Our Man in Hastings: diary of Sierra Leone visit
Council leader Peter Pragnell is in Sierra Leone. Read his blog here.
This was our day of visiting potential tourist sites. It turned out to be a long, hot but varied day.
On our way out to Waterloo we called in on Jui Lower Primary School, which is linked with Little Ridge CP School, where I am a governor. Mrs Gladys Davies, the Head Teacher, was not there but we visited a couple of classes and delivered letters from Tom Collins, Head at Little Ridge, and Cllr Eve Martin, Deputy Mayor of Hastings and also a governor at Little Ridge. At tomorrow's ceremony I'll be given work by children at Jui Lower to bring back.
In three 4x4s we set out on a tour of towns and villages on the Peninsula, to the south and west of Freetown. First we visited Bure Town, a fishing community. The beach was heaving with people queueing to catch a boat to other ports along the coast. The fishing boats were all out at sea so we didn't see them. A soldier berated Kevin Boorman for taking photographs in 'a military area', which the beach is not. Kevin emerged unscathed from the experience!
Next was Kent beach, which I had visited three years ago and was glad to see again. It is a crescent of golden sand, trimmed with gently waving palm trees and backed by a small lagoon. Paradise - but a paradise with a grim history as it also holds the ruins of a slave fort, in which captured Africans were held until the ships came to carry them off to the New World. Still standing is the iron slave lamp - a lamppost used to let slavers know where to gather. Hell in paradise.
Here we also met an entrepreneur who has set up a poultry organisation which sends 150 dozen eggs to the city every day - and he's expanding. A good news story.
After stopping briefly at York beach, with its grey sand, we moved on to the grandly named Number Two Village, which stands at the mouth of the Number Two River, where we had lunch overlooking the blinding white sand stretching away in both directions. This was the only beach we visited that already caters for tourists, with an open-air restaurant/bar, lots of beach chairs and even tourists sunning themselves.
They must have been hardy people as the road approaching the village is the worst I have ever been on. The surface, if it ever had one, is long gone and what remains consists of short graded stretches and some bone-jarring, spine-compressing, teeth-banging potholes as well as stones and rocks lying on the surface. All with an accompanying cloud of red dust.
We called briefly at Hamilton to have a drink at the home of Seesay, a councillor who was driving one of the 4x4s. Then it was time to set off for home. We attempted a short cut to avoid roadworks and ended up crashing down back lanes, driving up cul-de-sacs and getting thoroughly lost.
Finally, we left Lumley and took the road over the Peninsula Mountains to avoid the rush hour in Freetown. What a spectacular route!
Tomorrow, Roy Mawford, Kevin Boorman and I are off early to pay a courtesy call on the Vice-President before hot-footing it to Hastings for the grand opening of the Hastings Twin Town Centre - built by local labour and funded by, among others, the British High Commission and the people of Hastings UK.
Read Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday here.
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Weather for Hastings
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
