This weekend was supposed to be a very productive one. It wasn't. This weekend, I was supposed to get a lot of schoolwork done. I didn't. This weekend kind of reminds me of last weekend.
I often have grand plans for all that I'm going to accomplish on my weekends, and I invariably fall hopelessly short of achieving them. Yet I don't think there's anything particularly worrisome about that fact.
I'm coming to understand that my weekends are more about decompressing than anything else. I tend to read a lot on weekends. Maybe send some emails. And I spend a lot of time talking to my fellow expats, who are easily among the most fascinating people I've ever met.
Yesterday, I was hunkered down to tackle a children's literature essay at Bliss Patisserie, an aptly-named and oft-frequented refuge for the expat community living in the city's west end.
In an air-conditioned environment, they serve delicious pastries and have some of the only passable coffee in Freetown (or so I'm told). They also don't mind if you use their generator power to work on your laptop all day, as long as you buy something. Needless to say, the place is abuzz with activity and white faces every weekend.
Yesterday, my colleague Kari and a former colleague of hers from Voice of America named Nico stopped in, as they were crashing in our spare room for the night. Their arrival marked the end of my short-lived productivity, and I mean that as a compliment, not a complaint.
Nico Colombant is yet another example of the thoroughly interesting people that seem to spring from the expat mold. A French-American raised in D.C., he attended school at Concordia before working in West Africa for a few years.
A couple of months ago, he moved home, though he's already made two return trips to West Africa, a three-week visit to Cote d'Ivoire and this two-week stay in SL. He said he's been enjoying getting to know the region from a different point of view, removed from the stresses of work.
Along with Bryna and Patrick, we spent most of the day chatting, as the venue for our conversations shifted from Bliss to Smartfarm to Montana's (home of the best pizza in Freetown) to Paddy's (the country's most famous bar, though it was less happening than usual last night).
Nico's stories included getting punched in the face by a gun-toting Senegalese drug dealer for smart ass remarks made while refusing to give up his table at a Dakar club, as well as angering 50 recently released criminals in an airport check-in line, only to find out that he and Kari were about to share a flight with all 50 of them, and no one else.
Kari has told me similarly fascinating tales over the last six weeks, including finding herself trapped in a small town during the midst of an attack, lying still through the night as she listened to gunshots ring out around her. I'm hazy on the exact details and location, as she told me about it in the first couple days we were here.
The craziest thing about it, though, is not that these people are part of my (still fairly small) social circle in Sierra Leone; it's that they're not especially atypical members of it. Living in an environment like this, you rub shoulders with a very interesting assortment of people.
And, as Kevin pointed out to me, you have access to a much larger social range than you would at home. Lawyers for the Special Court for Sierra Leone and higher-ups with the UN and US Embassy frequently socialize with VSO volunteers living on $300/month and students doing field research.
We're tied by our outsider status, and we interact commonly in ways that would be viewed as extraordinary back home. Imagine the President of UW or the RIM CEOs grabbing a pint with a local truck driver or construction worker. And not for a photo op. Just because.
It is these types of exchanges that replenish my soul every weekend. Last Sunday, I spent four hours doing little other than eating at Bliss and chatting with Patrick and Kevin, both of whose experiences abroad dwarf my own.
None of us really knows what's in store for us on the other end of Freetown, and it is a question that looms especially large for Kevin, whose JHR contract ended when mine began. Development work in Somaliland. A return to Toronto. Reporting for Al-Jazeera, or a small broadcaster in Kamloops. Grad school in New York, or maybe the UK. Though he's since ruled out Somaliland, the possibilities remain many.
In our 20s and early 30s, we have almost no accrued possessions. We are not propertied. We have no families. Just a host of experiences.
We pontificate on when harsh reality will bring an end to our worldly dalliances, and more or less agree that the harsh reality will take the form of family. Once the perspective necessarily becomes about more than simply ourselves and our own livelihood, things get a lot more difficult. Accepting a job in the most consistently lawless place on earth over the last 20 years is no longer a feasible option to entertain.
Admittedly, it's the sort of selfish musing that has for a few years led me to associate fear with the notion of settling down. But it's interesting to take in. At 23 and single, when I shrug off the question of what I'm going to do come May, it's strangely so much more acceptable than when colleagues seven or eight years my senior do so.
Our conversation shifts to our decision to throw ourselves so far outside the familiar, a conversation that naturally invites comparison to our friends that don't.
Also from Kitchener, Kevin is blunt in his appraisal of life in K-W; even though it was a good enough place to grow up, he wanted out and made his escape at 18. I'm more forgiving to K-town. Life was great back home, in a community I love with a broad and amazing social circle of support. It would've been very easy to fall into a life there and wake up one day to realize I was 50.
And I don't really think there's anything wrong with that, at least not inherently. I'm sure some of my friends will never leave K-W and that doesn't have to prevent them from achieving their full potential. The problem comes when a person's only reason for not leaving is that staying is both safe and comfortable.
Admittedly, stepping beyond that safe bubble can be mildly terrifying. For me, though, never leaving, even if only for a short time, was more terrifying. As I've said before, throwing myself into an unfamiliar and challenging situation is the easiest way I know to test my mettle and broaden my comfort zone.
Ultimately, I don't really know what it's going to be like returning home. The general consensus is that re-assimilating into Canadian life can be difficult, even after a period as short as seven months. It's hard to imagine having any difficulty returning to a loving circle of family and friends, but I suppose accepting a more conventional job might be a little strange after this experience.
I really don't know what the return home next summer will be like and, to be honest, I'm not too concerned about it one way or another. All I know is that I'm going to be glad I decided to pursue this opportunity and I'll have undoubtedly learned more than I would've from another seven months in K-town.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Public relations, government and the media
Had someone asked me to compile a list of things I expected to miss while I was in Sierra Leone, it likely wouldn't have been an especially short one, with the names of loved ones and favourite restaurants probably taking up much of the space. New music, new movies, and the start of baseball season would surely have made the cut. But PR? That I never could have predicted.
My attitude has long been elitist when it comes to the whole industry of public relations. These departments were largely staffed, in my opinion, by sellouts that had lost their love of journalism's pure form, succumbing to the allure of a higher salary and selling their souls as spin-masters for companies with something to hide. There was a high-level conspiracy theorist malevolence about it all, and I prayed I'd never stray so far from my puritanical ideals.
Well, leave it to Sierra Leone to once again provide me a more nuanced perspective. The public relations mechanisms in this country are badly underdeveloped and, shockingly, I am actually lamenting that fact.
This past week, my colleague Sheik and I began working on a story about a UNESCO report regarding global progress in attaining the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. Since Sheik is currently doing his internship for the Mass Communications program at Fourah Bay College with Kalleone, he seems to be the journalist I spend the most time with, since he's the most available.
Anyway, it was clear pretty quickly that this wouldn't be an easy story, as it involved a fair bit of a research to filter a complex, multi-faceted issue down to a single article. It's not the type of story that gets covered here often and we were the only media source I know of that reported on it, owing to the presence of my Cord email on a UNESCO mailing list that I didn't even know existed.
Owing to the less conventional nature of this story, it took a long time. But the most difficult part of it all was definitely securing interviews. The politicians here seem to have an inherent distrust of the media, which I suppose exists to some degree in most societies, but like many things with this experience, it's more intense in SL.
Though I wouldn't classify this as a remotely controversial story, we received an extensive run-around from leery secretaries in trying to get access to the sources we needed. In some ways, I can understand their misgivings. Based on the question and answer sessions I've witnessed, journalists can certainly be guilty of loaded questions; their opinionated beliefs rarely hide behind a mask of pretence when addressing those in the corridors of power.
In fact, loaded questions are generally the good ones, as they at least include a question. Frequently, journalists say something more like this:
"My question is ... well, actually, it's more of a contribution ... an observation, really ..."
When a question is asked, it is often prefaced by an extensive rant replete with grandiose language and pointed accusations, or at least the implications of accusations. In some ways, it reminds me of my time moderating the WLUSU Presidential Open Forum at Laurier, when so many of the supposed questioners were instead attempting to launch character attacks on the various candidates under the guise of having something to ask.
So, perhaps that's one reason it is so difficult to persuade anyone in a role of some importance to grant you an interview. But having an effective public relations system would definitely help.
Currently, journalists are forced to run around the city to try to set up interviews, as it is way too difficult to convince someone they should grant you an interview in the brief conversations afforded by the phone, and people completely ignore emails unless they somehow profit from answering. The assumption seems to be that no one will be persistent enough to follow up, and it's probably a fairly accurate one.
Of course, taxis around the city cost money, and the poverty that simmers just below the surface of so many of this country's problems - journalistic and otherwise - once again rises to a boil.
And so, journalists spend the brunt of their time attending press conferences because they know they'll at least get statements from ministers and other officials, even if they don't get to pose questions of them directly. Here, too, a functioning PR mechanism could save journalists an immense amount of time and effort.
Press mailing lists are used so sparingly that although I've only been added to two so far (UNICEF and the Special Court), I'm quite convinced that's more than any of my Kalleone colleagues. If Parliament and others would simply send out emails and mass texts with simple things like meeting agendas a day in advance, journalists could schedule their time with vastly increased efficiency rather than wasting it on so many fruitless conferences. Alas, no such culture exists.
