Freetown...

Morning everyone!

Yesterday was a very exciting day but I did not have the energy to post last night, so here you have it...






In the morning I got up and had breakfast...yoghurt with bananas... REAL bananas with REAL banana taste!!!! (Not the green stuff you find in Sweden with no real banana taste...)... And mangoes! The temperatures are high and humidity levels slowly rising (the wet season starts in May-June), and from the guesthouse one hears the birds and crickets with the background of oceanwaves breaking against the thin sand...

At lunchtime I went to town with Millicent and Kaiza to get a Liberian visa and run some errands, as well as going to the market to get some things that someone like me might be happy to find here (plantanes -banana da terra-, casava, coconuts, etc...)

We took the car to wash (the earth is just as red as the one in Brasilia, and just like in the dry days there, the red dust covers everything in sight...), listening to some fantastic Sierra Leonean music and drove off to the heart of Freetown. All of a sudden, I feel like I've stepped into another planet or dimension. Everything smells, tastes, feels, looks somewhat like "home" (northeast of Brazil), but at the same time not...

The city lives by the ocean, up and down hills, resembling Salvador in Bahia (Brazil) very much. Vibrant with talk and people shouting, cars honking and the sonds of masses walking up and down and around. The women beautifully dressed, some in jeans and tops, some in traditional West African costumes. Some kids around the corner in sweet school uniforms (a little boy that must not have been 5 years old yet, wearing a button up shirt, a tie and black shoes just captured my heart with his smile). Men carrying big containers with fuel for generators (the central electricity system doesnt work well) and women perfectly balancing big plates with mangoes and bananas on their head, with their children beautifully tied with cloth on their backs...

A mixture of beauty and chaos. A blend of people living in the streets and those in luxurious cars... The contrast between the little girl who sells kitchen towels in the corner to make a living and the politician that gets a street cut off and several cars to protect his ride... not very different from Brazil, but here everything seemed less segregated; The rich and the poor see eachother in the face and acknowledge eachothers existance.

Yesterday Freetown gave a whole different understanding of what people mean when they say that capitals are "chaos"... Ive always been a big city girl, Santiago in Chile has crazy traffic and lots of people down town, Rio and Sao Paulo are known for being monstruous cities, but honestly, Ive never seen anything like Freetown. The insanity of the traffic was almost absurd (yet strangely enough its never agressive driving and these people seem to drive by instinct more than rules, everyone seems to have an understanding of the chaos, and therefore there are very fiew car accidents!!! go figure!).

What I´ve seen of Sierra Leoneans allows me to say that this land's people are beautiful, of easy smiles and friendly manner... People all over look at me with curiosity, say hi, smile a lot... Honestly the feeling is very peculiar...Ive never been in a place where I could be called "pumui" (white person) by the kids (and they did), or where I was so different... I mean its strange, because I only realize why Im being stared at when I remember that Im the only "white" person in a mass of a thousand locals!

So yeah... Freetown. The two places that will probably forever stick with me are the Cotton Tree and the market. The market was like nothing Ive ever seen, tight, hot, loads of people, good music in the background that makes you want to "bob" you head, crazy smells, loads and loads of people again, hard to walk, and all sorts of vegetables, roots, beans and fruit you can i magine, side by side with beautiful cloths (which are obviously what the women use in their pretty outfits. I gotta follow my sister's advice and get myself some of that). and strong-looking women yelling out prices and talking about the latest something (my Krio is not so good yet..)

So, when I write Cotton Tree in capitalized letters it's because this particular tree deserves great respect. The creature has been in the same place for 500 years(!!!!!!!!), and stands proud in the heart of Freetown as the colossal landmark it is. We passed by it, and I couldnt help noticing some things hanging from it... things that looked like old dried fruit, or maybe another plant that had grown on top of the Cotton Tree, or... ? No! Can it be?..... b...b...BATS?!!!?!?!

Under its gigantic arms, the Cotton Tree is home to hundreds of sleeping bats during the day, which (as I´ve read), all fly out at night, only to return to their sleeping spot... and I mean hundreds!!!! It was mind boggling!!! And just incredibly cool!!!

When we returned I was exausted... so much information in just a couple of hours, my brain was over excited and just amazed by all it had seen... We were visited last night by Tommy's sister (Nora) and his nieces So yeah... I think I´ve written enough for the day, and for you guys to get bored and probably need to go do some work or prepare something before easter....

All I can say is that I am slowly feeling more and more "at home" here, I truly feel like Im living in a different planet or dimension...and when I say "Im in Africa", I still dont really believe it, but its all good, it will come with time... But I already feel it, this trip will make me grow... And Im so gratefull for that.

I feel blessed. I realize how lucky I am. How much I have, not only material, but in matter of chances, opportunities, knowledge and time...

This post is dedicated to my parents, grandparents and family, to whom I owe my life, all the love in the world and all the opportunities...

And a special thanks to Milli & Kaiza, for taking me out yesterday, for taking care of me and for having explained and shared their knowledge and information, and answering my questions with patience...


PS: the pictures in this post are not taken by me, because I didnt feel like going out with my camera yesterday... hope you can get a picture of what I say anyway...