By Umaru Fofana
It is 05:45 am. Very early in the morning by any standards. In some countries this is when the food chain starts to move for the day. Bakeries that supply kids with bread throw their chains far and wide. The hot meal should be in schools before the kids arrive there. Tea and coffee being prepared too for the future generation. Handing-over notes are being prepared in offices as the day’s final shift rounds up.
In Sierra Leone children are not a priority,m if at all we care about them. In this largely one-shift work environment, public officials who are up at this time are wasting badly-needed hours because of the gridlock our traffic situation presents.
I have just left home after my Fajr prayers which I did a bit early. I cannot go out without a romance with God. Going to the northern town of Makeni for work and family. Driving myself, and alone in the car, at least up to this point.
I am using the Kissy Road axis through the east of Freetown because the traffic has not yet become solid. It will be farther and more time-consuming to use the Chinese-built hillside road, from where I live - Kingtom.
The universal east-west divide cannot be any starker in Freetown. People in the east, which has the vast majority of the population of this city which symbolises freedom, seem to live in squalor - perhaps near-servitude. Some of the most basic facilities are few and far between, and law and order is on vacation.
You have got to salute especially the poor and illiterate petty trader women - mostly middle-aged - who scamper out of rickety public transports, clutching their baskets, tying their Lappas and chasing and jockeying for positions in overcrowded, unmarked stalls in markets or beside the streets. As they surge forwards in their numbers with some chewing kola nut and clutching some plastic water to wash it down, the women wipe the beads of sweats which icicle down their face even in the relatively cool temperatures. What a breakfast!
The fight to eke out a living in this impoverished country blessed with mineral resources not well utilised, and human resources not well tapped. Who says my county's poor and women don't work hard!
There are young men around too. Many have just woken up from sleeping rough on the streets. They will be considered again when the next election cycle is here. Drugged or drunken and used as messengers of thuggery and sometimes mayhem. For now, they load the early morning trucks for a few leones - and also unload pockets of a few thousand leones.
Open sewers. Broken footpaths. Traders have taken over. Pedestrians struggle to walk on some. Other footpaths are ignored as some petty traders erect their stalls on them. You wonder what the roads authority are up to!
Drivers go utterly berserk and lawless. With no traffic police around they rule the streets. But it would be unfair to blame them entirely. With no parking bays for them, they stop and park for passengers wherever, whenever, however. At this time of day the flow is against the drivers in the city centre as almost all passengers are town-bound. And with all the Big Men living in the west of town - not expected to drive through here - the drivers and the police cannot care less! The former overload and the latter ignore - that is when they are around.
As smokes ooze out of corroding exhaust pipes of many of the Poda-Podas which still pass fitness tests year-in year-out, the nearby dumps billow out even thicker columns taking over the dark clouds disturbing the environment. When some in some other parts of the world use such stench emitted by the garbage to generate energy, here it suffocates and sickens the people some of whom eat nearby unperturbed. And die of unknown causes.
As I keep driving along Kissy Road, I see children queuing up for - some actually chaotically fighting over - water. They disconnect pipes leading to other homes to fetch water for their homes. What’s more is the number of children further at Bai Bureh Road. They line up to make it across the four-lane highway. In the semidarkness they struggle to cross the main highway with pales of water on their heads, fetched from afar. A slight blink by the driver could leave them knocked down. Starved of their sleep. Sleep they will definitely recoup when - or if - they go to school later. While the teacher will be teaching they will be sleeping instead of learning. The natural body reaction. The consequence is probably also predictable. Many of the children probably stayed up until late. Late to sleep, early to rise. Early to die - unhealthy. And without a good education. So much for investment into the country’s future!
Oh!!! In Waterloo. I see a man lying still on the street at 555. He has just been knocked down in the madness apparently by a passing motorists. Not sure if he's dead. I can't stop in the melée, not safe. People running helter-skelter. It is now passed 06:30 - a lot brighter but prospects to get transport at this time even darker.
OKADA or motorbike taxis are popping up from all over the place like a swarm of bees or even beetles. OKADA, that symbol of government failure to provide adequate transportation needs of its people or even provide jobs for the youth who inhale cold and emit sweat plying the routes. We all dislike them, but we cannot do without Okadas. Long gone are the days of doorstep taxi drop-off.
Hope is rekindled. I see hundreds of children in villages further into the provinces as I drive along. Well dressed in their uniforms, they are trekking to school. Striving to find their living in the future in ways different to the way their parents do today. Their faces are bright - and one can only hope their future is not blighted by the huge numbers of children who drop out of school before they complete junior secondary school. Especially the girls.
Returning to Freetown in the evening a couple of days later, it seems like people fleeing from war. Throngs tread on along Kissy Road. Transport grossly inadequate. Like in the morning there is a struggle. This time the other way round - leaving the city centre. And the market women carry their baskets on their heads. Others carry whatever they are carrying. They walk towards Upgun Turntable. Those who are lucky get transport there. Those not so lucky continue the walk. Where are the "100" buses bought under controversial circumstances, one wonders.
Before I forget, the issue of the professional beggars is not lost on me. I say PROFESSIONAL because many others who are not wheeled in wheelchairs or carry white sticks, harass people for alms. The professional beggars have real competition. On the one hand against those white-collar beggars and on the other against motorists who have little sympathy for their wheelchairs or their sightlessness. Tough times indeed - for both the able-bodied and the disabled. It seems those who work really hard, get hardly worthily paid. And those who steal the country’s resources, hardly break a sweat. And their own children get served tea and hot food readily placed on a table made of glass, if not gold. Indeed, when poverty is criminal and deadly.
(C) Politico 01/03/16