Lastly, PR professionals, the good ones at least, can function as a type of interlocutor between the media and government officials that often seem to have a default setting of animosity; when Kevin Crowley arrived at WLU, I found it improved The Cord's relationship with administration because he understood and respected the role of the media more than his predeccesors, and he spoke to his colleagues about the need to give the media access to let us do our job effectively.
I have a feeling no one has ever spoken to most of the officials of the All People's Congress, the sitting government in Sierra Leone, in such terms. After a brief interview with a government official named B.I.S. Konneh, I handed him one of my business cards from JHR.
The part that read "human rights" may as well have been written in blood - it was the only thing he noticed. His face quickly turning to stone, he spat out, "What's your mandate?" I explained, focusing on things like capacity-building in the media and ensuring journalists understand the importance of balance and accuracy in their reporting.
"... But you're not an activist?" he asked, unconvinced.
"No. I'm a journalist."
His expression seemed to respond, "Okay ... I guess that's permissible." I still kind of wonder what would have happened had I said I was an activist, but I imagine the response would've begun with my prompt removal from the building and a subsequent blacklisting.
Instead, we went about laboriously securing more interviews and writing this story. As always, I think it could've been better, but know it was still well above average and I think I'm getting better at accepting that. (Oh, and since I've failed completely to address it, the photo that opens this post is simply the one that ran with the story - a shot of a primary school classroom at an all girl's school.)
Ultimately, my views of Canada's PR system have been moderated by this experience, though the North American incarnation is still a little too well oiled for me to fully trust. But it is starting to look preferable to the Sierra Leonean system, where the rust is only beginning to be chipped away after 15 years of neglect.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Please don't call me Masta
I get yelled at a lot in Freetown, and I get called a lot of things. I'm a rarity, a freak occurence, and I'm reminded of it often.
My favourite way of being identified is as 'Mr. Mike', which is what Santos, the guard at the station, and the other handful of young guys that chill on the front steps of the Kalleone building, tend to call me. Even when they're feeling less formal and drop the Mr., 'Mike' is always accompanied with a broad smile and a Salone handshake, which, as luck would have it, is just the first three motions in Paterson's distinctive handshake style. The guys seem to enjoy simply pronouncing my name, always uttering it cheerfully instead of 'hi' or any other standard greeting.
Unfortunately, Mr. Mike, just Mike, or any other monikers that elicit pleasant feelings do not really extend beyond the station, and the Senegalese restaurant that I hold so dear.
Most commonly, I receive shouts of 'white boy' and 'orpoto' - meaning, you guessed it, white boy. To these seemingly unending calls, my responses vary from polite nods, quick pleasantries, smiles and waves, to simply pretending I didn't hear them as I continue on my way. The reaction is generally dictated by the tone and motives of the caller, and how tired I am.
Frankly, I don't especially enjoy being called white boy, and I was actually stoked to hear 'white guy' today because it at least didn't have the connotation - never intended, of course - that I was a little kid being spoken down to by an elder.
It's hard not to find the constant calls a tad obnoxious, knowing I would never yell "Hey, black boy"; after all, I don't think people generally enjoy being equated solely with one attribute of themselves. But I know it's a harmless cultural difference and whenever these calls breed annoyance, I catch myself and feel a little sheepish at being bothered by something so insignificant, especially in light of the white man's colonial legacy throughout Africa.
Unfortunately, sometimes the calls make it pretty impossible for me not to recall that collective shame of the caucasian race. When I walk along Siaka Stevens St., which is the main road in downtown Freetown, I always pass a stretch of road where the same group of beggars set up daily. I pass it at least three times a day, often more, and without fail, the calls of "Masta! Masta!" spit forth from the lips of several elderly women and two particularly haunting little girls.
The first couple times I passed by, these five- or six-year-old girls would run at me and tug at my hands or shirt, repeating over and over, "Masta, Masta, Masta". It immediately felt wrong. I now walk on the road to avoid these children.
From talking with a couple of my local colleagues here, they don't seem to think much of it. One of them told me it's just a way of showing deference, much like we would use the term 'sir'. That comforted me a little.
Still, I can't help but feel profoundly uncomfortable as homeless beggars shout "Masta" at me as they hope for a handout. I'm the only one I've ever heard them refer to in this manner and, intentional or not, it reeks with overtones of a master-slave relationship that sickens me to my core.
Freetown was settled as a colony by newly-freed slaves in the late 1700s, many of whom escaped the United States and shipped over from Nova Scotia. I'm probably reading way too much into it, but the calls of "Masta" nonetheless make me wonder if the lips from whence they spill still view the divide between white and black in such stark delineations of servitude, and I pray that they don't.
A couple friends here have told me that I should learn the Krio to yell back "black boy" or "black girl" every time someone yells "orpoto" at me. But as long as they're only calling me orpoto, I'll try my best to smile and laugh, and just hope I never have to hear someone call me "Masta" again.
My favourite way of being identified is as 'Mr. Mike', which is what Santos, the guard at the station, and the other handful of young guys that chill on the front steps of the Kalleone building, tend to call me. Even when they're feeling less formal and drop the Mr., 'Mike' is always accompanied with a broad smile and a Salone handshake, which, as luck would have it, is just the first three motions in Paterson's distinctive handshake style. The guys seem to enjoy simply pronouncing my name, always uttering it cheerfully instead of 'hi' or any other standard greeting.
Unfortunately, Mr. Mike, just Mike, or any other monikers that elicit pleasant feelings do not really extend beyond the station, and the Senegalese restaurant that I hold so dear.
Most commonly, I receive shouts of 'white boy' and 'orpoto' - meaning, you guessed it, white boy. To these seemingly unending calls, my responses vary from polite nods, quick pleasantries, smiles and waves, to simply pretending I didn't hear them as I continue on my way. The reaction is generally dictated by the tone and motives of the caller, and how tired I am.
Frankly, I don't especially enjoy being called white boy, and I was actually stoked to hear 'white guy' today because it at least didn't have the connotation - never intended, of course - that I was a little kid being spoken down to by an elder.
It's hard not to find the constant calls a tad obnoxious, knowing I would never yell "Hey, black boy"; after all, I don't think people generally enjoy being equated solely with one attribute of themselves. But I know it's a harmless cultural difference and whenever these calls breed annoyance, I catch myself and feel a little sheepish at being bothered by something so insignificant, especially in light of the white man's colonial legacy throughout Africa.
Unfortunately, sometimes the calls make it pretty impossible for me not to recall that collective shame of the caucasian race. When I walk along Siaka Stevens St., which is the main road in downtown Freetown, I always pass a stretch of road where the same group of beggars set up daily. I pass it at least three times a day, often more, and without fail, the calls of "Masta! Masta!" spit forth from the lips of several elderly women and two particularly haunting little girls.
The first couple times I passed by, these five- or six-year-old girls would run at me and tug at my hands or shirt, repeating over and over, "Masta, Masta, Masta". It immediately felt wrong. I now walk on the road to avoid these children.
From talking with a couple of my local colleagues here, they don't seem to think much of it. One of them told me it's just a way of showing deference, much like we would use the term 'sir'. That comforted me a little.
Still, I can't help but feel profoundly uncomfortable as homeless beggars shout "Masta" at me as they hope for a handout. I'm the only one I've ever heard them refer to in this manner and, intentional or not, it reeks with overtones of a master-slave relationship that sickens me to my core.
Freetown was settled as a colony by newly-freed slaves in the late 1700s, many of whom escaped the United States and shipped over from Nova Scotia. I'm probably reading way too much into it, but the calls of "Masta" nonetheless make me wonder if the lips from whence they spill still view the divide between white and black in such stark delineations of servitude, and I pray that they don't.
A couple friends here have told me that I should learn the Krio to yell back "black boy" or "black girl" every time someone yells "orpoto" at me. But as long as they're only calling me orpoto, I'll try my best to smile and laugh, and just hope I never have to hear someone call me "Masta" again.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Hard to be a dog-lover
Screaming canines feature prominently in the soundtrack of a Freetown night.
When night falls, the city's seemingly endless supply of strays stir from a day-long slumber that finds the brunt of them lying under trucks by the roadside, the fresh blood that stains their ears and back marking the only perceptible sign of life, marks of a recent skirmish.
Long after the sun has set and I'm inevitably the only one at my house still awake, I hear the dogs. They bark the loudest between 1 and 2 a.m., I find.
As I turn the pages in my book du jour by the light of my cell phone's built-in flashlight, the silence of a night free from the hum of electrical fans or the laborious churn of a generator is interrupted by a piercing shriek of agony almost as ear-splitting as it is heart-rending, and it's hard to be a dog-lover.
Just as it was hard to be a dog-lover this evening when I sat on my balcony and witnessed one of the healthier-looking dogs I've seen here being dragged the length of my street and back with a chain around his neck, an occasional kick thrown in for good measure. And no one on the busy street save for the three white people on their privileged balcony seemed to notice.
And just as it's hard to be a dog-lover as every day I witness dogs narrowly avoiding death because they're too stupid to get out of the way of oncoming 4x4s and poda-podas, obviously disease-ridden, with eyes thoroughly glazed over.
And as I lie in bed, basting in my own sweat while I reflect on the day and attempt to court sleep, another shriek outside my window signals a battle between two more mangy mutts. As sleep begins to take hold, I think to myself that maybe I'll have to unilaterally expand my mandate to Sentient Being Rights just long enough to cover this issue.
