Freetown is a packed and, largely, dilapidated capital city clustered along the winding
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and light is in short supply. It is hot and humid and the rainy season brings much of the city to a halt adding to the city’s already horrendous sanitation and health problems. If people have enough money they rely on generators for lights and for their TVs, DVDs and computers. Corruption is an integral part of life as is the system of patronage whereby everyone is expected to support their own family and ethnic group regardless of merit. The writers interviewed are members of the elite. Even those relying on teaching or meagre journalism salaries and living in poorer accommodation would be classified as elite by virtue of their educational levels and ability to write in English.
President Kabbah was in power at the beginning of my field work in 2006. His Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), widely supported by Southern and Western Mende tribes people, lost the 2007 elections and power was transferred to the opposition All People’s Congress (APC). The APC, traditionally supported by the Northern Temne people, had been out of power since the early 1990s. Participation in the August 2007 election appeared to create a widespread sense of empowerment amongst Freetown residentswho felt that they had ousted Kabbah and his cronies and brought a change to their nation by peaceful means. In fact, though peaceful, the elections further embedded the politicisation of SLPP and APC youth groups who have clashed on occasionduring local elections in 2008 and 2009.
During my research period the Sierra Leone Special War Crimes Court tried militia and RUF leaders and Charles Taylor, widely believed to have instigated war crimes in the Sierra Leone conflict, went on trial in the Hague. The Sierra Leone Special Court attracted international attention, international staff, journalists and human rights based NGO activity. A poem by Sydnella Shooter, one of the writers interviewed, titled My Root in Flames was read at the
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opening ceremony of the Special Court in 2004. The Special Court completed its work in 2009. The striking modern architecture of the building became a Freetown landmark and its floodlit fencing was apparently used by locals to read by at night.
The sense of public empowerment following the election switchover seemed to be fading by 2009 and into 2010. Colleagues had initially told me “we are waiting”, “we are giving Koroma (the APC President) time”. By late 2010, this hopefulness appeared to have dissipated and public narratives divided more clearly along party lines. Many SLPP
supporters quoted the lyrics from local music star Emerson’s “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday” released in 2009 and literally translated as ‘yesterday was better than today’. APC loyalists however said change is happening “small small” (slowly). They said roads from Freetown into the Provinces have improved, the electricity supply in Freetown is better and that
problems such as rising oil and petrol prices are ‘global’ and must be endured. Indeed Arthur Smith said that “Darkness is fading out now we have light” and Randoulph coined the term “glaring hope” to describe Sierra Leone (2008 interviews).
Education facilities
Most children have the opportunity to attend primary schools (Unicef figures put primary school net enrolment for the period 2003-8 at 69%) with state schools providing free
education in the mornings and secondary schools using the same buildings in the afternoons. Not surprisingly, male enrolment and attendance is higher than female. The true picture is much bleaker with many schools and even teachers are trying to extract additional money from children and parents while, in November 2010, most teachers had not been paid for 7-8 months. Transport, food and uniforms (worn nationally) require money and restrict attendance
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for the poor. Many people working in office and professional jobs send their children to one of the many private schools which vary in price and quality of provision. Such parents make huge efforts to oversee homework and study, pay school fees as well as spend hours (often getting up extremely early) ferrying children to school and then getting to their place of work in Freetown’s gridlocked traffic (the wealthier ones delegating the job to a driver or nanny using a jeep). These children can achieve a quality, formal and disciplined education in Sierra Leone.
In contrast, working at a state primary in the centre of Freetown and a state secondary school in the eastern Kissy area (the kind of schools the majority of less privileged Sierra Leoneans attend), it appeared very little relating to education was taking place. Children sat outside or played while teachers ate, read, snoozed or had a drink (delivered by one of the pupils). Students were beaten for ill-discipline and often beaten at home. Many were expected to work in the afternoons for family members as well as performing tasks like fetching water,
sweeping and washing dishes etc. School girls at Cathedral Primary School asked these revealing questions of children in the Birmingham schools where I was also working:
Do teachers use the stick (cane)? Do they have free education?
Are children from good and poor homes?
When children go home do they help their parents? Do children sell in streets and shops?
Do some children leave school because they cannot pay? Can they play in the street on the way home?
Does their mother beat them?
Do they have clever and stupid pikin?
How does the teacher cope with stupid and clever children? Do children get pregnant from teachers in school
134 Do children steal things from school?
Do children have fights when going home?
(Excerpt from questions for England from Cathedral School, Freetown, 2009)
Little teaching material is available, classes are overcrowded (amounting to perhaps 60 in a class for example in a secondary school English lesson) and assignments are often plagiarised from the most able pupils. Many children cannot read or speak English well.
Children think they read books for exams only and not to learn the lesson or heed the advice given in the texts. Most can’t read well so they drop out or drop interest in literature. (Anne Konteh, Teacher, Cathedral Primary School, 2009).
