Young man, how are you?
Who promoted you to one-star General? Who gave you one-star General? Charles Taylor or who?
-Yes Sir.
Really? Because you fought well?
-Yes Sir.
Well, where did you fight, to be given one-star General? You know, you?re not even WORTH being corporal?because I was with you here two weeks ago-right? And I told you that I don?t want misbehavior of these roads?and then two or three days ago you misbehaved again, you know, your people misbehaved again.
Today you lost your rank (whips beret off Small General?s head), you understand, you lost your rank. Right?
-Yes Sir (nods).
You are no longer a General and you are going to hand in your weapons NOW (said while bouncing with a hand up to (formerly) Small General?s face). You understand?
-Yes Sir.
Because I came here and I spent one and a half hours with you, I talked to the whole lot of you. And I told you don?t harass people on this road. You didn?t listen. I am not here to fool around with you. I am not here to fool around with REBELS. This is a PUBLIC road, you understand?! And people who are passing here are CIVILIANS-and even if they are, you know, MODEL, you must treat them like human beings. Treat them in the way you would treat other people, you understand?
(formerly) Small General stands there, still nodding as General Opande walks away in disgust.
That's the whole of Small General's demotion. I wanted to have it down in full. I'm currently screening our Liberia footage from the comfort and security of my well-heated Pew office in Washington, DC. Very bizarre it is, too. It's been great to see everyone back from there adventures-though half of us are already scheming on how to get back to our respective countries. I needed another week, really. And I need to know how the story ends with these guys. You will need to know, too, I think.
I've returned to the harsh reality of Iraq and Afganistan ruling the American air waves, so I intend to settle in with my footage and try to write a print story while I work up a clip reel. That's the plan for the next three weeks here. That and sleep. Which is sounding really good right about now.
One final thing I never did manage to capture on film: large trucks that stop dead in the middle of the road to allow ducks to cross. That's right, ducks. It's considered bad luck to kill them in Sierra Leone, so they're plentiful and fearless. Maybe that's why I want to go back. Ducks.
Yes, fans, they're here. Finally (thank you Josh!). Color photos courtesy of Rob, black and whites are mine, we think :-). We'll right the upside down ones soon. Just thought we'd test ya. Click on the pictures and they'll get larger.
I itch. That?s what I?m taking from Sierra Leone, one giant itch. Interestingly, I?ve apparently been bitten by several different sorts of insects, each with its own distinct shape size and color of bite. I have bruise marks down my neck, a series of odd decidedly ringworm-like circular numbers on my stomach, some boring little lumps further down my legs and the mark of the Champion Fly on my face.
The Champion Fly merits a word here because, though it may be nearly Thanksgiving in the Western World it?s Champion Fly season in Eastern Sierra Leone. And what a bummer. These little bastards look nothing like flies, by the way. They are little orange and black worm-like creatures that I think can still fly but seem to be most effective sticking to the ceiling and dropping down onto their prey. Apparently it?s when you squish them that their nasty body fluids leave their mark, creating a nasty blister/burn on your skin within hours. If you happen to touch any other part of your body with the hand that squashed them, the juice will burn that part, too. For some odd reason most of the Champion Fly casualties I witnessed were to the face, swollen eyes and the like. Seb, you will remember, our British military man in Kailahun, was suffering Champion after-effects during my visit, though he gamely allowed me to keep filming.
Champion Flies or no, Kailahun is my favorite place in Sierra Leone, seconded by Makeni.
Kenema, a small diamond mining hub, I didn?t like at all. It was sleazy, though more ?modern? than the other towns I?d seen, it was modern in a sold-out and cheap sort of way. It?s one of those places where people hope that luck will happen to them and if it doesn?t they aggressively ask for money. They were shameless. Colin had set me up with a seasoned Brit ?copper,? Mick Quimby, who, bless him, ran me around his town in the day I?d allotted it in our desperate search for diamond mining and actual diamonds. We hit pay dirt with the mines, though poor Mick suffered repeated requests for his wallet, watch, my camera, and just plain cash for the duration of my shoots. The other thing about diamond mining in Sierra Leone is that it remains a game regulated basically in name only, although in the Lome Peace Accords there was a clause specifically designed to set the government up to regulate and give money back to the people. Of course.
Diamond mining, at least the mining I saw in Kenema, is an extremely low-tech proposition. It begins around seven in the morning, when workers go to a sort of quarry, where they pound rocks into fine gravel, load it into burlap sacks (I?m guessing of about 100-150 pounds each, but that?s just a guess) which they then throw onto their heads and carry to the place where the ?mining,? or panning is done, a series of pools of brackish water that they stand in while meticulously rinse the gravel from the pits. It?s the gravel, not the water that contains the diamonds. Though we didn?t witness the find of a single one. I had been filming the breaking of rocks for about 15 minutes before I realized that although I had seen pick axes in the market the day before and assumed that?s what they were breaking the rock with, they were simply bashing the shit out of it with lead pipes. Not for the faint-hearted, my friends. Nor is the actual mining.
Miners work in teams of four or so, for a very small amount of money (the going rate for all nominal jobs in Sierra Leone is around $1-2/day), and they get to split a sort of finder?s fee if any of them finds a diamond. It?s a surreal sight, to come across a series of brown pit-pools in the middle of the jungle, with a bunch of guys in tattered clothes swishing their pans while other guys feed their piles of gravel?overseeing the workers are some ?boss men? who sit under umbrellas on tree branch benches while the rest do the hard work. I didn?t find out what it takes to become a boss man. I just wanted to get a feel for what fueled the conflict. When they finished, I watched the workers strip down and bathe in the same rusty pools they?d been rinsing gravel in.