When night falls, the city's seemingly endless supply of strays stir from a day-long slumber that finds the brunt of them lying under trucks by the roadside, the fresh blood that stains their ears and back marking the only perceptible sign of life, marks of a recent skirmish.
Long after the sun has set and I'm inevitably the only one at my house still awake, I hear the dogs. They bark the loudest between 1 and 2 a.m., I find.
As I turn the pages in my book du jour by the light of my cell phone's built-in flashlight, the silence of a night free from the hum of electrical fans or the laborious churn of a generator is interrupted by a piercing shriek of agony almost as ear-splitting as it is heart-rending, and it's hard to be a dog-lover.
Just as it was hard to be a dog-lover this evening when I sat on my balcony and witnessed one of the healthier-looking dogs I've seen here being dragged the length of my street and back with a chain around his neck, an occasional kick thrown in for good measure. And no one on the busy street save for the three white people on their privileged balcony seemed to notice.
And just as it's hard to be a dog-lover as every day I witness dogs narrowly avoiding death because they're too stupid to get out of the way of oncoming 4x4s and poda-podas, obviously disease-ridden, with eyes thoroughly glazed over.
And as I lie in bed, basting in my own sweat while I reflect on the day and attempt to court sleep, another shriek outside my window signals a battle between two more mangy mutts. As sleep begins to take hold, I think to myself that maybe I'll have to unilaterally expand my mandate to Sentient Being Rights just long enough to cover this issue.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Where the press conference reigns supreme
After six weeks in Salone, it's clear that my mandate of media capacity building addresses one of the country's pressing needs, and to comprehensively detail all the areas where progress is required will take me more than a single post. But for today, I want to talk a little about a press conference I attended with my colleague Sheik last week, which I feel will effectively illuminate at least a few of the existing issues.
Press release journalism reigns supreme in Sierra Leone - journalists attend and Ministers and other important people give prepared statements, hand-feeding them a story that will, in all likelihood, be very uninteresting, at least without some additional research and digging. Research and digging that generally doesn't occur.
The world over, press release journalism is the purview of lazy journalists. But here, laziness isn't the primary reason why it's so popular. Poverty is.
You see, journalists are paid miserably in Sierra Leone. My colleagues make about Le100,000 per month, or approximately $35. Media houses generally don't reimburse their journalists for work-related costs, such as transportation to cover stories or making phone calls to set up interviews (with pretty much no functioning land lines in the country, everyone has a cell and you pay by the call).
In essence, the more money you spend, the less you'll take home at the end of the month. It's no wonder, then, that investigative journalism has yet to gain traction; even in Canada, it is difficult for media houses to pursue it as often as they'd like because it takes considerable time and resources to unearth the most important stories.
Enter the press conference. Journalists are eager to attend these ubiquitous and - in my estimation, at least - largely uninteresting conferences because the organizations that run them give reporters what their employers won't: money.
At the beginning of each conference, each journalist signs an attendance sheet that, at the end, will ensure they are reimbursed for "transportation" costs. After last week's conference, which I actually wanted to attend, as it was in recognition of World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, I learned that the sum of this particular reimbursement was Le15,000 (almost 1/6 of their monthly salary) - even though not one journalist present spent more than Le2000 to get there, and most dished out less than half that. Many of these events throw in a drink or even a lunch as an added bonus to encourage attendance, and those that don't tend to receive fewer attendees.
On top of all that, editors sometimes receive kickbacks when an article about a given event is run in their paper, as if the integrity of the press needed further undermining.
Bryna, my colleague and roommate, was witness to a newsroom more or less on a work strike earlier this month when the editor cut all the legitimate stories in a given day's paper in favour of these press conference pieces and those shamelessly ripped from the Internet. And that's a newsroom that has had three consecutive terms of JHR volunteers espousing the inherent value of real journalism!
Naturally, I want to see journalists receiving a living wage to pursue a profession that is by no means easy. But that wage must be paid by their employer rather than those they're reporting on before the media here can ever hope to operate with the type of integrity required to fulfill the watchdog role. I would argue this is probably the greatest systemic impediment to more effective media in Sierra Leone.
JHR, for its part, has sought to give six journalists the financial support to allow them to pursue investigative pieces by establishing a Media Fellowship that grants each recipient Le2.175 million over a period of three months, a gargantuan salary increase that makes passing up press conferences a much easier act.
I think it's a great initiative that will yield some tremendous stories, but it is nonetheless a temporary solution. Hopefully, these quality pieces will inspire some of the more forward-thinking media barons to open their coffers a little more, but further efforts will no doubt be needed.
One thing I plan to teach my journalists is how to freelance to international media and maybe even land a job as a stringer for a wire service like Reuters or Associated Press, which would supplement their income enough to make them self-sufficient.
Beyond that, I'm just hoping other individuals and organizations can help contribute to working models that will eradicate the current system of thinly-veiled bribery that blurs the line between advertisements and content to a worrying degree.
But this post was supposed to be about the event for the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, right? Well, for the most part, that event was as uninspiring as most of the conferences - it started 75 minutes late, was marred by widespread technical difficulties, and featured prominently the verbose addresses of many a self-important expert.
There was one part that I liked, though. The event featured an awards ceremony for local school children that had excelled in a recent creative contest aimed at highlighting issues of child rights.
Around the room, poems and essays written by the young students hung on the walls. These were inspiring.
I was particularly struck by a pair of essays written by young female students, both bearing variations on the title, "Why My Teacher Should Not Be My Husband". The essays addressed the issue of sexual exploitation of students by their teachers, which aligned directly with the national theme for the day here in SL.
For me, these essays' power lied not so much in their arguments - that if their teacher was their "husband", "lover" or any other number of euphemisms for that perverted fuck that preys on little girls, it would be a distraction from their learning, or they might wonder if they'd actually earned the high grades they received. These are no doubt valid points.
But for me the power in the essays was the simple fact of their existence. That a situation exists wherein young children need to attempt to convince their society that their sexual exploitation at school does not best serve their interests is tragic yet telling.
Thus, when it came to writing the story, this seemed an obvious angle to take, at least in my mind - a sure sign that I didn't come to my understanding of how to report by emulating the press in Sierra Leone.
Here, the formula is simple when writing a lead for a story like this. "This event happened. It happened here at this time. These people spoke." Fabricate a few quotes that vaguely resemble a point the speakers made and you're off to the races. No time for research or statistics, and certainly no need to take a unique angle.
Which is not to say I don't empathize with the reasons that journalism is thusly practiced. Most people don't own computers and even those that do have at best a very cursory understanding of how to use the Internet for effective research.
Nor do I mean to imply that the journalists here aren't smart, capable, passionate people. They are and I respect them a lot. They've just never received sufficient training and they have the misfortune of working within the above outlined media landscape. Which can make the process of sitting down to write a story turn into an exercise in patience, knowing that I could write it on my own exponentially faster (though that's clearly not the point).
Still, in the end, I was relatively happy with how it turned out. When I explained how we could differentiate our story from all the others by employing a more focused lead, he liked the idea, and at the very least I know that the quotes were accurate and important numbers were included.
And the newspaper at Kalleone ran it without the editor indiscriminately chopping it in half, or randomly altering quotes for an event he wasn't at - which often happens at a lot of the papers, believe it or not.
You can read the final story on the JHR website here.
So, to sum up, we have a media landscape plagued by wildly insufficient financial renumeration of a largely untrained reporting corps that is often swayed by monetary incentives offered by the very organizations on which they report.
Oh, and that's just the beginning, my friends. Stay tuned.
Press release journalism reigns supreme in Sierra Leone - journalists attend and Ministers and other important people give prepared statements, hand-feeding them a story that will, in all likelihood, be very uninteresting, at least without some additional research and digging. Research and digging that generally doesn't occur.
The world over, press release journalism is the purview of lazy journalists. But here, laziness isn't the primary reason why it's so popular. Poverty is.
You see, journalists are paid miserably in Sierra Leone. My colleagues make about Le100,000 per month, or approximately $35. Media houses generally don't reimburse their journalists for work-related costs, such as transportation to cover stories or making phone calls to set up interviews (with pretty much no functioning land lines in the country, everyone has a cell and you pay by the call).
In essence, the more money you spend, the less you'll take home at the end of the month. It's no wonder, then, that investigative journalism has yet to gain traction; even in Canada, it is difficult for media houses to pursue it as often as they'd like because it takes considerable time and resources to unearth the most important stories.
Enter the press conference. Journalists are eager to attend these ubiquitous and - in my estimation, at least - largely uninteresting conferences because the organizations that run them give reporters what their employers won't: money.
At the beginning of each conference, each journalist signs an attendance sheet that, at the end, will ensure they are reimbursed for "transportation" costs. After last week's conference, which I actually wanted to attend, as it was in recognition of World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, I learned that the sum of this particular reimbursement was Le15,000 (almost 1/6 of their monthly salary) - even though not one journalist present spent more than Le2000 to get there, and most dished out less than half that. Many of these events throw in a drink or even a lunch as an added bonus to encourage attendance, and those that don't tend to receive fewer attendees.
On top of all that, editors sometimes receive kickbacks when an article about a given event is run in their paper, as if the integrity of the press needed further undermining.
