"You'll be here every day, right?"

Yesterday, I took a sick day. Given that I was sick, this may seem unremarkable. But I wasn't as sick as I had been Wednesday, when I nonetheless worked yet another 10-hour day.

I took yesterday off in part because I had a sneaking suspicion my illness was the result of exhaustion and I figured a day spent in large part in bed would help ensure a return to health. Probably more than that, though, I took the day off out of curiosity; I wanted to see how the news programming would go without me.

Kalleone's seen three weeks of uninterrupted news since our Jan. 9th re-launch, but I've shouldered a heavy burden of the workload, typing and editing every script and producing every soundbite that went to air, in addition to working on stories.

Last Wednesday was arguably our best newscast to date. We had a bunch of good stories and they came in early enough in the day that I was able to prepare soundbites for three of them. Even the scripts were fully edited before 6, which almost never happens.

I should have known things were going too well.

It was to be Mabel's debut as the news presenter, and a crisis of confidence took hold. Wanting to abate this mild anxiety attack, I (somewhat masochistically) volunteered to pre-record the entire newscast.

Over the next two hours, we broke the script down into 10 small chunks for Mabel to voice, I hurriedly edited out her numerous nervous gaffes and, using Adobe Audition's amazingly straight-forward editing software (which I was more or less teaching myself on the fly), I somehow managed to tie 13 sound clips together.

While we were working, I mentioned that the building's power would probably cut out, as it does every night. I assured her this was no cause for alarm and that power always returns within five minutes.

Minutes later, my prophesy fulfilled, Mabel cast a glance of semi-astonishment my way, and I could see her slowly coming to appreciate how many late nights I'd been putting in. In my time here, she'd never once been at the office late enough to witness this almost-daily ritual, and she's arguably Kalleone's most diligent reporter. It was precisely the type of simple incident that helps to encourage reporter buy-in to what I'm trying to do.

Just before burning the whole newscast to CD, we narrowly averted disaster when a last-second check revealed I'd ordered two of the files incorrectly, which would've rendered a 90-second segment of the broadcast completely non-sensical. I quickly fixed it, and Mabel got to the station just in time for the 8:00 newscast.

Shortly thereafter, I received a text from Mabel thanking me profusely for my work, and thanked her in turn for not only voicing the day's news, but also producing two of our best stories. It was a typically Canadian battle of politeness and modesty, and my non-Canadian counterpart was more than holding her own.

I like to think my gesture helped her confidence and I was sure to be explain that we wouldn't be able to pre-record every week. This Wednesday, when Mabel asked to do so again, I explained that I was way too sick and exhausted, that we didn't have enough time, and that she was going to rock it live. And she did.

These are the interactions that nourish my soul in the haze of exhausting and often-frustrating exchanges that characterize my working life in Sierra Leone. The night after receiving the grateful text from Mabel, another colleague paused at the door as she was exiting the office, turned towards me and said, "You'll be here every day, right? We're learning a lot from you." I laughed, said no, and assured her they soon wouldn't need me.

All in all, it's been an exhausting three weeks. But I can deal with long hours. Significantly more troubling for me was the worry that our progress wasn't sustainable.

Truth be told, I considered leaving Kalleone less than a week after the news re-launched, which may come as a surprise given the good days like the one outlined above.

But there have also been days when I wasn't sure we would be able to pull it together, when stories didn't start coming in until three hours before we went to air - a small window to type and edit stories that often need a lot of editing, to print scripts, and to get the presenter to the station's studio - a half hour away from the newsroom - with enough time to practice pronunciations and be ready to read.

I've worried over administration's commitment to the news, as we were twice forced to print scripts from an Internet cafe at my expense, I've had to front the money to get news presenters to the studio, and we've been given very little access to computers other than my laptop.

It all came together to paint a grim picture of prospects for the news team after my departure in May. It was even discouraging enough that I had sent an email to JHR outlining my concerns and raising the spectre of a switch to a different station, a move I've long held as a last resort.

Instead, over the last two weeks, we've been able to slowly break through the obstacles. I was reimbursed for the money I fronted, and transportation money has been forthcoming in recent days. I've been given keys and software to grant me access to the printers. And this week, we're supposed to be getting a dedicated computer for the newsroom, which will allow me to pass on valuable skills like typing and sound editing with Audition.

Most important of all, however, my concerns about sustainability have been addressed by the return of Daphne and the impending return of Liz, the station's two older, more experienced news editors.

Daphne stepped in to fill the void left by my absence yesterday, as news hit the airwaves without interruption while I lay in bed. Liz will begin in the coming week, returning to work after losing her baby during childbirth recently, a harsh reminder that SL is still ranked last in the world for under-five mortality with 262 deaths per 1000 live births, according to the State of the World's Children Report for 2009.

In the next two weeks, I hope to transition back to my mandated role of working one-on-one with journalists and running workshops, while leaving the editing to this capable duo. Soon, hopefully, I'll be able to pass the sound editing torch to them as well. But departing from my explicit mandate for a couple weeks to see the realization of Kalleone's return to news was well worth it if it saves me from having to switch placements.

Seven months is a very short window in which to make a difference. It takes time to learn the rhythms of a station and to gain the respect of its reporters. Actually, I just read an interesting article about the implications of short-term contracts for international NGOs, and the challenges of effecting sustainable change in these small windows.

I think I've reached a point where I understand how Kalleone works, and have forged a rapport with my colleagues. On Wednesday, Princetta, Mabel and Fatima started calling me "Obama", a high compliment given how respected he is here, even if my attempts to understand what the hell I could possibly have in common with the American President have thus far yielded nothing to abate my confusion.

But it's taken a lot of work to get to this point. To have to start again from scratch with a new station would significantly limit the good done by my time in Sierra Leone, so hopefully my colleagues and I continue to break through obstacles as they present themselves. I'm confident we will.

In the meantime, I'm trying to come to terms with my chronic over-ambitiousness. The in-depth feature show I proposed in an earlier post will more likely give way to frequent five-minute 'special report' features in the normal daily newscasts.

And on a personal note, to reduce stress, I'm trying to give up a lot of my freelance ambitions, including a feature-length narrative story that I'd love to do about the seven Canadian IMATT soldiers stationed here. There's simply too much to do in too little time, especially if I want to pursue my travel plans, which themselves are becoming more modest. Turns out Africa's still huge and flights are bloody expensive.

For now, my goal is to have everything running smoothly enough that I can make a mid-February trip to Liberia without worrying that everything we've worked so hard for will come crashing down.

The Smartfarm stalker

Over three months into my stay in Freetown, I've found the city, by and large, quite safe. When I step out of the office every night into a cloak of darkness deep enough that I can barely make out the steps I'm walking down, it is rarely with any trepidation (though doing so Friday night with nearly $2000 in my backpack admittedly made me a little uneasy).

As I walk down Charlotte St. towards the lights and poda-podas of Siaka Stevens St., I am often approached by the many young men and women who loiter near the office, but their manner is never threatening.

I am met with exclamations of "Mike!" so numerous they've caused Patrick to remark that I seem to be far more well known among locals than expats who have been here three and four times as long. I stop frequently to shake myriad hands - some attached to recognizable faces, many to those who have seemingly only picked up on my name by hearing others yell it.

All in all, I'm convinced that Freetown is no more dangerous than Toronto, and infinitely friendlier.

