Celebrations

Happy New Year!  The festive season is drawing to a close and 2016 is now upon us.  Twelve months previously, I could not have imagined that I would be spending Christmas 2015 in Sierra Leone but the journey of life takes some unexpected turns.  My best present from Santa this year was the Christmas rota; for the first time in a decade, I had been given Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve off work.  How ironic that family and loved ones are thousands of miles away.  The wonders of modern communication make contact easier but a patchy Skype chat is not the same as sitting round the same table or sharing a kiss under the mistletoe -options here are much less appealing!;-).  

 

I look forward to catching up with everyone at home later this month, most especially my girlfriend Alice.  There is a great crowd of people here, however, and I thought that I would focus this post on what has been going on in excursions away from the hospital over the last couple of weeks.  To stick with the Emergency Medicine theme though, it’s based on ABCDE.

       

A is for Adventure

Picket Hill, at just under 900m elevation, is the highest point of the Peninsula Mountain range.  My house-mate and I decided to tackle this after Boxing Day as part of a group of six with a couple of guides to lead us to the top.  We set out from a small village of a few dwellings on the east of the range at the end of a dusty bumpy track, only negotiable by 4-wheel drive vehicles.  The trail took us quickly into jungle, past several settlements established in the early 1900s which have now been abandoned and reclaimed by the forest and up through dense vegetation towards the summit. 

The path was overgrown in several places and required clearing with machetes but after 3 hours we reached the top.  The view is a little hazy at this time of year as the Harmattan, a dust-laden wind blows across the country from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea, but it is still possible to feel a dramatic sense of elevation looking across the wooden hills that descend to the coastal region and meet the Atlantic Ocean.   

Clearing the way to the top of Picket Hill

B is for Beaches

In stark contrast to the UK, there has been no rain here for well over a month now as we enter the dry season.  In the dry season, the most popular destination in Freetown is the beach and Sierra Leone is home to some of the most pristine in the world.  Lumley beach, perhaps the least pristine due to its location, is a two-mile stretch of sand on the western aspect of the city.  It is fairly quiet in the mornings, aside from the occasional early morning stroller and the fishermen dragging in their nets but by most afternoons over the holiday season, thousands of revellers descend to dance, play football, bathe and generally have a good time.

Working down the peninsula the beaches get gradually more spectacular from Lakka and it’s freshly caught lobsters, through the white sands of Tokeh down to Bureh and its mountainous jungle back-drop, the best place to catch a wave on this section of coast.  A trip to the beach makes being away at Christmas a little easier to manage. 

Fishermen on Lumley Beach

Lobster at Lakka

C is for Carnival

The majority religion in Sierra Leone is Islam with a significant Christian minority.  The constitution provides for freedom of religion and there is a religious tolerance and harmony between faiths here that is seldom found amongst other nations in the region.  Whatever the faith, Christmas is a time to celebrate here and carnivals have been held regularly across the city.

Streets have been decked with decorative bunting, small stages set up for performers and loud speakers rigged to play everything from local pop to Justin Bieber, from the early evening into the ‘wee wee hours’ as one banner stated.  Needless to say, I have been impressing the locals with my dance moves on more than one occasion.

D is for Dinner

There were 14 of us present for dinner on Christmas Day and it was a splendid affair with oven roasted chicken (prepared and plucked that very morning by some of the team), stuffing, vegetables and roast potato.  Everyone contributed and I was allocated responsibility for snacks, crisps and Christmas pudding – perhaps an indication of how little my colleagues trust my culinary skills.

 

The chefs did an excellent job and as a result of the fine food and after effects from the Christmas Eve carnival, there was little energy left after dinner other than to sit back and enjoy a traditional festive movie.  Die Hard gets better every time I watch it!

Christmas Dinner

E is for End of Ebola

On 29^th December, the WHO announced Guinea to be Ebola Free.  Guinea therefore joins Sierra Leone in ending transmission of the disease and it is the first time since the start of the outbreak that there have been no cases in West Africa.  That is worth celebrating for sure!