Mick aside, I was happy enough to leave Kenema.
Back to Kailahun, my final destination. I did a lot of the things I hadn?t had time to do before: Seb and Ross getting haircuts from the Pakistani professional (who gave a single haircut-short!), shaving, on another patrol (yes, we got another flat, though not a dramatic flat), Seb shopping in the market, and Team Leader Richard.
Richard is a cool guy from Zambia (nod to Josh) and I wanted to talk to Richard for a much-needed African (UN military observer-I?ve interviewed Sierra Leonean civilians) perspective. I had been hearing the Western Europeans complain about the work ethics and motivation of their African counterparts and I wanted Richard?s take on that, among other things (I?d also heard that he was quite a good leader). Richard said that he had felt some tension when he took over as Team Leader from a Brit who?d apparently set quite a precedent. Although Richard didn?t call it discrimination, he said that a couple of men had tested him?one had even gone so far as to have written the daily report, meant to come from Richard, in extremely poor English, as if written by a dunce. Richard caught the guy out and told him that wasn?t kosher. After a while, said Richard, the team got the picture and the issue resolved itself. Richard tells me all of this with a smile, as we discuss leadership and the difficulties of leading so many different nationalities (he oversaw a Jordanian, Canadian, Brit, Tanzanian, Malian, Malaysian, Croatian, and Russian, among others, while I was there)-Richard?s strategy is to have a sort of sliding scale of tasks?assigning the most critical to those who take the most responsibility on down. Seb told me that his biggest frustration was the gap between his British military get-it-done-and-get-it-done-now-hop-to-it-ness and the way a lot of these guys are used to working. Richard just works with what he?s got. Which, as both pointed out, is probably more effective in Africa. Especially when you combine Africa with the UN?s mandate to mix so many nationalities together?
In order to be a military observer (MILOB), you must meet three criteria:
-speak English
-know how to drive
-be an officer in your country.
The Kailahun MILOB from Mali didn?t speak English and failed several driving tests so I witnessed his going-away dinner ?this after seven months of apparently service-less duty served in Kailahun. At least this guy was sent back. I?ve heard stories of people who heartily deserved to be sent back but weren?t because the countries they come from said that they would remove all nationals from a mission if that happened. Which would be a political debacle. Jacques Klein, leading the charge over in Liberia, told me that one of the clauses he built into his relationships with contributing countries was the ability to send back nonviable candidates.
Another complicating factor is money. Countries get from $600-$1000 for each soldier sent on a mission, which is why the Bangladeshis and Pakistanis comprise so many of the UN ground troops in these places. Fortunately, they seem by and large to be well-liked and respected by the people in Sierra Leone, unlike the Nigerians, who have a reputation for being trigger-happy and, more than other countries, having legions of prostitutes spring up around their battalions. The UN pays a lot better than I had thought it would. Money and mercenaries. Yep, another topic in this film, though I?m not sure how big it will be.
In Kailahun I interviewed ?General? Koker, a former government soldier-cum-UN-security-guard of the MILOBS housing compound still suffering psychological effects from the war. Koker claims to be a descendent of a grand line of Kokers in Sierra Leone, those who befriended the first whites in the country. He took Seb and I to a place called the ?slaughterhouse,? a dank building splattered with marks that the General claimed were blood stains. Seb thought that they could indeed be blood stains and said that he?d seen nothing else like it in the buildings he?d been in here. The marks, whatever they were, reached above my head. Seb said that would make sense if the RUF had been hacking at people rather than shooting them to death.
I also interviewed my only woman, a certain ?Madame? who rents the building to the 20 or so MILOBS I?d been staying with. She?s pretty certifiable and you can?t tell which of her war stories are true, but her strong desire for the UN to stay in Sierra Leone was believable. She said that without their help she would be a prostitute. Which is, I think, and exaggeration, as she currently runs what she claims is the only day care in Sierra Leone and has several properties to boot. She would like the UN to give her $50,000 to help her school, and, when I pointed out that might not be too likely, especially given that the UN?s mandate in Sierra Leone was technically pretty much limited to security, she said, ?OK, $30,000.?
(Parenthetically:
I had to work harder than I?d thought to catch that magic light of my first couple of days.
I found myself caught in an interview dilemma: though I tried to take interviews as people could give them to me, they would inevitably get better and better and more comfortable with me the longer I hung out with them. Thus Colin and Seb?s final interviews wound up being important, though stylistically I?m not sure how they?ll be worked in?i.e. it would have been ideal to do the one big long interview at once and get it all but the more we went along the more they would tell me stuff off camera that I would want to get on camera?and I?d try to get it on the go but it didn?t always work out that way.
And, correction: the kids are really yelling, ?Pakistani,? rather than ?Paki,? as we pass, I believe. And they do it more often than not because the Pakistanis connote gifts. Only the really sophisticated kids know that some of us are ?Bleetish.?)
Stories Untold:
I meant to do a radio story on rehabilitated chimpanzees?chimps who were supposedly kept by the RUF rebel forces and in need of being rehabilitated from their evil ways?which Would have been a story, but the chimps were actually formerly pets of upper class people with money, not rebel soldiers, and the rock throwing that I?d been told was a symptom of their distress was simply alpha male chimp behavior, and my radio equipment was all stolen from me, methinks during the ?Alfred incident,? anyway, so I was recording with my camera mic?it was a bit of a story-that-wasn?t. Though it was a good way for Rob and I to spend his final afternoon in Sierra Leone. The closest I got to a chimp needing rehabilitation was an alcoholic chimp. Not really my story.