Bryna, my colleague and roommate, was witness to a newsroom more or less on a work strike earlier this month when the editor cut all the legitimate stories in a given day's paper in favour of these press conference pieces and those shamelessly ripped from the Internet. And that's a newsroom that has had three consecutive terms of JHR volunteers espousing the inherent value of real journalism!
Naturally, I want to see journalists receiving a living wage to pursue a profession that is by no means easy. But that wage must be paid by their employer rather than those they're reporting on before the media here can ever hope to operate with the type of integrity required to fulfill the watchdog role. I would argue this is probably the greatest systemic impediment to more effective media in Sierra Leone.
JHR, for its part, has sought to give six journalists the financial support to allow them to pursue investigative pieces by establishing a Media Fellowship that grants each recipient Le2.175 million over a period of three months, a gargantuan salary increase that makes passing up press conferences a much easier act.
I think it's a great initiative that will yield some tremendous stories, but it is nonetheless a temporary solution. Hopefully, these quality pieces will inspire some of the more forward-thinking media barons to open their coffers a little more, but further efforts will no doubt be needed.
One thing I plan to teach my journalists is how to freelance to international media and maybe even land a job as a stringer for a wire service like Reuters or Associated Press, which would supplement their income enough to make them self-sufficient.
Beyond that, I'm just hoping other individuals and organizations can help contribute to working models that will eradicate the current system of thinly-veiled bribery that blurs the line between advertisements and content to a worrying degree.
But this post was supposed to be about the event for the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, right? Well, for the most part, that event was as uninspiring as most of the conferences - it started 75 minutes late, was marred by widespread technical difficulties, and featured prominently the verbose addresses of many a self-important expert.
There was one part that I liked, though. The event featured an awards ceremony for local school children that had excelled in a recent creative contest aimed at highlighting issues of child rights.
Around the room, poems and essays written by the young students hung on the walls. These were inspiring.
I was particularly struck by a pair of essays written by young female students, both bearing variations on the title, "Why My Teacher Should Not Be My Husband". The essays addressed the issue of sexual exploitation of students by their teachers, which aligned directly with the national theme for the day here in SL.
For me, these essays' power lied not so much in their arguments - that if their teacher was their "husband", "lover" or any other number of euphemisms for that perverted fuck that preys on little girls, it would be a distraction from their learning, or they might wonder if they'd actually earned the high grades they received. These are no doubt valid points.
But for me the power in the essays was the simple fact of their existence. That a situation exists wherein young children need to attempt to convince their society that their sexual exploitation at school does not best serve their interests is tragic yet telling.
Thus, when it came to writing the story, this seemed an obvious angle to take, at least in my mind - a sure sign that I didn't come to my understanding of how to report by emulating the press in Sierra Leone.
Here, the formula is simple when writing a lead for a story like this. "This event happened. It happened here at this time. These people spoke." Fabricate a few quotes that vaguely resemble a point the speakers made and you're off to the races. No time for research or statistics, and certainly no need to take a unique angle.
Which is not to say I don't empathize with the reasons that journalism is thusly practiced. Most people don't own computers and even those that do have at best a very cursory understanding of how to use the Internet for effective research.
Nor do I mean to imply that the journalists here aren't smart, capable, passionate people. They are and I respect them a lot. They've just never received sufficient training and they have the misfortune of working within the above outlined media landscape. Which can make the process of sitting down to write a story turn into an exercise in patience, knowing that I could write it on my own exponentially faster (though that's clearly not the point).
Still, in the end, I was relatively happy with how it turned out. When I explained how we could differentiate our story from all the others by employing a more focused lead, he liked the idea, and at the very least I know that the quotes were accurate and important numbers were included.
And the newspaper at Kalleone ran it without the editor indiscriminately chopping it in half, or randomly altering quotes for an event he wasn't at - which often happens at a lot of the papers, believe it or not.
You can read the final story on the JHR website here.
So, to sum up, we have a media landscape plagued by wildly insufficient financial renumeration of a largely untrained reporting corps that is often swayed by monetary incentives offered by the very organizations on which they report.
Oh, and that's just the beginning, my friends. Stay tuned.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
"You should be in radio"
About five years ago, at a party hosted by my buddy Kevin, a girl I'd never met informed me matter-of-factly that my voice had already determined my ideal career. "You should be in radio," she said, without having ever exchanged so much as a passing pleasantry with me.
Eventually, we got around to introducing ourselves and that girl turned out to be Alanna Julian, who many of you know and love, but the incident always stuck with me - in part because my parents had always complained that I was a chronic mumbler and no one could understand what I was saying, making radio a seemingly bizarre calling.
It wasn't the last time radio would be suggested to me, however, and when I became involved with Radio Laurier, co-hosting The Victory Lap with Mr. Joseph Turcotte, I not only learned that my chronic mumbling dissipated when a mic was thrown in front of me, but also that radio was a pretty special medium.
Fast-forward to last night. I head down to the Senegalese restaurant around the corner from my house around 11 p.m. to grab a late dinner, and ask the gorgeous waitress if they're still serving or about to close.
Her English is less than stellar and my Krio hasn't exactly developed much yet so the conversation takes a while, but she eventually informs me that they wouldn't likely close until at least 2 a.m. On a Wednesday night. Sweet. Yet another reason to love the restaurant that I've already eaten at about 10 times since arriving in the country.
Shortly after ordering, I take a phone call from Canada - from the folks - and they agree to call back in an hour, as this restaurant tends to blast West African music and it makes phone conversations a tad tricky, particularly those involving tenuous Skype connections. As I return to my seat, I hear someone call my name and look up, surprised.
"It is Mike, right?" asks a fairly young guy seated with a couple friends.
"Yeah," I respond, as he explains that he's seen me here a lot and thought he'd heard my friends calling me Mike. So we strike up a conversation; it turns out he's the owner and he insists I come back on Saturday for a free meal as appreciation for my support of his fledgling entrepreneurial venture (the place only opened about a month before I got here). And then his friend pipes in.
"Have you ever considered broadcasting ... like, radio?"
I smile. "That's actually pretty much why I'm here. I'm a journalist, doing some radio training."
As chance would have it, I'm talking to a DJ from Capital Radio, one of the country's more popular stations, which happens to be based about five minutes from my house and brings a lot of Western music to Sierra Leone. It was the station we listened to on the way to Makeni and back, and I recall hearing such diverse imports as Christina Aguilera, The Police, and Nelly, though hip hop and R&B were definitely the most prevalent genres.
True to my stereotypical vision of the disc jockey for a hit pop station, my new acquaintance quickly establishes himself as his own biggest fan, asserting with more than a hint of braggadocio that no one can spin records quite like he does. "I've never been bested - at anything," he boldly straight-faces.
But he's also coming on strong as one of my staunchest supporters, assuring me that my voice is absolutely perfect for radio, and that he told his friend as much the first time he heard me speak. "The women would go crazy for that voice," he adds.
I returned to my table and downed a delicious meal, but the wheels were already turning and they haven't stopped since. Capital Radio will not fit within my JHR mandate even a little bit, but I would definitely not be opposed to doing a guest spot as a DJ on a Western-style radio station.
With Kalleone, my focus is and shall remain that of a no-glory, capacity-building radio trainer whose voice will likely never hit the air. But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun on the side, right?
Turns out I have my plans for Saturday. With a little luck and a little networking, I might find myself in a position to show Sierra Leoneans that the West is capable of producing good music too, without creepy stalkers as the subject matter (sorry Sting). What an interesting development that would be.
Eventually, we got around to introducing ourselves and that girl turned out to be Alanna Julian, who many of you know and love, but the incident always stuck with me - in part because my parents had always complained that I was a chronic mumbler and no one could understand what I was saying, making radio a seemingly bizarre calling.
It wasn't the last time radio would be suggested to me, however, and when I became involved with Radio Laurier, co-hosting The Victory Lap with Mr. Joseph Turcotte, I not only learned that my chronic mumbling dissipated when a mic was thrown in front of me, but also that radio was a pretty special medium.
Fast-forward to last night. I head down to the Senegalese restaurant around the corner from my house around 11 p.m. to grab a late dinner, and ask the gorgeous waitress if they're still serving or about to close.
Her English is less than stellar and my Krio hasn't exactly developed much yet so the conversation takes a while, but she eventually informs me that they wouldn't likely close until at least 2 a.m. On a Wednesday night. Sweet. Yet another reason to love the restaurant that I've already eaten at about 10 times since arriving in the country.
Shortly after ordering, I take a phone call from Canada - from the folks - and they agree to call back in an hour, as this restaurant tends to blast West African music and it makes phone conversations a tad tricky, particularly those involving tenuous Skype connections. As I return to my seat, I hear someone call my name and look up, surprised.
"It is Mike, right?" asks a fairly young guy seated with a couple friends.
"Yeah," I respond, as he explains that he's seen me here a lot and thought he'd heard my friends calling me Mike. So we strike up a conversation; it turns out he's the owner and he insists I come back on Saturday for a free meal as appreciation for my support of his fledgling entrepreneurial venture (the place only opened about a month before I got here). And then his friend pipes in.
"Have you ever considered broadcasting ... like, radio?"
I smile. "That's actually pretty much why I'm here. I'm a journalist, doing some radio training."
