2nd Trip to Sierra Leone #2: “The International Taxi”

Una Kushe, when we left off I was frantically searching the Wild West of the Lungi Airport for Farah. Panicked that he wouldn’t show up and worried about how I would ever get to my hotel safely without him, I fended off countless offers from shady helicopter operators (these old Russian helicopters that take daredevils across the bay for $100) and rickety rowboats that often sink. When I hear his familiar cry of happiness and search for his smile in the crowd.

Farah hugged me (really unusual, there isn’t much PDA in West Africa between married couples, and usually no contact save handshakes in varying degree of complexity between men and women, especially if one of them, in this case Farah, is Muslim.) I was kind of flattered that he broke his cultural taboos to adjust to my social norms. He is very international though. We concluded that his car should be called “The International Taxi.”

We spent the trip across the bay catching up on his 5 children. He is only 30, but married his brother’s wife after his brother was killed in the rebel war and adopted 3 of their children. Even though this is a pretty common practice, that saying, “it takes a village,” is actually practiced here. Farah felt like he needed to tell me the whole story of how this situation evolved rather than reducing it to the sentence I wrote above. I think because he is familiar with foreigners enough to know that someone might not see this as standard practice, but I thought it was a sensible move given the circumstances. He is a good man with a happy marriage and a wonderful father. This photo is of him with his three youngest on a day when we went to the beach last January.

One of the things I brought to him was this photo I took of him with his mother who I met in his home village, Sambaia-Bendugu (see the Sierra Leone trip 1 update #5: “Thank You” and “Hello” Dinner by Candlelight with the Koronko Tribe). She was amazing in her own right. She survived the war by hiding out for over a year in the bush (bush = wild jungle) and is in her 60s in a country where the average life-span of women is 40 years old. Farah has finished building a home for her, as hers was burned to the ground by rebels. He explained that he was so thrilled by the photo because very often people pass away and their loved ones are left with no photos of them. Without realizing it, we’d taken and given him the only photo of her that he’d ever had.

By the time we reached Freetown, it was dark. Farah was navigating crazy traffic and explained that it was aggravated because we were smack dab in the middle of the breaking of the fast on the first night of Ramadan. I am sure most of you know about the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. It is the month of fasting (very serious, no water even) from sunrise to sunset that is meant as a time to purify oneself, seek forgiveness for past sins and guidance from god. Because Islam follows the lunar calendar, Ramadan moves around every year. I think it likes to follow me to Islamic nations to make me feel less comfortable about drinking publicly before noon. (yes, joking) This is also why Egyptian daylight savings time was changing the night before, Egypt is a Muslim nation, Sierra Leone is about 60/40 or 50/50 Muslim/Christian depending on who you ask.

But what this also meant was that Farah was now starving and missing out on an important family gathering to get me to my hotel. We were both stressed. He eventually made it, I checked in to the very same room I stayed in last time and fell quickly to sleep. The next day was sure to be action packed, another good friend, Sheku (see the Sierra Leone trip 1 update #7: Matru Jong) was coming over at 9am. Hopefully I wake up.

Safu safu (take it easy),
Mari (Maureen)