Then there was the Special Court?which I still think is a fabulously important story, but I didn?t have the time to give it it?s due, as there are too many important aspects to it, from the local infighting between it and the Truth and Reconciliation Committee to the larger international issues of American will and Charles Taylor.
?ChrisMus?-a tolerant Muslim story I meant to do for Ramadan, because it?s true that the flavor of Islam in Sierra Leone is mild, and Sierra Leoneans open their important meetings with both Christian and Muslim prayers. The Muslims often drink, too, and I had thought of opening the story with the bars who were stocking up extra beer for the weekend before Ramadan, knowing the Muslims would be drinking heavily before their holy holiday began. But no, didn?t get that one either. Also because I had been told that one of the reasons that people were optimistic for Sierra Leone?s future peace was that the war was not religious, but it wasn?t quite the story I?d thought it would be.
Ditto the psychiatric story. I had heard, with shock and horror, that there had been no addressing of psychological wounds from the war, and I thought this was a good story. Especially given that there was only one psychologist in the country, and he had been forbidden from practicing his trade ?but then I met someone from an NGO who was trying to do just that, provide counseling, and that story was already what I thought it wasn?t. Though the truth is that there are huge psychological wounds that haven?t been healed but I ran out of time.
So, sayeth our British friends, at the end of the day I made the film rather than the print or radio stories my focus and can still name a dozen or so scenes I would like to get and who knows? But I think and hope that with the 70 hours of tape we shot in the country we have a story. The story goes on, however, and I want to know how it ends.
I?ve just got confidential information that we may see some big bad shit go down in Liberia Tomorrow, so the UN?s Chapter 7 mandate to shoot if necessary may be tested this week. Part of me would love to be there in Liberia as it all happens. The other part of me is watching in astonishment as new bug bites keep showing up on my body. Not pretty. Yet colorful.
Although there is so much more to say, note and observe I?ve got to go now. Will do more and hopefully get photos posted too as time goes by. I?ve tried to share all that I can but there is so much more.
Here?s to my brothers still in Africa: a drink and a hot shower and cool Cadbury chocolate bar in your honor.
All right, I'm settling into the absence of my boy and had a productive morning and can, therefore, legitimately check in for real.
But before I get to Monrovia I have to tell you about a little non-event that happened as I was passenger in a British owned and operated Defender (yes! for you afficianados-hunter green) this afternoon. Well, I'll start with my morning, which began with a little quiet shooting across the lagoon from my hotel at early morning fishermen, then I wound up stopping to shoot a man giving shave haircuts with a comb and a razor blade on the side of the street-which led to a series of impromptu interviews with four of the men who'd been watching because, they told me, they had something to say. And they did.
Three out of four were of the opinion that the UN should give them more money-as in them, personally, because they were out of work and hungry (they didn't look as if they were living lives of luxury, but I will say that they looked clean and fed). When asked what they thought of the notion that (a) the job of the UN was creating and maintaining security so that Sierra Leoneans could then create their own opportunities and (b) the UN and the international/NGO community has already and continues to pour millions and millions of dollars into Sierra Leone and would like to soon see some return on their investment and (c) the UN will be leaving, or at least mostly gone, by December 2004, they said that the money that was being given didn't make it to the little man (there's that "Corruption!" again). But they didn't seem to worried for the security of Sierra Leone when the UN was gone-they were more concerned about jobs and food. Which is ultimately good for the future of this country, I imagine.
The fourth man, a student at university (I would put him at around 30-33), wanted to thank the UN and the international community for their help and said that he wanted his Sierra Leonean brothers to start doing things for themselves. At first I thought he was putting me on, but he clearly disagreed with his three friends, who had clearly believed their respective messages, so I thought that was interesting. Of course, my new friends would like to see me again, so I had to tell them that it would be a busy week for me.
After this brief insight into the Sierra Leonean psyche and hair style (uniformly shaved for men, lovely braid patterns and odd reddish wigs for women-learned on earlier forays) I hit River Number Two with said British Defender owner. River Number Two, for those of you who aren't in the know, is considered "Paradise Beach" by all. It is also a big $$ earning locally-run cooperative that takes us whiteys (at least half of whom are Lebanese, by the way) for all we deserve. It's a lovely, garbage-free white sand beach complete with the requisite thatched roof huts. I had hit my British colleague up because I'd yet to see this icon of luxury and thought that I could justify a short trip if I took my camera to document the "new face of Sierra Leone." Within hours, we were back on the road, with the Defender's first flat tire.
A small crowd gathered as was of course going to happen, and a man in a white shirt stepped out, took charge, undid the nuts (or are they bolts?) in a jiffy and basically did a full half of the tire change-and then walked away. If you've never been to Africa you will say, "Yeah, and??" But if you have been to most places in Africa, or to many other places, you will understand that a flat tire can be the beginning of many bad things, the very least of which 10 "helpful" hands who then later ask you for money. This man just walked away before we had time to thank him. It was a simple gesture that will have me thinking for a while.
------
But what about LIBERIA?? You all want to know. I've rambled on so long now that I really must get back to logging footage, but I'll give you some tidbits:
Monday:
Land. Hit UN office around 4 p.m. Jacques Klein, the Big Cheese in charge of the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL to you) happens to have a free moment at 5, so I wonder-woman in the bathroom while Rob runs around like a mad dog for several hours in a desperate attempt to procure us a room for less than $180/night. Rob succeeds, in the form of a convent we get for $25/night. Baaaaasic. No AC, fan, shared bathroom, but safe. I interview Klein, who is quite the character. Klein explained how this mission has a Chapter Seven mandate, which allows UN peacekeepers/makers to kill. Though they haven't had to yet, Klein says they will if they have to. Which remains to be seen. Klein is of the opinion that a few good men who can strike "surgically" will do the trick.
