A day in the life

Most days, I awaken to a cacophany of the city's sounds, from the blaring radios of my neighbours to the blaring horns of aggravated taxi drivers. On Thursdays, Smartfarm's very own cross-dressing street actor adds his booming vibrato to the morning dissonance, and I drag myself to the washroom to down my daily dose of doxycycline and brush my teeth.

Depending on the day's events, I'm out the door between 7:30 and 10 a.m., often stopping for a brief chat with my friend Seray as he waxes philosophical on the country's faltering economy, lamenting that the business seen in recent days at his roadside booth is "small, small".

I usually disembark from my taxi at the corner of Siaka Stevens and Charlotte streets, politely turning down the group of young men who invariably motion to me saying, "My friend - foreign exchange?" It seems this corner is the hub of the city's unregulated commerce district, and no matter how many times I run the gamut of street bankers, no one seems to internalize the message that I have no foreign currency to my name.

After a handful of former JHR Sierra Leone interns went to the Toronto head office with claims of fraudulent activity from the Rokel Commercial Bank where most of us had been accessing our money using international Visa advances, I am now paid cash money, our country director handing over a couple million Leones from the coffers of the new country headquarters every month.

It seems my predeccessors' loss is my gain, as I no longer lose $50 in bank fees with every pay day. Still, the US$3 sitting on my dresser will be the only foreign currency in my possession for the rest of my stay, meaning five more months of disappointment for the young men that so ardently seek my business. Thankfully, they tend to be easygoing in their acceptance of my daily "no thanks".

I generally arrive in the office, the four-story building pictured below, which houses the entirety of the Kalleone group of companies, between 9:30 and 10 a.m.


I climb two flights to the radio offices and set to work on whatever tops the given day's agenda - be it preparing for a workshop, doing some training with the crop of five fresh-faced interns new to the station last week, or heading out with one of the reporters to chase a story.

On good days, I manage to slip away from work for a half-hour escape to Nix Nax Cafe (below), a quaint little restaurant five minutes from the office where I down my first meal of the day, and then it's back to work until 5, 6, sometimes 7.


Whenever I find myself wandering the streets during the day, dodging in and out of foot traffic that moves far too slow for my taste, I am beckoned by omnipresent clusters of unemployed young men, asserting that they want to be my best friend.

Surprisingly, they aren't often seeking money. In fact, I still don't really know what they want from me. In my first few weeks here, I often stopped to give these strangers an audience, and they generally seemed satisfied after a brief and thoroughly mundane exchange of pleasantries. We'd shake hands, agreeing that we were now somehow best friends, and I'd continue on my way.

These days, I generally limit myself to a quick hello or a wave, the routine having quickly grown tedious. But sometimes I still stop, recognizing that they seem to enjoy these exchanges that, ultimately, require little of me. Yesterday, for example, though I'm certain we'd never met before, I chatted briefly with a dreadlocked dude who admonished me for not having visited recently, obviously mistaking me for another white person.

On most days, however, the loss of anonymity associated with being a white person in Freetown can wear thin. Imagine walking down the streets of Toronto as every third person you pass attempts to sell you something, asks for money, or insists that they're meant to be your best friend.

This is my somewhat surreal reality.

When the work day ends, the trek home can range from a half hour on the rare occasions I am lucky enough to be picked up by Adnan, a kindly Lebanese businessman that manages to negotiate his way through the city's gridlock with awe-inspiring proficiency, to as long as two hours on especially busy days when the unmoving cabs resemble a noisy tableau, their horns launching a sustained assault on silence that brims with futility.

Weary, I arrive home, drop my laptop bag on a chair, and trade the long pants and collared shirt of professional decorum for a pair of basketball shorts. I flop unceremoniously onto the couch for a few minutes of blissful slothfulness and trade amusing anecdotes about the day with Bryna, Patrick and Kevin, who spends as much time at our place as his own and will hopefully make the upgrade from honourary to full-status roommate in the New Year.

In the two months I've been here, however, I've learned that I can be a surprisingly solitary person, given that many friends took to calling me "The Social Whore" just a couple years ago on account of my abiding passion for people.

Certainly, I still highly value opportunities to socialize and I'm thrilled for this weekend's very social agenda, which kicks off this evening with an international trivia night co-hosted by the US Embassy and British Consul, and will hopefully also include a visit to River No. 2 with Denis, the Canadian IMATT soldier Patrick and I met a couple weeks ago; an evening of pizza, beer and Canucks, hosted by a newly-arrived Canadian gentleman named Reg; and taking in the Liverpool-Arsenal match over a couple beers on Sunday afternoon.

Nonetheless, when I arrive home from work, mentally and physically drained, I often find myself thirsting for solitude. I grab dinner from one of the nearby restaurants and, depending on the power situation, find myself reading by the flashlight of my cell phone, or checking my email and browsing The Globe and Mail website to catch up on what's happening in the world.

As 2 or 3 a.m. rolls around, I crawl under my mosquito net to ruminate on another day in Freetown, and get ready to do it all again.


Editor's note: I hope you appreciate the photos, as they were not easy to get. In both cases, when I went take the shots, I met resistance until I explained that I merely wanted a photo of my favourite restaurant, a place where I eat 3-5 times a week, and the place I work.

Sierra Leoneans are understandably suspicious of Westerners with a camera; they're uninterested in becoming snapshots of poverty to be pitied by tourists and their affluent friends. Which is why I normally ask permission before I take any photos, but didn't think it was necessary in photos of buildings. Now I know.

In the shot of Kalleone, you can see Santos, the perpetually pleasant building guard and one of my favourite people here, coming over to check out (and mostly laugh at) the commotion I caused.