A Kind of Homecoming

by Braithwaite, E. R. ;

  “And do you accept it as a reasonable estimate?”

  “That does not come within my sphere of activities, but an outsider looking around for himself might eventually arrive at a similar conclusion.”

  “Are there, then, no foreseeable prospects for these chaps and those boys and girls who are soon to leave school?”

  “I couldn’t answer that, but you could look around for yourself. I often get the impression that every section of the civil service has reached the saturation point, maybe beyond it. You might think that what is urgently needed here is not only money but ideas: ways and means of providing outlets for the youth of the country before they become frustrated and demoralized. I hear tell that in Ghana they have a scheme called the ‘Builders’ Brigade’, where youths of both sexes are trained to meet the needs of new industrial development. Whether that would work here or not is not for me to say, but an outsider might conclude that something is urgently needed, if not long overdue.”

  “Is there no uneasiness among these people about their plight? Don’t they ever demonstrate or agitate for some change in their circumstances?”

  “Friend, you are in Sierra Leone, remember? Demonstrate? Agitate? What are you talking about? That sounds like Communist talk, and we do not tolerate anything here which sounds like Communist talk. When you have been here a while you might think that there is a certain deep-seated lethargy which permeates all of us, at all levels. You might imagine that we are the victims of an unusual type of colonialism, the type which conditions the mind to complete acceptance. Struggle of any sort seems foreign to our nature, and we can as easily accommodate ourselves in the dust and filth as on the silken cushion among the scornful. We adjust to things. These out-of-work chaps adjust themselves to their chronic unemployment and would continue so for years, especially if some known relative is employed, then they batten on him and consider it their prerogative to do so. We call that maintaining our tribal ties. Friend, I have an idea you came to Sierra Leone to see a birth. Some might think you are witnessing a kind of death.”

  “But I can’t understand you!” I exclaimed. “You speak as if this country were completely cut off from the rest of Africa. Surely the people must be aware of what is going on all around them. Don’t they read about Guinea and Ghana and Nigeria and the Congo and all those other places? Don’t they know that Africans everywhere are awakening to a new and vigorous sense of destiny and responsibility? And why do you speak as if you are in a special little capsule, separate from the rest? Have you no share in the responsibilities, too?”

  “Take it easy, friend,” he said, calmly. “Don’t forget, everyone will tell you that we are a reserved people, so let’s not get all worked up and bloodthirsty. What do we know of what’s going on around us? Who tells us? The newspapers? Read the local ones any day of the week; nothing of consequence ever appears until it is old, stale news. I hear that they deliver them free in your hotel. Do you ever read anything in them that’s important and current? Do you ever read current stuff about the Congo, or any of the hundred and one earth-shaking things which are happening each day all over the world? But that’s not all. One can buy overseas newspapers and journals, but these are always at least one week old when they arrive here. I’m not saying that it’s deliberate; I’m just telling you that this situation exists.

  “So much for newspapers as a medium of current information. Now radio, that wonderful miracle of this scientific age. From it you get nothing more of news value than you get from the daily papers, except for news bulletins from the B.B.C. relayed through the local system, and none of that is likely to excite or incite. Don’t preach to me about responsibility, my friend, until you have lived a little longer among us and can see for yourself that we are, in fact, separate and cut off in this neck of the woods.”

  He turned to point a dramatic finger at the towering cotton tree. “That tree is supposed to be the symbol of a free people. It appears on our postage stamp and we are for ever talking about it—it may be significant, however, that it also spreads its branches daily over these poor wretches, who are as tightly enslaved by chronic poverty as if bound by the shackles which their forefathers buried among those eternal roots. But their enslavement is even worse—look at them! Don’t they seem relaxed, even content? Remember, my friend, we are a reserved people, so damned reserved that we have lost the will to struggle against any kind of adversity, or perhaps we have even lost the personal dignity which stimulates the need to struggle.”

  Just like that, sudden as the puffs of wind which blew the dust into tiny, whirling funnels, my friend would quickly flog himself into passionate exhortation, temporarily forgetting his proclaimed middle-of-the-roadness.

  “Mr. Lindsay, if you feel so deeply about things, why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, my friend,” he replied. “I was not speaking for myself. Even so, what is there to be done? Any voice raised in protest would be quickly and completely hushed. First of all the protesting person would be labelled a Communist, in the pay of subversive foreign elements, then he would be hauled into court on some trumped-up charge and after due process of law, probably jailed. No one backs the Government, no one opposes the Government.”

  “But you have an official opposition and a leader of the opposition.”

  “My friend, I am not concerned with the theory but with the practice of government, and I think it is fair to say that there is no real opposition. There is only one political party, the S.L.P.P., or Sierra Leone Progressive Party, headed by the Prime Minister. Any other so-called party is merely a name, meaningless and ineffectual. They do not count, no matter who heads them. Do I sound despondent and bitter? I’m not really. Think of the things I’ve said and take another good look at these carefree, indifferent, jobless fellows. The time will come, the time may soon be here, when they will suddenly wake up and begin to ask questions and the fat will really be in the fire.”

