Day 2 feeding time

So pre meal drinks over - visits into the heart of town over - now it's time to sit and relax with family for the afternoon ... There is something that even after many years of not talking or knowing a person that is comfortable and enjoyable - not ceremonial not put on - just enjoyable....

My cousin shows me around his compound ... Security is the key here ... We are shown the "pets" then the 4 guard dogs ... And the top dog shizuoka ... The two rotties - and the Alsatian ... That along with 2 night and 1 day time watch men - he can sleep at night I guess ... Once we were introduced to them they were also trained enough to know that we were welcome guests !!! The picture above is one of the two pet dogs - a female terrier and about 4 pups ... the top dog male Shitzu wont have any other male dogs in his "territory"....

A good and enjoyable dinner - with beers - about 12 I think at last count - an afternoon and evening of chat - some chattering - some reminiscing - some idle talk - but when all said and done a good evening ...

Then back to the kingdom !! Yes the kingdom .... but not alone ... With a take-away in tow - and the worse for drinking....

Most importantly ... some home made kebah ... Yummmm




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Day 2 - city breaks for the brave

It's Morning ... Breakfast shared with bush deer and a few traveling business people ... Malaria tablet taken ... Check !

So wait for the driver - my cousins driver - a cheerful chap ( not!!) who choses to understand whatever suits him ... But every so often puts a little effort in ... It's Sunday ... Which is exiting for a number of reasons
Traffic is light enough to be able to go across town in less than 3 hours !!
I am invited for dinner with my cousin and his kids ...
And I am planning to clear a few items of my check list of memory photos..

The whistle stop tour starts with my sisters old school ... St Josephs school - next to St Nicholas church ... Click click .. Item 1 dealt with ... A convent school In those days - run by nuns and as with all schools in Freetown .. No glass in the window offers the only air and relaid from the smell of sweat in 100 degrees plus... My old school does not exist ... A number of similar named schools do - but my actual school does not ... But the smell of sweat and heat as you sat through lessons in those days never leaves you ....









Item 2 sacred heart cathedral.. I was confirmed a catholic in this church - so was my sister .. My mother and father got married in this church ... So anyway click click an odd photo or two - right in the middle of town ... This is the place that the tour guides / common sense / sense of personal well being clearly state proceed with extreme caution ... (And with armed escort if early evening) ... As this is a place that has now become the refugee camp for everyone who ran into Freetown to avoid the war problems ... And lots of them never left... Across the road from the church used to be the cinema .. I went there ... But in those days you had to be suitably dressed... In order to go to places like Hill station club , the cinema , or anywhere other than the beach .. Jacket shirt and tie were required ... Yes even the cinema ..



 Else you were sent away and not allowed in... So my first trip to the cinema was this cinema .. Across from the cathedral - in my White jacket - bow tie - and White short trousers ... STOP LAUGHING !!!!!! I was cute Ok!!.. Almost James bond like :) :)
Check check !!

Lunch is due at around 2 ish so now we have some time to kill ...

So ask the driver to take us to a local bar .. now this is not like popping off to the local for a beer - this is busy roadside - dusty - and the first of the two bars we went to was inside a petrol station - built onto a 40ft container .. And they did not have power for some time ... We were told as the bar owner opened our warm beer.... The second bar was on the main junction on the main road near the police station - the money changers - and a few thousand cars and people walking past... It also gave the original meaning to bar flies - hundreds of them on the tables !!!!!
But one more beer - then off to my cousins house for lunch !!! Wonderful :)






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Day 1 Hill Station Club and beyond ..

I had read that hill station club had been ravaged by the war - so I was prepared for changes - so in anticipation we drove up via lumley up through Congo cross - a small visit to see the brother if of my good ( now Gambian resident) friend manu shallop ... Tony has been out here most of the time ... And his supermarket business is a base next to his home ... So call in - say hello - arrange a beer - and pick up some supplies - but the main attraction Hill Station Club. I recognised it instantly ... But only a shadow of it's former glory now remains ...

The once proud ornate pillars that acted as a walk through to the main building only partially remain - and what was a walk through corridor of fine columns and a covered roof - now are only half covered by some corrugated iron ... The place itself was decimated ...

The two full size snooker tables were now consigned to the annuals of time ... And the room itself had been ritually tortured in a symbolic attempt to show the new found rule does not accept the old ways... It was hard to swallow ...

Out on the balcony I told the now young caretakers of the building of Its days of glory - when Hill Station Club was the place - and of times of adult play ... Specifically a game that was mutually beneficial - a race set with lines of fizzy bottle drinks and kids - set up by a group of drunk giddy adults ... Now wanting a break from their night club entertainment. The joke was clear - five kids racing to drink five bottles of fizzy coke or such with the sugar rush - and then the throwing up that occurs when you mix these 2 elements.

But that was then... Some photos as this was where my mother and father met - it was the regular spot at least once a month for an adult booze up and an important part of my youth memories... So on the way down there is a big sign saying Hill Station - nice but risky as it backs into the presidents residence..

But it's a risk I took - and was promptly arrested by the armed military guard outside the palace... All my experience of Africa - my ability to understand Krio and speak it some what - saved me in the end .. Armed military police are not renowned for their sense of humour. I had ignored them as they shouted at me from their post outside the presidents palace, and they clearly had thought of me as being a white ex-pat who was ignoring the black guy ... well actually nearly right, as I was ignoring them to prove a point rather than a colour thing. The sign in my opinion was not close enough to the palace to be of any threat to them.. it like being arrested for taking photos of Pall Mall because its close to the queens residence ..

