day 12: story of a flight reservation

You know, the whole of last week was pretty stressful. You see I had to book my flight tickets and my travel route was a little more complicated. I am flying from London to Boston and then flying out from New York JFK into dear ol' Singapore and later back to London. I was overjoyed when I found a route that was suitable on American Airlines. It costs just about 2000 USD which was by far the best bargain I found anywhere! I was breathless when I found this. Unbelievable I thought!

Then the trouble started. I couldn't book it online since I don't have a UK, US or Canadian billing address. So Tim tried getting his friend in London to do it for us. His computer crashed while doing it, the ticket got rebooked twice later, I never received a confirmation from the airlines and the credit card eventually got rejected. ARGH! Imagine my frustration! Anyhow I then decide to use a different credit card, thanks to the help of my housemate's mum who lives on a farm in York. And all this time, I have been calling AA UK for a gazillion times and interestingly each time I get a different accent (I couldn't understand most of them to be honest and later someone pointed out that one was strongly Irish and the other Dutch, hmmm). BUT eventually with Joe's mum help, I got through and managed to FINALLY have my ticket! Amazing! I cannot thank her enough for my relief.

It dawned upon me how difficult it is living here and being so distant away from the conveniences of trying to do things like these. But the satisfaction upon having the e-ticket in my hands was just great! For your information, my entire vacation of a month will consist of 8 flights and 2 hovercraft rides (if it works). This is my breakdown:

Hovercraft ride 1: Freetown to Lungi Airport
Flight 1: Freetown to London
Flight 2: London to Boston
Flight 3: New York to Tokyo
Flight 4: Tokyo to Singapore
Flight 5: Singapore to Tokyo
Flight 6: Tokyo to Chicago
Flight 7: Chicago to London
Flight 8: London to Freetown
Hovercraft ride 2: Lungi to Freetown

Doesn't sound terribly exciting isn't it? But for all that trouble I went through to get this rather reasonably priced ticket, I am quite pleased and cannot quite give two hoots about the hours of flying I am about to do. I will certainly be complaining about it in time but for now, I'm just going to let it be.. See you guys soon! xxx

day two: snaps

This is a girl snapped on Bonthe Island.

An old house in Kent.

A view from the National Stadium.

day one

Today I am exceptionally excited! We just got out tickets to London for holidays. By the end of July, I will leave my present job. Then in August, I will take my long-awaited vacation. Will head to London first and then to the States and then to Singapore and then back here. When I come back, we would have been here for about a year and one more to go. In anticipation of my upcoming travels, I am posting random notes and pictures - a story to tell what happens every now and then in Sierra Leone. Here's the first one:

This is along the stretch of Aberdeen Bridge. That's Tim in the foreground, going to find the boys underneath the bridge where they catch shrimps. From where I am, the road leads to my office. I used to pass by this bridge in the morning on the way to work. It is generally a lot nicer and less crowded than taking Wilkinson Road. Mornings are pleasant when you're passing by this bridge. On this day, we went to the bridge to try this new fishing line that comes with many small hooks attached on the line. We let it hang off the bridge and wait and this is what we caught.


I really don't know what this fish is call. Some boys call it the bait fish (!). Anyhow, we caught this and decided to use to catch the bigger fishes. Interestingly after lowering the line into the waters, and we tugged the line as specified in the instructions, the fish got caught by I supposed a bigger fish. Also, I forgot to mention that the hooks are pretty nasty if you were a fish. We caught this one by its eye. We did this for maybe about 45 minutes before deciding that it was too windy and the waters slightly too choppy.

did you dance in the rain today?

It's been raining a fair bit here in Freetown. When it rains, it pours. It's almost as though the clouds were just holding on and just waiting for the right moment to let go. When it comes, the sewers get flooded, the side-walks swamped with rubbish pushed by the water, and if you happened to live/work in buildings with zinc roof tops, the drumming of rain onto the tinned material is impossibly loud and sometimes unnerving. Actually I don't know how best to describe the rains here in Freetown. I did find it very uninviting in the beginning. I hated it. It impairs my mobility, my daily routine, or anything I wish to do because it makes moving about just so much harder. But I noticed something else too. I have become more reflective when it rains. I am a lot calmer and I think more in general. I am also seemingly productive, not that I am not to begin with. And today is no different. As I am typing these words, I have my cup of English Breakfast tea in my yellow-white porcelain mug. Piles of paper are everywhere. I've got my bottle of Grafton water and beside it, my Digestive biscuits. There's a small green apple plucked from the gardens of my colleague, Joe, in Northern Lebanon. There's my new Nokia phone in Pink, which Tim got for me a few months back and also a book I'm currently reading entitled "A Man of the People" by Chinua Achebe. Gary Jules is playing quietly in the background. And in times like these, I feel like I have motivation to write, read, think and reflect. The rain does something to you.

I still have a thing about writing. My words are simple and the emotions almost void. I seem to simply skim the surface, entirely uncertain how best to write without sounding as though I am trying to hard. Then again, I write as how I see it, without ornaments. And maybe they sound childlike or unimaginative.. but perhaps this is why one keeps writing. I have no intentions of writing a book but I do enjoy writing as a creative process and so I keep trying, at the espense of boring you to death about this.. Anyhow...

