Freetown becomes especially festive during this time of year.  The streets are often clogged with long wedding processions trying to get through the holiday traffic, and engagement parties are common occurrences.  Now is the time to hold them since extended family are all in country.  This is also the time of year for young single Sierra Leoneans who live and work abroad to meet other eligible Sierra Leoneans who share their lifestyle.  One of my good Sierra Leonean friends—raised throughout Africa and educated in the States—commented a few weeks ago that she was going to camp outside the airport at Lungi (across the bay from Freetown) to meet Sierra Leonean guys as they arrived! 

This past weekend I attended my office's Christmas party at Kashco Bar and Restaurant, a charming outdoor bar past the Congo Cross roundabout and just over the bridge into town. Like most office holiday parties it was well supplied with food (fried rice, fish, skewered meat, infamous Sierra Leonean pepper soup), drink and a DJ. The best part of the evening, though, was getting to see my Sierra Leonean colleagues dancing, eating and having fun, and getting to interact with them in that setting. 

Though I have been in Sierra Leone for close to three months I realized that I do not often spend time with my Sierra Leonean colleagues outside of work, a situation that is common among many expats here. The Sierra Leoneans we do hang out with tend to be young and educated in the UK or the States. This evening, though, with most of my expat colleagues out of the country for the holidays, I find myself gossiping with the women from the administration department, swapping holiday plans with program staff and dancing to the latest Sierra Leonean pop hits with our drivers. It was a fun and refreshing experience.

The night did throw the divide between Sierra Leoneans and expats here into sharp relief. In the last month I have met some wonderful expats--people who devote considerable effort to learning Krio (the primarily languague spoken in Freetown and understood throughout the country) and absorbing Sierra Leonean culture. Others come here and quickly become frustrated with the constant effort of trying to communicate across cultures and languages. This frustration can quickly lead people to withdraw further into the expat community or at worst begin to take out their frustration on Sierra Leoneans by talking down to them or growing unreasonably impatient with your colleagues.

When I you come to a place as poor as Sierra Leone you expect to learn certain "big" lessons. You expect to witness traumatic poverty and hear dramatic stories of survival during the war. Yet the biggest lesson I am learning is one that I assumed was the easiest and most basic--how to treat other people with respect, no matter how difficult the circumstances, no matter how wide the cultural divide. As an expat in Freetown it's very easy to isolate yourself from everyday life--eating in expensive restaurants and driving around in SUVs instead of taxis, for example. I am realizing that it is not enough to come to a place like Sierra Leone and work for an NGO or some sort of social cause. To really make a difference in a place like this you have to start small by really getting to know the people you interact with on an everday basis and treating them with kindness and respect. To that end, here are my new year's resolutions, aimed at helping me integrate more into Sierra Leonean life:

1. Learn to speak Krio

2. Take more taxis and poda podas (mini bus taxis) instead of the duty driver that is available to me as an expat

3. Eat more often at restaurants and bars frequented by Sierra Leoneans

4. Invite my Sierra Leonean colleagues to my apartment for social gatherings

5. Make sure I am treating my drivers and cleaners with respect. Understand that it can be frustrating for them also to try to communicate with me across language and cultural divides.

At the end of November I traveled with members of the Coalition on Women's Rights (an informal group of national and international NGOs and UN Agencies) to Kenema to witness an education workshop for community leaders on the new Gender Acts.  The Acts cover domestic violence, registration of customary marriage and divorce, and women's inheritance rights, and they significantly strengthen women's legal position in the country, at least in theory.  The problem is, of course, that there are many obstacles to implementation.  The new domestic violence bill, for example, makes domestic violence a criminal offense and also allows people to bring civil charges under the law, but the courts are slow and families and community leaders tend to push those bringing the charges to settle outside of court.

The workshop in Kenema that I attended aimed both to educate these community leaders about the provisions of the law and to encourage them to make sure the laws are carried out.  Participants included traditional leaders like paramount chiefs (mostly men but a few women) and Mammy Queens (traditional female leaders); local government representatives and other community members.  One of the more disturbing parts of the event was when some of the men started arguing that they cannot be held responsible for having sex with girls under 18 (the new legal age of consent) because the girls dressed in a provacative manner and behaved like "adults".  After the workshop when I was speaking with one of the members of the Coalition on Women's Rights, however, she mentioned that often the women leader's attitudes are even more worrisome.  She noted that when the team conducted education workshops in Makeni it was the women who actually provided counseling and legal services to survivors of gender based violence who claimed that many of the women were "asking for it" because they dressed or behaved in a certain manner. 

