Road to Kenema is Half Paved

Last week I traveled to Kenema (3rd largest town in the country) to oversee the implementation of a capacity building project. It was quite exciting to check out this part of the country.

A 6-hour drive took us over all kinds of terrain. I can tell you that broken paved road is worst than a good dirt road. Sierra Leone has a lot of broken road. Driving at night is very surreal. Eyes shine on the side of the highway reflecting headlights, but these aren’t animals, they’re people. The road is a free-for-all. The dominant driver dictates the flow. Our driver is good, going as fast he could while still maintaining a respectable degree of safety. I am sure that this trip took about 4 years off the life of the Toyota 4-Runner we hired. (Photo: View of Kenema from my "hotel" room. Hotel's name is Makasa Construction. Good service, and I had AC in my room. yes.)

The world is so small here, especially in Kenema. I ran into two friend journalists from Freetown – both Canadians. The development community is small and connected. Workers all seem to congregate at the better restaurants. So we all met at the Capitol for star beer and story telling.

This trip was a reminder to me that NGO is big business here. I must remind myself that my cash-strapped organization is seen as a truckload of money and prosperity when we drive into town. A large percent of the country’s GDP is donations. Thus the NGO sector to Sierra Leone is like silicone valley to the US. We drive nice cars, have offices and educated employees. We get to travel. We have money and power.

With my stipend, I took the field officer Mr. Tailu and Caesar, his assistant out for dinner. They make 200,000 leones ($65) and 100,000 a month respectively – when we have money to pay them! Mr. Tailu’s job is high profile. His predecessor is now running for mayor. We spend 3 hours over the course of 2 days at the radio station being interviewed about our project and taking questions from callers. Needless to say we were small-time celebrities by the time we sat down at the Capitol restaurant. (Photo: Caesar (Left) and Mr Tailu take a break from the workshop. Mr. Tailu reminisced about better times when the community centre was full of life - when kids played in the pool.)