As chance would have it, I'm talking to a DJ from Capital Radio, one of the country's more popular stations, which happens to be based about five minutes from my house and brings a lot of Western music to Sierra Leone. It was the station we listened to on the way to Makeni and back, and I recall hearing such diverse imports as Christina Aguilera, The Police, and Nelly, though hip hop and R&B were definitely the most prevalent genres.
True to my stereotypical vision of the disc jockey for a hit pop station, my new acquaintance quickly establishes himself as his own biggest fan, asserting with more than a hint of braggadocio that no one can spin records quite like he does. "I've never been bested - at anything," he boldly straight-faces.
But he's also coming on strong as one of my staunchest supporters, assuring me that my voice is absolutely perfect for radio, and that he told his friend as much the first time he heard me speak. "The women would go crazy for that voice," he adds.
I returned to my table and downed a delicious meal, but the wheels were already turning and they haven't stopped since. Capital Radio will not fit within my JHR mandate even a little bit, but I would definitely not be opposed to doing a guest spot as a DJ on a Western-style radio station.
With Kalleone, my focus is and shall remain that of a no-glory, capacity-building radio trainer whose voice will likely never hit the air. But that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun on the side, right?
Turns out I have my plans for Saturday. With a little luck and a little networking, I might find myself in a position to show Sierra Leoneans that the West is capable of producing good music too, without creepy stalkers as the subject matter (sorry Sting). What an interesting development that would be.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Wusum Hill
In my first week in Salone (Krio rendering of Sierra Leone), two of my JHR colleagues, Craig and ABJ (Abu-Bakarr Jalloh), expressed interest in climbing the "mountain" - which is actually called Wusum Hill - in Makeni, Sierra Leone's fifth-largest city and the only one outside of Freetown where JHR has volunteers stationed.
It's probably no secret that one of my favourite activities is climbing, so I clearly needed no persuading. In fact, I quickly took the lead on organizing the trip to make it happen on the ASAP and this past weekend was the date we settled on.
My excitement to get out to the provinces must have been plainly evident, as ABJ confided to me Saturday night that he had seriously considered pulling out of the trip when his girlfriend, Jane, decided she needed to stay home to work, but he was too afraid of disappointing me.
In a stroke of good fortune, Steve, a friend of Kari and Craig's and an American lawyer in the appeals division of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, kindly agreed to give us transportation to and from Makeni - even though he'd never met any of us (ABJ, Patrick, Bryna and I). When I witnessed just how cramped the conditions were on the overloaded poda-podas we would've otherwise taken, I appreciated the gesture exponentially more. You can't see it, but the inside of this vehicle is just as overloaded as the exterior.
And then there was this guy, who was so desperate for space on this poda-poda that he rode on the roof with precious little to grab hold of if the vehicle below him hit a bad pothole. Lucky for him, the three-hour drive to Makeni is the best road in all of Sierra Leone.
We also saw one guy sitting in a partially open trunk, with only his legs in the vehicle. (Admittedly, a part of me thought it looked like fun.)
Anyway, we made it to Makeni without any difficulties and after a quick tour of Craig and Kari's place, headed to Ibrahim's for dinner and drinks. The trip to the bar would highlight one of the most obvious differences between Makeni and Freetown, and it was a matter where Makeni holds much greater allure: transportation.
There is almost no traffic in Makeni, a welcome reprieve from the gridlock of Freetown, and you can get anywhere in the city of just over 100,000 people for Le 1000 (about $0.30). But you do so on ocadas, or motorbikes.
Until Friday, I'd never ridden on any type of motorcycle in my life, nor had I had any real desire to. Now I do. There is a definite rush in riding through the dirt road paths, dodging through the gutted hills and valleys that so often pass for roads here, as we did on our way to one of the country's most lavish buildings, Wusum Hotel, and its affiliated bar, Apex, on Saturday night. In a city without electricity, cooling down while in transit instead of baking in the sauna-like taxis was a novel concept as well, and one I appreciated greatly.
The weekend of fast, comfortable transportation has me seriously considering using the ocadas in Freetown, but I imagine I'll mostly be dissuaded by the cost. Whereas I'm currently getting home in the mobile nightclubs that are poda-podas for Le 800, an ocada would cost me at least Le 3000, which is emblematic of the generally inflated cost of living in Freetown compared to the provinces.
Craig and Kari pay $50/month in rent, compared to my $200. My ancillary costs include guards, electricity and water; their guards are included in the rent, and they don't get water or electricity. This, of course, comes as no shock. Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal cost more to live in than St. Agatha, Brigden and Beamsville. I'm a city kid and I always will be, so Freetown suits me just fine.
It was interesting, in addition, to hear about a general disdain for Freetown by a number of the Makeni folks I met. I suppose disliking the metropolis is a fairly universal urge as well.
Besides, I imagine if I were stationed in Makeni, I would be spending a lot more money on drinking, as the bars are often the only places with power. On Saturday night, in the process of fulfilling my promise to ABJ to showcase my moves on the dance floor, I had my most costly night out since arriving in SL.
After a delicious dinner courtesy of Steve and his partner, Anna, in which I feasted on a pesto penne, our crew made our way to the aforementioned Apex. Craig and I decided to quickly down a small bottle of 18% wine that bore an unfortunate resemblance to cough syrup, and our next drink would make that seem like a treat.
Feeling rather full, I didn't want beer, so I ordered a local whiskey and cut it with coke. Craig more stoically had his straight, but after a few sips tried to explain to the bartenders that it must be a bad batch. I agreed. It was the worst whiskey I've ever had.
But the bartenders laughed and convinced Craig that the only solution was to chug it. He did, and promptly made an involuntary offering of the vile substance to the porcelain gods. Halfway through my own drink, that was persuasion enough for me to fork out the cash for the Jack Daniel's and my enjoyment of the night increased sharply as a result.
Still, it was an expensive night. In between getting my groove on to surprisingly positive reviews and chatting with the brother of Ernest Bai Koroma - Sierra Leone's current president, who was born in Makeni and still visits about twice a month - ABJ and I managed to outlast our friends by a good couple hours, closing the bar down at 4:30 a.m. Evidently, my love for the late night is not restricted to Eastern Standard Time.
But of course the Makeni trip was not solely about partying. There was that little business for which we came: bringing Wusum Hill to its metaphorical knees. That didn't transpire exactly as anticipated, however.
ABJ had already informed us all that Wusum Hill was not an easy trek. While not especially high, it is a demanding climb, thanks to the upper half of the hill being a consistent 65-70 degree incline.
In retrospect, tackling the task in the heat of the midday sun, fueled by insufficient water supplies and a sense of misplaced bravado, was perhaps folly on our part. But that's precisely what we did.
We made it to the top relatively quickly, the whole climb taking a little under an hour. At that point, I decided to scamper atop a rock formation near the peak, cutting my hands in the process, nearly losing my sunglasses in between a rock crevice and exhausting myself unnecessarily, as seen here.
More worrisome, however, was ABJ. He became quite ill atop the mountain, perhaps the lingering effects of a recent bout with malaria that had left him hospitalized for four days. Kari, ABJ and I thus quickly descended to get him some more water and some shade, at which point he recovered quickly.
When we reached the bottom, we were met by a swarm of local children, who were more than happy to pose for this photo. My favourites are the older kid with the gray hoodie, who returned my water bottle to me when I left it unattended briefly; the kid with the tire, who could amuse himself at great length by chasing it about; and the one on the far right, striking as good a gangsta pose as ever there was.
All in all, it was a taxing start to the day, but the views (see below) were more than sufficient to justify the rigourous ascent, which I'm convinced would be tremendous training for any aspiring NFL running back. Doing the climb even twice a month would be enough to have me in peak base-stealing form for the start of ball season.
So, that was Makeni. Next up: Mount Bintumani, elevation 6,381 feet.
... Maybe I'll bring more than one water bottle for that one.
Editor's note: Sorry for the absurd length of this post. I'll try to write shorter posts with more frequency in the future, but my recollection of the weekend in Makeni was cumulative rather than topic-specific. And I haven't had enough electricity to get this one up as early as I wanted to.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
19 Smartfarm Rd.
For weeks, I've been meaning to welcome you all into my home, by means of a virtual tour. Initially, I had hoped to post a video, but even uploading photos takes an eternity so video is pretty much out of the question.
I live at 19 Smartfarm Rd. in the city's west end, along with my colleague Bryna and her boyfriend Patrick (who has been doing a lot of volunteer work redesigning the website for the absurdly well-funded university radio station, Cotton Tree News). This is a view of our street; if you click to enlarge it, you can probably make out the coastline:
A lot of the expat community lives in the less impoverished west end, but our street is still predominately Sierra Leoneans, which is nice. In addition to Gabrilla and Shaka, our two guards, I often chat with a stall owner named Seri and, on my way home from work tonight, a sweet young lady named Mariam informed me that she's in love with me; I let her down easy, informing her I was married.
Anyway, I'm generally quite pleased with the place, and the convenience of not having to find somewhere to stay more than makes up for the annoyance of a completely arbitrary $50/month increase to our rent. We are the third group of JHR volunteers in Sierra Leone, and the third to live here. Jen Hollett, who some of you may remember from her MuchMusic VJ days, was actually one of its first tenants.