Of course, there are men and women leaders in Sierra Leone who are supportive of the new provisions in the Gender Acts.  In the next few months I am going to be following some of the organizations working on Gender Acts implementation so I hope to share some stories about individual Sierra Leoneans working for change on this issue.

The 16 Days is an annual international campaign to raise awareness about violence against women and to push individuals, community organizations and government to take action to prevent it.  The campaign in Sierra Leone is coordinated by the Coalition on Women’s Rights, a collaborative working group of national and international NGOs, community based organizations and UN agencies.  In the next two weeks, these groups will be advocating for implementation of Sierra Leone’s three Gender Acts.  Parliament passed the Acts, which among other things protect women’s rights to property and protection from domestic violence, earlier this year and now activists are working to make sure that local and national government actually take action to protect the rights guaranteed in these laws. 

The first thing that struck me at the kick-off was the number of men in the audience—they must have made up more than a third of the group.  I have attended many women’s rights events in the States as well as regional conferences in Southeast Asia, and I have never seen such high male participation in these events.  The people in attendance were of course a self-selected group of activists, so I do not think that the gathering was representative of Sierra Leone at large.   Though it’s hard to accurately quantify, discrimination and violence against women remain huge problems here.  But I am interested in talking to people a bit more about why there are so many men involved in the campaign here.

There was also a wide range of organizations represented at the kick-off event and in the march—everything from Sierra Leoneans working for the UN to local Muslim women’s associations.  The most sobering part of the march was meeting a group of girls who attend schools sponsored by the NGO Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). One of the FAWE representatives told me that most of the girls had been brought into the school specifically because they had been raped and sexually abused. Most of the girls were between 11 and 13 years old, and they repeatedly told me their names and asked me not to forget them.   

Tomorrow I am heading back upcountry to Kenema to attend a workshop for the area’s paramount chiefs to educate them about violence against women and push them to take action against it in their communities.  I’ll also be visiting one of the closing refugee camps to meet the women who are taking over a women’s center that was formerly funded by international NGOs.  Stay tuned for updates on my trip! 

Thursday was a big day in Sierra Leone as the new parliament and president, Ernest Bai Koroma, were inaugurated in a festive ceremony at the national stadium attended by an estimated 50,000 plus Sierra Leoneans.  In some ways the inauguration signalled a big shift in Sierra Leonean politics--Koroma defeated Solomon Berewa who at the time was the incumbent vice president and a member of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), which many of its supporters view as instrumental in extracting the country from the civil war.  Koroma represents the All People's Congress (APC), which governed the country up until the outbreak of the war in the early 1990s.  At the time of the elections, many commentators saw Koroma's victory as a signal that ordinary Sierra Leoneans were fed up with the corruption and lack of tangible economic growth under the SLPP and were looking for new leadership to change the country's course on these matters. 

In the last week, Koroma has emphasized that he will tackle corruption to spur economic growth.  Last week the BBC got hold of a confidential audit commissioned by Koroma, which reveals gross levels of incompetency and mismanagement under the former government, according to the BBC.  It is currently unclear how the information revealed in the audit will be used (i.e. will anyone responsible for the past corruption be audited?).  And, of course, there is the larger question: will Koroma and his new government actually be able to change the situation or will it end up perpetuating the cycle of corruption? 

On a related note, Reuter's Alternet also has a great blog post today by freelance journalist Alex Klaushofer musing on the implications of corruption in Sierra Leone and other developing countries for aid organizations and other international organizations.  The Koroma-commissioned audit, for example, revealed that an unidentified international donor contributed $500,000 for a government-run project that never reached the intended recipients.   According to Klaushofer, aid organizations constantly struggle to make sure the money they receive from donors is being used properly and is benefiting the targeted populations.  Yet for almost all of the large international NGOs and UN bodies in Sierra Leone working with the government is a significant part of their program strategy since they want to help train and equip the government to take over public services once international actors pull out.  Is this an effective strategy when the government is corrupt and/or incompetent? Are there any other options? 

