Training, tourism, river trips and some local superstition....the adventure continues

So it's two thirds into my posting here at tribewanted and I'm starting to get the feeling that time is coming to end and there are so many things left to do. Ben Keane, one of the founders, was here to give some much needed input in the day to day operations of the team and share with us the vision for Tribewanted's Community Interest Company which is being launched this month. Together we spent a lot of time focusing on training the staff and building capacity.

Due to a blundered budget for a project which has now be halted mid air, I have been spending two mornings a week working with a team of 9 builders to instill the importance of planning and accuracy in relation to construction  This is not any normal training session, the group is made up of men from 18 - 45, some of whom cannot read and write, let alone perform basic, necessary calculations. Those within the group who were lucky enough to finish school, usually the younger ones, have a good attention span and show a lot of interest. As for the older ones, it is a struggle, but fortunately pride and large egos do not stand in the way of learning, it is more to do with a lack of confidence from a severely limited educational background. These men are by no means stupid, just try to imagine what life would be like without the education you received both at home and in school - difficult to comprehend, I know!

Education really is the key and on a very positive note, we have managed to get support from an NGO called Street Child to take over the teacher training and rehabilitation of the primary school in John Obey. This alone is key to the future development of this small community.

This weeks community meeting was set to discuss how the community can leverage the tourism that tribewanted brings to the area, a shame indeed, but as many people cannot comprehend the different needs and wants of visiting tourists there is not much in the way of local produce on sale. Lot's of potential though from making country clothes, to bottling chilli sauce and forest honey.

                                      

Selection of local potions 

On a lighter note a road trip to Rogbonko with the girls last week was a welcome distraction. Public transport in this country is an adventure in itself. Courtney and I had meetings with Ben, the founder of TW in the morning, so we left in the early afternoon, bikes to Waterloo and from there we haggled for a taxi to Makeni. All hell broke loose when we refused to travel in the car if the driver allowed 4 people in the front of a small Toyota on a two hour journey along the dangerous roads. Kicking up a stink worked and we made it to Makeni with our limbs intact. From there we took another taxi to Magburka and bikes on a 45 min ride through acres of sugar cane plantations as the sun set. Rogbonko is a locally run eco-tourism project set deep in the rainforest and an idyllic place to chill out, sip palm wine and do what us girls do best; learn how to play stick and tyre a fav game here and buy waist beads (worn to give good shape) and love potions from the local traditional healer .....

Village expert in stick and tyre games!

There is a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks, from a 10 day trip in a dug-out canoe along the Moa river to Tiwai islands, a national park which boasts the highest density of primates in Africa, to Christmas with friends on the islands and working closely with the women of John Obey to build confidence, capacity and hold workshops on health and sex education.

Life is good!

Economics of sand mining

Development and the liberal lean towards instant gratification is capable of destroying tourisms' bright future here in Sierra Leone.

The youths at John Obey have been pushed from the bush where they used to go to cut wood to sell as a conservation programme has been implemented to protect the rapidly decreasing forests on the peninsula. From the forests to the beaches….. Sadly these men are now making a small fortune loading up trucks with sand from the beach to supply the construction boom in and around Freetown. At the moment there are about 10 trucks coming down to load up every day and as we move further into the dry season this number will increase to almost 50 trucks a day. This is massively disruptive to the environment and Hamilton beach in Freetown has already been raped to the point of no return with buildings and homes falling into the sea. 

After breaking through the reluctance to speak about the sand mining with the local youths it seems that the money being made from the sand mining on Obama looks like this. A 10-tyre lorry, which retails at 700,000Le (140€) in town will pay:

130,000Le (26€) to the boys to fill it with sand

20,000Le (4€) to the local council as tax

20,000Le (4€) to the community

20,000Le (4€) to the driver manifest (makes its way back to the local community)

A truck can be loaded in under an hour and at peak times each boy can earn up to 200,000Le (40€) per day. This is over 10 times more than the average local daily rate of payment, which will be impossible to compete with. Stopping sand mining is possible but it will put a group of over 30 young men out of work and leave them feeling aggravated unable to provide for their families. An alternative source of income is needed but unfortunately the community is looking to anyone but themselves to provide this employment. 

