Trouble in Freetown.

Well, not trouble for us particularly, but it was definitely there.

There are times in Africa where you do the African thing, you travel like the locals in a Poda Poda (literal translation = ‘slow slow’) bus, jammed in five or six to four seats and feel very good about yourself for mingling. But then there’s times when you think fuck it and charter a taxi so you get a seat (or in this case a seat and a half as we had the full back three) to yourself. You can wear seatbelts and everything, and spread your legs, it’s all very luxurious.

We were on our way to Freetown and the coast for our final week or so, but on route Michael got a text from Amy out in Freetown (no signal for a good chunk of the journey, so it was delayed) saying there was a kick off in the centre. More information (which turned out to be totally wrong, due to idiots panicking) that it was engorging into a full on revolt and had already reached the beaches.

The driver and other occupants were totally unconcerned with this and continued on, dropping us off in one of the outer parts of Freetown (Kissy I think, though I may be wrong). Eventually we established it was far smaller scale than we had heard, limited to a couple of streets right in the centre (and for all that it’s no London, Freetown is not a small city) and so didn’t really affect us at all. Nevertheless we got ourselves bikes (for once the better option as the traffic was jammed with people trying to get out of the city, and they could do a bit of weaving) and gave them very firm instructions to get us to Congo Cross and avoid the affected areas entirely. They did a grand job, though it was a bit hair-raising (and more than a little bit fun if I’m honest, I love a bit of risky biking) and we got to Amy’s without a hitch.

The kick-off itself was less a revolt than a street brawl between the two major political parties. I don’t know the full details (will do some digging online shortly, I’d imagine some agency will have mentioned it, buried away in their international section) but the gist is that supporters of the party in power at some point took it upon themselves to raid the opposition’s political headquarters. In response, opposition supporters decided to besiege City Hall. It could almost be comical if it wasn’t for what happened to certain people who got caught in the middle of it. A number of rapes and deaths most notably, and then the police broke out the tear gas and eventually broke it all up (or maybe it was the army, or somebody else, well, someone did).

But we didn’t see a jot. We stayed in Freetown that night (stocking up on rum and cigars at one of the supermarkets first, call it beach preparation) and had a meal on Wilkinson Road with Amy and some of the Freetown volunteers. It was decent enough, and a pleasant enough night, but over quite quickly, and then the next day it was time to hit some beaches.