I am just beginning to think about these issues...so I appreciate any thoughts or additional links on these issues from readers!

According to recent reports, very few women receive antenatal care from trained practitioners like doctors, nurses or midwives. Sierra Leone also lacks a standard antenatal care package so there are no records to indicate how many women receive basic services like having their blood pressure checked, receiving micronutrients or having blood drawn for hemoglobin estimation.  According to the WHO, neonatal mortality in Sierra Leone is above the average for Africa at 56 per 1,000 live births. 

In addition to spotty and poor antenatal care, many women in Sierra Leone do not access skilled health practitioners when giving birth.  As of 2000, only 42 percent of births were attended by skilled health personnel like doctors, nurses and midwives.  Many births are attended by traditional birth attendants (TBAs); a UNICEF study in 2004, however, showed that the Ministry of Health sponsored training provided to TBAs has had little effect on maternal mortality rates.  This fact has prompted some NGO service providers to discourage the use of TBAs as service providers and they have instead encouraged them to direct women to services at local health units and hospitals.  Of course, this is not unproblematic either, since health units and hospitals can be difficult to access (rural roads are generally still difficult to navigate and adequate vehicle are scarce), they charge for their services, they frequently run out of supplies and they are understaffed. 

There are currently no data on the rate of post-natal care in Sierra Leone, though it’s likely low given how few women access adequate health facilities when they give birth.  Post-natal care is crucial for spotting life threatening complications to the mother and child.  Last week when I was in Kenema, for example, a newborn in the hospital maternity ward exhibited signs of irregular breathing, indicating possible distress.  The nurses were able to spot this problem, check the infant and provide appropriate care—most newborns in Sierra Leone are not fortunate enough to have that sort of intervention.

I hope this post provides a little more context on the issues I raised last week.  Look out for more stories from the field in the weeks to come.

Despite my recent illness, I have been on the move.  On Tuesday I traveled east to Kenema, Sierra Leone’s third largest town with an estimated population of 254,539, for a series of meetings and field visits.  During the week I visited the Kenema Government Hospital, which is a prime example of how the government is struggling to provide essential services to the population.  Located off a dirt road pocketed with pot holes, the Kenema Government Hospital is a one story building made up of meandering open air corridors and small wards.  My visit focused on the maternity ward, which receives material and technical assistance from my employer, the International Rescue Committee.  (Material support entails activities like supplying essential drugs and supplies, while technical support includes training staff on issues like drug management and conducting education campaigns to let the community know about services available at the hospital.)

The visit started off on a positive note—my colleagues and I visited a young woman who had given birth to a baby girl the day before.  The young woman had been brought into the hospital on the ambulance (a project funded by IRC and run by a group of dedicated Sierra Leonean drivers) because she was suffering from obstructed labor, one of the most common preventable causes of maternal and perinatal mortality in developing countries.  In this case, the baby was delivered through an emergency c-section, and mother and child were recovering in the hospital during my visit.  Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world, in part because of obstetric complications and the lack of access to medical care during labor and delivery.  But with the introduction of the ambulance system and education campaigns to alert community members to the presence of services at the hospital, the many young women have a better chance of surviving pregnancy and giving birth to healthy infants than before.  There is still a much larger demand than the hospital can conceivably meet, but it’s a start. 

During my visit, I also spoke with a number of staff members about some of the challenges facing the hospital.  Like many other sectors of society, the hospital often confronts shortages of drugs and other essential supplies.  There is also a stunning lack of doctors in Sierra Leone—the hospital’s maternity ward had three doctors on call but only one is an obstetrician-gynecologist.  In fact, there are only about 200 fully trained doctors in all of Sierra Leone, and according to hospital staff, many young Sierra Leonean doctors are clustered in Freetown where they can open their own private clinics and make more a better living than they would working in the provinces.  And at private clinics and government facilities alike, patients need to contribute to the cost of their treatment.  Unfortunately, many of them cannot afford to shoulder these costs, though international agencies and NGOs do currently cover certain medical services for all patients free of charge in Kenema.

In the next few months I will be talking to different organizations and other actors working in the health sector in Sierra Leone.  Please let me know if you have any questions you would like for me to explore, or feel free to post comments with your own thoughts and experiences on this subject.  Thanks!     