We collapse.
Tuesday:
We visit Internally Displaced Persons-IDPs (from the war) at a staduim far out of town. This is sad but not as sad as the IDPs we then visit in a former Masonic temple. The sleeping quarters we saw in the staduim were at least separated by walls, or at least some of them were. The temple was layers of wide rooms without walls, where people lived, ate, changed, slept, were sick and did what they had to do in full view of all. We saw many who were just curled up sleeping on mats. I had imagined that the place might stink, but Rob said that it didn't (though for those who want to know, many times during his trip Rob said I was very happy to have no sense of smell--I never heard him say, "Wow, it's too bad you can't smell This!"). They had outhouses outside and even a crude playground, but it was the inside that got to me.
We also shot as much Monrovia visuals as we could get, including some good UN checkpoints. UN personnel here are armed and wear helmets and body armour. Because although things are secure in Monrovia, you never know. The air is still tense and we watched a MODEL (splinter group of the LURD rebels who were fighting Charles Taylor) truck get pulled over at the checkpoint right in front of us. It's funny how a bunch of guys standing up in the back of a pickup can seem threatening.
I'd been harrassing people all day long in an effort to get out of Monrovia, preferably on patrol with a Bangladeshi or Nigerian batallion, and I had been given the number of the UNMIL Force Commander, Lt. General Opande, who had forgotten about me after the first time I called. I think on a whim, because he'd forgotten, he invited me to go out with him the next day. Score!
Wednesday:
It wasn't until we boarded the helicopter, half an hour late, that I believed that we were going to go on patrol with Opande. Our flight was full with random military characters from places like the Philippines and France, but my favorite were the two BAD ASS-looking (and that's what counts, no?) Canadian Special Force dudes. I've never seen so much gear attatched to human beings as these guys were sporting--guns, radio collars, canteens, pouches of shit that just looked cool, dangerous, and ripped forearms that let you know they knew how to use it all. My pacifist civilian self didn't want to be impressed, but I was. It's especially impressive how these guys dangle out of the open helicopter door as you're about to land, then jump out as it's hitting the ground, putting themselves first in the line of fire and defense.
Our first stop really had us wondering whether we would need a little defense. Though the Special Force guys later told us that the scene was relatively tame, imagine a group of gun-weilding teenaged boys running full-speed in your direction, holding their guns high above their heads, cheering wildly. Literally, wildly. There was much hooting and shouting and dancing as the General stepped out of the helicopter. They were saying, "We want peace," as we got closer. I have to say that it was a sight that made me wonder how fast the adreneline could change. Hence the bodyguards.
Opande carries a walking stick, like most (all?) generals, I suppose. A British-trained Kenyan, he has a certain flair and style that works well for the camera, as he is well aware. He proceeded to cruise into the crowd smacking his stick against several legs and bottoms, clearing a path, establishing who was in charge. And he was. We proceeded in the caravan to the village center, where some rickety wooden chairs and a table sat in the middle of mud huts with thatched roofs. Completely at ease, Opande sat down and listened to the leader, a lanky rastafarian with a crazy look in his eye and diction that was even crazier tell his story. There was apparently some in-fighting between rebels, who should, after the peace treaty signed in August, now be former rebels. Opande listened, and then basically told the leader that he would take no more shit and neither would the UN-and that he could either return with food or --else! When food was mentioned, the surrounding group of rebels (who you did have to feel a bit sorry for-in their tattered tee shirts and flip-flops) brought their fists to their chests. They all want food.
Then the show was over and the boys ran around celebrating with their rocket launchers and guns in the air.
We flew to a village where we were to find another rebel leader who wasn't there. So we left, and flew on to Camp Number One, the home of Small General.
There are certain scenes you know will be in your movie. This is one of them:
Small General had a very bad day. Opande walked right up to him--and Opande is not short while Small General, as you might guess, is. Small General had made the mistake of leaving his maroon beret with a star on his head. Opande wanted to know who had made Small General a General. Small General had to confirm that, indeed, it had been Taylor. "There is only ONE General here!" declared Opande, who went on to say that he was hereby Demoting Small General. A sweep of the hand and the beret is gone, tossed aside, in front of all of Small General's troops. Small General had been a very bad boy, it seemed, allowing or encouraging rapes, summary road blocks and general terrorization of the local civilians in the time since the last time Opande had been to visit him about such matters.
Oooops. Small General had also apparently been neglecting his troops' training, as they weren't nearly clean in their formation-forming as the previous group we'd visited were. Opande stepped aside and let the current Minister of Defense (himself quite a controversial character, a man who was the Minister of Defense under Taylor) rip the troops up one side and down the other. Which was kind of interesting, given that he knew many of them personally. He used the word "bullshit" a lot. They were given two days to gather their guns and then the UN was going to return to collect them--a sort of pre-disarmament because they had lost the right to keep guns on their person before the official disarmament began.
The whole time, we were surrounded by a convoy of several UN vehicles that had traveled overland to meet and, presumably, defend us. It's the guys who travel in these overland convoys who take real risks. We just hopped back on the helicopter.
That was a great day.
Thursday:
More quick visuals caught on the run before we got a ride to the airport. All in all, we were happy with what we were able to get done there.
Monrovia is edgy, expensive and not travel friendly (much like, we were told, Sierra Leone a couple of years back). They have no electricity outside of generators and haven't for the whole FOURTEEN YEARS of war!!! But their roads have Sierra Leone beat hands down, and electricity is a fresh commodity here as well. Makeni and Kailahun don't have any power that doesn't come from a generator--which is something that just IS a part of my film, the hum of generators. Bummer. We took many taxis (crammed four to the back, two in front--with all of our gear) and weren't mugged or killed, much to our UN colleagues' astoundment.
