Going Home

I am writing this just after midnight on the plane from Freetown to Heathrow. I have always found that flying is like being in emotional suspended animation. Any excitement, or trepidation, or sadness, there might have been in the departures hall, switches off with the bump of the wheels leaving the runway. In less than 6 hours, normal life will be resumed with the sound of seatbelts being released and overhead lockers being opened, but for now, I am in a different place –  35,000ft above somewhere in North West Africa, feeling calm and clear-headed.

When I saw my boss last Friday, I told him that I had just had  a great two months. He had just presented me with a big hand-woven blanket from his home village, embroidered with my name and thanks from him and his family. I’m not exactly sure why my experience has been so good, but it has worked for me on lot of different levels. Professionally, it has been interesting and challenging; socially it has been fun; and Laszlo’s obvious enjoyment and fearless willingness to get involved during his visit has been great.

One of the things that has surprised me most about my time here has been the way it has brought back stories about things that happened to me in my twenties, when I was a VSO in Uganda. Quite a few people have asked me about those days (including Ugandan VSO’s who are too young to remember them)  and I have talked about the things that happened, including my experiences from the war there.

Many of the people I have met in Sierra Leone have experienced horrors in their lives that I hope I will never even dream of. Some of them will tell their stories freely, but others seem to be struggling to make sense of them. Even my most difficult experiences, of course, are absolutely nothing in comparison, but being here has made me realise how important it is to find a way to tell our stories – all the fragmented bits that add up to a life.

I don’t feel at all pessimistic about what I have seen and experienced. In fact my strongest impression is nothing to do with conflict, trauma or poverty, but about meeting people with a fundamental self-belief that would be the envy of many of us neurotic Brits (speaking for myself here, you understand). A friend of mine once gave me a fridge magnet that said – “Sing as though no one is listening; dance as though no one is watching; live as though heaven is on earth”. It has been my privilege to live and work for a while alongside people who really seem to know how to do that. I know I will never be able to dance like a Sierra Leonian (and don’t worry, I won’t even try) but I do sort of hope a bit of that attitude might have rubbed off.

So that's it from the Freetown Blog, but please forgive me one last self-indulgence. One of the tasks that I would normally have been doing over the past two weeks is writing Christmas cards. It is a bit late for that now, so please accept this home-made one with my very best wishes for the festive season and the coming year.