That said, a couple incidents in recent weeks have reminded me and my roommates that there's no room for flippant attitudes towards safety.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, a British expat named Nick Foster was killed by a bullet fired at close range, while lying in his own bed. Though details have thus far been sketchy, his murder came about during a home invasion by armed robbers in a part of Freetown far from where we live, but close to Bryna's workplace. The news was a tad unsettling.

The going hypothesis around the house is that there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. All four of Foster's roommates, none British, were unharmed in the attack on a place he'd moved into quite recently, and the whole scenario reeks of an inside job.

Fortunately, I'm at least 70% convinced none of my roommates are plotting my demise, and take some comfort in the fact this was only the second home invasion we've heard of since our arrival.

We've been good about keeping strong relations in our neighbourhood, buying locally whenever possible, for things like food, airtime for our cell phones, and laundry detergent.

A few weeks back, when I unknowingly dropped my wallet as I exited a cab on busy Wilkinson Rd., four people dove for it - not to "teef" it (meaning steal, derived from "thief"), but to ensure its hasty return to its rightful place in my pocket.

In short, I'm confident that we don't have any enemies in the area. And, frankly, if robbers were to target someone along the street, the vastly wealthier American Embassy housing would be the logical mark.

Potentially more troubling than Foster's murder, though similarly shrouded in hearsay, is the mythic tale of the Smartfarm stalker.

There are a few things that I know about the Smartfarm stalker. He is a supremely creepy young man that rarely speaks, but keeps a constant vigil a couple houses down the street from ours. In fact, before I even knew who he was, he appeared in my first photo of the street, unsurprising given how rare it is to find him elsewhere. In the photo below, he is the one sitting on the left.



Though the Smartfarm stalker has never once spoken to me, he recently followed Bryna and Patrick down to Wilkinson Road and got into the same cab as them. When they got out at Bliss Patisserie, the driver said they hadn't paid enough - as the stalker had evidently informed the driver that they'd be paying for him. Bryna explained that they didn't know him, and the driver redirected his anger appropriately, but she was still understandably creeped out.

Apparently, the stalker once offered a ring to a white woman that resided at 19 Smartfarm Road. Thinking it was a harmless yet sweet gesture, the woman accepted it - and initiated a calamitous relationship for all the future white female tenants of our house. Bryna is just the latest of his perceived fiances.

Clearly suffering from mental illness and guided by his delusion of wedding bells, the stalker once entered the compound and was rewarded with a severe beating courtesy of Shaka and a number of the other guards on the street, who operate as something of a security collective.

After Patrick made mention of the unsettling cab incident to Shaka, another punishment was meted out; the stalker was whipped with metal wires, while Shaka uttered death threats. Unlike my roommates, I did not bear witness to these events, a fact I couldn't possibly be more okay with.

Still, though my better sensibilities obviously wish there was some sort of understanding of mental illness in the country, there is something comforting in knowing that our night guard, despite his generally warm and friendly demeanour, is ready to throw down in defence of the compound and its inhabitants when need be.

In December, after arriving home from a trivia night co-hosted by the US Embassy and British Consul, I expressed interest in checking out a hip hop block party 100 metres from our door. Shaka offered to go with me, as I would naturally stick out as a target for theft, being the only white person present.

Though the music was predictably awful, Shaka and I had a good chat, ranging from a discussion of his girlfriend leaving him and taking his 18-month-old daughter with her, to his reason for becoming a Chelsea fan, which was that his brothers and dad didn't like them. It was basically the same reason I cheered for the Montreal Canadiens during a particularly dark, misguided period of my childhood.

And true to form, Shaka spoke matter-of-factly about his proficiency in a scrap. He revels in showing off his knife and can allegedly deliver the most devastating head-butt this side of the Zinedine Zidane.

"If I get involved in a fight, it'll be over in a minute or less," he informed me. "I'm not trying to brag; that's just a fact."

He might as well have said, "It's science." Though I'm sure Shaka's never heard of Ron Burgundy, he channeled the great fictitious San Diego anchorman's essence perfectly.

I chuckled, though I believed him wholeheartedly. Shaka was the ideal night guard.

Alas, he is our guard no longer. He left us about two weeks ago to begin his studies in civil engineering at Njala University in Moyamba District. On his last night, I took this picture of him and Kevin, after we expressed our appreciation for his work and said our goodbyes.



I'm thrilled for him, of course. This could be the ticket to a better life. But my excitement is notably mixed with a sadness to see him go. Setting aside his unwavering reliability and 'aw shucks' gratitude for any show of generosity, I'll miss his breadth of local knowledge, ranging from a correct medical diagnosis when Patrick was bit by a champion fly to his strong grasp of local legend.

It was Shaka who informed us that the stalker was once employed by one of the construction companies on nearby Wilkinson Rd., until he one day snapped and demanded something like Le 2,000,000. After he was fired, Shaka explained, his dad tried to bring him home, but the stalker allegedly hacked ol' pops to death with a machete, and has slummed around the street ever since.

It sounds almost sure to be fabrication or at least gross exaggeration, but even if the stalker is in fact a crazy murderer, I still would've liked Shaka's odds in any form of fisticuffs.

Thankfully, Shaka found us a reliable replacement before he left, a friend of his named Al-Hassan who he amusingly described as "way more reliable" than he was. Indeed, Al-Hassan seems like a saintly fellow. He refills our water at all hours of the night, and is possessed of a gentle spirit, unfailingly polite. When I ask him how his day was, the answer is almost always, "Praise God."

But he does not inspire fear. Not even a little bit. If someone attempted to break into the place, I have an amusing image of him whipping out his Qur'an and bowing his head in prayer.

Thankfully, there are many others in the neighbourhood's unofficial guard union that would no doubt jump to his aid if ever there were cause to do so, meaning I still sleep easily. But Shaka is irreplaceable.

Obama-rama and the Refugee All Stars

Barack Obama's inauguration couldn't have been timelier. For me, that is.

Sure, the change in power no doubt brings hope to a nation and world that desperately needs it after eight years of George W. Bush. But more importantly, it was a shot in the arm for my social life.

I haven't really been out since New Year's Eve. Two weekends have come and gone with my brief leisure time taken up by reading feverishly and writing emails.

Which isn't actually a complaint at all. I've had a smile plastered to my face for most of the now commonplace 10 to 12-hour workdays, and the low-key weekends have been a welcome respite. But last night was a necessary reminder that drinking on beaches in perpetual summer is not a birthright, but a unique privilege that I have a moral imperative to take advantage of.

The day proceeded much like any other for the most part - working with journalists, editing scripts, and preparing audio files to ensure we had a news program. The fact it was Inauguration Day was made inescapable by the slew of Obama swag the city's populace was decked out in, but I'd already come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be able to witness this piece of history live. The VCR back in Kitchener was set and I'd just have to make do with watching it five months late.

Or so I thought. I'd forgotten that one part of the Kalleone building has a TV. My newsroom grew pretty sparse as the time of Obama's speech neared.

These two facts were not unrelated.

Just before Biden took the Vice-Presidential oath of office, Tunge, a sturdy office assistant with a smoker's growl that hits its upper limits in the Chali 2na bracket, suggested I put my work on hold long enough to witness history. Ever the agreeable sort, I decided to indulge him.

It was an interesting place to take in the spectacle - not just as a point of comparison to what I could only assume were productivity-starved offices throughout North America, but also to my expat fellowship of Nov. 4. The reverent silence that fell as Obama delivered his victory speech on that night was traded for a more jovial ambiance, jokes and laughter occasionally causing me to miss a word or two.

