Sierra Leone: An Overview.

On the ferry from Lungi:

The sun goes down between islands, a sober orange. Tin shacks. Fishermen in long boats. The group clusters at the rail to talk. As the dark settles in, I grab Les’ arm. Lights! The coming hillside is dotted with white and yellow.  (Remember the dam? Les says, Up-country? They finally got it running.) Freetown is no longer the city that approaches silently.

On the roosters:

In the morning, Rachel rolls over. Do you think we can have chicken for dinner? she says. I only want male.

On meeting random men:

Sahid leads me down the white beach. He is trying not to get his nice shoes wet. I am barefoot, stepping over lines of trash the tide washed up.  You wanted to hear about the war? he says suddenly. Because I was a Lost Boy. (Behind us, the rest of the team chases a soccer ball. I let out my breath.) Yes please, I say.

On traveling:

We sit with backpacks beneath our feet and pineapples rolling around. The van is like a clown car: it takes ten minutes to load and unload at each stop. Mismatched shoulders, dribbling sweat, held bladders. If we drive fast enough, a stiff wind makes things bearable. We put hats on to keep our hair from dreading. There is the promise of the ride home: it will be better, we know, once we have given away all our stuff.

On digger ants:

Like a vein punctured in a rutted path: Careful, they say, Digger ants have pinchers and can eat a chicken. I have seen nothing like it. Thick ropes of ants spill from the ground. Once I saw an oil slick in the road, says Marissa, only it was ants.

On Kabala:

Many things are being built. The burnt houses are crowded with vines and people hang their laundry there. Others grow corn, seven feet high, up the middle of the bedrooms. War recedes.

On the heat:

My brain is cooking. I have a short attention span. As we walk, my pants go damp with the sweat. It is hard to want to write. I keep it short.

On sensitive mimosa:

Tap the plant with your foot and it shrivels in, like a butterfly disappearing itself. Then slowly, under the glow of the sun, it makes itself new.

On the food:

Groundnut stew. Rounds of pineapple. Raw coconut chunks. Too-early mango, perfect avocadoes, long soft baguettes with Laughing Cow spread. Hot pepper. A substance generically referred to as “meat.” Rice, rice, rice. (Rice is so important here, Hope says, that if you serve a man spaghetti he will say he has not eaten.)

On eating:

We eat in secret at regular hours. God does not forgive those who eat in front of the starving.