Tribewanted, Welthungerhilfe (WHH) and other business people with vested interests in the area have been campaigning to educate and sensitize locals about the need to protect the beaches. Logically it makes perfect sense to think about the long-term affects of taking sand away at a rate that cannot possibly be sustained and replaced by the seas. And strategically leveraging the huge contribution sustainable tourism could make if the beaches were protected and thinking about the future of the community and the local wildlife. However like most things in life it’s just not that simple and logic is often defied and subordinated to survival, opportunity, greed and desire … 

At John Obey we have reached the point where the District Council understand the plight and have admitted that they would be ready to support the cause and make this a topic high on the agenda of the new Chairman once he is instated after the results have been announced. Getting the political will behind the issue of sand mining will hopefully have an immediate impact and hopefully we can take advantage of the changing power and ensure protecting the beautiful beaches gets the attention they deserves. 

Please take a minute to follow the campaign on facebook and sign our petition of support:

www.facebook.com/stopsandmininginsierraleone

www.change.org/petitions/stop-unsustainable-sand-mining-on-the-western-area-peninsula-sierra-leone

Sierra Leone Presidential elections tomorrow!

The elections are tomorrow and the country is literally buzzing in anticipation. Since the beginning of last week pretty much the entire community have been proudly wearing their voter ids around their necks day and night.

The two parties going for the presidential leg of the elections are APC (All People’s Congress) represented by the colour red and SLPP (Sierra Leone’s People’s Party) represented by the colour green. Since I have arrived back there has been at least one rally for each side every other week either in Freetown or smaller towns’ along the peninsula. A typical political rally looks a bit like a St. Patricks day parade, lots of colour (Green or red, depending on the party), lots of drunk people and the odd man dressed as a woman and woman dressed as a devil...... Ernest Bai Koromo the incumbent president is set for a landslide win and after quizzing many people in the community the consensus is that he is a fine man and has done a lot for the development of the country in the past four years.

From doing my own research the phrase 'lesser of two evils' rings home. Mr. Koroma appears to genuinely have the nation’s interests in mind but this is Africa and therefore the corruption is at times more open and obvious than in our own countries. The brutal civil war here ended more than a decade ago but it seems the development of the infrastructure and job creation didn’t really take off until Koroma got into power just under four years ago. After the war ended there was an awful lot of international funds being pumped into the country but little evidence of how this money was benefiting the people was to be seen. This visible development since Koroma gained power has secured him a place in the hearts of many. The oposition leader Mr. Julias Maada Bio was the leader of SLPP duing the war when the second Coup that overthrew Strasser and most people are opposed to turn back the clocks to the horrors of the lost decade and looking forward to seeing further development of their beloved country.

Tomorrow registered voters will have the opportunity to choose their new president, the District Chairman (Mayor), their MP and local Councillor. It is expected to be a very proud day and unlike in Europe there will be no secrecy, with each member of the community dressed explicitly to express their preferences. There is little to no trouble expected in the lead up to the elections, despite the high security measures being imposed by NGO’s and International businesses and schools throughout the country. Many NGO’s have been closed for business for some time already and will remain closed for up to six weeks with their employees either on leave or on lock down in their compounds. From where I am sitting this seems over cautious and a little sad but I imagine it has much to do with protecting liability.  

The plan for tomorrow is to don my red T-shirt and head up to the community center to enjoy the buzz, get some photos and maybe even have a glass of poyo and a bit of a boogie with the locals.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, there has been some sad news with the loss of our building team’s first external contract. The news was broken earlier this week after a month or so of trying to find a solution to a grossly miscalculated budget and time frame. Unfortunately for both Tribewanted and Orphund there was no simple solution to be found – money don done! Thankfully one beautiful earthbag building, one block of colourful compost toilets and one bucket shower has been completed before the money ran out.

On a positive note the Orphund team have not given up on their dream to have the first eco-orphanage in Sierra Leone and plans for a quick fix concrete structure to house the kids have been stopped. Fund raising will resume and hopefully the eco-building will as well before the end of the year. In the meantime an important lesson has been learned, we hope, and the building team are back on site restoring and rehabilitating our accommodation before the tourist season reaches its peak in the coming weeks.

Alusain breaking stones

Ali fixing the pulley in our new bucket shower

First earthbag orphanage building in Sierra Leone

The Orphund and Tribewanted building teams outside the new compost toilets

In other news I am very excited to have tracked down a heroin of mine that I met the last time I was here. This lady, Hannah, has one of the most amazing stories of survival and strength in the face of incredible obstacles and since I met her here in February of this year I have wanted to write about her story and harness her strength to inspire and empower other Sierra Leoneans especially her fellow women. We have planned to catch up next week so watch this space....