Nope, the big moment happened to Rob, during his eight-hour stay at Lungi airport, on the way to London. When he got to London he noticed that our big bag had been ripped open, lock be damned. He's not yet counted the damage. I guess I'm grateful that it happened on his way out.
Now I really do need to log. Just wanted to give my fans something to chew on while I'm in Kenema (diamond country!) and back to Kailahun. I'll be out till Friday because I have much to do before I leave.
I dedicate my sunburned bottom to all of you in snowy, rainy and otherwise chilly climates. Sounds romantic but I just have to walk out the door to have my shirt soaked through with sweat. The days grow progressively hotter as we move into the dry season. Hamdullah.
Less than a week to go-yikes!
"Without him, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere... When we told him of
the MOP debacle, there was a hard-flint twinkle in his eyes, his jaw jutted
in barely contained frustration and he said, in an ominous tone, "?'ll take
care of it. You shall not be left stranded on the gravel of the Mammy
Yoko helipad, not on my watch". Kemal Saiki, fixer extraordinaire,
he-who-make-things-happen-fast as the the local paramount chiefs and
natives call him, whipped his cell phone out of his safari vest pocket
and barked a few orders. Moments later we could hear the whoop-whoop-whoop of an approaching big, WHITE, helicopter which soon swooped us on the
shores of Liberia and the halls of Monrovia... " (sic)
This is the beginning of a suggested entry of "Keeping the Peace," friends and relatives. And, truth be told, it's a smart move on Kemal's part to give us the helicopter rides and the access to all, big and small, to, in short, make it happen. We're heading into an interview with the head of the mission, Alan Doss, having just come back from Monrovia.
Now THERE is a difficult place to be a UN peacekeeper in the early stages of the game, with a third of your force on the ground and no solid infrastructure in place. More on that craziness later but I will just say that the highlight was touching down in a helicopter with the UN force commander and his Special Force dudes-with-more-defined-forearms-than-a-normal-athlete's-thighs in the middle of the jungle nowhere land so that the General could kick some proverbial rebel ass.
My point being, I've been set up to fall in love with these guys, with all of their flaws, with the 3 A's of mission life: alcoholism, adultry and apathy, the incredible amount of cash that can be involved in signing up for the peacekeeping cause, the accusation that peacekeeping forces help the spread of AIDs...The fact is that I've come to see what it means to be a peacekeeper primarily from Their perspective. I'm not doing a hard-core investigative story because I believe that I'm getting more and better material this way (plus, the helicopter rides, though quite uncomfortable, are cool).
And so, we've fallen in love. I think we're getting the story I came here to tell, and I think that it will show the good, the bad, and the ugly, but I also think that an intelligent, balanced consideration of the ugly will be one of my greatest challenges. At the end of the day I have to face the fact that I've been "in-bedded" without even realizing it. Hmmmm...but, as Rob pointed out, especially after being in Liberia, life can be hard for the guys with the blue hats, too.
In the meantime, Rob and are I wearily content with our Liberia mission. Very.
More on that to come.
We're back in Freetown, after a fabulous week in Makeni that began with the classic Bad Africa Day.
We were moving out of the guest house I'd been staying in, which meant that I needed to remove all of my things, including the money belt I had deposited with the house office manager and report researcher and guy who'd generally been taking care of my personal needs since my arrival on the scene, Alfred. 'Fred and I had developed what seemed to be a healthy relationship and I was even considering making him a character in the film because he was funny in an understated way, smart.
Alfred and I hadn't managed to meet up for the money belt handover over the weekend, but I wasn't too concerned. The International Crisis Group is a prestigious publisher of reports on hot spots around the world, and Alfred was its representative. As such, when he suggested that I put my money belt into the ICG safe for safekeeping I thought that would probably be the best thing to do, after all. I deposited $3,000 plus credit card, passport and plane tickets with Alfred. I felt safe.
Monday morning rolls around and Rob and I had to figure out how to get to Makeni, as the helicopter for Makeni doesn't leave on Monday, and our MOP hadn't been filed, we were looking at public transportation, i.e. "poda-poda," mini bus usually full till people hang out the sides and the roof lugs under the weight of piles of bags of all descriptions. Alfred said that he could possibly take us to Makeni, as he might be making his own trip there, so we waited until after one for a sad Alfred to come us with my final wet laundry from the guest house and my money belt.
Well, my friend 'Fred wasn't too forthcoming with ye olde money belt. When I got into his little red car and asked him about the money belt he pointed to the glove compartment and said, "You had $3,000 in it, right?" I replied affirmatively and he told me that he had "borrowed" $1,100 from me. Uh, WHAT??!! I thought about that for a couple of minutes and then told Alfred that I wasn't really cool with that thought. He started to go into a long story about how he had needed to temporarily borrow the cash because his two bosses needed him to clear up some outstanding bills before they left the country for a month-long tour of West Africa. At this point Rob finally piped up from the back seat, asking Alfred why he hadn't Called me, since he had my cell phone number, to request a loan. For this there was no adequate answer, and we had a quiet ride to the poda-poda station. We were taking the poda-poda because Alfred's four wheel drive had a flat tire, and we were tired. Alfred arranged for us to purchase all of the seats of the poda-poda and for $44 U.S. we were on our way, having wasted a day, to Makeni. It was not happy-making. But Alfred promised to drive himself up to Makeni on Wednesday with my money. I told Alfred that I had faith in him but that my husband, a very Western male, viewed things slightly differently and I didn't know what would happen if we Didn't see Alfred in Makeni on Wednesday but it wouldn't be good. Rob and I later had to laugh about Alfred's choice of $1,100, baffled that it wasn't either all of the money, or less. I guessed that it was kind of him to leave me more money than he had taken. I still wanted to believe that it had been borrowed.
