The next day we caught an early taxi, with some nearby Canadians, to a place where we could get a similarly early taxi to Makeni. Transport in cars and vans here is odd, for a start there is a policy of more people than seats. In a five seater car for example you'll get at least seven people. The driver gets a seat to himself, two others get to go shotgun, and four in the back. Random crevices, boots and roofs can provide space for more people. Now I'm all for going African, but this was too soon, so we paid extra to have a seat each in one of the vans heading Makeni way.
When I arrived I met Tash and Gearoid, Michael's flatmates, and then got the whistlestop tour. I got to see the start of filming for the film on AIDS he is helping to fund / produce (which I brought equipment for from Britain) which is being directed by a somewhat studly local guy called Tyson. We had a wonder around the town, met his football team, saw Magbenteh hospital, and tried to get used to everyone staring at me and shouting. Of course I soon find out from a doctor that the trousers I'm wearing are bad trousers, because they look like army trousers, and wearing said evil trousers can get me arrested. Obviously my preference would be to avoid this, so after a trip to Fatima (beautiful, beautiful air conditioning - horrid, horrid financial corruption) and a spot of lunch (getting quite keen on Kasava, but don’t people here eat anything else) I made damn sure I got changed before witnessing the Epic Match.
This was Michael's team vs. a team sponsored by Flamingos, a local nightclub. It was quite a violent affair, there were a couple of impressive fouls, and victory was eventually attained by Michael’s bunch. He went on in the second half, the country’s love of the Apoto clearly doesn’t extend to football etiquette and Michael found himself as battered as his team. The support was quite full on too, Michael's team (Magbenteh, sponsored by a doctor from the hospital, Bernard, the same man who warned me of my imminent clothing arrest) had been told their supporters weren't allowed to attend because of a minor matter of getting violent. They came anyway, but mostly behaved themselves, though the attention from the young kids (more concentrated when you stand in one place for a while) started to get a bit annoying.
A night out followed, beers with the team (though most were Muslim, so stuck to soft drinks) and then out to Flamingos nightclub, notable for the bad music, lecherous blokes (I approved highly of this) and minging toilets.
Over the next few days I met various people and found my way around. I saw the town centre with it's domineering, unfinished monument, colourful shops and grandiose (not to mention shiny) banks. Had schawarma for lunch (this is my second time, and this time there were no chips) and then a walk around most of the town, taking in the Council and various other sights. I was quite amused to see, when visiting Michael's Council office, that his office appears to have been decorated in the manner of a late-Victorian opium den / brothal.
There's a pretty decent crowd here, unsurprisingly the white people tend to seek each other out, though the UN lot seem a bit distant from the rest. A lot of the talk seems to be around the volunteer work they do, and the staggering around of corruption which seems to pervade it all. One or two seem utterly sick of it all, one or two others seems to have their head firmly wedged in the sand (or to be more accurate wedged in the arses of the wrong people) and everyone else seems caught halfway.
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