The great feeling of knowing you are exactly where you're meant to be!

Almost one month in and so much has happened, from back stabbing (literally) to having to become some sort of earth bag construction expert over night.

Lesson #1: Never sit on a three legged stool in the sand while chopping veggies!

So Courtney, my colleague and fellow kindred spirit, managed to fall backwards off the stool while helping with lunch last week. She happened to have the sharpest knife in the place in her hand and used this to break her fall. Luckily we had a wonderful Neurosurgeon – Katya – in the house. Cool as a breeze she took over the operation Karl and I had started to perform in the solar house. While Katya was stitching Courtney up (without any anaesthetic) I was trying to distract her from the agony with graphic stories of the horrors of child birth. All went swimmingly and 10 days later the stitches are out and Courtney is back running around doing what she does best.....

Lesson #2: The importance of planning and the learning curve that comes with all new projects

This is something that should be a focus in places like Europe and even more so in West Africa! Orphund – a wonderful NGO, made up mainly of Australian volunteers, builds orphanages around the country and continent. Each member of foreign staff supporting themselves and fundraising with friends and family to financially support the project – not a penny is wasted on administrative “needs”. Many of the volunteers take their annual leave from their various livelihoods to come and get down and dirty building orphanages amongst other related tasks, what a refreshing change from spending summer holidays on the beach, although there is some beach time thrown in.

Tribewanted’s building team have very successfully created a wonderful array of buildings to host guests from earthbag structures to wooden beach bungalows. Therefore their expertise was hired to create a new orphanage in Tombo out of the aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly adobe. While the first building is almost complete and ready for the Orphund girls to move into there have been some delay and issues regarding the budget and planning of the project. In Sierra Leone there is a saying ‘ To plan ahead is to plan twice’ and while this doesn’t sum up the only reasons for the problems we’ve encountered this attitude has clearly been a stumbling block. Another issue is most certainly the lack of training in planning and budgeting – cue building and budgeting workshops every Sunday!

Lesson #3: Nature and local culture that just keeps on giving!

From electrical storms that send goosebumps all over your body to pods of Dolphins putting on a show in the Atlantic seas, this place has got so much soul soothing stimulation that I haven’t even finished my first book. We had a visit the other day from my all time favourite lizard, the shifty Chameleon and regular visits from feisty little baby crocs keep our days in this wilderness occupied.

On the way back from Banana islands the other we came upon a boat bobbing in the middle of their widespread net, drumming a hypnotic beat to lure the fish to their demise. Somehow these ancient cultural methods have persevered and mingle on a daily basis with technologies like mobile phones that somehow seem so foreign in comparison.

It has been greatttttttttttt to have Shane my BFF come to visit! It is pretty much impossible to sum this place and this adventure up without coming to seeing it with your own eyes and it has been very refreshing to hear his thoughts on the projects, the place and the potential that is Sierra Leone. Tomorrow will be his debut Irish dancing in West Africa to the village community and the headman. The reason poor Shane won’t be getting a rest from dancing over here stemmed from a discussion a few weeks back with the community about secret societies and their original purpose - to share a tribes culture, dance, language etc with the children of that tribe. Hassan commented that it must be hard for Europeans to understand as we have no culture - WHAT!!??! Hence the display of Irish culture planned for tomorrow afternoon. Let’s hope they don’t think his fast foot action means he’s possessed and have the witch doctor come!!!

There has been quite a few ticks on the bucket list and some awesome memories cemented in our minds on this little adventure!
Some other highlights of the past few weeks include:

• Seeing the massive impact a 3 day trip to tribewanted has had on a bunch of International school kids.
• A canoe trip up the lagoon.
• A forest walk to the beautiful cove of Black Johnson to hear the passionate tales of an English lady's struggle to stop sand mining.
• Weekly classes on the beach front black board with the local primary school kids
• Meeting some really amazing people passing through John Obey and sharing their stories
• Lobster, chilled white wine and good company as the sun went down at Sussex beach
• Visits from my old family and friends from Allentown
• A very positive meeting on the importance of stopping sand mining and supporting sustainable tourism with the head of the District Council
• Utilizing the combined experience of myself, Courtney, Kat and Mark to devise material that will hopefully be used to ensure the best experience for the guests and volunteers who happen upon Tribewanted
• Hammock time

Looking after the city slickers wheely case on the way to Banana Island

Right that’s it for now, time for a bucket shower before hopping on an okada to head to Freetown to show Shane the other side of SL.

