huge pottery jugs balanced on their heads. Parasites live in all surface water in Africa , so clean wells are a major step in village development. When I tried to take one jug carrier’s picture, she turned away, fear or distaste in her eyes—the only time I felt rejected, but still quite safe.

Three days later we climbed back into Kanta’s bull cart. Neighbors and friends gathered to wave goodbye and share handshakes and hugs. Ann and I were deeply moved. Main Street was just like most small towns anywhere in the world: another kind, intelligent community doing the best it can with what it has.

The Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership plans two or more trips to a similar small village. These new trips also will have a Peace Corps guide: church member Jeff Hall, who lived in the village for two years in the late 1980s and maintains frequent contact. The trips will be life-changing opportunities to see an African Main Street and help the good people who live there.