Fleeing the Jurisdiction

With the broken glass atop the compound walls twinkling like Christmas lights in the early morning sun, I left for a few days respite down the coast. Arriving at River Number 2 after a long and dusty trip, I saw at once why this place was held by many to be the most beautiful beach in Sierra Leone. Apparently, an advertisement for Bounty chocolate bars was filmed here in the 80s, suggesting it is, at least, the advertising industry’s idea of paradise. With this view of coconut-fringed white sand and gently breaking waves; a stack of books; my iPod primed; and all the seafood I could eat, very little was going to get to me. Even the disturbing proliferation of middle-aged white women disporting themselves with much younger African boyfriends would not, I determined, spoil my mood. I spoke with the manager about how this place was entirely staffed and run by the local community, providing vocational training, regular income and fostering connection to place. Despite many offers to buy the land, the community has seen it as incumbent upon them to preserve this resource for future generations. This was good to hear, since in Freetown, there is – among certain expats – a prevailing sense that Sierra Leoneans are loathe to pass up short-term gain no matter the longer term consequences.

The next morning, I had one of the guides – he gave his name, shrugging, as George, suggesting his actual name was regularly mispronounced – paddle me in his dug-out up the river. Even at that early hour, it was steaming hot, and the smell of the mud-bound mangroves was dense and cloying. The labyrinths of their buttressing roots hid the banks, their branches shaking with the movements of leaping monkeys. I felt I could’ve been entirely divorced from the modern world. ‘George’, casually bailing between strokes, suggested I keep my hands inside the small canoe as though this were some ride at Disneyland. Soon enough I saw the reason – a large crocodile, lolling part-submerged a few metres from our path. Its glossy eyes unblinking as we passed. The angle-winged hawks circling above could have been pterodactyls and I would not have felt the scene to be more prehistoric. Travelling upstream, I did call to mind the one book almost universally linked to Africa. Conrad’s protagonist Marlow nearing the unknown, and madness. Whilst Sierra Leone is geographically far from the Congo – The Upper Respiratory Tract of Darkness, perhaps – I did imagine some similarity in the sense of exhilaration and mingled trepidation of the journey. I had been reading, the day before, a book by the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, who, apart from his fiction, had written a searing critique of Conrad as a ‘thoroughgoing racist’ who had used the novel to posit Africa as corrupt and in need of enlightenment. On balance, I’m not sure this gives sufficient credence to the distaste with which ‘Heart of Darkness’ cites the greedy ravaging of Congo’s fecundity by Conrad’s European contemporaries. I find the arc of the narrative a more universal description of the very human slip from the knife-edge that marks the distinction between idealism and nihilist cynicism, as embodied by the failed messiah, Kurtz. A salient cautionary parable for this line of work, I think. Nonetheless, with the ugly colonial tropes of this archetypal journey a counterpoint to the physical beauty of my surrounds, I disembarked and trooped along a makeshift jungle path, pausing as George bludgeoned a poisonous snake to death and arriving at a waterfall thankfully free of reptilian company. A swim was, by that time, much needed; the pools cold and refreshing. I lazed on the flat rocks beside rushing water until it was time to go.

Lying inert on a beach was – however pleasant – making me restless, I realized, so I had chartered a boat to take me to the neighbouring Banana Islands. Through choppy seas, the spray drenching me as the wooden craft pitched and tossed, we landed at a small cove and were met warmly by two of the islanders. Walking past rusted cannons, I saw an unfinished hospital (the doctors away indefinitely for training) and trod carefully down a causeway along which, some hundreds of years ago,  manacled slaves were lined up to be crammed into the stinking holds of Portuguese vessels. The spot marked with an intricate iron cross. Back through the small village, I was given a tour of the original Christian church, still sturdy and well used by its West African Methodist congregation. The Anglican church, a later addition, had collapsed, I was told – with some relish. Intending on paying my respects to the Chief, I was instead co-opted as a guest of honour on this Christmas Day. As we sat outside, by a grove of fruit trees – papaya; soursop; and breadfruit, all introduced from Jamaica - I was told marvellous stories about the piratical history of the island. When it was time to go, the Chief, Elizabeth, sent two of the young boys scampering adroitly up a coconut tree to fetch a parting gift for me. Returning by boat, we broke the trip at a pristine white beach and swam contentedly. I returned, much relaxed, to Freetown the following morning – just in time to fall spectacularly ill. Eleven distinct gunshots last night, up from the usual three or four, added to the howling of dogs, late night revival meetings and the early call to prayer in breaking my pained attempts to sleep.