And one of the recent tenants who recently finished up with JHR, Kevin Hill (who is a Resurrection C.S.S. product also from Kitchener, oddly enough), is now living below us, which is convenient for whenever we have questions. He was in no rush to leave SL and is sticking around to work on a documentary about maternal mortality, based around the dubious statistic that 1 in 8 Sierra Leonean women will die giving birth. But I'm getting off topic.
Our flat is a three-bedroom place with a view up into the hills from the balcony, as seen below. The only downside of chilling on the balcony is that you can sort of feel like you're on display, as many people take notice when the white folk are out.
And while the place is by no means luxurious, I do still sometimes feel the guilt associated with knowing that my half of the rent ($200, hopefully dropping to at least $150 if we fill the vacant third room) is more than double the monthly salary of my most well-paid colleague. And that's before the costs of electricity, water, fuel for the generator and the guards' salaries.
I have no doubt that it's worth it, though, as the place seems really safe; I was particularly fond of the inventive local take on barbed wire that surrounds our walled compound - is there anything beer can't do?
Now, let's take a stroll inside, shall we? We have a reasonably well furnished, spacious living room (below). A couple Saturdays ago, the three of us and Kevin downed the better part of a 3 L bottle of wine by candlelight because the electricity was out, which I thought was pretty cool. One of the new President's major platform promises was to bring reliable electricity to Freetown, though, and I'm happy that we seem to have it most nights, making candlelight drinking a rare occurrence thus far.
And then there's my room, which I pretty much only retire to for sleep, though I'm already more unpacked than I ever was at 17 Fir St. in Waterloo.
I sleep under a mosquito net in an attempt to fend off malaria, since it seems pretty common here. Kevin's currently battling his second bout of it and he's only been in the country for eight months, and Shaka had it a few days ago as well. But my bed's kind of short so I'm forced to sleep diagonally, since having my legs hanging over the edge would kind of defeat the purpose of using the net.
All in all, though, 19 Smartfarm is a pretty easy place to live, despite its intermittent electricity, lack of running water, and the occasional cockroach, spider or gecko. Fortunately, they're pretty rare, in part because we're on the second floor, I imagine. I'll leave you with this shot, with my house key providing a measure of scale, of the dead cockroach I found in my bed's headboard upon my arrival a month ago.
I live at 19 Smartfarm Rd. in the city's west end, along with my colleague Bryna and her boyfriend Patrick (who has been doing a lot of volunteer work redesigning the website for the absurdly well-funded university radio station, Cotton Tree News). This is a view of our street; if you click to enlarge it, you can probably make out the coastline:
A lot of the expat community lives in the less impoverished west end, but our street is still predominately Sierra Leoneans, which is nice. In addition to Gabrilla and Shaka, our two guards, I often chat with a stall owner named Seri and, on my way home from work tonight, a sweet young lady named Mariam informed me that she's in love with me; I let her down easy, informing her I was married.
Anyway, I'm generally quite pleased with the place, and the convenience of not having to find somewhere to stay more than makes up for the annoyance of a completely arbitrary $50/month increase to our rent. We are the third group of JHR volunteers in Sierra Leone, and the third to live here. Jen Hollett, who some of you may remember from her MuchMusic VJ days, was actually one of its first tenants.
And one of the recent tenants who recently finished up with JHR, Kevin Hill (who is a Resurrection C.S.S. product also from Kitchener, oddly enough), is now living below us, which is convenient for whenever we have questions. He was in no rush to leave SL and is sticking around to work on a documentary about maternal mortality, based around the dubious statistic that 1 in 8 Sierra Leonean women will die giving birth. But I'm getting off topic.
Our flat is a three-bedroom place with a view up into the hills from the balcony, as seen below. The only downside of chilling on the balcony is that you can sort of feel like you're on display, as many people take notice when the white folk are out.
And while the place is by no means luxurious, I do still sometimes feel the guilt associated with knowing that my half of the rent ($200, hopefully dropping to at least $150 if we fill the vacant third room) is more than double the monthly salary of my most well-paid colleague. And that's before the costs of electricity, water, fuel for the generator and the guards' salaries.
I have no doubt that it's worth it, though, as the place seems really safe; I was particularly fond of the inventive local take on barbed wire that surrounds our walled compound - is there anything beer can't do?
Now, let's take a stroll inside, shall we? We have a reasonably well furnished, spacious living room (below). A couple Saturdays ago, the three of us and Kevin downed the better part of a 3 L bottle of wine by candlelight because the electricity was out, which I thought was pretty cool. One of the new President's major platform promises was to bring reliable electricity to Freetown, though, and I'm happy that we seem to have it most nights, making candlelight drinking a rare occurrence thus far.
And then there's my room, which I pretty much only retire to for sleep, though I'm already more unpacked than I ever was at 17 Fir St. in Waterloo.
I sleep under a mosquito net in an attempt to fend off malaria, since it seems pretty common here. Kevin's currently battling his second bout of it and he's only been in the country for eight months, and Shaka had it a few days ago as well. But my bed's kind of short so I'm forced to sleep diagonally, since having my legs hanging over the edge would kind of defeat the purpose of using the net.
All in all, though, 19 Smartfarm is a pretty easy place to live, despite its intermittent electricity, lack of running water, and the occasional cockroach, spider or gecko. Fortunately, they're pretty rare, in part because we're on the second floor, I imagine. I'll leave you with this shot, with my house key providing a measure of scale, of the dead cockroach I found in my bed's headboard upon my arrival a month ago.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Police corruption and a day at the beach
This weekend was the first one that my JHR colleagues stationed in Makeni, Craig and Kari, returned to Freetown since our initiation to Sierra Leone a few weeks ago. It was also my roommate Bryna's birthday. Both seemed like good reasons for another day at the beach. This time, we sampled the sights and sounds of nearby Lakka Beach and got much better weather than our first excursion out of the city.
No longer with the JHR driver at our disposal, we were left to negotiate our way to the beach on our own. The first poda-poda we talked to asked for an absurd Le80,000; our friend ABJ had already informed us that the local price was Le1500 per person, or 9000 for our six-person crew. We managed to charter a taxi for 15,000 and were satisfied with the markup of only 167%. But we'd end up paying more soon enough.
En route to the beach, an officer of the SLP (Sierra Leone Police) waved us to pull over. Minkailu, our taxi driver, slowed and started to pull to the side of the roughshod road before accelerating and continuing on his way. Liking his style, from the discomfort of my shared front passenger seat, I asked Minkailu why the officer wanted us to pull over.
"He wants money," came the straight-forward reply. Ah, yes. The first encounter with unabashed corruption. Breathe it in.
We carried on for another five minutes or so, and I made a mental note to get Minkailu's phone number for future beach trips, impressed as I was with his no-nonsense approach.
But this police officer was not so easily dissuaded. He had hopped on the back of an ocada (motorcycle taxi) to catch up with us and was now demanding Minkailu's license, which was met with vehement protest. Licenses are expensive and Minkailu was blunt in telling the officer he didn't want to give it to him because he didn't trust the officer to give it back. No lenience was awarded for this show of honesty.
We determined that the problem was allegedly the overcrowding of putting six passengers in a standard cab, a hilarious hypocrisy in a country that has a major industry built around poda-podas that literally pack 20 people into stripped down, extended minivans. This irony was apparently lost on K. Conteh, the officer in question (according to his badge).
And so, Minkailu reluctantly handed over his license on the understanding it would be returned on his way back to Freetown, and we were allowed to continue on our way.
The remainder of the trip to Lakka Beach was uneventful and we nearly doubled the agreed upon payment to help Minkailu with the bribe that he would need to provide on his return trip, a gesture that was met with a good deal of appreciation.
The beach at Lakka was, in my opinion, even nicer than the one at River No. 2, and also compared quite favourably to the five-star beach resort I stayed at in Varadero (Cuba), if only on account of its unencumbered nature on this beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Marie-Jo, Kari and I dined on mouthwatering barracuda at the Hard Rock restaurant, a moniker more literal than the Western chain of the same name, while enjoying the view from the scenic island inlet pictured below.
And as we all enjoyed the cool shade of a large tree overhanging the sunny white sand beach, taking periodic dips in the amazingly warm waters of the Atlantic, I allowed the scene before me to etch itself vividly into my mind, reflecting on the comfort of knowing that, no matter how stressful or difficult a week may be, I have the good fortune of being able to rejuvenate myself at this tropical oasis a mere half hour outside of the city.
We then topped off a wonderful day with a little poetic justice. We walked back up to the main road and had no trouble catching a poda-poda back into town. As we boarded the ramshackle vehicle, Bryna noticed that this was the same poda-poda driver that had tried to get us to pay Le80,000.
"One-five each," she half-asked, half-asserted, referring to the standard fare of 1500. Rolling his eyes slightly, he agreed and we returned home to the ubiquitous car horns and constant bustle of Freetown.
No longer with the JHR driver at our disposal, we were left to negotiate our way to the beach on our own. The first poda-poda we talked to asked for an absurd Le80,000; our friend ABJ had already informed us that the local price was Le1500 per person, or 9000 for our six-person crew. We managed to charter a taxi for 15,000 and were satisfied with the markup of only 167%. But we'd end up paying more soon enough.
En route to the beach, an officer of the SLP (Sierra Leone Police) waved us to pull over. Minkailu, our taxi driver, slowed and started to pull to the side of the roughshod road before accelerating and continuing on his way. Liking his style, from the discomfort of my shared front passenger seat, I asked Minkailu why the officer wanted us to pull over.
