Fort Street Meanderings [Wednesday, July 11]

After a taxi ride with a Guinean driver who had moved to Liberia and then to Ivory Coast and then here to SL about a year ago, I walked down Barracks Road (where HU's office is) when I was suddenly greeted by a very large crowd of APC (All People's Congress)supporters decked out in red. They weren't doing much besides some off key shouting with a megaphone of "party packed fo go," a popular song about the elections. I went in to HU and tried to work, but the clamor continued. Some had soda bottles and sticks which they banged together. Others were just decked out in red clothing - some guys were even wearing dresses.

After sufficiently making it impossible to get any work down, the red mass of revelry marched off towards town. I followed a few hours later, as I had to go to iEARN. It took me a while to find transport as all the taxis and podas were filled with exuberant APC supporters. Others marched down the sidewalks. When I finally reached the National Stadium area, the streets were clogged with APC people. It turns out they were having a rally at the National Stadium. As I still had my backpack - and with no desire to enter huge crowd with all my equipment on my back - I stopped by iEARN and dropped off my belongings, and then came back to the rally with my camera and a few of the students.

Thousands of people, all decked out head to toe in red, reveled about the National Stadium. Some shouted political slogans, but most simply made noise. Most carried beers or stout, bought off the head of the street sellers who had come with the crowds. The APC leaders were supposedly speaking as well, but I could neither see them nor hear them. It was more of a drunken street party than a political rally.

I meandered about taking a few pictures when suddenly Jokella and Ibrahim told me to put my camera away. The next thing I knew I was surrounded by people desperately urging me to put the camera in my pocket. With an almost religious fervor, they pleaded with me to go away. I couldn't tell if they were concerned for my safety or for their own - and before I could find out, Ibrahim grabbed my hand and rushed me out of the stadium.

Jokella explained that there was a man doing black magic on himself to ensure the elections would go well - he was taking out his eyeballs and his heart while still alive - and that terrible harm would befall anyone who tried to photograph him. While everyone says that their religion - Islam or Christianity - forbids black magic, they usually are still very scared of its powers. Jess, one of my fellow iEARN interns, also went over to the rally a little later, and said that the black magic guys were covered, head to toe, in traditional African cloth and were dancing up and down, with those around them following their motions - if they don't, the black magic will apparently kill them...

After returning to iEARN, I sent Ibrahim, one of my students, over to the rally to take some pictures:

Meanwhile, I taught a photography class. The center was unusually crowded, as the Positive Music Project students were silk-screening t-shirts to use at their debut at Paddy's this week, which they are all very excited about.

I chilled at the center with the kids for a bit, and then Dabney and I went back to town to the YMCA. After another fantastic dinner at Kiemanns, Gallon - the nickname of one of the guys who works at the shoe/clothing store across from the YMCA I wrote about last week - took me around to meet all of his friends on Fort and Soldier Streets.

He wanted to show me how some of his wealthier friends live, so we visited a lawyer who lives just down Soldier Street. As a barrister in the high court here, Mohammed's fairly wealthy. He lives with his brother, who is also his driver, and several neighborhood young men hang around his house, taking advantage of the generator and his open door. There were two TV's - one playing American films, the other the BBC reporting on how astronomers had discovered a new planet or something to that effect. Then the BBC switched to the "offbeat" and filled the screen with an American man who decided to go for a balloon ride on his deck chair.

While the young men gazed at the television screens, the lawyer told me how he's frustrated by the poor journalism here in Sierra Leone, which only compounds the problems inherent with ineffective government. Not only do journalists blatantly attack politicians in front page articles without any separation of fact and opinion, but will print ridiculous, outright lies - like the Standard Times did two weeks ago with the rice - that the people on the street believe ad then rise up in protest.

He wishes the Charles Taylor case was here in the Special Court, as he believes Taylor needs to see the people whose lives he destroyed. The Special Court was built primarily for this trial, and it's a shame to see such a expensive building with incredibly tight security go to waste as the trial takes place at the ICC - where, Mohammed feels, the officials are not taking the case seriously.

After tiring of politics, talk turned to American music stars - Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, Tupac, Snoop, R. Kelly, DMX, Nelly and Akon, the current pop king, at least in SL. Originally from Senegal, Akon recently recorded a song in Dakar entitled "Mama Africa" which plays almost nonstop on the podas and the radio.

We left the lawyer's compound and walked through the streets. We only met one of Gallon's girlfriends, but he promised he has "many, many wives." He was upset because they've been cheating on him...

He also told me that HIV is "only down in South Africa - it's not real up here in Sierra Leone."

Gallon's wants the encumbent SLPP gone from office, saying that "the SLPP needs to go and then we'll see what leader God gives us." Such an opinion - about God choosing the new leader - is widely prevalent, but not surprising given the religiosity of Sierra Leone.

After leaving Gallon with his iPod on a very dark Fort Streets, I returned to the YMCA. As Dabney needed to get back the National Stadium Hostel, the two of us grabbed a taxi over to Brookfields. While the taxis are perfectly safe during the day, it's usually not the best idea for women to travel in one alone at night, although I guess that's normal in most cities in the world.

My taxi driver on the way back to the YMCA was quite the character. Abbas said he was born "December 26, 1937" and that he liked life back when the "colonial masters" were in power. He explained that today Freetown had "no bookshops, no water, no lights, no food." To emphasize his point, he turned off his headlights for a few seconds and we looked out at an otherwise pitch black street as he said "see? No light!" He said Sierra Leone had weak leaders and that the much-touted anti-corruption commission had made no arrests - despite millions of dollars of funding. Abbas wasn't sure about the elections, simply saying "I don't know."