Still, I was thrilled to be watching the speech live at all. And while I can't remember ever caring about the swearing-in of any previous President, I was struck by a few aspects of Obama's oratory, starting with his very first sentence:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors.

That the first sentiment Obama expressed as President was meticulously plotted to remind the world that he's not a Messiah and to temper the gargantuan expectations upon him was not lost on me, but I was more interested in his mindfulness "of the sacrifices borne by [their] ancestors."

To my (again, completely uninformed) mind, this seemed to be the first in a long string of references to those outside the American elite, references that I don't imagine pepper every Inaugural Address so plentifully.

Though this nod could be interpreted as a reference to the Founding Fathers and others of their ilk, I thought the phrasing employed more readily conjured images of former slaves. My colleagues did too, reacting strongly to this quick reference.

It wouldn't be the only time they connected with Obama's rhetoric, proof positive of his international allure as a politician.

And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

... because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve ...

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

A couple Kalleone colleagues loudly echoed the lone word, "corruption", as if reinforcing the message for their own leaders.

It was a great speech, certainly, and re-reading the full text gave me the idea to use the Inaugural Address as a somewhat-unconventional example for a workshop on the importance of simple sentence structures in radio script-writing. I'm not above pandering to Sierra Leone's love affair with the 44th President, turns out.

Still, the overriding emotion I felt as the newly-minted Prez brought his remarks to a close was not that of soaring pride or inspiration, but relief. The Inaugural Address had met my only requirement: that Obama was still breathing to finish it.

Never one to underestimate the breadth of some people's ignorance, I was simply pleased to see the day come and go without a sniper's bullet throwing the whole world into disarray. Even during the speech itself, I had nightmarish visions of enraged young men in the streets of my adopted city, my expectation of what would happen if something went horribly wrong back in Washington.

Dodging back to the newsroom as soon as Obama finished his inspired address, I was met with a unique editing challenge. The station's local angle Obama story had been deemed so important that I was staring at the first piece written by the Station Manager, John, since I'd arrived.

Instead of cleaning up poorly-rendered English, I found myself confronted with overly ornate prose - and the dilemma of how thoroughly to edit my "boss" (though, technically, no one at Kalleone can claim this title, as JHR pays me, not them).

In the end, the hypocrisy of his two-page love letter to Obama, in light of his habit for frequently berating his young charges about the need for clear, concise writing, was too much for me. I slashed a couple superfluous paragraphs and cleaned up phrases like "In his powerful oratorical style, and looking handsome as ever ..." before handing the script to the day's presenter and catching a poda-poda home.

As I dropped my bag off at Smartfarm, my phone rang and John informed me that he'd listened to the newscast, while following along with the script he'd submitted. Busted, I thought to myself.

"I really liked what you did with it," John said. "It was a little rushed and I just wanted to thank you for your editing on it." The underlying purpose of the call seemed to be to assure me that he knew it wasn't perfect and could've improved it given more time.

The need for my approval struck me as odd but, pleased not to have offended, I grabbed a cab to DeVillage Beach Bar for "Obama-rama", a night of celebration hosted by Women in the Media - Sierra Leone, an organization that two of Kalleone's reporters, Mabel and Fatima, are heavily involved in.

Keeping with the theme of placing celebration above analytical contemplation of the day's events, in a country where Obama The Symbol is far more significant than Obama The World Leader, the party pumped all the same tunes that normally thudded from the bar's speaker system, eclipsing muted images of the day's events.

Nonetheless, the women of Kalleone seemed pleased I'd made an appearance and I was still able to make it to a club called Aces to meet up with Craig, Bremen, and my roommates for another Obama night party, this one featuring the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars.

The All Stars are Sierra Leone's most internationally famed musicians. If you asked a hundred random Canadians to name Sierra Leone's biggest musical act, you'd get 99 blank stares and one person who said the Refugee All Stars.

That modest acclaim is owed in large part to Zach Niles and Banker White, a pair of American filmmakers who followed the band's formation in a Guinean refugee camp following the war (and who almost moved into the house below me last month). Though I haven't yet had a chance to check out the doc, I've heard laudatory reviews from my roommate, Kevin.

Hilariously, despite their humble international reputation, the All Stars are generally met with lukewarm indifference in their home country. If you asked 100 Sierra Leoneans to name their nation's top musical act, I don't know how it would break down, but I know names like Kao Denero and the Dry Yai Crew would come up significantly more frequently than the All Stars.

On this night, the space in front of the stage was the least densely populated part of the entire club, and the All Stars were actually just the opener for a more popular band I'd never heard of.

Regardless, it was refreshing to hear live music that actually involved playing music live, and it was a great way to finish off a historic day.

"It's not cold"

Today, Freetown experienced cloudy periods with a high of 33 and a low of 24. When I checked the weather report around 10:30 this morning, it was 26 degrees, though the 84% humidity allegedly made it feel more like 37. "Is this what 37 feels like?" I recall thinking to myself. I was quite comfortable.

I think it's safe to say I'm acclimatized.

On Tuesday, the temperature is expected to drop as low as 21 degrees. I can't wait to see how my colleagues react.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Freetown is 19 degrees. Ever. In history. No capital city in Africa has a higher record low. We're not just talking sub-Saharan Africa, also known as Black Africa (or, as I like to call it, Blafricka) - all of Africa.

Yeah. It's hot. Or, as I tend to say whenever someone mentions the heat, "It's not cold."

Sierra Leoneans favour a different phrase whenever a white person mentions the heat. Bryna's colleagues have a habit of helpfully informing her, "This is Africa." A while back, we brainstormed possible witty responses to this blatantly obvious statement, my favourite being, "Well, that would explain all the black people."

December and January are among the most comfortable months in Sierra Leone, thanks to the Harmattan (pronounced "Ar-ma-tawn"), a dusty westerly wind that sweeps across West Africa from the Sahara Desert. It brings with it hazy days of reduced visibility (though this is marginal in Freetown) and people tend to get sick more.

I recall ABJ telling me shortly after my arrival that I'd love the Harmattan. I was skeptical. But as in most things, ABJ was right. The cool breeze is a godsend, a view I held even at the beginning of the Harmattan when I was experiencing itchy eyes, an often bloody nose and hourly fits of sneezing.

Of course, not everyone seems to share my view - many Sierra Leoneans are convinced it's cold. Particularly in the provinces, which are admittedly a few degrees cooler than Freetown, I had the surreal experience of being surrounded by people in toques under the hot African sun.

Interestingly, I've seen people wearing said toques while sweat trickled down their brow, leading me to wonder if their bodies have conditioned them to psychologically believe they're cold whenever they're not perspiring.

I'm sure the toques will soon disappear. As the dry season drags on, the country's hottest month is not far off. By March, temperatures supposedly become almost unbearable, acclimatized or not, thanks to stifling humidity resultant from less than 15 mm of rain for the whole month (about 1/5 the precipitation Kitchener experiences in the same period).

As with any tropical climate, Sierra Leone makes up for this sparsity with a vengeance, boasting monthly precipitation of 734 and 791 mm in July and August respectively (Kitchener peaks in August as well, albeit with a comparably pitiful 93 mm). Alas, I'll be gone too soon to bear witness to the opening of the heavens to regular torrents of rain and sparks of lightning.