"He wants money," came the straight-forward reply. Ah, yes. The first encounter with unabashed corruption. Breathe it in.
We carried on for another five minutes or so, and I made a mental note to get Minkailu's phone number for future beach trips, impressed as I was with his no-nonsense approach.
But this police officer was not so easily dissuaded. He had hopped on the back of an ocada (motorcycle taxi) to catch up with us and was now demanding Minkailu's license, which was met with vehement protest. Licenses are expensive and Minkailu was blunt in telling the officer he didn't want to give it to him because he didn't trust the officer to give it back. No lenience was awarded for this show of honesty.
We determined that the problem was allegedly the overcrowding of putting six passengers in a standard cab, a hilarious hypocrisy in a country that has a major industry built around poda-podas that literally pack 20 people into stripped down, extended minivans. This irony was apparently lost on K. Conteh, the officer in question (according to his badge).
And so, Minkailu reluctantly handed over his license on the understanding it would be returned on his way back to Freetown, and we were allowed to continue on our way.
The remainder of the trip to Lakka Beach was uneventful and we nearly doubled the agreed upon payment to help Minkailu with the bribe that he would need to provide on his return trip, a gesture that was met with a good deal of appreciation.
The beach at Lakka was, in my opinion, even nicer than the one at River No. 2, and also compared quite favourably to the five-star beach resort I stayed at in Varadero (Cuba), if only on account of its unencumbered nature on this beautiful Saturday afternoon.
Marie-Jo, Kari and I dined on mouthwatering barracuda at the Hard Rock restaurant, a moniker more literal than the Western chain of the same name, while enjoying the view from the scenic island inlet pictured below.
And as we all enjoyed the cool shade of a large tree overhanging the sunny white sand beach, taking periodic dips in the amazingly warm waters of the Atlantic, I allowed the scene before me to etch itself vividly into my mind, reflecting on the comfort of knowing that, no matter how stressful or difficult a week may be, I have the good fortune of being able to rejuvenate myself at this tropical oasis a mere half hour outside of the city.
We then topped off a wonderful day with a little poetic justice. We walked back up to the main road and had no trouble catching a poda-poda back into town. As we boarded the ramshackle vehicle, Bryna noticed that this was the same poda-poda driver that had tried to get us to pay Le80,000.
"One-five each," she half-asked, half-asserted, referring to the standard fare of 1500. Rolling his eyes slightly, he agreed and we returned home to the ubiquitous car horns and constant bustle of Freetown.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Election night in Freetown
With every passing year, I find myself more and more interested in politics and this past year I've been seduced by the American election like so many others (though I still watched the Canadian debate instead of Palin-Biden 'cause my priorities aren't whack, yo). The allure of what I would contest was the most important election of my lifetime to date is unmistakable, but you've all heard about that ad infinitum so let's not go there.
That said, watching the election night coverage live was a must. The plan all along was to show up to work no earlier than noon on Wednesday to ensure that I could adequately party on this momentous night, as I was anticipating an Obama win that would make partying the only reasonable course of action.
And so, just after 5 p.m., I hopped in my most expensive taxi to date (Le 12,000 or $4) and made my way up the hilly roads to the American Embassy, a sprawling piece of real estate fairly well removed from the rest of the city, and met up with Marie-Jo, JHR's lead trainer in Sierra Leone. After surrendering my camera and cell phone, it was time to hob-knob with a who's who of the Freetown scene.
Frankly, I'm not very good at networking, so I made a beeline for the free wine. But while I was grabbing that, a well-dressed man approached me and initiated a conversation.
"Nice to meet you," I said. "And what do you do?"
Leaning in, the cheery fellow whose name now escapes me replied, "I'm actually the newest FBI detail in Sierra Leone. Only been on the ground ten days."
"Oh, cool," I replied, and meant it, though I imagine the intimidation I felt was noticeable as I quickly replayed the last 60 seconds to recall whether I'd done anything that could be construed as suspicious. I had not.
Our conversation continued quite pleasantly, and I learned that Mr. FBI had four postings previous to Freetown. This was the calmest one yet, he added.
He'd just come from Baghdad, so I imagine most things seem great when they involve leaving an active war zone. The first three were all in Africa, though one of them slips my mind. The others were Lagos (Nigeria) and Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania), the latter being right around the car bombing of the American Embassy in Tanzania in 1998. I assume after his relative vacation in Freetown, he'll be headed to Mogadishu and the DRC.
Anyway, the two hours I spent at the Embassy were enjoyable. I voted in the mock election that was open only to non-Americans, which Obama won almost unanimously, highlighting the fact that the election wouldn't have likely been that close in so many of the world's countries. I later learned that there were actually more spoiled ballots than votes for McCain.
I even had my photo taken with the cardboard cut-outs of McCain and Obama, and reveled in the pro-America sentiment on display all around me. And I felt good for them. They've has so little reason for national pride in recent years that it has almost felt unnatural.
Two hours was enough at the Embassy, however, and with my goal of securing an invite to another party realized, Marie-Jo and I hopped on a bus normally reserved for Embassy security for an entertaining ride home.
We listened as the 20 or so Sierra Leoneans discussed the election, vilifying the lone guard that professed his support for McCain. Though I couldn't coax a discernible reason out of the young guy, his peers assured me it was because he wanted to fight in Iraq and he knew Obama was trying to put an end to that.
Save for this one poor misguided soul, the level of discourse was impressive, with a clearer understanding of the electoral college system than I would typically experience in Canada.
After some groundnut soup and a couple Star beers from a local food joint, I picked up a few Heineken and made my way to the house of an American couple who work for the Embassy, along with Marie-Jo, a pair of my American neighbours (Rebecca and Bremen), and an Irishman named Gearoid that was staying with us for the night.
They opened the door and we stepped into another world. The three-bedroom apartment (remember how there's only a married couple living here, and I assume they sleep in the same room) was air-conditioned, with a stove, fridge, TV, Internet, etc. They never received city power, because their fully-funded generator runs 24 hours a day.
We watched The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Late Night with Conan O'Brien to while away the hour and a half before the first polls closed in the States and exit numbers would commence. Danna, our hostess, told me that she'd just found out her 94-year-old grandma, a life-long Republican who voted against FDR and JFK, had cast her ballot for Obama. I liked humanity just a little bit more.
Since Danna and her husband, Joachim, had to be up early, we departed with Pennsylvania leaning towards the Democrats; Marie-Jo and Gearoid called it a night while the youth contingent of Bremen, Rebecca and I headed to a larger, younger party at another insanely lavish house. In fact, I spent a good hour upon my arrival chatting with an interesting German biochemistry student named Annika about the absurd dichotomy of the living situations in Sierra Leone, whilst downing liberally poured Red Bull and Indian whiskey concoctions.
Though not a palace, my place is not that humble, so I was especially interested in Annika's perspective, as she lives with a local family while doing some sort of quality testing at a local brewery. We concluded that while it was good to have connections to people in these relative mansions for nights like historic elections, it's preferable to live somewhere where you might actually interact with Sierra Leoneans on occasion.
Overall, the third stop of the night was by far my favourite, a coming together of about 16 or 17 young people of different nationalities. Looking around the room, I felt a touch of the surreal, as I noted four laptops were online, adding to the coverage at our disposal with various websites. I even got a preview of Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma's congratulatory message to Obama, as it was written by a New York native that appeared younger than me.
Finally, we were treated to the good news that the Republican regime had toppled, and took the celebratory picture seen at the beginning of this post, which we sent to the New York Times' photo contest with the pithy caption: "Freetown, Sierra Leone. 5 a.m." (My neighbours, Bremen and Rebecca, are the girls in the white and navy t-shirts respectively, and Koroma's speech-writer, Justin, is the dude with his eyes closed.)
I later received word from a colleague that he'd come across the photo on Gawker, a political website that posted a photo gallery of various election parties. Ours was more exotic than the rest.
We listened to McCain's classy concession speech and we fell silent when it was time for Obama's victory speech. As he delivered yet another of his inspiring messages, we all sat rapt with attention, tears in the eyes of a few.
And as I surveyed the scene in front of me, as the only Canadian in a group of nearly 20 virtual strangers, representing a handful of nations from across the globe, at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday morning in one of the world's least developed nations, I couldn't help but think it was precisely the type of scenario President Obama would love to see more of.
I can't imagine there would have been any better place to take in this moment in history than Grant Park in Chicago - but this was a pretty damn good alternative.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
American election editorial
Thanks to Obama's victory a couple nights ago, I don't have to cry in a gutter for the next couple weeks, meaning I can continue to blog. And while I hope to write about my surreal personal experience of election night very soon, I don't think I'll have time tonight.
To tide you over, I wanted to give you an idea of how much this election meant over here. Yesterday morning, as I was walking down my road to head to town, a man I'd never met looked at me, grinning. I smiled back.
"Black and white," he said, pointing first at himself and then at me. "We are one now, right?" I smiled more broadly and agreed that we were, only later reflecting on whether he thought that we hadn't been before Obama.
For my more 'formal' view on the impact in Sierra Leone, you can click here to read about the general mood here with regards to the Obama victory, in an opinion piece that I freelanced to The Waterloo Region Record.
