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| My favourite little pot head! |
Opoto, Yemadi! - Whiteman, feed me! Is
pretty much the running gag here with children and adults alike and while some
people really mean it most just get a good kick out of saying it and the
resulting exchange. If you tell them you don’t have food and ask them for
something to eat they have a good old chuckle. The nature here is extremely fun
loving and most people always have time for a chat, in fact there is so much
chatting that it’s considered punctual if a meeting starts within 3 hours of
the time it was planned for. This different concept of time is one of the main
reasons many westerners find doing business here a challenge and some of the
Sierra Leoneans I’ve met could not imagine living in Europe for long. For them
it is baffling as to why people are so busy running around and why they never
have the time to have a good old natter with a neighbour or stranger in the
street.
As a foreigner here, most of the local
people would bend over backwards to make you feel at home whatever your race or
creed, intervening even if you are being ripped off in a taxi or at the market.
Unlike many other coutries throughout the world there is little or no racial or
religious tension here, Muslims and Christians live side by side with each
respecting the others beliefs and although there is quite a history of battles
and even slave trading between different tribes Saloneans now pride themselves
on their ability to live peacefully together. The Fullah people are pan-African,
Muslim tribe, who can be deciphered from the other people here by the long thin
faces, they are known to be honest and trustworthy business people dominating
in most industries. The Mende people come from the southern and Eastern
provinces and have wider, flatter faces and are know for their blunt
communication style. Other tribes include Limba’s from the Northern province,
Loko’s from Port Loko district, and Timmni, each tribe has their own language
but most people can speak Krio and use this to communicate. Apart from just
having their own language most tribes also have their own customs and even laws,
for instance in the Mende tribe it is an offence for a wife to refuse her
husband sex for longer than 3 days and if she does he can take her to a court
where she will be fined something small like a chicken and sent home with a
slap on the wrist.
Back to the kids (and there certainly is no
shortage of them!) don’t aks me how they do it but they can somehow manage to
spot a white person from a long way off, whether you are in a car with the
windows up or turning a bend two streets over…. And this sighting is a catalyst
for gaggles of kids to come running out clapping and screaming whiteman, opoto
or pymui depending on the local language…
and for whatever reason, If you walk the same street every day and see
the same kids every day their excitement and enthusiasm doesn’t seem to wane…..
It’s also pretty much impossible to take a
photo of a just child playing because as soon as you even think about reaching
for your camera their sixth sense goes off and one child multiples until soon
the entire village is jumping up and down in front of you screaming ‘snap me,
snap me!’. If I’m having a bad day or my patience is being tested by the
craziness of it all I just need to go for a walk and no doubt I’ll meet hoards
of kids running around playing with old tyres and pots to put a smile back on
my face.
