Friday, September 17, 2010
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
snippet of a freetown evening
at about six pm just as the day begins to darken at the edges, a group of white birds swoop past our third-floor verandah. Every few minutes I catch the flash of their white swooping shape out of the corner of my eye as they circle around again and again.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
keeping the faith
The walls and billboards of Freetown are pasted with posters of Nigerian salvation, promising hellfire, brimstone and popcorn. At the stadium last weekend there was a revival - the Fire for Fire Crusade, full of women wearing yellow Battle Axe Ministry t-shirts and African print skirts. There was ice-cream, popcorn, drinks and dancing. A music festival for Jesus, everyone bopping around happily. A woman with a huge headwrap was singing on stage like a blues star. Just forget about your troubles; Lift your voice and wash your heart; Sing the song from your heart; You are the Only One.
Battle Axe Ministry International
Presents
Jericho Hour Celebration - Storming the Kingdom of Darkness!
Theme - Walking in the Power of The Holy Ghost.
Prophetic Breakthrough Seminar
Every Jericho Wall Will Crash land
6pm Daily
1 to 7 March, 2010
Flaming Bible Ministries
PROPHETIC DOMINION
Exchange your tears for Joy,
Weeping for Laughter
Living Word of Faith Outreach Ministries International
Women Fire Convention 2010
No More Crumbs,
Matthew 15:27
with Rev. Veralina Sam Jolly
PROPHETIC DOMINION
Exchange your tears for Joy,
Weeping for Laughter
Living Word of Faith Outreach Ministries International
Women Fire Convention 2010
No More Crumbs,
Matthew 15:27
with Rev. Veralina Sam Jolly
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Freetown
I am staying at a nice hotel in Aberdeen, a few minutes from the World Food Programme's helipad. It is a Sierra Leonean run place with a mixed clientele. As I eat my fish and chips with tartar sauce and knock back a Star, I listen. Two Spanish men, wraparound sunglasses perched on cleanshaven heads, talk to upclass prostitutes about massages in broken English. Every five minutes one of them gets up to make an urgent phone call in Spanish. There is also a group of men speaking in foreign language I cannot place - it could be Hebrew or Serbian or Russian. The only word I understand is AK47.
By the pool, three white men smoke cigarettes, huddled on the loungers, talking. In the in-between-room, a space stuffed with couches and low tables between the reception and the pool, a Chinese man naps in an armchair.
I think I might be the only native English speaker here.
The staff are friendly and say Yes-please as they set down your dinner or bring you a drink. Ishmael, whose exact job title is difficult to place, takes me out to find a plug converter and we chat about random things - football, heat, tourism, the war. In the 24 hours that I've been here, I've not asked anyone about the war, and yet it seems to come up in conversation. Nothing in-depth, but the words 'the war' dropped in between other words and then gone, like a pebble plonked into a lake. We do not go into the war, we simply mention it and carry on. It is a marker of Before and After.
By the pool, three white men smoke cigarettes, huddled on the loungers, talking. In the in-between-room, a space stuffed with couches and low tables between the reception and the pool, a Chinese man naps in an armchair.
I think I might be the only native English speaker here.
The staff are friendly and say Yes-please as they set down your dinner or bring you a drink. Ishmael, whose exact job title is difficult to place, takes me out to find a plug converter and we chat about random things - football, heat, tourism, the war. In the 24 hours that I've been here, I've not asked anyone about the war, and yet it seems to come up in conversation. Nothing in-depth, but the words 'the war' dropped in between other words and then gone, like a pebble plonked into a lake. We do not go into the war, we simply mention it and carry on. It is a marker of Before and After.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Christmas in Dakar
13 December 2008
I am sitting at the Café de Rome watching a man meticulously put together a plastic christmas tree. He takes each synthetic branch, unwrapping it like a bunch of spring onions, pealing back each individual branch, like pulling fingers taught. He bends the metal end into an L shape and then pokes it into the pole disguised as a very skinny, very straight tree trunk. He started from the bottom with the longest ones and then worked from the top down. Now he’s on a stepladder arranging and rearranging branches. He steps back every now and again, looks up at the tree to make sure the shape is right, no bulges or gaps where they shouldn’t be.
The man next to me asks, La fete c’est bien passé? And the waiter replies, Alhamdoulilahi. They are talking about a different fete. The feast of the sheep, or tabaski, or Eid al Hadj, was last week and people here are in recovery perhaps similar to the post Christmas slump where you realise you’ve spent all your money on perishables.
The little kid at the next table points to the fake snow that drips its polystyrene down the walls. There are also white blobs stuck to the ceiling, outlined with white spray paint and covered in cotton wool. The man creating the christmas tree smiles and says, It’s too hot in here, isn’t it? The kid and his mum point out that the tree is tipping forward.
They are showing real christmas trees on TV and cars with snow caked on the roofs in some Western European country.
The Senegalese men next to me are talking about the financial crisis in Wolof, dropping in English and French with the ease of the well educated. They are talking excitedly and I really want to know what they are discussing, but unfortunately the French and English parts are only incidental. It seems all the interesting stuff tumbles out in Wolof.