I pitched this about a week before the election, but didn't actually see the email that they wanted it until around 6:30 a.m. yesterday, at which point I set to work on it after 45 minutes of sleep, probably not yet entirely sober.
I later sent it in after receiving a peer edit from Brandon over Google Chat, along with a headshot sent to me by Jeremy, thanks to MSN. It's remarkable the things technology allows, even in a country like SL.
Hopefully, the previous night's indulgence didn't affect the article too adversely. Enjoy.
To tide you over, I wanted to give you an idea of how much this election meant over here. Yesterday morning, as I was walking down my road to head to town, a man I'd never met looked at me, grinning. I smiled back.
"Black and white," he said, pointing first at himself and then at me. "We are one now, right?" I smiled more broadly and agreed that we were, only later reflecting on whether he thought that we hadn't been before Obama.
For my more 'formal' view on the impact in Sierra Leone, you can click here to read about the general mood here with regards to the Obama victory, in an opinion piece that I freelanced to The Waterloo Region Record.
I pitched this about a week before the election, but didn't actually see the email that they wanted it until around 6:30 a.m. yesterday, at which point I set to work on it after 45 minutes of sleep, probably not yet entirely sober.
I later sent it in after receiving a peer edit from Brandon over Google Chat, along with a headshot sent to me by Jeremy, thanks to MSN. It's remarkable the things technology allows, even in a country like SL.
Hopefully, the previous night's indulgence didn't affect the article too adversely. Enjoy.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
BMT afflicts even Sierra Leone's Parliament
I awoke this morning excited.
Never mind the fact that I felt ill shortly after awaking and the feeling intensified on my cab to work. In the back of the taxi, I was gripped by nausea, presumably the side effect of my anti-malarial meds mixed with the intense heat and suffocating air pollution (I'm pretty sure 97% of the cars on the road would fail miserably if given an emissions test).
On any other day, I probably would've bailed out of the cab, thrown up into the open sewers, wandered home and went back to bed. But not today. Today I swallowed the excess saliva and sipped cold water until I made it to work. Because today I had a willing colleague wanting to report on a story.
For the most part, I've been enjoying my time at Radio Kalleone, but it has not been without its frustrations. For example, the market research surveys that I finished over a week ago have yet to be distributed, or even photocopied.
My station manager has been dodging my inquiries into the arrival of recorders, a necessary fixture of any reputable radio newsroom, but one that is beyond the means of all but the country's most affluent reporters.
And I hadn't worked with a reporter on a single story yet, as a result of the station removing their news content until the January re-launch. Instead, I've worked to prepare workshops and resources to aid the reporters.
Today, however, I knew my new friend Sheik Daud (pronounced "Schick-dowd"), the promising 25-year-old journalist pictured below, would be waiting to head to parliament with me, where we would complete a story for the Awareness Times newspaper, as Kalleone journalists have leave to freelance to the newspapers until their news programming resumes with the re-launch.
After a short side venture to pick up Sheik's press credentials at his house in the east end, where I met his mother, aunt and at least three brothers, we were on our way up the hill to parliament (the backdrop in the photo of Sheik is the view of the city from just outside parliament). White skin and a notebook seemed to suffice as my credentials.
We arrived just before 10 a.m., the session's advertised start time. Keyword being 'advertised'. It seemed this would be another example of BMT: Black Man Time. From what I've been told (by locals, not ex-pats), BMT - not to be confused with FTT - refers to the country- and Africa-wide phenomenon of perpetual lateness.
As the clock ticked to 10:20, Sheik expressed his disgust with the country's politicans, wondering aloud how Sierra Leone can expect to develop when those elected to its highest offices show utter contempt for punctuality and the expedient use of time.
But they eventually arrived, or at least half of them did. Fifty-nine of the 124 seats remained vacant, one of them due to the death of a member of the ruling APC party (All People's Congress) last night, which we learned resulted from a "brief illness" and was honoured with a moment of silence.
The remainder of the meeting was fascinating and elicited in me some sympathy to Sheik's complaints. Tardiness aside, a lot of the MPs didn't seem to take the whole thing too seriously.
Whenever there was a break in the formal proceedings, someone saw fit to yell "Obama!", setting off a random chorus of similar exclamations.
During a role call to have MPs submit their 'aye' or 'nay' votes regarding the acceptance of a new Deputy Speaker of the House, there were about 10-15 consecutive Kamaras, as it's the country's most common surname (Koroma and Conteh are big too). Once the block of Kamaras had all been called, a few Opposition MPs muttered "Kamara" after every name, a tired joke more suited to a high school pep rally than a country's major governing body.
Even as the new Deputy Speaker was sworn in, at least 15 people talked and joked throughout. Which even more starkly highlighted the Speaker's decision to adjourn the meeting on account of the "sombre mood".
All in all, it was an interesting morning and after interviewing the newly-minted deputy speaker, we set to work on writing the story. I suggested that we both write it up and compare notes, which was helpful in further nailing down the areas where the most improvement is needed to encourage a stronger journalism tradition in the country - fact checking, balance, and quoting being three particular areas of focus.
But Sheik's story was generally solid and he was quite easy to work with to address weaknesses and add direct quotations. I'm looking forward to working on many more stories with Sheik (who has a special interest in youth unemployment and children's justice issues) and the other young reporters in the coming months.
But for now, I need to find a party to watch Obama beat McCain. If Barack somehow loses, you'll have to excuse the lack of posting in the next couple weeks, as I'll be holed up somewhere battling severe depression.
Never mind the fact that I felt ill shortly after awaking and the feeling intensified on my cab to work. In the back of the taxi, I was gripped by nausea, presumably the side effect of my anti-malarial meds mixed with the intense heat and suffocating air pollution (I'm pretty sure 97% of the cars on the road would fail miserably if given an emissions test).
On any other day, I probably would've bailed out of the cab, thrown up into the open sewers, wandered home and went back to bed. But not today. Today I swallowed the excess saliva and sipped cold water until I made it to work. Because today I had a willing colleague wanting to report on a story.
For the most part, I've been enjoying my time at Radio Kalleone, but it has not been without its frustrations. For example, the market research surveys that I finished over a week ago have yet to be distributed, or even photocopied.
My station manager has been dodging my inquiries into the arrival of recorders, a necessary fixture of any reputable radio newsroom, but one that is beyond the means of all but the country's most affluent reporters.
And I hadn't worked with a reporter on a single story yet, as a result of the station removing their news content until the January re-launch. Instead, I've worked to prepare workshops and resources to aid the reporters.
Today, however, I knew my new friend Sheik Daud (pronounced "Schick-dowd"), the promising 25-year-old journalist pictured below, would be waiting to head to parliament with me, where we would complete a story for the Awareness Times newspaper, as Kalleone journalists have leave to freelance to the newspapers until their news programming resumes with the re-launch.
After a short side venture to pick up Sheik's press credentials at his house in the east end, where I met his mother, aunt and at least three brothers, we were on our way up the hill to parliament (the backdrop in the photo of Sheik is the view of the city from just outside parliament). White skin and a notebook seemed to suffice as my credentials.
We arrived just before 10 a.m., the session's advertised start time. Keyword being 'advertised'. It seemed this would be another example of BMT: Black Man Time. From what I've been told (by locals, not ex-pats), BMT - not to be confused with FTT - refers to the country- and Africa-wide phenomenon of perpetual lateness.
As the clock ticked to 10:20, Sheik expressed his disgust with the country's politicans, wondering aloud how Sierra Leone can expect to develop when those elected to its highest offices show utter contempt for punctuality and the expedient use of time.
But they eventually arrived, or at least half of them did. Fifty-nine of the 124 seats remained vacant, one of them due to the death of a member of the ruling APC party (All People's Congress) last night, which we learned resulted from a "brief illness" and was honoured with a moment of silence.
The remainder of the meeting was fascinating and elicited in me some sympathy to Sheik's complaints. Tardiness aside, a lot of the MPs didn't seem to take the whole thing too seriously.
Whenever there was a break in the formal proceedings, someone saw fit to yell "Obama!", setting off a random chorus of similar exclamations.
During a role call to have MPs submit their 'aye' or 'nay' votes regarding the acceptance of a new Deputy Speaker of the House, there were about 10-15 consecutive Kamaras, as it's the country's most common surname (Koroma and Conteh are big too). Once the block of Kamaras had all been called, a few Opposition MPs muttered "Kamara" after every name, a tired joke more suited to a high school pep rally than a country's major governing body.
Even as the new Deputy Speaker was sworn in, at least 15 people talked and joked throughout. Which even more starkly highlighted the Speaker's decision to adjourn the meeting on account of the "sombre mood".
All in all, it was an interesting morning and after interviewing the newly-minted deputy speaker, we set to work on writing the story. I suggested that we both write it up and compare notes, which was helpful in further nailing down the areas where the most improvement is needed to encourage a stronger journalism tradition in the country - fact checking, balance, and quoting being three particular areas of focus.
But Sheik's story was generally solid and he was quite easy to work with to address weaknesses and add direct quotations. I'm looking forward to working on many more stories with Sheik (who has a special interest in youth unemployment and children's justice issues) and the other young reporters in the coming months.
But for now, I need to find a party to watch Obama beat McCain. If Barack somehow loses, you'll have to excuse the lack of posting in the next couple weeks, as I'll be holed up somewhere battling severe depression.
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