As many can tell from my recent entries I am on the mend - body, mind, and soul. I figured this may be a good time to talk about day-to-day life here in the ‘world’s poorest country’. Maybe you have been wondering how a city built for 300, 000 but hosting over one million people functions without electricity, paved roads or even garbage pick up – well to be quite honest the best it can! Traffic is left up to each motor vehicle operator to get where their going - left turns through 2 lanes of traffic and all! (no electricity means no traffic lights)…at a handful of intersections throughout the city there are traffic wardens directing traffic but maneuvering through the hoards – and I mean hoards – of pedestrians makes everyday seem like the most crowded day at Stampede (for those of you familiar with Calgary’s ‘greatest show on earth’) and you have the privilege of driving right through the middle of it…honking your horn as a means of communicating…few rules – no enforcement of them…proceed at your own discretion.
Public transit – although it’s a private industry – consists of two modes of transport: 1. Cars – like taxicabs - but who pick up people along the way, ideally as many as their car will fit, and who go to designate places only not wherever you wish, usually traveling short distances. 2. Vans – like Volkswagen vans – these travel more specific routes, picking up people along the way, but traveling greater distances to key drop off and pick up points. It is common to see as many as 7 people in a small sized economy car and as many as 15 people traveling in a van. A few main roads in the city are paved, but the majority of ‘side roads’ – although one time paved – have degenerated into a condition 4x4 and SUV’s were made for and even then you’d be putting your vehicle through quite a workout.
Garbage is another great problem in this city…there are no city mechanisms in place for garbage collection, so garbage is thrown out into the streets constantly, any time I wish to dispose of something I just throw it off my balcony onto the street below, mind you about a one minute walk away from me (and these are ‘littered’ – don’t mind the pun haha - throughout various communities) is a big burning pile of garbage that burns day and night – when the wind blows from a certain direction I have the privilege of smelling burning garbage right in the comfort of my home – no worries though most garbage is still just thrown in the streets and not on the smoldering pile. About a week ago was national ‘clean up day’…years ago one of the former military governments declared a national clean up day (monthly I think) although this has not been in practice for some time…the current government declared last Saturday to be a ‘clean up day’ all work stopped for the morning the military was out to monitor and enforce the governments declaration – apparently there was an investment forum going on and Freetown was expecting investors from all over to descend upon the city (so the government insisted the city be cleaned up before their arrival – which was a good idea in my opinion cause this city is filthy). However due to the governments lack of resources – or should I say mismanagement of resources – many communities sat with giant piles of garbage on their streets blocking traffic etc. until trucks were able to come and clear away the garbage to a burning pile of trash near you!
I hope this satisfies any curious readers…there are many more ‘day to day’ activities I could speak of but I’ll save those for another entry…please feel free to send me questions or curiosities about any of the daily happenings here in the City of Freetown! Peacelove&cleanstreets
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