Around six weeks into my time in Sierra Leone, I took on the persona of my too expensive shoe and wrote a long running narrative about my existence. I think I did this one after a blistering hot, humid day. Since it was July, I probably got rained on on the way home.

Kinsei: first-world shoe in a third-world country
July 17th, 2006

I’m a duality: two separate yet equal parts, working in tandem to do great things. Left Foot. Right Foot. Though they live in an independent and autonomous state, they’re inseparable. They are two, but they are one. They are me. This is my story.

I know little of my history. What I can tell you is that I was conceived far away in a mind’s eye by a great visionary. He had seen those like me before, and he was displeased. He sought to build a better, more efficient version of what he saw around him. He constructed me with care from the finest materials and gave me a body for sacrifice and a soul for speed, if it were to be my destiny. And he saw that I was good.

I was sold into slavery by a man named Bruce in the early spring while I was still young. Bruce worked in a paradoxical way- he spoke of my virtues. He was my champion. He loved me like a father might yet in singing my praises, delivered me into a life of hardship. I had experienced nothing short of birth and darkness when I learned of my relocation. I knew neither my destination nor how my life would unfold. But even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was born to experience my fate, wherever it would lead me.

My master broke me in slowly. In the beginning, life was easy. Days were short and were spent navigating the streets of Europe. We moved from the cobblestone roads of Paris to the fields of Switzerland to the rolling hills of Tuscany. The work was light, the sun bathed me in its warmth for the first time, and the women were sweet.

Yet I was lonely. But this was my burden.

Several weeks were spent in isolation. I remember little, save a few dark journeys nestled in with some foul-smelling textiles. The dark times ended. Then resumed.

Light came suddenly, though not unexpectedly. The air grew warmer and more humid. In my soul - intrinsically - I became aware that I had entered my raison d’etre. The sand was sweet, but the pavement was hard. I spent my days in the sun, but unlike my Master, my color remained constant. It was only my soles that became red from the loose arid dirt that lined the streets here.

Today was particularly tough. My master brought me into the wilderness to test me. To tempt me. To break me. The beginning was deceptively easy. He either went slow and even when his speed increased, he kept me on the sand, where the remnants of small blue waves would refreshingly tickle my sides as they died on the beachhead. I drank it in.

Then things changed. Master decided more speed was necessary. Companions that had joined us faded into the distance and for a brief moment, we were airborne. The pavement almost broke me. I lost all consciousness, only to fade back in, then out, ripe with agony and delirious from the thick air. Master kept going, but I noticed his stride began to change. Like me, he felt the pain.

Like me, he felt pain. But his weakness was that he succumbed to it. Where I owned my pain, he was owned by his. He mistook my submission for acquiescence and paid the price.

In the forty-third minute, the bad foot and the bad air had caught up to him. He favored Left Foot and wheezed when the black smoke of the afternoon traffic engulfed his senses. We passed several piles of trash and pools of filthy water. I could hear Master hold his breath as he alternated between running and resting, trying to save face in the midst of his peers. I sensed we were moving closer to his – our – home.

The pavement faded and I felt the rough texture of the dirt and stones of Signal Hill. I sensed conversations in the smoky air and laughter. The conversations were in a language I recognized but was unable to decipher.

We passed men, women, and children. They were laughing with increasing intensity as we moved closer. Perhaps they were laughing at him- at us. The hill grew steeper and Master had a second wind.

It was over quickly. We were home. I felt us hobbling up a set of stairs, indicating our presence on the ceramic times. I felt myself being loosened and simultaneously stretched. We were kicked off and left in solitude by the door. Our movement had ceased and we were left to rest. For the time being. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Master sinking his feet into a bucket of ice water. He was finished, at least for today.

Fast forward. CelTel, the mobile phone company that sponsored everything, has been bought by Zain, a Middle Eastern company that sponsors everything.

But speaking of beauty, have a look at Aschobi Designs. It's a company started a couple of years ago by a young Sierra Leonean designer, who after having studied at Parsons Paris, set up shop in the heart of Freetown. There's also a Facebook page.

Put your arms together for Miss University
August 1st, 2006

Embrace. Beauty.

CelTel seems to sponsor everything around here. Beach bars are painted in the red and yellow colours and small booths selling phone cards dot the roadsides. So it was no surprise that Miss University 2006, ostensibly one of the most happening events in Freetown, would be sponsored by Africa’s leading mobile service provider.

Embrace. Beauty. CelTel’s entire marketing campaign is based around grammatically incorrect sentences and phraseology; and while I do not understand the rationale, I’m sure it is intentional. Miss Universe 2006 was the event we had been looking forward to since we saw the banners over a month ago. We even skipped an overnight trip to River No. 2 to make sure we could be in attendance.

The show was advertised to start at 9:00 in the evening, and we arrived at 9:30. Although Sierra Leone is four hours ahead of Eastern time, they were running on Standard African Time, which is anywhere from one to two hours behind schedule. Nobody seemed to care, and members of the large crowd appeared to be having a good time waiting in their seats, some munching on small pieces of meat on a stick.

Entrance cost 20,000 Leones, meaning many of those in attendance had probably saved up for quite a long time to attend. Twenty thousand Leones is around eight dollars.

It wasn’t exactly a classy affair.

This writer is playing a difficult game balancing accurate reporting with not being patently offensive to his host country. The dress for many consisted of relatively short bottoms accompanied by tops that reciprocated in coverage and lack of taste. One young lady donned a top with strategically-placed rips meant to tempt, tease, and entice but not give away the secret; except it shifted. Surprise! Everybody can see your nipple.

There were two fights.

