bonthe

i thought about writing what happened to my dad in bonthe; his fall, my finding him after it, getting through one the scariest nights i've experienced, and the series of lucky events that led to getting him care, getting him out of bonthe, and back to the u.s.

this blog is not about that though, this blog is about bonthe, or at least what i probably would have written about bonthe, if my trip to sierra leone wasn't overshadowed by my dad's accident.

my dad taught at bonthe secondary school about 40 years ago, when he was in the peace corps. he lived in the town for two years.

the school where my dad taught when he was in the peace corps

growing up, bonthe was this mythical place; the place that made my dad fall in love with west africa, a major reason why he was willing to move to nigeria, where he met my mother, where i was born, and how i came into existence. because of this, i've always felt that bonthe was like oz to me. this place that held answers, that would, in its own way, take me back home, and connect who my father was then, to who his family came to be.

when my dad said he was going to go to bonthe earlier this year, i really wanted to go. to see this magical place, see what it meant to my father, see what it might mean to me. so we went....

bonthe is on an island and is very difficult to get to - we had to take a 5-hour car ride on not-so-great roads, wait for 4-5 hours for a boat, then take a 2 hour boat ride to get there.

because of how removed it is from the rest of sierra leone, it's kind of different from the rest of the country.

the town has something i'd never seen in an african town before; a perfect grid system of roads, like the 'block' system in parts of the u.s. it amazed me to see house numbers on houses, perfectly matching this block system: 51 on one block, 61 on the next, 71 on the next. the odd thing is, there are no cars in the town, so these roads are for the few motorcycles and bicycles in town, but mainly for pedestrians.

however cool the block system is, the town is greatly lacking in a number of facilities the rest of the country has.

i was told before heading to sierra leone not to expect to have electricity or access to clean drinking water while in bonthe - internet access was completely out of the question. ironically, everyone has mobile phones in bonthe, the one form of technology that seems to have made it there, although i have no idea how people keep their phones charged.

when we arrived, the guy who helped us get there, alpha, told us that during the civil war that plagued the country from 1991 to 2002, thieves took all the copper wiring out of the town, to sell for scrap. today, you can see poles where wires could, and should, be, but aren't.

while my dad was in the hospital, i got into conversations with a number of people, learning about their views of the town, how they felt they were treated by the rest of the country, and teaching me about the town itself. the town's doctor told me how he had mapped the plumbing in the town and had discovered that a large number of people in the town don't have access to plumbing, how there are a number of people who don't even have access to a regular well, and how he himself didn't want to be placed in bonthe to work because of its lack of facilities.

i discovered that it was impossible to find bottled water in the town and i took a risk by drinking water sold in plastic pouches that some say are simply tap water put into a plastic pouch. it was hard to find bread and fruit for my dad while he was in the hospital - the kind of thing i thought could be found in every market in west africa.

someone told me, 'we have a lot of sand. sand is cheap, but you can't build with sand alone, and it's hard to carry cement on a boat'. this was the kind of infrastructure problem that the country as a whole seems to have a hard time with, since the war ended. cars can't get to bonthe, the small airport the town has is burned down, the town is not just literally, but figuratively, an island; removed from the rest of the country.

the burned down airport (and plane)

as i walked home from the hospital at night in pitch black, with my flashlight, i would see people, like ghosts, all of a sudden appear on the edge of where my light was shining - people who seem to be able to walk around town in complete darkness, without the need of a light, on uneven dirt roads. alpha said he often would ride his bike around, in complete darkness. this sort of adaptation to your surroundings amazed me, especially since my dad was in the bonthe hospital because he couldn't see the stairs he fell down, at night.

i met people who have lived their entire lives in bonthe, in complete darkness at night, without a toilet in their home, probably some who had never seen a car.

i found out, days after i left bonthe, that when my dad lived there he had electricity. that the town, in many ways, went backwards in time during the war, at almost the exact time when so much of the world moved forward at a rapid pace, with technology reaching many corners of the world.

as sad as all this may sound, all the people i met seemed happy, and asked if i liked their town. no one asked me for money, as is so often the case in places that see more tourists. almost everyone i talked to asked me how i liked their city, and you could see their bonthe pride on their faces.

i've been a bit torn about bonthe since leaving - people who are there seem to be happy living a simple life and people who leave don't seem to want to go back, even to visit, because the life may be too simple for them.

i'd like to think i'm an exception to the latter - i want to go back.

the sun setting over bonthe