When we got to Makeni Colin laughed and told me that he thought that the money was gone. Seriously, however, he offered to head down to Freetown with me and "take Alfred for a drive," an old-school practice that Colin felt was worth a try in this case. I felt somehow reassured. If I were ever in danger, Colin would be one of my top rescuer candidates.
Colin had in any case managed to safely ensconce us at a British NGO guest house in Makeni. We had a fine room alone to ourselves with a double bed, functional mosquito net, private cold water shower, and, most importantly, an air-conditioner that piped out really cold air. It was probably the best five nights of sleep we'll have while we're here--for $15/night.
We spent most of our days following Colin and his CIVPOL sidekick, Uwe, a Canadian, through their meetings with local police. We did get out to the best-named village on our trip-the sleepy hamlet of BatKanu, where we found local police who hadn't had an arrest in a couple of weeks. The best interactions, however, were with the local Makeni police force, a sorry lot if I've ever seen one (I'm taking this assessment from my CIVPOL colleagues as well). The theme of this week was accountability and transparency, and discussing the many ways a police man could get into trouble if he hadn't properly filled out his "pocketbook," or notepad, regarding police-related matters. In a morning survey of the troops, few had filled out the notebooks correctly, some not at all, and others had never been issued the books because they were illiterate. They got to hear about that, but I really pitied the man who had somehow lost about $20 of a suspect's money-saying some had been used to pay off the suspect's hotel bill and he didn't know where the rest of it was. There was a sort of written account of the money but it was neither legible nor comprehendable, apparently. The talking-to Colin gave this man put my mother in her heyday to shame.
I learned a couple of valuable lessons this week: I'd been working alone, and needed to learn to direct and produce for Rob--i.e. communicate exactly what I thought needed to be shot and done. Once I did that, life was good-but there were a couple of interesting interview moments when we were trying to communicate while I was interviewing, which was not too effective. I learned that the best question I could ask people here was, believe it or not, whether they had any questions for me. That seemed to take them completely off their guard and get them rolling right along with all that they had Really wanted to tell me. I should have put a radio microphone on Willie the policeman when he was talking with Colin because the surrounding police station noise is quite distracting and the exchange was amazing--though my notion to have Colin interview Willie rather than me was a good one. I relearned that, in situations like this, when some things and comments only happen once, you have to roll more than you'd thought. You mic all of the time. Your subjects just have to live with that, which is why you choose willing subjects. I learned that you have to take what you can every single fucking time. I had held off on my major interview with American Amy Baker (remember her, the original raison d'etre for my trip to Makeni) for this week when Rob would be there to help me and she got hideous pinkeye--rather than let her wear sunglasses in our interview we shot really wide on the prettiest scene we've yet done. I've given in to the fact that I'll have to do more than one interview with my main characters because the more I learn the more I need to know.
Willie told me that he hadn't taken much action when Amy and I had a flat because he didn't know us and we hadn't asked him to intervene. I thought that was both clever in a way and indicative of the way the police seem to do business around here. Willie is a hard worker who was up and working to keep the traffic flowing when we left Makeni at eight this morning, so what can you say? What are the standards and how to judge? That's peace building.
We met my favorite named character, "Base Marine," a former RUF fighter who currently operates a pineapple farm, a bar, a bakery, is doing HIV/AIDS education, and generally working this post-war NGO world for all it can give him. I'm conflicted about former combattants (calling them that is no longer PC, because we are supposed to see them all the same--though they have received dollars and training for being exaclty that-ex-combattants), who are now reaping great rewards from simply ceasing to terrorize their fellows. But that's the way it works and without incentives I guess they would never stop-certainly didn't before. But it was good to meet with this guy and I would have liked to meet his CDF counterpart from the other side, but he was in Freetown all week while we were in Makeni.
We filmed Amy jogging through police road blocks, filmed her changing money in Krio, filmed her shopping for fresh tomatos in the local market-Colin won't shop for food in the local market, preferring to eat boxed pasta from the UN store in Freetown. He feels that he'll stay healthy that way, and he may be right--Amy's currently suffering from the "Apollo," what we would call pink eye--but they call it "Apollo" here after the space shuttle crackup because they think that the particles have affected the cosmos here and can still fly into your eyes.
Rob got to watch a green mamba snake cross the highway and then got to be in the UN vehicle that smashed it into the road after it apparently reared its head in a very dramatic way. I missed the snake, though I may see one at some point. It's snake season and the green and black mambas seem to be out in force, at least in the provinces.
The most amazing scene we shot, however, was the helicopter story, which was even better than I had hoped. We cruised out to the scene of the crime, a small village a 20-minute drive from Makeni, where we met the local headmaster, his colleagues, and an Italian Catholic priest with a mouthful for the UN. As a Civil Affairs volunteer, Amy was the local representative who these guys were all venting to, though Colin and Uwe were present. It seemed that the village had just received a check from the UN for the amount of $6,000 for the destroyed roof that had been torn off by an errant helicopter last May. But in the meantime, as we witnessed, the rains had destroyed the entire structure of the school, necessitating a complete rehaul and more money. Amy withstood the firey rhetoric bravely, pink eye and all. But the picture of the entire village crowded around a cluster of school desks set outside in the middle of the village was something we'll never forget. I wonder how the story will go. As these things are never simple, the headmaster later suggested to Amy that he would really rather go to America in the end. I think Amy will manage to postpone that one until her departure in December, which I hope postdates a new school. I'll be following that one.