Pictures of american car manufacturers and huge republican politicians talking into tiny microphones pass on the TV screen.
Ok so this is a different Dakar, or a particular priviledged Dakar. The Café de Rome is around the corner from my flat and I’ve been meaning to come here for a while. It is incredibly posh. There is actually customer service. You can sit down and people will come to you and ask you what you want. It also appears that over half of the things on the menu are actually available. The toilets are the nicest I’ve been to in a long while and as I turn to look at my bum on the way out I note that the mirror even makes you look thin. Sometimes you just need a little overpriced cappuccino, a fake christmas tree and a flat screen TV.
The three old men chatting away next to me look like old journalists, hair white-speckled, dark-rimmed glasses and distinguished. After smiling a lot in their direction I finally get up the courage to ask what they are discussing. The oldest one – the one with a full head of white hair – says, A little of everything. I ask them what they think about bailing out the American car industry and they say it’s a good idea if there are so many people relying on it for their livelihoods. But what about capitalism? I say. What about letting the free market do it’s business? I say. They shrug and smile. Why are we socialising our losses? I say. How this can help in the long term?
They are wiser than me. Or maybe shrugging and smiling makes them look wiser than me. I should practice that.
I ask if they are capitalists. They say, No! and shrink back as if I have asked them if they are mentally ill. And you, madame, what are you? one asks.
“Agnostic,” I say. They burst into laughter, they like that.
“Well then we are muslims,” he says with a wink in his voice.
“It’s funny. When you came to help African countries, you told us we must privatise everything and we did because we had no choice. But now…”
It’s true. I shrug and smile.
I am sitting at the Café de Rome watching a man meticulously put together a plastic christmas tree. He takes each synthetic branch, unwrapping it like a bunch of spring onions, pealing back each individual branch, like pulling fingers taught. He bends the metal end into an L shape and then pokes it into the pole disguised as a very skinny, very straight tree trunk. He started from the bottom with the longest ones and then worked from the top down. Now he’s on a stepladder arranging and rearranging branches. He steps back every now and again, looks up at the tree to make sure the shape is right, no bulges or gaps where they shouldn’t be.
The man next to me asks, La fete c’est bien passé? And the waiter replies, Alhamdoulilahi. They are talking about a different fete. The feast of the sheep, or tabaski, or Eid al Hadj, was last week and people here are in recovery perhaps similar to the post Christmas slump where you realise you’ve spent all your money on perishables.
The little kid at the next table points to the fake snow that drips its polystyrene down the walls. There are also white blobs stuck to the ceiling, outlined with white spray paint and covered in cotton wool. The man creating the christmas tree smiles and says, It’s too hot in here, isn’t it? The kid and his mum point out that the tree is tipping forward.They are showing real christmas trees on TV and cars with snow caked on the roofs in some Western European country.
The Senegalese men next to me are talking about the financial crisis in Wolof, dropping in English and French with the ease of the well educated. They are talking excitedly and I really want to know what they are discussing, but unfortunately the French and English parts are only incidental. It seems all the interesting stuff tumbles out in Wolof.
Pictures of american car manufacturers and huge republican politicians talking into tiny microphones pass on the TV screen.
Ok so this is a different Dakar, or a particular priviledged Dakar. The Café de Rome is around the corner from my flat and I’ve been meaning to come here for a while. It is incredibly posh. There is actually customer service. You can sit down and people will come to you and ask you what you want. It also appears that over half of the things on the menu are actually available. The toilets are the nicest I’ve been to in a long while and as I turn to look at my bum on the way out I note that the mirror even makes you look thin. Sometimes you just need a little overpriced cappuccino, a fake christmas tree and a flat screen TV.
The three old men chatting away next to me look like old journalists, hair white-speckled, dark-rimmed glasses and distinguished. After smiling a lot in their direction I finally get up the courage to ask what they are discussing. The oldest one – the one with a full head of white hair – says, A little of everything. I ask them what they think about bailing out the American car industry and they say it’s a good idea if there are so many people relying on it for their livelihoods. But what about capitalism? I say. What about letting the free market do it’s business? I say. They shrug and smile. Why are we socialising our losses? I say. How this can help in the long term?
They are wiser than me. Or maybe shrugging and smiling makes them look wiser than me. I should practice that.
I ask if they are capitalists. They say, No! and shrink back as if I have asked them if they are mentally ill. And you, madame, what are you? one asks.
“Agnostic,” I say. They burst into laughter, they like that.
“Well then we are muslims,” he says with a wink in his voice.
“It’s funny. When you came to help African countries, you told us we must privatise everything and we did because we had no choice. But now…”
It’s true. I shrug and smile.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Niono, mid-July
Today is Saturday and I spend it removing the desert from my house, together with the stiff body of a dead frog, I push a few live ones out the back door with the broom, and an assortment of dead insects, I mop and sweep, I dust once, twice, three times – there is still dust – I feel the sweat slide down my nose and wobble at the end of it before dropping to the ground.
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