Random Stories

My office on Jomo Kenyatta road is undergoing renovations so we moved “temporarily” (i.e. 3-4 months) to Kimbima Hotel at Man of War Bay in Aberdeen. My “office” is now a former hotel room with a balcony that overlooks the Atlantic. You can walk out to the balcony and watch dolphins in the Atlantic.
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On the way back from work, I pass Lumley beach. Some days you can see the amputee soccer game around dusk. The ones who lost a leg play as strikers and defenders, moving around deftly on crutches and carrying out vicious take-downs by using their crutches to rip the other players’ crutches away. The ones who lost hands or arms play as goalkeepers.
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Sample songs written by children in two villages of Kenema District, Sierra Leone, as part of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project.

Mende:
“A’ mu heimie yeh seseh -
Kekeh latrine bur mu weh
Mu gbe a li la dogbui hur
Nao mia wah a hegbei”

English:
“Keep our environment clean
Father dig us some toilet
So we can stop going into
The bush to shit
Because this will cause illness”

Krio:
“A luk titi na wati dan di
Na kaka, kaka di gei gei oh, oh….
Na sei oh, kaka di gei korela, oh…
Na korela, kaka di gei, belerun, oh….
Na belerun”

English:
“I look over there what did
I see is shit, shit can cause
Sickness oh, oh… sickness, shit
Can cause cholera, oh… cholera,
Shit can cause dysentery, oh… dysentery”

Sierra Leone has the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the world.