But I did get a taste of it when I first arrived at the tail end of the rainy season in late October. On more than one occasion I was awakened by violent storms that completely dwarfed anything I've seen in Canada in terms of power and volume (aided by the resonance of rain on a city full of tin roofs).

I remember getting out of bed on one of the first nights at the guest house, unable to believe that all the commotion could be solely nature's doing. I spent a few minutes in the early morning hours just staring out my window in awe.

Still, all in all, I feel the timing of my stay in Sierra Leone is pretty ideal. The rainy season sounds all well and good in theory, but it rains virtually every single day for two months, washing out roads and making some parts of the country largely inaccessible in the process.

Besides, even if I find March to be absolutely stifling, I can always take comfort in knowing that things could be worse. It could be -20.

Still the least developed place on Earth?

On December 18, the United Nations released their annual statistical update for the Human Development Index, and Sierra Leone is once again the world's cellar dweller, 179th of 179.

Technically, this is actually down two spots from 2007, since three countries (Montenegro, Serbia, Liberia) were added to the survey and only one (Zimbabwe) was removed.

And granted, this indictment doesn't actually mean that Sierra Leone is the single worst place to live in the world today. The HDI relies on being able to access data for their statistical indicators, meaning that the most heinously unlivable places in the world are necessarily excluded from the running. Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are all notably absent from the HDI tables, for example.

But SL is still pretty close to the bottom. To get an idea of just how dire the realities of Sierra Leone are, one need only compare it to some of the world's most disastrous states.

Zimbabwe, for example, is a country that currently dominates headlines, as unmovable 84-year-old dictator Robert Mugabe stubbornly oversees the economic implosion of his country and refuses to accept any responsibility for the current cholera outbreak, a humanitarian disaster boasting a death toll in excess of 1700.

On October 9, the UN World Food Programme estimated that 83% of Zimbabweans were living on less than US$2 a day, a figure that has undoubtedly worsened as one of the largest crisis periods in that country's history has only intensified in the last three months. The situation is nothing short of tragic.

Yet, according to a Dec. 11 article in The Economist entitled "Life on 70 cents a day", they're still living on more than double the daily means of over 70% of Sierra Leoneans. And this is a country that is seven years removed from the horrific civil war that still largely defines them in the Western public consciousness. One cannot help but wonder when stability and prosperity will come.

And yet, for reasons that are simultaneously valid and ludicrous, SL has often been touted as an African success story in recent months.

The country's recent history is staggering. Consider this. January 2002 marked the end of Sierra Leone's civil war, one of the most brutal conflicts in modern history. It was a war where child soldiers sniffed "brown brown" (a mixture of cocaine and gun powder) and destroyed entire villages with sadistic impunity, where rebel soldiers systematically crippled their own countrymen and women, severing their hands and arms in the service of a perverse symbolism intended to deprive them of their means of voting. The horror was unfathomable.

And yet, just five and a half years later, as skeptics the world over turned to Sierra Leone with every expectation of failure, of violence, of unrest to inspire headlines about yet another hopeless, cyclical African conflict, the people of this nation ushered in a new era, not only participating in an election deemed free and fair by international observers, but bringing about a rare transfer of power.

It's one thing for an election to proceed peacefully when the political status quo is maintained; it is another thing entirely when a political regime is toppled and quietly accepts the democratic decision of its people.

So, yes, there are certainly valid reasons to label Sierra Leone an African success story. But ascribing that moniker also says something profoundly unsettling about the world's expectations of the African continent.

How can we label a success the country with the worst human development rating in the entire world? It speaks to a cultural relativism that surely must not be acceptable to Western morals, an implication that we can accept the more 'natural' deaths brought on by innocuous diseases coupled with inadequate health care, so long as Africans aren't killing and maiming one another in a revolting manner.

I've meditated over the value of the HDI for the last month, ultimately gravitating towards the conclusion that its importance is perhaps overestimated, or at least initially was by me. For old time's sake, I wrote an editorial about it for The Cord, which can be viewed here.

I'd be interested in hearing feedback from anyone with opinions on the matter, recognizing that my grasp of complex international issues still lacks a good deal of nuance.

Still, there is certainly validity to the claim that SL is a nation in desperate need of development. And as my colleague Craig pointed out, there is a sort of strange comfort in knowing that, save for war zones, this is about as bad as it gets. We've been able to spend a few months amidst these dire realities without being overcome by depression or giving up on humanity altogether. That has to be worth something, right?

Celebrating small victories

I've been living in Sierra Leone for nearly three months.

It's a little hard to believe. Before I know it, I'll be halfway through my JHR contract. And while some days have seemed interminably long and I've spent the occasional lunch wondering if I was getting through to anyone, looking at things in the larger perspective, it becomes clear that my colleagues and I have indeed been making some progress.

For example, when I started at Kalleone, the newspaper printed about one story of human rights or development news per week. By the time the paper went on hiatus for the festive season, the content ratio had skewed significantly more in favour of these articles, with the human rights and development niche occupying anywhere from two to four pages per issue (in a 12-page paper).

I think a couple stories from this past week aptly illustrate the methodical but nonetheless perceptible climb we're making up the mountain of media respectability.

Monday was the return to full operations at Kalleone, the blissful tomfoolery of Christmas and New Year's rapidly fading from view in our collective rearview mirror. It was also January 5th. And January 5th was the day they'd told me all along would be the station's re-launch. It was time to cast away the shackles of print in a largely illiterate society and take over the radio airwaves that form a sort of national religion.

I awoke uncharacteristically early, a mix of skepticism and excitement, and arrived at the station at 9 a.m. sharp (also uncharacteristic). The skepticism quickly beat the excitement into submission as it seemed painfully clear that our re-launch date would come and go not only without a return to news programming, but without even acknowledgement from any of the station's administration that the target date had been missed.

Finally, in the late afternoon, I received an explanatory text from John Conteh, Kalleone's station manager. Apparently, he was refusing to show up to the office "in protest of [his] boss' slugishness in giving us the equipment we need." A few more texts revealed that he was hopeful that everything would be resolved by morning and he would fill me in Tuesday afternoon.

It was disappointing, but not entirely surprising. After all, I was pretty confident no one had really been to the station with any frequency for the previous two weeks and I wasn't naive enough to believe the re-launch had been taking advantage of the silence to plan itself.

Meanwhile, Sheik and I were trying to finish up the story we'd been working on in the eastern border regions by getting an interview with a representative from the Ministry of Defence, which had a reputation for stoic silence when it came to press dealings, I was told by my colleagues.

We first showed up to the ministry's press office on Monday around 12:30 p.m., attempting to set up an interview. We were told that Colonel Milton, the press liason, was unavailable and we should return in an hour. Foolishly, I assumed this meant they expected him to be available in an hour.

In reality, it meant we were more than welcome to return promptly at 1:30 and sit unproductively for an hour before leaving a note requesting that the Colonel call us. We were assured he would. Neither Sheik nor I put much stock in this assurance.

So, 24 hours of non-response later, we were back at the office, and I couldn't help but notice the note we'd left was sitting untouched on the desk of the Colonel's assistant. We would not get to see the Colonel on this day either, nor would he answer either of his phones when I called. He did, however, have a note delivered to us that promised he'd pass my number onto the military spokesman. Filled with confidence, I made a mental note to come back again in 24 hours.