Otherwise, we attended a going-away party for a MILOP in Makeni. It was held in the bottom floor of the UN container that Amy Colin and co use as offices. Flourescent lights, cold fish and chips, bad music, warm beer and cheap scotch about defined it. Fifteen or so different nationalities between them. Which is one of the beauties of the UN.
A much more satisfying scene was last night's meal at the CIVPOL group house (Colin lives alone at the guest house where we stayed-the one with a generator). Nor, the Malaysian, cooked a traditional (read HOT!) meal for all of us by candlelight and his headlamp-over a small charcol brazier outside. Like a barbecue but a bigger pain in the ass. Fabulous food, great company. Uwe ran around to cook us some interesting vegetables from a bag he'd picked up at the UN compound in Freetown.
We were hot and heavy into the speculation of how exactly we were going to put 'Fred's feet to the coals, given that he'd postponed his Wednesday, then Thursday trip to Makeni. It was 8:30 Friday night and we got the call. Alfred, in Makeni, wondering where to meet me. I hadn't mentioned the money outright since our conversation in Freetown, so we weren't sure what to expect. The boys drove us out in the big UN forerunner to meet 'Fred and I hopped into his SUV, guiding him back to the UN compound, a formidable sight with its barbed wire and deserted watchtower in the daylight. Alfred and the ICG driver, Edward, were quiet for the ride, probably terrified. When we stopped the car in front of the UN container/offices Colin parked his car behind the SUV, to block it in.
Imagine an empty office at night, squalid, flourescent lights, ugly. Two cops still in uniform present, Rob, Edward, Alfred, and me. I didn't try too hard to make small talk, and Alfred handed me an envelope, which I gave to Uwe to count. It was money, and it was real. Alfred saw him checking the money and showed me a bank receipt. I didn't ask any more questions and he didn't offer any more answers. I was also missing a mini-disc recorder (and still am), which I highly suspect disappeared during my residence at ICG, but I don't think I'll see it again. Alfred says he's looking into it. The funny thing was that it didn't seem like such a triumph, though it had been such a stressor. Alfred just looked sad and defeated, and I still think that he is a basically good man who got himself into a bad situation. I still also think that I may get a call for a drink before I go and if I do I'll take him up on it because I would love to know what really happened.
Expect the unexpected, always. Our Makeni trip went so smoothly, I am convinced, because we had our little Africa hiccup at the beginning of the week.
That's about it for now. We drove down with Amy and Colin for lobster in Freetown this morning and they've now gone. I think that our work in Makeni is good-we have some amazing footage. I don't yet know how the film is going to come together, especially since we haven't hit our biggest X factor yet-Liberia. We're off to Monrovia early Monday morning. I'm very glad that Rob will be going with me.
Over and out from Freetown-
Jessie and Rob
Yes, indeed. That's the badger. My favorite new British phrase, for something that's really cool/the thing/the greatest/right on. From our new British star, Seb. You will be seeing Seb in this film.
That's the Badger, for those of you who worried, that Rob made it to me, live and in person, with all of his gear in tow. It's great to have him here, and we'll be heading off on our next adventure, insh'allah, on Monday. He had to laugh at our accomodation (well, where we're living until Monday, when we move all of our stuff into the UN office for safekeeping)--the ice cold drippling water that eeks out of the European shower head, sleeping in a pool of sweat after the generator-powered air conditioner kicks off at three in the morning...you get the picture. Welcome back to Africa. He gallantly suffered through an ex-pat beach party until one this morning because my UN host kindly offered to drive me to to pick him up at the airport and then, of course, we had to stop by the party. Rob can hold his own.
In keeping with the theme of this voyage, our newest star, the British military observer, Seb was only found after I missed my initial helicopter flight to Kailahun, which is about as far East as you can go in this country, and one of the most important former rebel strongholds. I missed the flight because you've got to have your Movement of Personnel & Flight Request Form filed 48 hours before you fly, and, though I had requested the flight a week before, the paperwork hadn't been filed. That would have really diced my day but there happened to be a special flight leaving an hour and a half later, so I caught that and made it to meet my Candadian connection, Ross, in Kailahun.
I could quickly tell that Ross was going to have a B part in the film, that he didn't really want to be filmed and was just trying to give a girl a hand, rather than really enthusiastic about the idea of being followed about while brushing his teeth. So, it was a dark night. I was wondering how I was going to spend the rest of the week at the end of the country (there was no fast way out as it takes a good two days of horrific travel to get back to Freetown from Kailahun) as I bedded down in the Pakistani guest tent for women. I was there because Ross thought it would be more comfortable than the UN house of men, but that was to change.
In the middle of the night I semi-awoke to a figure dropping an oversheet on me. I had only one sheet, so I'd rolled myself into a Jessie-taco. I was so tired that it was more like a dream and I didn't think much of it. The next night, however, I heard a rustle and looked up to a dark figure in white shorts coming into my tent, and it didn't look as if he was bringing me any amenities. He bolted when I said, "Hello?" but I didn't get much more sleep that night. So much for Pakistani hospitality-I moved on to a vacant room in the UN house. But the Pakistani battalion chow kicked some serious ass. For $10 a day, I got the tent and the food, $2 day bought the food alone. The UN staff has worked out a sweet gig in Kailahun where they pay to be fed. It's lovely, as long as you're into spicy dahl, chicken and lamb daily.
