The season to be JC

I bet it’s going to be a quiet Christmas in Freetown this year. The travel chaos caused by the enthusiastic snowfall across Europe has inevitably obstructed travel plans.

Usually this time of year a unique species of Sierra Leonean is spotted on the streets of Freetown, the JCs or Just Comes are members of the diaspora. They flood in from the US and western Europe to spend their hard earned foreign currencies in Sierra Leone and thrill friends and relatives with stories of a better life. They used to be really easy to spot, the women with their oversized shades, stilettos and Louis Vuitton knock offs. The men in their oversized shades, suits and croc skin shoes. And most importantly, the distinct Krio/American or Krio/Brit accent. But with so many Sierra Leoneans moving back to live here, it’s becoming harder to tell them apart, almost everyone I meet at a party has an accent these days. But my friends still swear they can spot one a mile away.

I have to say I dislike the JC season for three reasons: first, they drive up petty crime rates in Freetown. Everyone jokes that you’re twice as likely to have your purse nicked during the holiday season. Second they choke the roads with their shiny rented 4x4s. Third, they express recurring shock at the heat , dust and street side filth. Disclaimer: this is all based on my experience with JCs, I’m sure there are perfectly decent ones out there.

Sparkled by their JC relatives’ success stories, almost all Sierra Leoneans want to live abroad. In fact, it was in Sierra Leone that I first found out about the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery which is a bit of a national gambling obsession. It offers a randomised chance at winning a US green card and inevitably most internet cafes have someone who can help you with your application. Success of course is a bit of an urban legend, everyone claims they know someone who’s made it. And it’s also spurred an industry of scams.

Last year, a young Sierra Leonean film maker Karim Bah who had studied in the UK busted the myth by making a film called Babylon Illusion. Bah followed the lives of Sierra Leoneans who had immigrated to the UK. He highlighted their loneliness, poverty and desire to return home. The film wasn’t technically brilliant, but showed that life in Europe wasn’t all that.

Still, this has not dampened people’s spirits. They wait every year to be regaled by the fresh tales the JCs bring and hope that one day they’ll get to live that illusive life. My money changer on Siaka Stevens street constantly suggests that the next time I leave I take him with me (even though I have explained to him many times that I’m Indian).

Yes, a friend emailed saying it’s a quiet Christmas in Freetown. For average Sierra Leoneans of course, the legend of the JC lives on all year round.

Happy holidays everyone!

Wikileaks and sacred cows

It appears that no one escapes Julian Assange’s radar, not even Sierra Leone. While diplomats around the world are licking their wounds, a fresh round of cables has the tabloid media in Freetown in a tizzy.

One cable dredges up an issue from mid-2008 when an airplane filled with about 600 kg of cocaine was found at Freetown’s Lungi International Airport. This led to the most high profile investigation ever conducted in the country and a trial that for the very first time used a witness protection program. A cable authored by Chargé d'affaires for the US Embassy in Freetown, Glenn Fedzer alleged that President Ernest Bai Koroma had ordered the authorities not to arrest Kemoh Sesay, who was the transport minister at the time and whose brother is currently serving a sentence in connection with the same incident. The cables have also expressed concerns over West Africa’s involvement in the cocaine route.

This report comes at a most unfortunate time for the incumbent head of state. His party, the All People’s Congress, is rallying for re-election at the national polls in 2012 and is getting ready to celebrate 50 years of Sierra Leonean independence next year. Also, I remember listening to countless radio broadcasts last month where the president reaffirmed his party’s hardline on corruption, his commitment to attitudinal and behavioural change, and once again said that there were no ‘sacred cows’ in his administration. People were almost starting to believe this, given that in the past year many erring government officials have been prosecuted.

This is just the sort of political story that the Sierra Leonean media love. Not being in the country at the moment, I can only imagine the delicious headlines being published. The government usually down pretty hard on investigative journalism using its 1965 Public Order Act. This law enables the government to book journalists for libellous stories and had been generously abused in the past. In this case however, there’s not much the authorities can do except huff and puff.

Like with many other countries at the receiving end of these stings, Sierra Leone has also had a soothing apology from the US ambassador to the country. This would not affect US policy towards Sierra Leone in any way, they were told. Of course not, just donor confidence when it comes to getting budget support and project funding.

Do you want to know how deep the rabbit hole really go? Morpheus asked. Will there be an investigation into whether mismanagement took place? Now those are the headlines I can’t wait to read.

I want my radio

I’ve been to three electronics stores in Mumbai in the past week looking for a good radio and struck out every time. Apparently no one buys radios anymore. And why would they when the same play list of top ten songs is repeated across all frequencies? The reason I’m looking for a radio is that I promised my boss I wouldn’t return without one.