As we walked away from this third unsuccessful visit, Sheik launched into a now-familiar 'I told you so' routine that's popular among the Kalleone journalists. Whenever I work with a journalist and we encounter an unreasonable run-around in accessing sources, they begin to explain to me that "this is just how it is in Sierra Leone" and that's why they never do investigative reporting.

No matter what I say, I seem to labour to make my corresponding point - that I never doubted the very real challenges they faced, and I'm merely suggesting that a defeatist attitude, while understandable, is ultimately unproductive. My line of argumentation runs something like this:

"Yes, the reality of press access in Sierra Leone is abysmal. Governments try to avoid journalists, and that sucks. But it is the reality and will probably remain the reality, at least for the immediate future. As journalists, we have two options. We can lament the fact that we're not working in a more media-friendly environment and allow ourselves to be defeated. Or we can lament it, and work our asses off to make incremental positive change through exemplary reporting practices."

I choose the latter, and I think my colleagues are starting to believe that my choice is one worth aligning with. In fact, this little dance Sheik and I found ourselves engaged in with the Ministry of Defence was actually somewhat surreptitious. A couple weeks prior, I had run a workshop explicitly dedicated to gaining access to uncooperative sources, and this exercise was proving an excellent tool to put the theory into practice.

As we continually encountered non-cooperation at the Ministry, I referred back to one of the teaching tools from the workshop - that it was important to record your attempts to contact these sources, noting the date, time, and person(s) you speak with. Then, I explained, if they ultimately fail to comment after a reasonable opportunity has been given, you have every right to include their unwillingness in your report, and you have the evidence of your attempts to back it up should they angrily come calling.

After we again met with no help at the Ministry on Wednesday, Sheik and I composed a letter to be left for Colonel Milton, politely but firmly explaining that we'd delayed our story in an attempt to include their side of the story as long as we could and that, though we'd prefer to present a fair and balanced report with their comments represented, if we didn't hear from them by day's end, we would have to go to air without them.

This was another one of the tactics I'd outlined in my workshop. Colonel Milton called to schedule an interview within two hours of us exiting the Ministry.

He also happened to call in the middle of a news meeting, providing a perfect teaching opportunity to show not only Sheik but the whole staff that, with enough persistence, the system can be manipulated effectively.

Getting that interview felt like a victory, in much the same way that running that news meeting did; when I started at Kalleone, meetings were a rare case. We now have a daily schedule established and attendance is strong.

So, we had our Yenga story and I felt it would make a good centerpiece for the news re-launch, an angle that none of Freetown's other 50 or so media houses would have. The new re-launch date was Friday and, in a way, John's protest had worked. By Wednesday, the station had assigned five new recorders to the news staff.

Granted, none of them were digital, but that was kind of understandable given that digital recording technology could not be purchased anywhere in the country, at any price.

We weren't going to let that phase us, and John impressed me with his grasp of innovative ways to make the best of the technology. With a few simple cables and a reasonable understanding of Adobe Audition, we would be able to upload our interviews into a digital format and use quoted inserts in any story we pleased. That's all I could really hope for.

And so, this morning was one I awaited anxiously. Doubts again crept into my mind yesterday when John called in sick and I was forced to suppress my concerns in a faux show of confidence that the return of news programming to Kalleone was an inevitability that could be delayed no longer.

You see, I seem to have been thrust into somewhat of a mediator role at the station, representing the concerns of the reporters to their higher-ups, while simultaneously trying to temper their sometimes-unreasonable animosity towards management.

In many ways, I think everyone at Kalleone, if not within the Salone media more generally, has been worn down by the number of times they've allowed themselves to hope that progress was imminent, only to be disappointed. Jadedness has become the default setting.

But I haven't been around long enough to be jaded, and I think people are starting to notice that fact. Even though I'm technically the only member of our news team that's not employed by Kalleone, I was the first one in the office every day this week (save for Thursday, when I went directly to my day's assignment at a public briefing about a Yellow fever outbreak in Bo).

As Rugiatu, the terminally-shy intern who commutes from Lakka daily, headed home at 7 p.m. this evening, she noted that I always seemed to be the last one to leave the office too. I smiled, and informed her I'd be back in tomorrow morning if she was in the area and felt like dropping by.

Of course, this week hasn't been without its headaches. John didn't even arrive to the office until nearly 4 p.m. today and everyone turned to me for leadership in preparing a program that I'd never even heard. Stress ensued. In some ways, I was reminded of some of the particularly long Tuesday production days at The Cord last year.

But as the clock struck 7:30 and John, Abu Bakarr (the news presenter) and I hopped into a taxi and rushed up the hill to the studio, the newsman's adrenaline high made all the stress worthwhile. Pressed for time, we didn't get to pre-record the news updates as planned, and did it in a (much more thrilling) live take instead.

It was far from perfect. We ran into technical difficulties with the inserts (direct quotes/soundbytes). Editing scripts was an eye-opening lesson in the staff's fundamental failure to grasp the difference of writing for print and radio.

But damn it, on January 9, Kalleone had news. It was a first step and it felt good. And it was only four days after the initial goal, which, by Salone standards, is somewhat of a moral victory.

Witnessing it all come together has been a huge learning experience, giving me a point of reference from which to jump off as I structure my contributions going forward. Already, I've been inspired to lobby for a weekly half-hour segment explicitly dedicated to in-depth feature reporting that would nicely complement the just-launched news format.

And that is why, getting home 13 hours after I left this morning, having eaten only once all day and getting rear-ended in the cab drive home, a smile teased at my lips. With plans to head into work on a Saturday to add to my already-45-hour work week, it was a weary smile, but a smile nonetheless.

Some things never change, I guess.

"We'll never forget J6 in this country"

"All you need to know about the war is that I once saw a woman forced to throw her own baby into a wood chipper."

I've been unable to shake that image for nearly a month now. One of the reporters Craig works with in Makeni gave him this terse yet profoundly perturbing response when Craig asked him about the war. Besides making me feel sick to my stomach, though, I think it highlights an interesting dichotomy within Sierra Leone.

The country can be seemingly divided into two camps: Freetown and 'not Freetown'. Even members of the expat community have a tendency to define themselves either in line with or in opposition to the country's capital city. The provinces and Freetown present very different living experiences and unique challenges.

The provinces are a much simpler lifestyle, without the traffic and constant bustle of life in the capital, but also lacking the amenities, with power and running water an extreme rarity. They rely on provincial chiefdoms perhaps as much as the central government, which is based in Freetown along with most of the services the West would classify as essential.

Often times, foreigners living in the provinces will denigrate us Freetown folk as not getting the authentic Salone experience. Given that about 1/3 of all Sierra Leoneans live in Freetown, I find this complaint a tad simplistic, but nonetheless take their point that my lifestyle is less divorced from the one I'd have back home than it would be if I lived in the provinces. This blog, for example, would be a near impossibility outside of Freetown, due to limited Internet access.

And while, to some degree, you could argue that one's life experience in any country is profoundly dependent on whether one lives in a rural or urban community, I think the disparity here is more pronounced, and not solely owing to the fact that extreme poverty tends to highlight instances of lack. The history here is important.

Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961 and it marked the first time both the provinces and the Freetown peninsula were viewed as a cohesive unit.

Freetown was founded as a home for freed slaves in 1787 and became a British Crown Colony in 1808. The rest of the country didn't fall under the British until much later, as a Protectorate in 1896, which, if my understanding is correct, implied that it was more loosely tied to the Brits. They took an interest in its protection, but imposed less of a colonial administration than they did in Freetown.

