Overall Trip: After-Thought
My dusty trainers had to be thrown in the washing
machine, so high was the red Salone dust percentage. But something seems
to be missing. They are now pristine, factory clean but boring &
ordinary. At least the dust had a story buried in the particles...
It is hard to adapt being back in
shiny, clean, organised Britain and with each trip to Freetown I find it
increasingly hard to do so. Myself & Sarah have no family to welcome
us back to a home that is not really ours. So we plod hand in hand
through the airport arrivals gate, onto the bus and back to brisk but
surprisingly sunny Wells. Our flat feels empty & I feel empty &
we feel empty. Part of us is back in Freetown and it makes us want to go
back & retrieve it.
Every trip is unique and this one has
had a character all of its own. I don't think I have seen a group bond so
quickly & so tightly in the three trips I have made to Freetown. It
could have gone badly wrong but they worked so hard to forge new friendships
through shared experiences. And what shared experiences! Given the
shorter nature of this trip its intensity has shot up and the downtime shot
down. Bizarrely enough, I think this has been an advantage.
Everything we did mattered more than before and in reality every day
became more rewarding than the one before. The mantra of "I think
that was the best day of my life" has characterised this trip like no
other. The team have definitely been changed for the better &
permanently I hope. Even temporarily is enough.
No single student ever defines an
entire trip, in my experience in Freetown.
In fact, it is surprising how the whole group is always more than the
sum of the individuals in it. None of
the following could be said to define the trip but they have had one hell of an
impact upon all involved: Josh & Alex’s worryingly authentic love ballads,
Jenny Song’s V-signs, Jenny B & Mercedes’ incessant dancing, Hatty’s vast
array of admirers, Izzy’s seemingly irresistible hair, Annie’s near death experience
playing duck-duck-goose, Becca’s very early morning trumpet warm-ups, Elin’s skirt/shorts
debate live on SLBC and Ru’s rejection of airport arrivals hospitality.
Every trip has had ups & downs
but overall they have been overwhelmingly up. This one has been no
different. A Sierra Leonean heatwave, two fainting students, poor
decision making [mine & the Team's], not enough seats on the bus, Chicken
Kievs, teacher : student ratios of 1:60, mad bus drivers obliterating tyres in
potholes, a vicious fight between desperate beggars outside a supermarket, small
children playing with rubbish, intense poverty. Only on the Sierra Leone
trip could these things collectively be no more than a droplet in an ocean of
positivity. It has been the most fun trip to Freetown I have had but also
the most intense in terms of my emotional response. Freetown now feels
like as much a home to me as Wells. In fact, it seems akin to a
photographic negative of my homeland, only in vibrant colour. And it even
has a similarly cavalier attitude to timekeeping!
I could talk to you all day about
this trip but I could never do it justice. You must experience it
firsthand as the gains made simply cannot be articulated. "It stands
outside representation" as my friend Cathy says. Read the rest of
the blog, look at the photos, talk to those who went but most of all go
yourself. You need to do it. If everyone in the Western world spent
two weeks in Sierra Leone the world would be a better, warmer, more vibrant and
happier place.
I realise that part of my sadness
writing this is due to the fact that I don't know when I will be back.
Now I hand over the baton to Amy Hugill, who I wish all the best in her
leading of the project. But, to be fair, I have been to Freetown three
times with the woman I love; first as my girlfriend then as my wife after those
Freetown Romeos threw down the marriage gauntlet in front of me! Nothing
has brought us closer together & I sincerely thank the school, & Roland
Ladley especially, in allowing us this wonderful opportunity. Freetown
has worked it's magic. Fall under its spell....