So where do all the old supermarket uniforms go?

Sierra Leone, that’s where.

Last week at the same point on my walk to drop my bin bag off at the dirty box * on two separate occasions I came across young men sporting supermarket uniforms.  The first was in the distinctive navy and orange of Sainsbury’s while second was sporting a pale blue Tesco number.

The range of t-shirts you spot while walking along are amazing and are often being worn by someone totally inappropriate.  There appears to be no gender differentiation in clothing here.  You will often see young men (usually okada drivers) carrying very Pink Barbie backpacks. Leaving work the other day I passed a guy wearing what was undoubtably a shirt meant for a girl – the pattern, shape and fabric just spelt out feminine.

For a look at Freetown fashion go here.

What has brought this to mind?  Well today I unexpectedly joined a meeting in a room where the air conditioning was not working.  My colleague had taken off his suit jacket to reveal that the checked shirt below was embroidered on the breast pocket and sleeve with the word “TESCO”. 

*Dirty Box is the Krio term for the local rubbish tips.  The large ones are found further out of town but every neighbourhood has their own.  It is a festering pile of detritus which is picked over by children, adults and dogs.  I bag my rubbish but the bag will be opened and anything worth reusing will be saved.  For this reason I now have my own recycling where I keep can, tins, glass and plastic bottles and cardboard in a separate bag and hand it to my local dirty box caretaker when I go there.  He seems to appreciate it as I always receive a warm greeting and many thanks.

Finally, a post about my work

In my posts so far I have not made much mention of work but that will change today.

I am working in the Directorate of Financial Resources of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation.  The objective of my role, Finance Manager, is to build capacity in Management Reporting.  When I arrived there was a lack of any type of management report on health sector expenditure as the historic role of the finance directorate has been to raise payment vouchers.  This is changing however and my boss is pushing for the directorate to produce more analysis of spending in the health sector.  Seven months in I have produced reports for the first and second quarters and am starting work on the third.

As a VSO volunteer I have an aim to build capacity within the staff of the Ministry.  A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to work on this aim at a workshop held in Bo.  This was a workshop to train health finance officers in the basic requirements of their roles and to introduce them to Excel so that cashbooks and other books of record can be maintained electronically. 

The workshop was held over three days with finance officers from all over the country attending.  They work in hospitals, district health management teams and headquarters.  The level of computer knowledge varied greatly across the group so three days working on the basics was highly valuable.  We had managed to source a number of computers so the training was actually hands on.  The next step shall be to hold smaller follow up workshops so that everyone has a chance to improve their skills.

Here are some images of the training in action

Driving Salone Style

As a VSO volunteer I have to rely on public transport to traverse the city on a daily basis.  My preferred method of transportation is walking but sometimes I have to take a taxi or an okada.  Taxis are my preferred method as the okadas employ their own rules which seldom match the laws of the land so going the wrong way up and down streets is the norm.

Last night I was off to the Senagalese restaurant with Aoife (on a visit from Makeni).  The restaurant is on Wilkinson Road which is a tarmaced four lane road (this is important).  We picked up a taxi which was going in the opposite direction from the way we wanted to go but the driver calmly performed a three point turn in the dual carriageway – this should have triggered alarm bells.

So off we went up Wilkinson Road and in a few moments the traffic was backing up badly.  All of a sudden the driver indicated left to, I thought, take a side street. Oh no he was pulling into the oncoming traffic on the other side of the carriage way in order to pass the lines of cars. I was incredulous.  “Can this really be happening?”  “ Surely this will end badly”  “We will hit another car”.  All these thoughts were coursing through my head. 

I hardly dared look at Aoife as my eyes were fixed on the headlights coming towards us – mesmerised may be the best word to use.  I was also laughing in a hysterical fashion as the driver shouted at the other drivers to get out of his way.  Surreal!

Our fellow passengers seemed unperturbed by the whole experience finding our dismay very funny.  Their reaction was that the journey would have taken much longer if we had been stuck in the traffic so it was the obvious action for the driver to take.  Obviously I’ve not been here long enough to look at things that way.

Another great Salone experience but not one which I would like to repeat.

Goodbye Rain ..... Hello Beach

The rainy season is slowly coming to an end.  It is still raining but the amazing downpours seem to now be consigned to the hours of darkness.  This is great for sleeping as they usually bring a breeze which cools my bedroom no end as the windows are never shut so I can enjoy the natural fan.

The days are now warming up again and temperatures in the 30s are not unusual.  Warm days equal beach days.  The Peninsula Road is slowly improving too as the rains fade and a world of opportunities for sand and surf has opened up.

In the last two weeks I have managed three trips: Tokeh, No2 River and Lakka.   For these I am very grateful to Marianne, Tommy and Ed for driving.  I had forgotten how warm and soft the water is and it is tempting to spend the day bobbing about in the waves. Wouldn't you?

Tommy and Carolyn take a rest from frisbee

Perfect place in the sun

New bikini!

Time at the beach also means fish.  My favourite is Baracuda Kebab with chips – lovely.  Vegetables may be lacking but always worth asking for extras if they have them.

The beach you’d think would be free of shopping opportunities but no, as the shopping comes to you in the form of sarongs, bags (of all shapes and sizes), hammocks, country cloth blankets, hairbands... the list goes on.  Here are a my recent purchases

Clutch bag and ipod h

Acronyms – you can never have too many...

Well not in this country!

At work I am constantly falling over acronyms as they appear to be the cement that binds the building blocks of development together – I mean NGO, INGO it starts there.   I suppose the most obvious ones are the UN Family, as my boss calls them, UNDP and UNFPA being two.  We have UK funding through DfID and more obviously from the US USAid. 

People are not immune from this shortening either.  It must be said it did take me a while to work out who this H.E. was that kept coming up in meetings.  His Excellency the President – oh a light bulb went on. At work I am constantly battling against my boss being referred to as the PA (Principal Accountant) as he is officially now the DFR (Director of Financial Resources).

Groups of people are then known by them too.  Who’s that you’ll ask and often a response may be that he’s an AGI or an ODI, or a VSO.  There is one group that seem to have missed out on this and that will be - oh he/she’s Craig Bellamy.  Not sure how that happened.

However, they are sneaking into my life outside work too.  So in my diary you’ll find I regularly run at AWC (Aberdeen Women’s Centre) and have been to a couple of Hog roasts at BHC (British High Commission).   When the power goes the cry is "No NPA".

The funniest one for me is that people become initials – Dr ABC, ABK, SAS on it goes.  It even affects me as one of my colleagues calls me MBT as a shortening of Mabinty.

 So TTFN...