Today we headed back to Freetown, and it was a relief not to consume a heavy Italian lunch and dinner. Breakfast was a cappuccino with Mabinti’s grapefruit, and then we snacked on her peanuts and some bananas during the journey.
When we got back to the hotel, we had a shower, and then went to the seafront poolside bar for drinks (pa – beer, me - Campari and lemonade. Too sweet but they didn’t have tonic). There was good local music playing, and I asked the barman about it. Then the barman turned out to be completely hilarious, because he kept erupting into uncontrollable laughter, waving his arms in amusement, at the most unfunny things – generally the lyrics of songs; “hahaha – he say he love her – hahaha – he say she beautiful and he want to be wid her – hahahahaha!” He kept doing this until I had the giggles so badly that the tears were running down my face, and I gave up trying not to appear to be laughing at him. He didn’t seem to notice or mind.
We then had supper at the hotel. I ate delicately fried snapper fillets and chips, while my dad had steak. Meat is not great in Sierra Leone, because the livestock numbers have not recovered since the hardship and pillaging of war. Now a lot of the available meat is imported, so a fresh, juicy, rare steak is not really a possibility – rare would be unwise for a start.
Proper Night Out
That evening, I had arranged to meet the foreign students in Paddy’s for night-long drinking and dancing. So, after supper my dad gave me a lift down there, and I met up with the students and their colleagues at the bar. The evening consisted of numerous bottles of Star, games of table football, hot, spicy chicken kebabs, handed out by bar staff, and dancing. The music started off as house music and techno, which seemed totally out of place, but thankfully moved on to reggae and African tunes half way through the night. I really enjoyed hearing Sierra Leonean music.
It was one of the student’s last night, and they all got absolutely rat-arsed – even more so than me! But I was supposed to be getting a taxi back with them, until they all got too drunk and drifted off. Luckily, I had been talking to some locals who knew the student’s colleagues, and who lived in the shanty town behind my hotel, called Sho-Sho Village. We all got a taxi back together, and I got to bed at about 7a.m – 45 mins before my father allegedly tried to wake me for breakfast.
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