I had an online conversation with a friend a few days ago. He was pretty unhappy where he was and with what he's doing in general. Our conversation reminded me of how exciting my life has been in general. How many people will do what I did? Pack their bags and go live a life in the poorest country in the world? Many people relish the idea of doing something adventurous but will never have the guts to do it. I say to those people: DO IT! Do whatever you want to do (0r feel like) and don't feel like as though it's a wrong turn. I don't have a great job, I don't have loads of cash. I cannot drive very well. I don't have great ambitions to rule the world or make big bucks. BUT what's important I guess is I enjoyed the greater things that so many others could only dream of. I'm here in Africa, a part of the world which has always been seen as the "other" and now I live here. And I'm happy. When I think about where my life has been, I'm doing pretty alright. I have danced in the rain in the early hours of dawn in too many places. I have been hugged a million times over by people I love and care about. I have kissed under the moonlight. I have watched leaves dancing about in autumn. Lie on the grass staring right up the sky, smell the grass.. so much more than I ever imagine. Little things that fit into a bigger puzzle. I have lived. And I think that's ought to matter today, tomorrow and the next day or so. I have remembered all those that matter. So if it pours again today, I think I might just go dancing.

X

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees

This is Pablo Neruda. I am posting in reference to the poem "Every Day You Play"

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Do I like Freetown?

I've lived in Freetown for almost 8 months now. By any other standards, that's not a long time and I do agree but by standards here, that's been quite a while. When I am asked if I like it here, more often than not, I regurgitate lines I've mastered in my head and it goes as follows: "It' alright. I wouldn't say that I enojyed every moment of it but I wouldn't say I hate it either." So I asked myself do I honestly feel that way? That is my problem. I cannot find the answer to it. Yet. Or maybe never. Freetown conjures an mixture of feelings, each with its own uniqueness and purpose. This is my first time in this continent - Africa. Geographically, this continent is soo diverse that trying to find meaning and similarity would be a futile attempt because the idea of Africa as one coherent concept in my understanding does not exist.

There are days when I whizzed by the streets and suddenly there are things, people, places and events that I am seeing for the first time. Then again, there are days when I dread heading into downtown Freetown. The traffic, the honking, beggars hovering about your car windows, hawkers standing in your way, strangers hissing at you and so on. There are days when this place irks me, when its people leaves me feeling disgusted and almost drained our of my own energy. One may think this is my being prejudiced. I do sometimes behave in such a manner. I don't deny it. I came from a different environment and was brought up to believe in different ideals that are personal perhaps only to me. My way of understanding and structuring my life revolves around what I know and I cling to that still because those things give me meaning. I am a product of my own previous environment and while susceptible to change, may not neccessarily wish to inculcate those changes.

I may sound as though I dislike Freetown with such ferocity. I don't. I just don't have any sort of affection for it. I have great respect for the resilience I see in its people. People here are in endless toil, working, walking, waiting. I see locals working hard, I see children selling groundnuts, cigarrettes, packet water and sweets, all trying to bring in some money for the family. When I see these kids, I feel pity. Pity because these country is endowed with so much and yet its very future are toiling day in and day out. I frowned upon the fact that policemen are so fucking corrupted, eating money of any pocket or white man they can find. It's wrong. I was taught in all my years if schooling and university life that bribery is in essense the hindrance to growth and moral breakdown of society. But when you know these policemen earn peanuts, what do you do? Do you acknowledge that it is still wrong OR do you move on ignoring it OR do you partake in the activity by helping them out? I find it difficult to answer that question.

At the end of the day, I lived an expat life. Very fortunate and very blessed. Sometimes, I feel I have become numbed to life around here. I don't cringe or feel anything when I see a poor man begging. I don't and I hate it. I hate the fact that there is a possibility when I leave this place, I may forget how to feel for the suffering of others. That I may lose any sense of idealism.

Back to the question I asked of myself. I still have no answer as you are reading this. I can only say one thing for now. Freetown has given me the space for my thoughts to wander itself out. I think more when I'm here, a lot more about issues, thigns, people and life in general. I am probably not as talkative as I thought was ever. As Khalil Gibran says, when you feel the urge to talk, it could be your thoughts have ceased to be.. maybe. I have definitely learn that one need not always have an opinion on everything. So possibly this place has given me something and for that, I am thankful. Whether I like it or not, we'll see.

Jayne with a Y and Cwistle

I have a confession. It's not easy for me to form close friendships with people. It usually takes a while and there are very few people I keep close to me and genuinely would do anything for. Ginger Jayne (right) and Chinese/pseudo-Malaysian Krystle (left) have perhaps been the 2 people in Freetown that I found great comfort with and share good times. We've met only about a month or so ago just before a friend of ours, Antonio left for Bolivia. It started at Paradise Beach Bar - a hang out spot for some of us. Sadly for me, these 2 wonderful beings have headed back to London last Sunday, leaving me to grapple with the quiet evenings. The days would equally be quiet with no random calls for lunch, to the tailor or to just about anywhere else. I am slowly beginning to accept that this is what expat living is all about but still, it's a very lonely and sometimes a depressing process. I don't make close friends fast enough and frustratingly when I do, time wasn't enough. These 2 ladies have been amazing and simply generous. I share their warmth and kindness and am glad that even for the briefest time, we were friends. I wish them all the best and hope to see them soon again x