Blog 5. Independence Day

Friday 27^th April 2012 marked Sierra Leone’s 51^st year of independence from colonial rule (us Brits), so what better reason to celebrate.

Following a brief storm through the night, lots of rain, booming thunder and brilliant flashes of lightning it was quite a slow start to the day. The main reason being Friday is a Holy day for Muslims, so the party would not start til after prayer.

When it finally did start you knew straight away what it was. All of the volunteers were in the ClubHouse when we heard a lot of noise outside and heading down the street were hundreds, maybe thousands of people all singing and dancing along to the music being played out of one of the vans.

At the very front of the crowd was one of the SaLone ‘devils’, a strangely dressed man who was being chased away by everyone. I am told this idea stems from the ‘secret societies’ that have existed here for many years.

The majority of people were dressed in red because that is the political colour of the current Government, though a few chose a more traditional African dress sense to party in, so long robes with lots of colours and jewellery. Some cheeky buggars even wore top hats or British safari helmets as a joke. Good job us Brits have a sense of humour.

Everywhere we went in the city the streets were blocked by parades, music blasting out so that everyone could dance along and have some fun.

One thing SaLoneans learned under our rule was how to party, drink in hand, which was usually their own form of ‘Moonshine’ or a can Carlsberg, the locals were enjoying themselves. Some more than others as a few were a bit rowdy, but celebrating none the less.

Especially so, when a famous SL rapper (who’s name I have forgotten) tried to drive past and the crowd swallowed the car up just to see or touch him.

One negative about the day was the very lousy thief. The wannabe crook put his hand in my pocket when we were in the middle of a big crowd and although my iPhone was there to be had, he grabbed my notepad instead. Silly boy.

He soon ran off when I grabbed a hold of him, but please don’t let this paint a bad picture of the people over here. So many of them are extremely kind and helpful (like my new best friend/security guard/ taxi driver Manga,), this lad was just an idiot.

To finish off we took our new friends Ed and Heather, a couple from London who were on holiday in SaLone to our house to share some chop (food) and reflect back on what had been a cracking Independence Day.