Sierra Leone: round 2

This entry includes our day-trip to River Number 2, and River number 2 Beach. River Number 2 has a lovely waterfall that we hiked to, and the beach is positively pristine. The local community runs a tourist resort there--food, lodging, etc--and all the proceeds go to running the community school. Its great, but part of the attraction was that it was so secluded and quiet. I’ve got to say that irresponsible tourism would totally ruin it. Maybe Gambian beaches were once so quiet and perfect as well.

This is us walking along the road, trying to find River Number 2. I just enjoy the redness of the soil.



This is the river and the falls (more like a gently trickling creek, pooling into a lagoon, but it was still great).



Here are some beach pics. It was lovely. The little boy just came out of nowhere and sat with us on the beach. He was super cute, and quiet. We figured either his mother sent him to beg from us, or he is just so used to white people coming to the beach, and probably doing fun things and eating good food that he is totally comfortable with them. Either way, he just sat and chilled.







fishing boats




and that was a day at the beach.

Sierra Leone:round 1!

Hey all! It’s been awhile! The month of December flew by, I was busy…..doing awesome stuff….and not much in the mood to mass-communicate. So there. What did I do?

I went to Sierra Leone! If you have the chance to visit West Africa, I would highly recommend Sierra Leone. My friend Olga and I did our traveling together, because we decided to go rather spontaneously, the trip was not very clearly planned out. This only added to the adventure. ;-)

All the forthcoming updates are about that trip, you should try to read them in order. Most are pretty touristy-sounding (“and then we did THIS! And saw THIS! It was great!”) but allow me a minute to talk about the trip from a development point of view. Sierra Leone is doing so much better than Gambia. They had a huge bloody WAR and they seem to be doing better in a lot of ways. Education rates are higher, more people speak English. Their infrastructure is more present--buses THAT RUN ON SCHEDULE, paved roads WITH LITTLE LINES PAINTED ON THEM. My question is, given all that Sierra Leone has been through, why? Of course there is still poverty there, but why do they have their ducks in a row so much more than The Gam? Gambia is pretty peaceful. Gambia receives a metric shit-ton of European aid. Is it that religion plays a different role in people’s life in Sierra Leone than it does in Gambia (from what I could tell)? It must matter somewhat that back in the colonial days, the colonial seat of West Africa was in Sierra Leone, and not the Gam, hence the favoritism with better schools and roads and such, but why have they not caught up since then? It really was a frustrating thing to ponder while I was there. No answers, only questions. Anyway, on with the adventure!


We arrived outside of Freetown in the evening of Dec 6, and stayed with a friend of a friend. What struck me most was the terrain. Sierra Leone has mountains! Our plan from there was to find the Peace Corps office, and try to stay with volunteers. Some PC The Gambia staff had made it seem as if PC was currently active in Sierra Leone, and I would certainly put up a fellow volunteer for a few nights, so I thought we were set. As it turns out, PC is only in the process of becoming active in the country. Currently they have only their country director there, no other staff, no office, no volunteers. Ooops. Luckily, the new country director took pity on us , and allowed us to stay in some vacant apartments in the same building.


The following pictures are from around Freetown. There is the historic Cotton Tree. In itself, not all that exciting, they used to sell slaves underneath it. But THERE ARE BATS LIVING IN IT. Right out in the daylight in downtown Freetown. Heck Yeah.





This pic is of the historic Krio houses, built by slaves freed and returned from Britain. Note that they are built in an English style, rather than the indigenous style.






This is a view of the city from Signal Hill