  “I’d like to talk with them, you know, find out if they do have any interest in approaching independence.”

  “Go ahead, but I don’t think you’ll get anything.”

  I walked over to a group and said hello in greeting. My friend spoke to them in creole, explaining that I was a visitor from Europe and wanted to chat with them. They looked at the camera I had slung over my shoulder and asked whether I wanted to take their picture. Thinking that this would be a good opening, I said yes.

  “How about some gash?” one asked, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together in a sign unmistakable the world over. “Gash” meant money.

  “Give them a few shillings,” my friend advised, “they need it. And taking their picture provides them with an excuse for asking.”

  I snapped a few shots of them, handed over a few shillings, and leaned against the fence, very much as some of them were doing.

  “How long have you been out of work?” I asked.

  “Long, long time, maybe six months,” said one.

  “Long time, a year maybe,” answered another.

  Some of them merely spread their hands, fingers outpointed, as if to encompass as much time as possible by the gesture.

  “Do you come here every day?” I asked.

  “Yes, except when it rains.”

  “Why not, nothing else to do?”

  “We all come here, every day.”

  They laughed nervously together. I thought I’d try another line. “I’ve come to your country to find out how you feel about independence. In a few weeks this will be an independent country.”

  They looked at each other as if unsure about how to answer that one.

  “Yes, independence is next month,” one said.

  “Then the Old Man will go live up there,” said another, pointing up towards the barely visible cupola of Government House, from which the Union Jack gaily fluttered in the breeze.

  “Yes,
the Old Man will turn Governor,” another agreed.

  “Then the white men will go back to England.”

  “Maybe then we find work.”

  “Them Lebanese will go back where they came from, and we take over them Lebanese shops.”

  “Them Lebanese own all the shops around waterside. When independence comes only black people own the shops.”

  “All the big shops, like Kingsway and Cold Storage, all them big shops.”

  “And the banks. Lots of money in those banks. Just walk into a bank and say, ‘Gimme that money there.’”

  As he divulged himself of this piece of fantasy and the mental picture it conjured up, the speaker rolled on the ground in glee, kicking his heels high in the air, while his friends laughed heartily in sympathy, slapping their thighs loudly in accompaniment. I laughed too at the ridiculousness of it all.

  These young men were a long, long way from responsible conduct. My friend had not over-painted the picture. I remembered conversations I had had in Guinea with young men like these, probably from the same kind of background, but with vastly greater social consciousness. Was it because of Guinea’s recent turbulent experiences? Was the same kind of turbulence necessary here as a stimulus to effort and responsibility? A few more years of this inactivity and these young men would be permanently useless to themselves or their community. Idleness is a serious social disease. My friend looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if to say, “Well, what did you expect!” So, with a word or two more, I left them, diverting themselves with magic dreams of ease and plenty after independence.

  “Let’s forget about social injustices for a while,” my friend said. “We’ll follow the road around the colony and out along the coast and perhaps have a swim at Lumley Beach.”

  We found the car, stopped at his house and my hotel for our bathing trunks and set out from Freetown, through villages which were all very much the same, rather shabby, and built on both sides of the narrow ribbon of the road. Leicester, Regent, Charlotte, Hastings, Waterloo, Campbell Town, Russel, York, Sussex, Hamilton, Godrich, the British imprint was deep, probably permanent. In the warm afternoon sunshine everything looked peaceful and quaintly picturesque, the houses sheltering in the cool shadows of coconut palms and huge mango trees, people sitting in the shade chatting together or dozing, dogs half-heartedly giving chase to the car or lying carelessly in the roadways as if accustomed to being bypassed.

  At the approach to Lumley Beach, on the right-hand side of the road, I saw the smooth, carefully laid-out greens of a golf course, now somewhat brown for lack of rain; a large notice board announced that the golf club was for private members only, and not open to residents of Freetown.

  “Don’t you think that that notice board is in rather poor taste, especially at this time?” I asked.

  “No, my friend,” he replied, “for as long as our people are not offended by it I think it should stay there.”

  It sounded rather cryptic and I did not pursue the matter. Further along I saw the clubhouse, a low, rambling building which sat primly on the edge of the course; several European couples were sipping drinks in the forecourt, which offered a splendid view of the broad reach of the Atlantic.

  “Is this notice in any way indicative of the social relationship between black and white?”

  “Some people will tell you that, in this country, Europeans and Africans meet and mix socially. Others might affirm that though they work together there is very little social intercourse. Here and there you see a mixed couple, but this has no bearing on the matter. Very rarely are Africans invited into European homes, and I think it would be true to state the little mixing which does occur dates very largely from about the end of the Second World War; in fact, anything which might reasonably be called social or economic progress here, dates from not much more than ten years ago.”

  The beach at Lumley was a beautiful and impressive sight: the soft white sand fell away from the rutted roadway in a gentle slope until it flattened out in a short plateau before dipping sharply to the sea. At the moment huge rollers were rushing inward to hurl themselves against the lower lip of the beach and expend their whistling froth in a fruitless struggle up the plateau.