Ok, here’s the truth. Over the past few months, I had commandeered my good natured boss’s shiny Roberts radio and after some subtle hints and one blunt recall he managed to wrest it back.

I miss his radio, but more than that I miss listening to the radio. It’s part of my morning ritual in Freetown. From 7 am to 8 am I soak in an hour of world news on the BBC World Service before settling down on my desk to the local Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation station between 10 and 11.

In India we don’t appreciate the potential of radio. We’re a visual culture, the entertainers say, whose bottom lines are all about eyeballs. Does that mean we’ve lost our imagination? One of my favourite radio programmes is a Nigerian radio drama called Story Story, which follows the lives of a handful of families and their daily dealings in the market place. Whether it’s the trailor park elections or women’s rights, morals and messages are woven into the fabric of daily life. Every Sunday morning at 9 am I feel like I am transported to a small town in Abuja listening in on these conversations. The show is produced by the BBC World Service Trust and aired on the BBC World Service.

Another one of my favourite radio shows is World Have Your Say, also on the BBC World Service. So I’m a little skewed in my loyalties and unashamed of it. This interactive discussion programme brings together interesting voices from all over the globe on a single frequency. This week World Have Your Say has been broadcasting from Sierra Leone and some of my office colleagues have been on air and helping out behind the scenes. I’m so proud of them. Listen to the last three episodes from Sweet Salone and leave your comments.

In India, the biggest stumbling block is that private radio stations are not allowed to broadcast news and current affairs and there is no culture of engaging audiences in intelligent programmes. No single radio station has an identity unique enough to make me want to come back. This Business Standard article also blames audiences for not appreciating niche content such as that available on World Space. I believe no one should have to pay anything more than the price of a radio to listen to good quality programming. So I blame Indian regulators and programmers for failing to exploit the potential of radio. In many parts of the world, radio has helped to provide life changing information to people in need and change attitudes around health practices. Isn’t this something we need in India?

My choices are limited. Even if I can get hold of a decent radio what would I listen to? Sure, I can stream my favourite shows online, but I wait for the day when my parents and friends will tune in to Radio Mirchi and have access to news and views that makes a difference to their lives.

Sierra Leone: 1, India: 0

A few months ago, I complained to a friend that I needed to get my groove back. He said all I needed to do was restart my blog. How do you start writing again after a year? Even as I type this I can feel the muscles of my palm twitching nervously and my index finger threatening to freeze up as I raise it to hit a key.

To be honest, I’m not in Sierra Leone, at the mo. I am resurrecting this blog while on holiday in India. It continues to shock my mum’s friends that I live and work in Sierra Leone out of personal choice. “An Indian girl should live in her own country, not in some African place no one’s ever heard of,” one aged aunty commented on a recent visit, chasing it with a quip on my apparent weight loss. They detest the fact that I live in Africa of all places. My god, couldn’t I have a found a job in London or New York like every other successful Indian out there?

People say living in the western world makes you soft. You become used to certain amenities which make it difficult to return to the developing world. I have a slightly different perspective. I was standing at a road crossing in suburban Mumbai the other day, seemingly doing step exercises as I tried in vain to cross over to the other side. I was surprised that no one stopped for me, or the young kids who were trying to get across with me. Where was our civic sense? If this were Salone, as we fondly call Sierra Leone, every single car on the road would have come to a screeching halt and let the pedestrians pass.

My work with the media in Sierra Leone forces me to keep a close watch on governance mechanisms. I see Sierra Leone making genuine attempts to weed out corruption in government and in society. Yes, on a drunken night we’ve all run into the slimy traffic cop on the side of the beach road, trying to make a quick buck but on the whole there’s a positive vibe in the air. Sierra Leone recently clawed its way up to 10 places from below on the UN Human Development Index which eight years after a brutal civil war is quite an achievement.

In India however, even though our GDP grew by 8.9 percent in the last quarter we seem to have lost our social capital. My dad and I got into an argument the other day with a taxi driver who refused to use the meter in his cab and was insolent when we threatened to report him to the traffic police. Yes, cabbies have tried to rip me off in Sierra Leone but no one has ever behaved with the kind of impunity I saw this balding man demonstrate. No one says please, no one says thank you, which to me is disconcerting considering in Sierra Leone I thank my guard for opening the gate for me.

I know what the mum’s friend was thinking. It was beneath an educated Indian girl to waste her time in Sierra Leone. But Sierra Leoneans are friendly, polite and treat you with respect. I beg to differ about which people are superior.