I knew that I had to look for other characters, and I'd talked to Seb about horses, so I asked him if he'd mind wearing the radio mic (wireless microphone) when we went out on patrol. He didn't, and Ross was much more natural when he wasn't thinking about me listening to what he was saying. I'd hoped not to make this a Brit-centric show but that may be the way it lands. The team commander is a smart, articulate man from Zambia who was here in 2000 and has said he would probably go on camera if I went back to interview him later, so Kailahun may be the last week.
Did I tell you about the roads? I have finally indeed discovered the reason for the existence of the 4x4, and I have a new appreciation for what those bad boys can do. We were traveling on roads, or mud paths, rather, with ruts and rocks and, in places, several feet deep of water, up and over rocks and bridges made of logs that spanned streams lengthwise-stuff that even I would look at and cringe. I couldn't believe that we could do it, the vehicles making some of the most interesting scraping and grinding noises I've ever heard.
Of course we got stuck in the mud. Or, rather, our Nepali "driving Miss Daisy" (Seb-termed) colleague did. Twice. I got to witness the real-life use of that little winch thing at the back of the 4x4. They do in fact work.
We were on patrol. Patrols are good. Patrols are meant to serve as a means of taking the temperature of the locals, as well as assuring them of UN presence, security and tranquility. The process of walking through the jungle (no machetes involved) with a group of Sierra Leonean police, one Canadian, one Brit, a Kenyan and a Jordinian into a village is really something. The visuals alone were out of control. Most of the villages we drove or walked through were comprised of circular huts with thatched roofs, mud floors, the lot. Shirts optional for women, who you find with children washing their clothes and bodies in most of the streams we pass over and through. Rice is the main crop here, though there is some coca. One of the main questions we were asking on our patrol was the price of coca. Because changing prices can bring instability. The other main communication we had for the people in these villages, other than an exchange of candy (British "boiled sweets") and oranges (theirs, for us, which they eat by cutting off the top and squeezing out the juice like a juice squeeze) was to let the disarmed rebels know that their disarmament payment, though late, was on its way.
Whenever we drove through a village of any size, especially if there was an outdoor school around, the kids would run after the cars yelling, "Bleeetish, Bleeeetish!" or "Paki, Paki, Paki!" They seemed to have the identiy of our crew down, and the sight of dozens of small children in identical school uniforms running after our Land Rovers waving their hands was lovely. My favorite, however, are the naked boys that rip after us in their bare feet up the red clay roads, usually doing pretty well at keeping up as we wind our way up hills and through ruts. The children here seem generally well-fed and, other than the awful malaria I hear about, healthy. Of course, the unhealthy children wouldn't be the ones running after our cars.
UN personnel are seen today, anyway, as trusted intermediaries between different factions, different villages and the government. The military observers, soldiers in their own countries, are unarmed here. They tell me that they prefer it this way because it makes their job much more clear and that they feel that they have a level of trust with the locals that they would not have if they were bearing arms. Which I think is pretty interesting, these guys who are trained to kill now acting as mediators of peace. We talk a lot about that in the interviews. I have a couple of good interviews, finally. Ross, our Canadian MILOB, finally relaxed at the end of our interview yesterday while talking about missing his dog. He said that two things he would really regret here would be if he were to harm a child or a dog. Ducks and chickens, however, he saw as fair game.
Wednesday's patrol with the Pakistanis, staged for my benefit, was another experience entirely. The Pakistanis rank and file, who I had somehow imagined would be all speaking perfect English, willing, ready and able to tell me what it meant to be a peacekeeper. Not so. Not only do only the officers speak English, but the officers weren't too hip to the notion of what it takes to make a documentary. I.e. advance warning of what the hell they were doing, and the time to set up the camera, sound, gear to capture any of it. I asked the second in command to try to give me some warning about when and where we'd be stopping, and he told me that it was up to the Captain. Which would have been one thing had the entire practice activity not been specifically meant for my benefit. Kind of a good news/bad news situation. The good news was that they treated me very correctly, even having a special plate of grapes and a chocolate muffin they found Allah knows where, to meet my special needs, because they were all fasting. I wasn't going to eat because they were fasting, but the food was bouncing around so much on the plate that I had to either eat it or throw it away. I ate.
The Pakistanis have an interesting relationship with the local population. They, like most of the locals in these small villages, are Muslims, and they have done much to construct mosques, build roads and schools, and during the month of Ramadan the locals line up outside of the battalion for the fast-breaking meal. I asked my second-in-command what his troops thought of the local women-given that they were going from the land of women who dress modestly to a place where naked breasts abound, and he told me that for himself it was no problem, but it did take his men a little while to get used to the sight. He told me off camera that since the women were black it didn't matter so much anyway. Racism is definitely a factor in this equation.
But yes, friends, when I'm peeing behind a tall clump of grass on a helicopter stop on a swath of pavement in the jungle on my way back to Freetown to meet my husband, I tell myself that life is good. Seb tells a story of falling off a bridge into a waist-high river here one Tuesday morning, thinking to himself, "Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday morning, after all." And I'll have to second that. I think we'll have a story here. The characters and the scenes are coming. We're heading back to the Makeni crew on Monday, and hope to do Liberia the week after that. Not sure how much role Monrovia will play in this story, but it has to be done, given that this is really all just one big party, one big war.
Otherwise, friends, I'll leave you with these impressions before heading out:
-the incredible generosity of the UN people with who've been giving me office space, helicopter rides, allowing me to get up-close-and personal with their daily lives, introducing me to people and places and generally making this happen.
-the beauty of this country outside of the capital.
-children calling us whiteys "pomoi" (a variant, somehow, of the "Portugese" who were here long ago) and waving as we walk by.
-large trucks who stop regularly to allow ducks to pass on the dirt roads before them.
Rob's here!
Image - Jess hard day at the office
