The Smartfarm stalker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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