The trickle-down effect of this complex relationship persists even today, with Freetown residents betraying a much more obvious Western influence in their lives and modes of thinking, while those in the provinces are informed by more traditional structures. Practices like FGM/C, for example, are more widely practiced in the provinces, while many in Freetown mirror the moral objections of the West on this matter.

The civil war is no exception to this rule. The reluctance of Craig's colleague to discuss the war, I think, is a function of the fact that he lives in the provinces and, as such, experienced the horrors of the war exponentially more than those who live in Freetown. In fact, in my experience, my friends and colleagues in Freetown have been remarkably forthcoming in discussions surrounding the war.

A few weeks back, Sheik and I got to talking about Sierra Leone's past and he didn't seem to have any reservations on the matter. In fact, I barely asked any questions, as he quite willingly set off in reminiscing about the war.

Reminiscing. That's his phrasing. It would have to be, as I'd never think to ascribe a word with connotations of fond memories to describe a day like January 6, 1999 - or, as Sheik calls it, J6.

"We'll never forget J6 in this country," he says, and proceeds to explain his experience of the war. It's a little surreal to see him laughing and smiling as he retells the tale of how he and his brother would go out every night as part of a Civil Defense Unit, hopelessly naive about what was taking place in their country.

They thought it was "fun", he explains, and enjoyed yelling things like, "Halt! Where are you going?" to people in the streets. For teen-aged boys, instilling fear had its appeal. The magnitude of the situation was miles over their heads.

According to Sheik, many people in Freetown didn't really believe the war was happening until it hit the city - in itself a function of the cavernous gulf between Freetown and the provinces both mentally and physically, in a country where few people have much mobility.

"When people from the provinces talked about the rebels, we would ask, 'Do the rebels have tails?'," Sheik explains.

"And then they showed us their tails."

With the January '99 invasion, Freetown was sheltered no more, as rebels entered the east end beginning at 1 a.m. on the morning of the 6th and did battle with Nigerian-led ECOMOG forces. Sheik's commander was killed in cold blood, shattering his naivete and sending him sprinting for home with his brother.

Sheik was lucky. No one in his family was killed, in part due to the benevolence of a mistress of one of the RUF commanders. She lived with his family briefly and took a liking to him. He even traveled around with the RUF for a week, seeing the devastation of his city. It was this woman's insistence that some of her family lived in Sheik's neighbourhood that kept it safe from much of the violence. Her help was not reciprocated.

When this woman opted not to return to the bush with the rebels, she was killed in a show of mob violence by the very community she'd protected. The way Sheik tells it, she survived six bullets from rebel guns and didn't die until a mob beat her. His retelling reflects a very real belief in magical protection from enemy bullets, granted through the pronouncements of tribal elders, though my logic dictates that the bullets just took a few minutes to prove fatal.

Obviously, then, the people of Freetown had very real experiences of the war. Yet ABJ is similarly forthcoming in describing the intersection of his life with the conflict. He speaks openly about his experience of being abducted during his rapping days by the West Side Boys, a particularly debauched sub-group of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, who he escaped after a couple weeks.

The best explanation I can muster for this fundamental disparity is the extent of their experiences. Freetown is haunted by January 6, 1999 and the surrounding days. But Makeni, and other towns like it, are haunted by the entire decade-long conflict.

Makeni was a major base of operations for the RUF rebels. The city's slew of ocada drivers are almost all former combatants. When I was up in Kabala, I spoke with a young man who said that anytime he travels through Makeni, he refuses to stay the night.

Kari, Craig's roommate and fellow JHR volunteer, has been out of the country for the last three and a half weeks, having returned to the States for the holidays with a brief stop in Senegal. During that period, Craig spent a lot of time in Freetown, in part because of some freelance work he was doing for CBC Radio and in part owing to his holiday plans. But I suspect there was more to it.

On numerous occasions, Craig has openly spoke of his unease regarding his living situation. Makeni has a haunting history. It's probably best not to think about what kinds of unspeakable horrors may have taken place within the walls of his compound - from gang rapes to tortorous dismemberment. Needless to say, I wouldn't want to be alone there either.

Today is the 10-year anniversary of J6, the day when the war finally made its horrific presence felt in the capital. It's been an appropriate day to reflect on the incomprehensible recent past of my temporary home of Freetown, and of Sierra Leone in general, and remind myself that in light of what these people have had to overcome, even the smallest success stories are, in a way, miraculous.

For more information about the attack of rebel forces on Freetown, I suggest checking out a difficult-to-watch but worthwhile documentary called Cry Freetown, which features live footage of the attack by a Sierra Leonean filmmaker who risked his life to capture the abhorrent images of his home country's war.

New Year's in Kabala

I woke up on the morning of Dec. 31 in Makeni. I was sore, disheveled, and growing increasingly weary of travel. The only shorts I'd brought with me from Freetown - thanks to a pitifully small backpack and the journalistic need for my camera, laptop and recording gear - were filthy.

I kind of wanted to just return to Freetown; 19 Smartfarm Rd. had never before seemed so much like home.

Then again, I'd been planning to spend New Year's in Kabala ever since my American friend Leah, who has lived there for the last six months or so, had suggested it a few weeks previous.

Besides, Kabala was the place to be for New Year's. At least, that's what I kept hearing.

Normally, Kabala is not an especially happening place. Located in Koinadugu District, an immense northern swath of the country, it is (or at least we were told it is) the sixth-largest city in Sierra Leone, though it still boasts a population of only about 18,000. It is the least developed district in the least developed country in the world, a local explained, and the country's battered collective self-image came starkly into focus.

The rudimentary way of life was indeed noticeable - not just compared to Freetown, but also to places like Makeni and Koidu. Even in the guest house, typically among the most developed places in a city, plumbing was non-existent. When I went for a much-needed shower, I was directed to a simple, open-air outdoor structure with tin walls.

In many ways, I suspect living in Kabala would feel a lot like going on a permanent camping trip to Algonquin Park, except with more dust, less water and fewer trees.

But come New Year's, Kabala is where it's at. There were apparently a few tourists that had come to the country explicitly to spend the holiday there, though the majority of visitors were upper crust Sierra Leoneans and Westerners already living in the country.

Every year, on New Year's Day, thousands of people climb up Gbawuria Hill, in the Wara Wara Mountains, for a celebration overlooking the town. Culturally, January 1st carries considerably more weight than New Year's Eve.

But tearing it up on the last day of the year was a cultural tradition I wasn't about to part with. After sharing some rum and lively conversation with a Dutch filmmaker named Hoop, Bryna, Patrick and I went to grab a simple jollof rice dinner at a small place called Twins Bar and Restaurant.

As Genesis and Celine Dion played in the background, I discovered a locally-brewed gin-based beverage called Crazy Kool, which boasted the potency of three beers and inexplicably sported a red-headed Scotsman on the label. I was sold.


Bryna and Patrick were exhausted and went to bed shortly after dinner, meaning they would miss the midnight countdown - you know, had there been one.

Instead, the final second of 2008 ticked away with relatively little fanfare and I spent it in the local nightclub with Bremen, Jen, Kieran, Leah and a couple other expats. It was an elaborate, somewhat labyrinthine set-up of rooms, both indoors and out, that made for an extremely enjoyable, extremely intoxicated few hours of dancing.