At Milton Margai Teacher Training College in 2010, Literature trainer, Arnold Jones, explained that reading is seen as a function for understanding other school subjects and necessary for passing exams rather than being of benefit itself and a pastime. “The task of teaching large classes wears you down” he told me, explaining that it is difficult to deliver the basic rudiments of teaching in the circumstances teachers face let alone keep up with literary developments. He explained that a committee had been set up to investigate poor performance in English (due to the worst ever English examination results in 2008) and that he had been told to emphasise the teaching of basic reading skills. At school, drama texts, poetry and prose (African and non-African texts) are taught alongside Language Arts which includes reading comprehension, writing, listening, speaking and grammar. Class teaching is officially in English but most teachers, by necessity, switch into Krio.
An awareness of the social reality of education in Freetown reveals that creative writing is not a common pursuit (or aspiration) and that many children do not have the necessary skills to
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write in English or other languages. Many of these future citizens have not engaged their literary imagination and not been exposed to the ideas and texts of writers from Sierra Leone.
My experience working as an editor on social studies teaching materials enabled me to meet curriculum and teaching experts. They were aware of the dire situation in schools whilst believing that education was an important way to inculcate basic life skills, build patriotism and lasting peace in the country. The Primary Education social studies curriculum was, therefore, interlaced with a series of ‘emerging issues’ including the environment, HIV awareness, respect for local traditions, human rights, reconciliation and forgiveness, nation building and citizenship. In contrast, there appears to be widespread disillusionment with education as a route to deliver a way out of present difficulties especially for those with limited resources attending state schools.
The principal university campus in Freetown, Fourah Bay College inhabits the high area of Mount Aureol in Freetown andforms part of Sierra Leone University along with IPAM (for administration and Management courses) and the College of Medicine and Health. Njala University was relocated to Freetown during the war and has split campuses in Freetown and Bo. The teacher training college nearest to Freetown is Milton Margai, 30 minutes along the coast via a notoriously pot-holed road. All the colleges survive with severely limited
resources. The library at Fourah Bay College is poorly lit, very hot, inadequately stocked and often students are unable to obtain the material on reading lists. There was a new bookshop on campus when I visited in 2008/9 but it sold mainly foreign business and marketing texts at high prices and seemed ill-suited to student needs. Many students use the growing number of internet cafes to access material (and complain of cost) and a few rely on visiting western
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teaching staff to provide photocopies. There is a strong tradition of students joining various social clubs (a cross between fraternities and secret societies) at FBC and in 2009 these clubs were called into question with the news of the tragic death of a student at one of the club initiations. Comments posted in response to an internet article about this from a former student suggested that these clubs had become a victim of the “post-war mentality and very deep rivalry that existed on campus” (see article by Sesay and Williams, 2009) This is
indicative of the divisiveness pervading political discourses in Sierra Leone in general which I found was not, however, typical of literary discourse.
Literacy and the reading culture
Adult literacy is officially 38%, according to UNICEF statistics for 2003-817, though it is widely accepted to be much lower. Indeed, Arthur Smith estimated literacy could be as low as 15% including those who are only semi-literate. Photocopied school texts and second hand books are sold in street stalls or ‘ground bookshops’. I found photocopied books on the English syllabus (often with pages missing) including Mariama Ba’s ‘So Long a Letter’ and Buchi Emecheta’s ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ and Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’. I also found Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, Camara Laye’s ‘The African Child’ and Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not to Blame’. Some, mostly self-published, novels and books of local poetry are for sale at around 50,000 Leones (approximately £10) at cafes such as Balmaya and Diaspora both of which are frequented by expats and wealthier Sierra Leoneans). Macmillan Education sells school texts and readers in the city centre. Farouk Sesay claimed that the book seller on the ferry from the airport has the best book sales nationally. He has since (in 2009) started up a publishing company called Karantha (meaning learning place in Mandingo)and was in the
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process of publishing a primary reader for schools and negotiating with the Ministry of Education for this to be included on the curriculum when I last had contact. During my field work, there were no publishing houses. The last one, Mount Everest publishing, closed with the death of the owner 2005. One of the interviewees, AVS Komora, a Shakespeare enthusiast and ambassador for folk literature, claimed to listen to Shakespeare’s plays on cassette but I have not seen CD or cassette versions of literature available for sale in Freetown.
The poets and writers I met were working in day jobs primarily as journalists, businessmen and teachers and meeting to share their writing via Pen or the Falui poetry society or
informally with friends and fellow authors. Some writers are working in schools or academic settings or in community theatre or media production and several are pastors (SOJ Macauley and Moses Kainwo). Most, though not all, the writers I met had their own internet connection by 2009. The others visited internet cafes when necessary depending on disposable income.
Newspapers are available to buy from street vendors and cost 2-3000 Leones (when I last visited in 2010). There are approximately 12-16 titles. Working people often buy batches of five to ten papers and circulate them amongst colleagues. The printed newspapers are very slim (e.g. 12 pages including front and back covers) often carrying articles lifted from the internet or copied from other papers with up to half (or more) space given to adverts. Organisations such as the Canadian NGO, Journalists for Human Rights, have been placing journalists with radio stations and newspapers to help develop journalism skills, limit bias and improve editing.