A virtual tour of my new home and tasks ahead

Now that I have settled in to paradise, let me give you a virtual tour: Mr. Ali and Courtney picked me up from Aberdeen port after a smooth, night speedboat ride from Lungi, where the airport is located. It was quite late getting back so I said some hellos and made a beeline for my beach hut. After 8 hours of sweet sleep with nothing but the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, I awoke to a symphony of noises serenading me from the forest behind. Breakfast with the team and a tour of the grounds from the already well-integrated Courtney who arrived a month ahead of me. First stop compost toilets (her favourite), solids in the back, liquids in the front and the addition of some saw dust turns this concoction into powerful fertilizer for the banana trees and permaculture garden next door. This is where the magic happens! From tomatoes to squash to Aubergine – the aim for the team this season is to introduce a wider variety of herbs and to become 100% self-sufficient for the tribe and guests. Salone looks a lot different at the end of the wet season, lush greens and flowers cover the red dirt, it’s a feast of colour!

Next is the chop house, breakfast is oats or eggs and toast, lunch is local chop (Cassava, country rice, fish) and dinner is a fish BBQ with whatever the local fishermen have managed to catch that day and salad from the gardens. No complaints from me! Kat, an Australian nutritionist who lived here last year spent a great deal of energy ensuring high standards and very importantly reduced the consumption of palm oil by about 80%.

The solar house is a funky looking wooden structure that powers the entire project. Light is turned on when it gets dark at 7.30pm each day and we have bonfires on the beach, but that’s more atmospheric than functional, well not if you consider roasting marshmallows a must. The lightning storms, which happen about every third night, are a spectacle to behold as well but with the end of the rainy season they will cease to be pretty soon.

Accommodation ranges from organic looking earth bagged honey domes, to wooden beach huts and camping on the beach for the more adventurous. I am currently living in one of the beach huts that look out onto the lagoon but will be moving around depending on our occupancy.

This place really is a little oasis from the polluted and overcrowded villages and towns. Being in such a beautiful environment is definitely food for the soul! Tribewanted has successfully built a sustainable model of tourism that is run by and for the local people and welcomes guests from all over the world to enjoy the culture and beauty of Salone and contribute to the protection and development of the local area. Many of our visitors are international NGO workers looking for a place to come and chill after a stressful week, each with their own story, making the dinner table conversation enthralling at the best of times. International tourists are on the rise but nowhere near the levels of neighbouring African countries as Sierra Leone is slowly losing its war-torn stigma.

My role here is community development co-ordinator and in my first week I have been busy getting to know who is who in the village. I have had some meetings with the community and established a committee comprising of one or two representatives from each main group incl. the Harbour Master, the Community Headman, the reverend/teacher, the Imam, women, some youths and elders. This committee will be my source of information and link to the wider community and one big task ahead is to conduct a needs analysis in order to develop both a short-term and long-term plan for the development of John Obey. Other projects on list include working with the committee and other locally operating NGO’s to come up with an alternative to the sand mining, which is rapidly destroying the beach next door.

We actively encourage guests to get involved and learn about community culture and development. I am in the process of creating some reading material outlining responsible tourism in a developing country and take our visitors to see the current projects while they are here. Others prefer to wind down from the stresses of their own jobs and enjoy the nature, the local beer and the comfy hammocks.

Anyway time to get back to work!!!

