In Sierra Leone, you spend a lot of time hearing about things that could have been or the way things should be. People are obviously frustrated with the government, with donors, with anyone they can make responsible for the problems they face. Nowhere is this more obvious than discussions about the airport. Freetown is on the Western Peninsula of Sierra Leone - overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Lungi- the only international airport- is located across the water. It's probably only ten miles as the crow flies, but by road it would take over 4 hours - more if you consider the condition of the roads. The result is that visitors to Salone have lasting memories of their first and last moments in the country. Your options are: helicopter (Soviet-run, crashed several years ago), hovercraft (sank a few years ago, but rumoured to be returning soon), water taxi, or ferry (slow, and also crashed several times). A big problem with these options is that during the rainy season, none are particularly pleasant, and all are notoriously unreliable. Oh, and all the flights arrive after dark and depart between 9pm and 2am, but there are only one or two hotels by the airport. Needless to say, the topic of airport transfer comes up frequently in conversations with ex-pats and locals. The ferries were supposed to be replace to run more efficiently. Instead, there is a new ferry service that runs just for the flights at $30 (compared to $1) - I don't know anyone who has taken it. One man we spoke with proposed a dual level service: run the $30-40 ferry for the expats, mining industry, and anyone who can afford it. Make it nice, but most importantly, make it run on time. Then use that income to subsidize the standard ferry service- the one the locals rely on to get to and from the market. Using the money from the 'luxury' service, you can keep the prices low but improve the quality and reliability Probably my favorite proposal is the promise to build a bridge from Freetown to Lungi. This has been under discussion since the airport was built and nobody really expects any progress.
This same attitude extends to nearly everything wrong with the country. The roads were supposed to be fixed by a Ghanaian company or the Chinese government, who contracted to a Senegalese company. There is a dam- Bumbuna- which is supposed to be providing power to much of the country In spite of the rains, power has not improved, and each outage is met by sighs of "but what of Bumbuna." Decades ago, prior to the war, Club Med had proposed building a resort on Lumley Beach. It would have brought several international hotels, and attracted a tourist industry. It never came, and now Sierra Leone is trying to rebuild tourism that was never there.
This extends, unfortunately, to human rights work as well. There is no law explicitly outlawing FGM, but it "should" be covered under the Child Rights Act of 2007. The government has never attempted to prosecute under the relevant section. Years were spent training a new juvenile court magistrate to adhere to international standards, but she has not been given a court because the old magistrate won't retire. The structures that are meant to be in place are not effective, but their failures are defended by talking about what should happen. But the promises of progressive realization seem to be stalled and the excuses are neverending. At what point do those excuses start to sound false? When do we accept that certain methods are not working? And will the time come that donors say, "enough is enough," and stop sending aid altogether? I don't know how to fix these problems, but nearly every Sierra Leonean has at least a few suggestions and it is clear that the government's solutions are not working. Maybe it is time to try something new and see what could be.
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