Things got underway at 10:45 with several “artists” performing musical acts. And by artists, I mean what appeared to be regular people. And by musical acts, I mean lip-syncing and really bad dancing. Crowd response was lukewarm and my brow was furrowed.

Music was followed by the hosts, and the hosts carried scripts in their hands. I was reminded of something we did back in primary school called reader’s theatre. It was when we hastily put together a script of a quality which reflected our grade level and traveled to different classrooms reading and making up actions. I can’t say this was much better. Coordination between backstage and talent was lacking.

The show got underway. Each young woman was introduced to the crowd. More than one was named Fatmata, several were 5’6”, and a few enjoyed playing basketball. All were dressed in identical jean miniskirts and red CelTel t-shirts tied at the bottom to reveal as much midsection as possible. Each strutted out, posed, and shook her way down the catwalk, then back towards the stage to take her place among the others.

The host then asked us to “put our arms together for Miss University”. We decided to clap instead. Then we left to sit over some Sierra Leonean beer in a beach bar, which by that point, seemed to be the more sophisticated option.

Before asking us to put our arms together (which I still haven’t figured out yet), the host had asked us to wait patiently for things to get underway and the excitement to materialize. And before that, we heard that tonight, we would be witnessing real Sierra Leonean beauty.

Right… I saw many things that evening, but I’m not sure I saw beauty. I saw vanity, exhibitionism, and overall trashiness, but I did not see beauty. I saw women and girls who conducted themselves as though the road to a man’s heart runs directly through his pants (and men who would believe it), but I did not see beauty.

I saw eight young women making their first impressions to the world dressed in identical out-of-date denim miniskirts, emblazoned with a logo.

Embrace. Beauty.

I saw over a thousand people, many of whom probably paid more than a day’s wage to witness the Western phenomenon of chauvinism and vanity mixed together in a cheap soup.

Embrace. Beauty.

I thought about some of the people in a polio community I visited the other day. I thought about their sheet metal walls and their tarp roofs, and of their ragged clothing, their gnarled hands, and of the simple tools they use to construct the five dollar stoves they make from scrap metal.

Embrace. Beauty.

There is no shortage of beauty in this country, but not here, not this night. Rather, it is nestled in the vernacular, buried in the everyday, and typically obscured by a flaking veneer of poverty and drudgery. It lives in the candid moments when nobody pays attention; on the streets and in the fields, and in the daily struggle to survive. But like light through a pinhole, it is a beacon- visible to those who seek it, it summons us to compassion and illuminates our humanity.

I'm not sure how "breast is best" translates into Krio but this video is a good explanation.

We made this on my last visit to Sierra Leone, in August 2008.

I've now rescued my data (thank you, Internet Archive) and plan a subsection on this site where my old posts, some complete with post-university angst, will be republished.

Some of the classics will find their way to the main page. I'm surprised I misspelled the words "commission" and "because" (the latter twice), even though I was in a rush. I blame Firefox sans spell check. Here is what I wrote post-Kenya, pre-Sierra Leone.

02.06.06 // Destination: Freetown
May 30th, 2006

Welcome to livefromfreetown.com. I’ve had a pretty good time travelling through Europe and into Kenya, and am back home for 2 days until I fly to London, and then on to Freetown. Adventure awaits.

The in-flight magazine from Nairobi to Kisumu had a very interesting article about Sierra Leone. The State Department has declared the entire country safe for travel, including border areas, which were among the most dangerous, and there is a small but growing market for tourism. Despite that it is no longer the poorest country in the world (still among the poorest), I’m not convinced that this country is Club-Med.

Nevertheless, with peace, good governance, and foreign investment (much of which coming from the Chinese), Sierra Leone may have a bright future, although there is still much need.

Friday morning will be rushed because the plan is to get my visa from the High Commission in London. If the quality of a country’s website is any indicator of development, I’d venture that only North Korea is in worse shape. Anyways, these are some thoughts. I will wait to gather impressions once I arrive.

Yet to be determined is the quality of internet access, so I’m not sure how fast I’ll get videos online, but I’ll do my best.

Stay tuned…

-----

Live from… New Jersey?
June 2nd, 2006

Well, I hope New Jersey enjoyed their thunderstorms, because I sure didn’t enjoy their thunderstorms. An unfortunate combination of bad weather and even worse service from Continental meant I missed my connecting flight at Newark, even though I was at the airport when it left.

This means I’ll be in London tomorrow and Sunday nights, and will be arriving on Monday. If i have some time to kill (likely), I’ll take a picture of my sad face here at in front of McDonalds.

And this is where I spent the night…

-----

Live from… Gatwick
June 4th, 2006

It isn’t Sierra Leone, but Gatwick Airport is a lot closer than New Jersey. At least I made it across the Atlantic. After a bit of negotiating, the airline agreed to cover my expenses for the weekend, and thus, I’m spending 2 nights at the Hilton here and eating £18.95 breakfasts. Delicious.

That’s pretty much the only thing of note that’s happened this weekend. The food. The delicious food. Other than that, it has been a lot of sitting around and watching TV, and wandering. After the last month, things really aren’t nearly as fun when you’re alone.

So today is finally go-time. I’ll be going downtown this morning to collect my visa from the High Commission for Sierra Leone, and then rushing back to catch the plane. There are two ways you can get from the airport downtown. Regular train service, or the Gatwick Express. A return on the Gatwick Express is £28, which is about $75. I think I’ll leave early this morning and take the el-cheapo, and then if I’m in a rush, I can take the express back. I’m on a budget…

That is really the last thing I have to do before I go, besides actually getting on the plane. My flight to Freetown leaves today at 3:30 pm, and arrives at about 8:30 pm. Catch you on the flip side.