Beyond Freetown: A visit to Mile 6
Yesterday we visited a resettlement camp at Mile 6, about an hour’s drive from Freetown. The roads were dusty, potholed and often under construction. Traffic was weaving across lanes, sometimes directed by a construction worker or policeman, bumping up and down from built road onto gravel. The Nissan Patrol, a beast of a vehicle driven by Nadia Assad, who grew up in Freetown, is a qualified engineer, and works as a consultant for Population Council with Purposeful focusing on technology specific initiatives, had no AC, but the wind blew in through the window as I watched the the world go by. This was my first trip outside of Freetown.
We passed through Waterloo on the way, which is the last hub of activity before you reach the turn off. Shops selling an assortment of everything; pots and pans, car parts and other bits and pieces lined the road. The occasional construction worker or policeman was directing traffic. At one point we were stopped as a motorcade passed — the Vice President. Waterloo, Nadia said, is the where men living at Mile 6 come to find menial labor. There’s no commerce in the small community, and very little opportunity for people to earn a living. When the government bought the land, Nadia added, “they didn’t account for any farming land, so people who are trying to grow crops have found themselves in disputes with others, and their crops destroyed.”
We turned on to a gravel road, and passed by a few people walking along bringing food or water. Pulling up by the rows of zinc houses, a welcoming committee of small children lined up by the car. Their smiling faces greeted me with ‘Hello lady, hello lady…’. We were meeting with two different groups of girls who attend girls clubs. One group is attending school, and one is not. Each is split into groups; 10–14 year olds and 15–19 year olds. Nadia has been working with the girls for a number of years, and is a well known face in the community. We were met by Emma and Ramata, who act as mentors for the girls, running the girls clubs and helping them with everything from providing information and advice, to sometimes food and water. The families who live here were resettled after huge floods in Freetown in 2015. The government gave them the temporary zinc structures, and promised that permanent homes would be built within 6 months. Nearly three years on, and while the government have built 5 houses just beyond the perimeter of the temporary huts, they have not been allowed to move in to them. Besides, there are many more than 5 families in need of homes.
We sat in a covered space where a few stray cats, dogs and a handful of chickens were wandering about. One of the chickens had an alarming lack of feathers, though none of us could work out why. The first group of girls — those not at school — came in to talk. Of around 14 girls, 10 already have children. They were quiet, and seemed a little subdued. Most are living here with their children and their mothers, but without a husband or the father of their child. One girl, Fatmata, told us that the father of her baby ran away as soon as he found out she was pregnant. Another said that the father is in Freetown, and sends some money for support, but not much. Their days are mainly occupied with cooking, fetching water, chores, and looking after children. To get water they walk to a nearby swamp, but when this dries up in summer months it’s harder. They have to walk further, and people are fearful, Joseph Kaifala, another coworker explained, as there have been instances of children going missing.
The most challenging thing about being an adolescent girl here, they told us, was early marriage and pregnancy. “Having a child is a lot of responsibility”, one of the girls said. She didn’t look more than 14 herself, with a wide smile, childlike features and a shy demeanor. What they enjoy most about coming to the girls club is the access to information about sexual and reproductive health, and personal hygiene, and the opportunity to be together as a group. Most of them were now on birth control, either the injection or the ‘captain band’ (implant). More than anything, many said, they would like to go back to school. Most of them either stopped going when they moved to Mile 6, or when they had children. Nadia told me that the government promised families who moved there free schooling for their children for 2 years. 3 months in, when the school started demanding fees, they realized the government was no longer paying. There’s nobody that they can call, tell or demand action from.
One girl had wanted to be a doctor when she was at school, but to make a living, they were now all hoping to make money through petty trade or business. They had some basic training, via their mentor, on the idea of profit and loss, and were eager to sell things at the nearby junction. Garlic and other spices and condiments are in high demand.