Typically articles will be in poor English and use Krio expressions for intended or
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using fiery language and mockery. Sierra Leoneans are lambasted for their chronic laziness, poor attitude and the ‘Put him/her Down’ culture (sometime abbreviated to ‘PhD’). Articles highlight the shocking conditions in which Sierra Leoneans live, crimes and political issues of the day. Some newspapers carry occasional poems and papers. The Exclusive carries a story in a Women’s World Section which was a favourite with the women I spoke to and some of the papers carry agony aunt sections offering all manner of advice. For De Souza George, the “sensationalism and vendetta spirit” of local print journalism turned him off reading
newspapers and so he listens to the radio instead (Interviews, 2008).
Students and readers congregate at the Library Board and the British Council nearby (which offers an internet facility, snack bar and is located at the bottom of the hill from Fourah Bay College. When I visited the British Council in 2006 and 2007 they were in the process of closing and restocking the library with more business, employment and training related
material. There were few literature books in their library (I found a copy of Pat Maddy’s plays that had not been issued for decades). Staff complained that people had not been using the library books preferring instead to sit or sleep in a seat in a slightly cooler environment than the street outside.
Reading at home, for members of poor families after dark (usually between 6.30-7pm) means using a candle or kerosene lamp and risking mosquito bites. The frequent blackouts of the civil war years, the exhaustion of travelling long distances, heat, poverty, overcrowding and lack of adequate English have also discouraged the habit of reading at night time. It is
interesting, however, that the habit of reading is also diminishing for those people with access to electricity and literacy skills.
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Writing and writing places
With a national population of 5,696,471 (World Bank, 2009) and low literacy, the number of potential writers in Sierra Leone is much less than that of Nigeria, for example, whose population is 154,700,000 (World Bank, 2009). A city such as Lagos (home to many writers) has a population double the entire country of Sierra Leone.
The main writers groups in Freetown are Pen International Sierra Leone – which has a formal organisational structure. They were established to:
Reinvigorate the diminished writing community after the civil war and encourage those writers who remained to play an active role in society. It now has a large school clubs programme which focuses on encouraging reading and writing amongst young people. It also recently launched a short story competition. The Centre plays a national role in Sierra Leone and is invited to national conferences as one of the main
organisations dealing with education and freedom of expression.
(Excerpt from the Sierra Leone page of the web site www.internationalpen.org.uk , accessed March 29 2011).
More informal is the Falui Poetry Society which was formed during the war period as a result of a creative writing workshop organised by the American Embassy and Elvis Hallowell (then, employee of the Embassy and recently returned from studying in the United States). This workshop took place in 1993 and helped to launch a new generation of poets as many writers mention this workshop as the beginning of their writing career (e.g. Moses Kainwo and Sydnella Shooter). It also forged a bond between the writers who attended and many of them have since emerged as ‘Sierra Leonean’ poets through their contributions to two post-war
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poetry collections. According to Hallowell, the initiator and a prominent voice, Falui was set up in 1996 and referred to the “brilliantly masked devil who speaks in riddles” (May 08, informal interview). The idea of Falui gives secrecy to the mask’s wearer whose words are meant to reform society, Farouk Sesay explained. “The Falui mask offers immunity. It mediates between the spirit world and the people and enables the wearer to speak on issues and no one is sacred therefore giving poetic license” (Interview, 2008).
Many of the writers interviewed belonged to this group. Unfortunately, some members declined interviews, did not return questionnaires (when sent) or, for various reasons, I was unable to interview them. Mohammed Gibril Sesay, for instance, a government speech writer, poet and recent novelist (having published a novel in 2009 entitled ‘This Side of Nothingness’ through Mohammed Sheriff’s company Pampana Communications) falls into this category. I was also unable to formally interview Elvis Hallowell though I had many informal
conversations with him in 2008. Moses Kainwo was not available for interview and none of the writers with the exception of Mohammed Sheriff returned questionnaires via e-mail. At the time of my field work interviews in 2008 the Falui group was not meeting regularly. The members I interviewed said they had less time to write and attend meetings since the end of the war. Indeed in 2008, Hallowell said the “Falui society has not been very active recently but it is living on in spirit and may be revived” and he explained that they hoped to establish a publishing house. At the time they were in the process of vetting poems for a new collection. They used ‘workshopped’ material (i.e the poems they had shared and critiqued in a form of peer review or editing). Since then, the Falui Society appears to have re-emerged as an active body under the organisation of Kainwo and Farouk Sesay.
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Throughout my field work visits, I attended several poetry evenings at prestigious hotels in the Western area. These had been organised by an expatriate from the United Nations and attended by many embassy, NGO and UN staff as well as local writers. Note that only those writers with transport back from the western area at night, and able to afford drinks at such a venue, were likely to attend.
The Pen and Falui writers, though predominantly poets, also included story writers,
playwrights, poets and novelists-in-the-making. Between 2006 and 2010, the playwrights I met were, for the most part, working in theatre for development. Julius Spencer (ex culture minister, lecturer, playwright and film maker who set up the Premier Media group and published a local newspaper, Premier News) explained “theatre is a lot of hassle for no
benefit, you barely break even. It is better to use radio for drama and documentaries and make films” (Interview at Premier Media, Autumn 08).
Literature and daily life
Finally, in setting the background to my field work, it is important to discuss the significance