Blogging from 37,000 feet - next stop tribewanted SL

It has been a strange few days leading up to my departure, forgetting about the knee operation, I’ve been overcome with all sorts of doubts, concerns and emotions. Some of which are pretty new, until now I have been fairly good at taking things as they come. My inner voice sounds a little like this: ‘what the hell am I doing?’ giving up a well paid job…to volunteer in a country that might just be better off left to its own devices. It seems, on top of everything I’ve grown quite cynical recently as well. All of these thoughts have caused me to really look inside and figure out what exactly is driving me, and what it is I want. While I’m still not ready to put into words exactly what and where I want to focus and concentrate my energies I do know what values are driving me. Here is how I see things: It’s pure chance that I have been born into a society that boasts a developed and mature heath care and education system, an infrastructure that affords the majority of people the opportunity to live, thrive, grow and develop. As I myself have done absolutely nothing at all to deserve these privileges I consider myself extremely lucky and it feels only natural that I want to learn more about how I can help reduce the suffering/increase the welfare in the less developed and privileged areas of the world. It is humbling to learn more and make the connections between the two very contrasting worlds that exist. Especially considering the interdependencies, for instance how much our daily lives in places like Europe are dependent on sourcing resources from places like Sierra Leone for our mobile phones, computers, cars, jewellery, construction etc.

With that in mind I am faced with an exciting prospect that I hope this new venture and adventure will shine some light on. How can I turn my curiosity and passion into a profession or business that will allow me to build and sustain a good life while living in alignment with my beliefs and values…. Exciting times are a here and something tells me that there is much more to come in the next few months. I am already inspired from the brief conversations with Ben and Susie during my 12 hour lay over in London. Being around proactive, likeminded people is as reassuring as it is interesting and I am sure tribewanted is going to be a melting pot of adventurous, conscientious, motivated team members and visitors. More to come….

Getting ready to return to Sierra Leone

I returned back from a life changing 3 month stint volunteering in Sierra Leone almost 6 months ago and here I am packing my bags again for a return to the welcoming and beautiful Sweet Salone! Although it's still 2012 and I still look pretty much the same ALOT has changed.......

For many years now I have felt a pull towards the field of development, I really noticed during my studies at Globe Business College when all my essays and projects had a similar theme running through them. So I finally took the plunge at the beginning of this year deciding to get my hands dirty with some firsthand experience. I joined a small local NGO based in the East of Freetown, focussed on Water Sanitation, Solar Engineering and a variety of training programmes aimed at educating the youth of Sierra Leone. Initially this project filled all of my idealistic, romantic ideas of saving the world but soon enough the cracks started to show and reality set in.

After a few days in I started to feel the weight of what I can only describe as a 'dependency', being one of the few white people in this black country I felt people were looking to me for all the answers, to make everything better. Sure, I was there to share my knowledge, to work, to hopefully make a positive impact but the feeling I am trying to describe was more than that. It's a sensitive topic and completly subjective, but after some time speaking with people, locals, colleagues, other NGO workers and taking in my surroundings, seeing all the rusted signs of long-dead projects, great intentions, sponsored by people and organizations from all of the world I came to the conclusion that development, regardless of the good intentions, has the potential to exasperate the feeling of dependency and lead, at times, to disempowerment, although the goal may be empowerment. I realize this is quite a harsh, if not bold statement as there are many, many great projects making massive impacts, changing innumerable lives for the better, but I do belive the 'development industry' is saturated in Sierra Leone and there is room for other types of projects that focus on empowerment through fair and equitable business including skills sharing, trainging and education to help build a nation of people who realize and value their own worth and power to shape their own future.

I realize three months is a very short time and I have drawn some pretty strong conclusions, who knows, another three months may change all that. Right now, for me it is time to take a detour into the world of social business!  So I have quit my comfortable job in HR consulting, found a nice couple to take my apartment in Munich and I'm getting ready to take the next leap and head back to the beauty and mayhem that is Sierra Leone!

Tribewanted has everything I was looking for earlier this year when trying to figure out what alternative there could be to the traditional development approach. It is a simple idea involving community living and eco-tourism at John Obey beach, whereby 'tribe members' from all over the world are welcome to join and contribute to whatever extent they want. They are welcome to come visit, to work on the current community projects, encouraged to interact and learn from/share knowledge with the locals from going fishing with the fishermen to sitting around a campfire at night discussing the local history with the village chief. The project has been designed and built by a combination of sustainability experts, architects, solar experts and local and international tribe members. It is a beautiful, organic looking site located on the pristine beaches of John Obey. Visitors can expect to revil in usual beach activites, contribute to community projects such as building an orphanage in Tombo, the next town, enjoy delicious seafood banquets on the beach with the catch of the day and relax to the sound of the waves with a glass of local palm wine before retiring to their beach hut for a peacful and satisfied slumber. Waking with the sun, running on the beach before breakfast and getting ready to do it all over again.......

Just writing about makes me excited, 3 weeks to go to John Obey!