We headed out of western Freetown mid-morning, driving past the roundabout and vegetable stands at Congo Cross and up Signal Hill into the low mountains that cradle downtown Freetown.  As we progressed up the mountain, the road became steeper and rougher, eventually transforming into a full-fledged dirt road, massive potholes and all.  We continued on this road, through hamlets and small terraced agricultural areas, until the track merged with the main road and we continued to a quiet beach populated by other expats and Lebanese businesspeople and their families. 

It is obvious to any visitor that Sierra Leone has a wealth of potential tourist attractions: idyllic beaches, lush green scenery, exotic wildlife.  Like the rest of the country’s economy, however, the tourist sector lacks the infrastructure it needs to really take off.  The country’s best beaches lie about a half an hour drive outside of Freetown, but getting out of the city means either navigating the clogged downtown streets (which lack a meaningful traffic control system) or driving over the mountain and dealing with the pot hole-filled dirt roads.  Once out of the city the roads become smooth and traffic dies down, but you still need a 4x4 to get down the rough dirt paths that lead from the main roads to the beaches.  There does seem to be some development, however; guesthouses are being built along select beaches to accommodate overnight guests, according to some local residents.  I’m looking into interviews with people in the tourism industry here in Sierra Leone so stay tuned for further updates!

I walk past gas stations and street stalls advertising services ranging from tailoring to concrete block-making.  The largest building I pass is the Comium Building—one of the major cell phone providers in Sierra Leone.  A group of boys and young men loiter on the low walls surrounding the building.  As a foreigner, they call out to me as I walk past them in the morning and then again when I walk home in the evening.  Sometimes they even grab my hand, asking for money.  It’s a disconcerting experience.  But it’s also disconcerting how quickly I’ve learned to shake them off and tune them out.

Mixed into the jumble of small businesses and residences on Wilkinson Road are the NGO offices.  Like me, many of the expats I have met also work for non-profits, whether they are large, international organizations like Save the Children or small Sierra Leonean ventures.  Either way, many of us spend a significant amount of time trying to secure money from Western donors to support a range of health, education and development projects.  At my office, most of my co-workers are Sierra Leoneans, and this is even truer of our field offices in eastern Sierra Leone where most of our projects are implemented.  Expats bring access to money and experience and Sierra Leoneans bring expertise and connections in the country.  We work together in the hopes that our combined resources will contribute to rebuilding the country’s shattered infrastructure and institutions.  Right now, though, I am mostly preoccupied with finding my way around the area and learning enough Krio to catch the office jokes!

So far I am enjoying the challenge of being in a new place and meeting new people.  I clearly still have a lot to learn.  Stay turned for some of my thoughts on emerging businesses here—especially tourism—and in two weeks, my reporting from upcountry in Kenema!

I have come to Sierra Leone to work with the International Rescue Committee, a leading international humanitarian NGO that works on post-conflict development projects across the country. My year-long position was arranged by Princeton in Africa, a program that seeks to engage young Princeton alumni in Africa through workplace fellowships.

I am living in an IRC-rented apartment building in western Freetown, which I have been told suffered comparatively less harm during the war than central and eastern Freetown. But even with only a few days under my belt it is clear that the country bears more than just the scars of its decade-long civil war. Young people in wheelchairs—hands, arms, feet, legs amputated—cluster around expats begging for a pittance. Fresh vegetables are hard to come by since the war devastated the country’s once-vibrant agricultural sector. And electricity is sporadic (though, according to a friend, it is now supplied 24-hours a day to the incoming president’s section of town, meaning that the power in Freetown has, quite literally, shifted).

At the same time, I have arrived at an auspicious moment. The country’s incoming president, Ernest Koroma, won election over incumbent vice-president Solomon Berewa, in a free and fair election last month. So far, preparations for the transition have been peaceful. The country has a vibrant civil society, with initiatives springing up to meet social and economic needs. And many Sierra Leonans are having fun. Just ask the people at the hopping nightclub across the street from my apartment.

This blog is my attempt to tell stories that capture both Sierra Leone’s struggles and its successes. I am sure this will also be a personal journey for me this year.  I hope that this blog will allow you to share a piece of that journey with me!