As I departed for my guest-house around 3 a.m., I stopped for the most authentic street meat I've ever had - quite literally, an unidentifiable yet delicious meat grilled over a charcoal stove set up on the dirt streets. I'm told the carcasses hung beside the grill, though I was oblivious to them.

Regardless, it was delicious, cost about $0.20, and didn't make me sick at all. After a brief phone call to my friend Laura in Calgary, I called it a night.

January 1, 2009 began like many of its recent forebearers - with a hangover. After my first Salone vomiting experience (as predictably unpleasant as back home), I had all but decided to go back to bed and miss out on the big celebration. Climbing a mountain in the heat of midday carried all the appeal of removing my own spleen with a rusty steak knife.

Thankfully, with the help of an orange soda and a bag of water, I stubbornly persisted and made the climb to the top, where Bryna, Patrick and I stayed for an hour or so.



It really was quite the spectacle, though our desire to get to Makeni before nightfall no doubt caused us to miss the peak of the day's excitement.

In a show of their remarkable fitness, local Sierra Leoneans not only passed us as we made the climb up the mountain, but did so while carting cases of beer and coolers balanced on their heads. Though we didn't see them, someone obviously also hauled massive speakers up the hill, as evidenced here.



The music was already well underway when we began our ill-conceived descent against the grain of foot traffic. It quickly become apparent that tales of a 9 a.m. start time had been greatly (and predictably) exaggerated. When we began climbing down around 3 p.m., it seemed as though the entire village passed us on their way up, some children even tackling the steepest route in their bare feet.

This was the scene atop Gbawuria Hill when we left and I can only imagine how convivial it got by the time night fell. And while a steep mountain may not inherently seem like the wisest place for a day of sun-splashed drinking, a small part of me wished I had the energy to delay my return to Freetown just one more day to take it in fully.



Instead, we packed our bags, checked out of the Tek 1 Guest House and began the trek back to Freetown. En route, we came across a couple more New Year's celebrations. Along bridges outside of Makeni and another town, roadblocks were set up, cars crowded the shoulder, and hoards of neighbours came together to shake hands with 2009.

I really have to hand it to Sierra Leoneans. Throughout the festive season, they've proven time and again that, though they may not always have a lot to celebrate, they certainly know how to do it properly - in a clique-free, inclusive manner that rarely falls behind closed doors.

The hardest non-story of my life

It's not every day that I'm arrested by an AK-toting soldier in a country that's just been overthrown in a military coup.

In fact, it's probably safe to assume that Dec. 29, 2008 will be the only day in my life where that occurs.

Last Sunday, after much deliberation and discussion, I left Freetown and set out for a place called Yenga, a small town at the confluence of the Guinean-Liberian-Sierra Leonean border.

Five days after the coup hit Guinea, I was en route to a disputed territory that has been occupied by Guineans since around the end of the Sierra Leonean civil war - even though I wasn't yet entirely sure where that place was, Yenga being too small to merit mention on any of the maps I could find.

If anyone in Sierra Leone was feeling the impact of the Guinean coup, I was convinced it would be the people of Yenga - and I would be the only journalist in miles. Admittedly, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Of course, I was also slightly anxious about what I might encounter. For there to be a story, there would also have to be some tension, maybe even a little instability. Throughout the trip, I again found myself lost in the type of professional daydreaming that I wrote about two posts ago.

After a brief stop in Makeni, Sheik and I loaded ourselves into an overburdened taxi for the five-hour drive to Koidu. As we progressed further east, the landscape grew hillier while the roads grew increasingly rough.

I felt a pang of unease each time we passed the shelled out remnants of a vehicle in the ditch, now just mangled frames of rusting metal, and remembered that the most likely cause of death for a Westerner in Sierra Leone was not a ruthless criminal or warring soldier, but a mundane car accident.

Realistically, these vehicle shells were no more common in the provinces than they had been in Freetown, but something about the remoteness of my current location gave it all a more menacing quality.

Nonetheless, we arrived in Koidu with pleasantly little excitement and it quickly became clear that this trip would give me a better appreciation of the war's legacy. While Freetown was largely sheltered from the civil war until the last couple years, the eastern regions were both the starting point and heart of the conflict, many of the rebels having initially entered from Liberia.

Koidu is the fourth-largest city in Sierra Leone and the biggest in the Kono District, which is the heart of the country's mining operations. The land is rich in diamonds and minerals, and stunning in its beauty. Many houses still bear the scars of war, charred frames not yet rebuilt from the incineration they experienced at rebel hands.

Sheik and I checked into our hotel and, weary from the day's journey, he went straight to bed. I grabbed some dinner and a couple beers over pithy conversation with a pair of middle-aged Americans that claimed to be in the "sunscreen business", but who were undoubtedly among the foreign miners looting the land while leaving precious little of the spoils for the people of Salone.

They told me how boring the town was, and I couldn't help but feel that they'd be laughing at me as soon as I retired to my room, baffled that any journalist would think there was a story of international interest to be gleaned from this sleepy mining district.

The next morning, Sheik and I hired a pair of ocada (motorbike) drivers - one Guinean, one Sierra Leonean - to take us to Yenga. They said it would take about three hours, and I again felt a glimmer of hope, reasoning that three hours was an eternity on these roads and no American miner would likely have known even if there was an all-out war raging at the border.

Anxious to get to Yenga, I didn't even pause for photos as we negotiated yet another beautiful part of the countryside. Tall trees dotted the mountainous landscape as we traversed dirt "roads" that few cars could dream of navigating, the skin on my knuckles quickly grating away as I held tightly to the small metal handle along the bike's rear.

We passed through myriad towns of tiny thatched-roof structures, walls optional. I felt strangely presidential as I waved at small children while we whirred through these hamlets, reactions ranging from stunned silence to gleeful exuberance. My driver, Solo B, explained that they see white people only once or twice a year - usually when something bad has happened or is about to.

Around 1:30, we arrived to a river and Solo B explained that we just needed to cross it and go for another hour or so and we'd be in Yenga.

"Beautiful," I thought. That should leave us about four hours to get the story and we'd be back to our hotel in Koidu, where I'd left my laptop and other heavier belongings stashed under the bed to make the journey less strenuous.

We loaded the bikes into the canoe and made the crossing in a matter of minutes. And that's when things got significantly more complicated.


We were met on the shore by a Guinean soldier, and it quickly dawned on me that the river was also the natural border between Sierra Leone and Guinea. This was a very bare bones, one-man border checkpoint.

As instructions were translated from French to a local Guinean dialect to Krio and finally to English, my rudimentary grade 11 education in Canada's other national language was enough to leave me wondering what was getting lost in translation. Sheik explained that he was a student who had offered to show me the countryside and we were just on our way to see the border.

After a methodical rummaging through of our gear, the soldier, his AK-47 propped against the same tree roots he was sitting on, seemed thoroughly unconvinced - and rightfully so, given the Le 1.1 million, JHR business cards, and recording equipment he'd uncovered in my knapsack.

"What's the real reason you're crossing into Guinea?" came the soldier's translated question, and I looked to Sheik as I walked to the riverbank and sat down. Our Guinean driver took up the cause, to no avail. Five minutes later, I was hurriedly ushered back into the canoe and deposited back in Sierra Leone.