  “Rather dangerous here for bathing. Let’s try further along,” he said.

  About a mile beyond the golf course the beach curved gently in a shallow crescent; several long boats manned by briskly paddling Africans were darting to and fro in among the gentler waves, while on shore scores of African men and women were gathered in long lines, holding ropes which led to the edge of the water and out to sea.

  “This is really something you should not miss,” he said. “Let’s get down there and watch the fun.”

  At close hand those on the beach were lined up, each like a tug-of-war team ready and waiting for its opponent; each of these teams consisted of twenty or more men, women and children, most of them wet to the skin from contact with the waves; the younger ones, boys and girls, were clad only in a kind of flowing loin-cloth. Some of these laughing children were truly beautiful, their smooth skins generously pearled by water droplets, eyes and teeth flashing in enjoyment; the young girls, some of them in their early or late teens, full-breasted and completely unshy. Running up and down some short distance from the teams, shouting and waving his arms seaward, was a large African clad only in a pair of discoloured shorts and a grotesque wide-brimmed straw hat; his stentorian voice yelled instructions to the boat crews, who paddled furiously or paused at his signals, while those on shore, at a word from him, hauled so vigorously on the lines that often several members of each team would tumble over in the sand to the delight of the others. Suddenly the conductor, for such he seemed to be, signalled rapidly seaward and all the boats immediately swung round to point inland, the paddlers working furiously as they raced simultaneously towards the beach. Meanwhile the lines of the pullers on the beach raced up the easy slope and soon the first ends of the nets appeared. Now ensued a frantic pulling on the ropes, hand-over-fist, as they hurried to land the twisting, heaving, silvery catch, their voices raised in excited yells, laughter and exaltation. The boatmen raced their craft until they grounded, then leaped out to draw them up above the waterline before turning to lend a hand with the catch. And what a catch it was! Fish varying in length from two to three feet or more; fat, succulent things which flopped and slithered as they were hauled to form a huge silvery pile which glittered in the rays of the slanting sun.

  As if informed by some kind of bush telegraph, several lorries and cars appeared along the road, honking their contribution to the din, and disgorging groups of fish vendors and middlemen.

  “I did not know about this bit of local activity,” I said to my friend, who seemed as excited and entranced as I was by the skill and harmony of the whole co-operative procedure.

  “It isn’t local,” he said, “except for those who’ve just arrived, all the people here are Ghanaians; they are the only ones who fish along the coasts; they’re tough and capable and wonderful fishermen. Let’s go closer and watch the sales and you’ll notice something.”

  The selling was a rather complicated affair of bid and counter-bid, with bundles of pound notes changing hands. In most cases the Ghanaian women seemed to take charge of the money, stuffing the bills into bulging leather pouches attached to their waists.

  “You mean about the women hanging on to the cash?”

  “Yes. These Ghanaians are quite well-off. They don’t squander their money or raise hell in town as soon as they have a pound or two. They live over there,” he pointed to a low valley some distance inland, “in their own little communities, and keep very much to themselves.”

  “Will they sell all this fish?” The pile somehow seemed tremendous.

  “Most of it. Of what remains they will reserve some for their own use, then bury the rest deep in the sand.”

  “So quite a bit of each catch is wasted.
”

  “Yes, but such is life, no way of avoiding that.”

  We walked some little distance down the beach away from the sound and smell of the impromptu fish market and swam a while in the warm, refreshing water.

  In the days following I familiarized myself with the town and made many friends, among them the families of Dr. Jean Neale and Dr. Max Bond, both of them I.C.A. field operatives working in Sierra Leone on technical-aid programmes. For a time Dr. Bond and I lived in the same hotel and I was able to benefit greatly from his very wide experience in planned educational projects, gained from field work in several countries. The man’s humility was astonishing, and even now, when I hear or read of some instance of bigotry associated with American conduct, I think of Dr. Bond and his colleagues, who are quietly but effectively forging links of international understanding.

  He and I were involved in a rather odd incident one morning. He had moved from the Paramount Hotel to the Government Rest House some distance out of town and I had run over there to see him. We were chatting over beer when a smartly dressed gentleman approached and sat next to us. As was usual with Dr. Bond, he soon said something to the newcomer which drew him into the conversation with us, and before long we were chatting away together in the friendliest fashion. Our new friend introduced himself as a visiting official from one of the Arab States, he too was residing at the Rest House. Our conversation was occasionally interrupted by the noise of power drills, hammers and workmen’s shouts which flowed around us from the building operations nearby (Rest House accommodations were in process of extension by a firm of Israeli engineers and everywhere one could see well-muscled, bronzed, energetic young Israelis, not only supervising the construction, but working shoulder-to-shoulder with the African craftsmen and labourers).

  “Don’t you think this is a rather dangerous thing for Sierra Leone, to have all these Jews flocking into the country?” our Arab friend asked. “These people have a way of digging themselves in that could prove very dangerous if it were not recognized and curbed.”