Stay in the MASANGA EDUCATION ASSISTANCE Center |
First surprise: Freetown airport is located on an island and one has to take a little speed boat to join the continent. At low tide, the boat cannot access the landing stage and passengers as well as luggage are transboarded in the arms or on the shoulders of employees. The trip is 30 minutes long.
Freetown lacks any interest. It is a dirty and noisy city, with constantly horning cars and motorbikes. Streets used to be covered with tarmac but are now full of potholes and driving is difficult, almost impossible at night. Exchanging money is done on the street, on the black market : one easily becomes a millionnaire in the local currency!
It takes four to five hours to drive through Freetown and complete the 180 km journey to Masanga on a pretty good road, except for the last 25 kilometers, where it becomes a sand and earth track. The landscape does not vary at all: palm trees, high grass, shrubs, rice fields.
What a welcome we receive in the villages and in Masanga ! The women and the children come towards the car, singing, dancing, kissing everybody. Party time! We are escorted up to the volunteers house at the center.
The center is pleasant with its buildings in the middle of a former palmtreeplantation. We are lucky enough to enjoy some shade there as it is really hot in the sun and the humidity rate is 100%. Heavy tropical showers rain down on us everyday; the water falling from the sky is warmer that the water of the well and having a shower under the gutter is a real pleasure.
Preparatory day with the parents (mostly the mothers) and the children : speech, applause, songs, dances, discussions in a joyous hubbub. At the end of the day, the lists for each class are prepared and uniforms distributed.
On the day school resumes, the mothers bring wood for the kitchen. In the classroom, the girls - who all have a different hairdress, are very well-behaved and obedient, not turbulent even during playtime and lunch break.
The volunteers eat the same food as the children : rice...rice, dried fish sauce and cassava leaves. Almost no variation on the menu. It is boring for our western palates.
Masanga is a large, very poor village with a hospital (former leper hospital), without power (a few generators) or running water (but wells); the traditional houses built on a wooden structure with adobe walls and thatched roofs have almost all disappeared to the benefit of concrete blocks and metal plates roofs; cooking is done outside the house, on the ground, with pans in balance on three stones and a fire.
It is on a motorbike that I visit nine of the surrounding villages, among which is Rogbeshe, the village where Dil Se has supported scolarship fees for about 20 children for the last 2 years.
What beautiful walks!..when one does not get showered on. All those villages have retained a more traditionnal aspect than Masanga.
We are welcomeeverywhere in the same warm and flamboyant fashion. First, quickly go greet the village chief and the school teacher. Then, regrouping of children and parents for picture taking, careful noting down of names is required, there are many identical names. To get them to smile, a few funny faces almost always bear fruit.
People there possess virtually nothing but all radiate kindness and warmth.
Great stay and new experience. Why not go back if the opportunity arises ?
Pierre-Louis Levasseur