At this point, it was explained to me that the soldier had been convinced, the obvious trappings of a journalist notwithstanding, that I was a mercenary for hire. He'd arrested all four of us, planning to take us to his superiors in Conakry.

I was immediately pleased not to have been privy to this knowledge prior to finding myself safely back on Salone soil, where the image of myself as anything remotely threatening remained thoroughly amusing.

Solo B had quickly offered the soldier a Le 10,000 bribe to allow us to return from whence we came. The fact that a suspected mercenary and three grown men could buy their freedom for less than $4 was not lost on me.

As we debated the looming question of our next move, I learned that to get to Yenga without crossing into Guinea would take us until well after dark. Crossing through Guinea shaved hours off the trek and, while they could probably get Sheik in reasonably simply, my skin colour would preclude my entry without, at the very least, a proper Visa.

"But I have a Visa," I said. "I gave him my passport, with my Guinean Visa in it."

Of course, the soldier was illiterate, a fact that should have occurred to me sooner. This, I was told, changed everything. Solo B knew another crossing we could try and we were back on the bikes in no time.

Having learned from our first experience, we stopped a mile short of the next attempted border crossing and I did something absurdly trusting and, potentially, remarkably stupid. I handed Solo B, a seasoned veteran of this crossing that was sure not to be hassled and a man I had known for about five hours, Le 1 million (about $350) and our recording gear. We agreed that we would pretend not to know him, and he would stop and wait for us a mile past the checkpoint on the Guinean side.

I repeatedly questioned my sanity as I handed over the wad of cash. I also removed the JHR business cards from my wallet and cast them deep into the forest.

We approached the river and went through the standard police checkpoint on the Salone side. It was the third or fourth I'd experienced so far in the journey, and just as painless as the rest. No bribes were necessary, no stories fabricated. We were journalists and we were headed to Yenga, Sheik stated matter-of-factly. No problem.

The head officer offered to be interviewed, and I smiled to myself as I remembered reading three months ago that this was a country that didn't value press freedom and was antagonistic towards journalists.

Instead, my overwhelming experience in the provinces aligned with Sheik's assurance that police and military were terrified of journalists, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a very good sign. It indicated that there is an expectation that journalists will be happy to make their corruption public and there will be repercussions. That's huge.

We began to cross the river, with a word of warning that Guineans weren't as accommodating towards reporters. Solo B had already passed out of sight on the other side.

As we arrived on the bank, we were quickly ushered into a small tent for interrogation. Translation was again an issue, but after about 40 minutes, we were allowed through with only a Le 20,000 bribe, which Sheik negotiated down from the Le 100,000 asking price. We climbed a hill and I hopped onto the waiting bike of Solo B, issuing a silent prayer of thanks that my brazen behaviour had not yet bit me in the ass.

But though we now found ourselves on an arid road, we were not yet out of the proverbial woods. After a half hour on the bikes in Guinea, me casting nervous glances at every soldier or otherwise authoritarian figure we passed, Solo B discovered that his front tire was flat. Fantastic.

I was in Guinea. No one knew I was in Guinea. I had no reception on my cell phone, and I no longer had functioning transportation. I was, for lack of a better term, fucked. And what's worse, it was completely and utterly my own fault, my current predicament the result of my insatiable desire to find this story.

Of course, I'm writing candidly about this less than a week later, so things clearly worked out okay. As it turns out, Solo B is pretty much the best ocada driver ever. He whipped out a toolkit, sealed the flat and had us back on the road in less than a half hour, my internal self-flagellation only outwardly manifesting itself in the occasional worried glance towards Sheik.

And so, caked in the omnipresent red dust of the region, we pulled up to the border crossing to Yenga, our holy grail, around 6:30 p.m.

Funny thing about that: the border closes at 6.

Much discussion ensued, ultimately ending with the payment of another Le 20,000 bribe - Guineans love their bribes, I was quickly learning - and we were back across into Sierra Leone, albeit a portion of SL occupied by Guinea.

As fading light turned to firelight, Sheik and I interviewed Salone police officers, the tribal chief and those affected by the occupation. We went to nearby Koindu and interviewed the Officer-in-Charge for the area.

In the end, Yenga was pretty boring.

The Guinean coup has had no discernible effect on the area. The border was closed for an hour on the day of the coup. Cross-border trade continues unabated.

In fact, throughout the day's epic adventures, it had become increasingly clear that, at least in the east, the Guinean-Salone border is a very fluid one. Often times, these tiny villages have far more interaction with their neighbours across the water than any of their own countrymen and women.

At the point at which we crossed into Guinea, the officer we interviewed explained that only one car a week left the border to visit other towns in Sierra Leone, while many people crossed the river daily to go to market in Guinea. And here too, as in Yenga, relations had been unimpeded by the coup in Conakry.

Of course, ultimately, this is great news. As a human being, I'm thrilled at the seeming pervasive calm where I'd expected something of a powder keg. It gives me real hope that the Guinea situation will not re-ignite regional instability; that maybe the progress being made in West Africa can continue to crawl along.

What it doesn't give me is a story. And so, as a journalist, I'm slightly disappointed.

As the day drew to a close, Sheik and I found a very basic guest house and caught about four hours of sleep, awaking at 2:45 a.m. to begin the long trek back to Koidu (not to be confused with Koindu, which we were leaving).

For the next eight hours, we rode more or less without rest. At 4 a.m., we passed through a town shrouded in darkness, save for a glow of light and the hum of chanting coming from one building. Disturbed by this eerie display, I asked Solo B what was going on and he said they were at church ... at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday.

I remain skeptical. In all likelihood, it was one of the many secret societies in the country, where female genital mutilation is practiced as a rite of passage for young girls.

An hour later, we rolled into Kailahun as the day's first call to prayer rang out from the city's mosque, a few people slowly passing us on their way to the first of five daily prayer rituals, and I internalized just how unfit to be a Muslim I am.

Continuing in the darkness, we sped along paths at times no wider than a couple meters, jungle on both sides of us, and crossed a ferry at sunrise.


Eventually, mercifully, we arrived at the door of our hotel, just after 11 a.m. I'd spent 15 of the last 25 hours on the back of a motorbike. My knuckles were already scabbing over, my hindquarters felt raw, my hips ached, and I could barely walk.

But we weren't done. We grabbed our belongings and hopped aboard an aggravatingly slow taxi to Makeni, smoke escaping from the dash throughout the agonizing seven-hour drive.

Our driver, whose livelihood is based on making this very trip daily, somehow managed to run out of gas 10 miles out of town. Sheik absolutely lost it on the guy, flagged a taxi and insisted that our driver pay the fare to take us into Makeni. He then continued our already 15.5-hour travel day on to Freetown, while I decided Makeni would do for the night and met up with my colleague, Craig.

As I stumbled into a restaurant called Ibrahim's, telling Craig a story that I imagine will quickly establish itself in my personal canon, I realized that I'd subsisted for almost two days on five bananas, an orange (which, oddly, are green here), a piece of bread and a solitary bottle of water.

This might account in part for the fact that I've lost between 10 and 20 pounds over the last 2.5 months, though my paranoid streak insists that a tapeworm is the more plausible explanation.

All in all, it was an eventful three days. I covered five of the country's 12 districts. I went from Sierra Leone's western-most city (Freetown) to its eastern border, and beyond.


And after all this, I had to write an email to the Toronto Star, the paper I was planning to try to pitch to, to inform them there was nothing worth pitching.

I regret nothing.