After we spoke for about an hour, the girls took us on a tour of the camp. They showed us one of the bathrooms that is currently blocked and overflowing. There is sewage near where children are playing — once the rainy season comes, this becomes a huge cholera risk. At the back of the site, there is a Mosque under construction. Three wells, different types, each built by a different international aid effort or government, stood resplendent in the bright sun. None of them are working. Each dried up within about 5–6 months of being built. It’s at this point that I return to my own reservations about the impact of International Aid. Is it helpful if there’s no consistency? Is it fair if there’s an expectation set that can’t be fulfilled? Nadia explained that when these wells are built, nobody thinks to train the local people in how to repair them if they break. When they stop working, there’s nobody for them to turn to and ask. We passed by the newly built houses. They are white, clean, inviting. The girls told me that “they have furniture in them”, but are occupied by security guards. They’re too afraid to go in there.
At around 3pm, the girls who are in school started to return in their uniforms. Smart blue skirts or dresses, with beret hats. They excitedly filed in to say hello to Nadia. Then went to change before returning to talk to us. It was hotter now, with little breeze blowing through the hut and there were more girls in this group, packed onto benches, chatting to one another excitedly.
The girls sung a welcome song, each saying their name while clapping “Kelema, Kelema, I am I am a kelema o, Kadija Kelema…”. They were smiley and buoyant; the trip to and from school, company of other children, a chance to play seemed to lift their spirits and give them a more hopeful outlook. They all said they enjoyed school, they knew the importance of studying, and even if they didn’t study hard all the time, they knew they needed the skills to have a chance in their lives. They had aspirations to be doctors, nurses, politicians, engineers — Nadia is an inspiration they said. Later, Nadia told me that “one of the girls scored a 303 on the National Primary School Examination. It’s an impressive score, on par with private school students.”
They still lived under the specter of early marriage and pregnancy, though. They know the importance of not giving in to peer pressure, that they don’t have to have sex, and the danger of jealousy. Often, Nadia explained, “when girls see their friends with phones and nice clothes, they get jealous. They then go to men in the aim of getting similar stuff.”
They love the girls club because they get access to information that they didn’t get before at home — on sexual and reproductive health, and staying safe, for example. Once they started to have the conversations at the girls club, they were able to ask more questions at home, and their parents were compelled to give them answers. They love their mentors, Emma, a teacher herself, and Mr Bangura, who has helped them since they were housed in the Stadium before coming to Mile 6. They see the importance of being brave and bold in their lives, and value those qualities in other women. They look out for one another, and while not all of them are close friends, they consider themselves ‘sisters’, and would always offer one another help if they were in need.
While the girls attending school were still living under the same conditions, without access to clean water, without clean bathrooms, helping their mothers look after their siblings and carrying out chores every day, there was a contrast; those attending school could imagine a different future. They didn’t necessarily see their current condition as indicative of where they would end up.
I recalled my days as a teacher in Edmonton, North London. The school faced a lot of hardships, and many of the kids lived in tough circumstances. Some had behavioral problems or were hard to reach, others responded well, tried their best, shone. Teachers tried every day to do the best for students. To support them to go on to further education, or equip them for the world of work. Sometimes outcomes weren’t the best, kids were failed by their families, or by the system— schools, social services, both. Teachers were sometimes burnt out and over worked. But there was a system, school, structure.
Access to education, it struck me more than ever yesterday, is a huge privilege. As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I saw the injustice— it should be a basic entitlement, and for progress and change to take place, it must become so. Perhaps we don’t quite comprehend the privilege of access to education in our day to day lives in Western countries, though? Perhaps I should have tried harder to communicate that to kids I taught who ‘didn’t see the point?’
As we drove home around 5pm there was more traffic on the roads. It seemed like there were more roadworks than before, and we passed by at least two broken down minivan ‘buses’, whose tires probably fell foul of the rocks and gravel. On the back one said ‘Freetown Direct’, the passengers waited on the road as the driver used the jack to repair the flat.
I asked how likely it was that the girls who wanted to be lawyers and doctors would be able to achieve their dreams. Nadia was hopeful, but Joseph was measured in his response — “college is expensive, and it’s not just the cost of the fee, it’s the books, the photocopies, the travel. If they fail the exam to get in once, they may not try to retake it, and may feel ashamed and not go back to school. They need more support than what they’re getting, teachers who come consistently and an infrastructure that will take them beyond the basic foundation they’re getting. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, but there are huge challenges still ahead. The plus is that even basic education will help them in life; literacy, numeracy, life skills will give them more opportunity to be successful in petty trade. But without intervention, their circumstances could end up much the same as the girls who are not in school.”