In the end, as I was using someone else's car and driver - I thought it best to turn around and walk towards them. the key point they wanted to make is that I could have been taking photos to give secrets to their enemies .... I was quick to point out that the only enemies they have encountered recently were their own people ... That went down well then !!!

In the end - a mixture of discussion, arrogance, and understanding was used to sort out the problem..... combined with the fact that when he started to spout off in Krio about the "white guy" thinking he can do what ever he feels like in his country ... I reminded him that I was not white, and this was my country not just his !!!

Note of caution - Not for the standard tourist I must add - as the wrong mix of humour, and aggressive retorts would have seen me handled in a very different way.. after all there were 4 machines guns in the small holding area I was taken to .... The stuff of international incidents ....

So back down to the supermarket for some supplies ...

Back towards the hotel - a visit to Montanan "palace" !! A beach bar on lumley beach a little more "up market" ... Sit with a few beers to watch the sun go down ... Then back towards the hotel for an evening of chill down and a look into the strange turtle pond in the middle of the hotel .... With the newly named big Fred the turtle in the pond ....

Day 1 comes to an end ... A hot interesting start to my visit back to Freetown...

Bearguitarists always do things a little differently !!!!

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Day 2 The Freetown review.

It's time to try to remember Freetown - what it was in my mind and what it now has become .... And it all starts with a quick check outside the door of the apartment - no 002 of the mansion block !!

Well checking outside was for a number of reasons ... The first being an array of strange animal statues arranged in what was a childrens fairground .... With rides that were seen last in 1947 in post war Britain ... Well maybe later but still a playground ornate with strange statues and wild life that would be perfectly at home in a Michael Jackson home movie !!! There are some small dog sized deer and one large deer wandering around in the same way as you would see the odd cat or two in foreign hotels .. And like a pet cat or dog - they were totally un-affected by us walking past them, stroking them, and if you called them they came over to you.. And like all pets they hung around the breakfast area waiting for children to sit down and slip them odd items if fruit and food .
Yes they are real !!! And the play ground  - whatever - was real also - not the strange illusions you can sometimes see after 7 bottles of local beer !! So that now confirmed ... Breakfast and on with the first day ...

First port of call - a walk along lumley beach ... Golden sands - and generally people leaving you alone to do what ever you are doing ...

Then off to do some sight seeing.. Not of the tourist kind but some places that must be captured for the luxury of reminiscing of times gone by...

Oh yes - my first night bed fellow ... Well as I lay asleep I felt a sharp object almost like a branch under my back ... I brushed it hard away from my back ... A branch left in when they washed the bedding - I told myself ... But in the morning when I looked in the floor I had my suspicions .... With the compliments of a local pesticide and a spray under the bed before we left the room that night they were confirmed ...

You see ... This goes back to being a youngster in Freetown ... I had been out the day before school to buy some new school shoes ... The morning came and I could not get them onto my feet ... The right foot fitted ok - just the left one - we squeezed - I got the entire speech on I should have taken more care on purchase etc.. My mother push my foot into the shoe as hard as she could ... The cook had a go .. But no.. The left foot was not going on.... So out came my foot - and out ran a huge cockroach .... So to make everything complete one of his long lost relatives was trying to share with me again on my return !!!! A huge fella .. But this time bop the local famous cockroach killing spray had done Its job ... And he was kaput !!!!!

Well the day had a few false starts with the driver ... He was late coming and we were late deciding and telling him to come ... So the order of the day - go and do the visit to the cemetery to find my various uncles and great grandparents etc.

The only problem is that it would have taken so long to go the 4 miles across town due to bad traffic and roads that this was abandoned in favour of ... Hill Station Club.

Hill station club is where my mother met my farther ... It was THE place to go in it's day - a place where everyone who was anyone went ... And was a favourite place for all visiting senior military ... It was a place I was taken to as a child many times until the early hours of the morning - as parents danced - drank - talked - and generally enjoyed this bar night club.

Well off to Hill Station Club - my first reunion of Freetown.



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Day 1 The Sierra Leone Conical's

It's a normal thing for bears to hibernate during the long winter months - and of course bareguitarists are no different - so I am doing my hibernation in what could be called my place of origin ... The place where generations of my family, their various business and personal exploits occurred - where most of generations of my family were born ... Sierra Leone - Freetown.

Huddled in my cave now in 35 in the shade - I feel at one with my fellow bears in their hibernation of choice... Yeah right - BEAR losers !!!!!

If you have never done it - freetown is a must do adventure ... This is a place at the end of years of colonial rule that was ravaged by war and greed. A time now placed firmly in history as the country tries to find new beginnings - a phoenix - that should slowly return to it's former glory.

The adventure starts when you land .. Walking off a plane into the heart of African immigration and passport control and baggage claim .. No one would call you cowardly if at this point you joined the queue for the same flight returning back home .. But it's adventure you booked for ... And from minute one - it's adventure you will get !!! So onwards brave soul ... Your future is bright !!!! ( a similar slogan stolen from a well know telecoms operator here in Europe - used by an African telecoms supplier ) .

I am fortunate - I still have cousins relations - and those people close enough to you to be regarded as related - living out here. So I was met at the point of collecting my bags... Bears don't need much, so not a lot to collect ... my reserve jar of honey in hand ....

Then it's a short walk to the "ticket office" - be careful when you picture this term in you head ..
It's a dark dust road walk along the side of the terminal building to a wall and a hand built wooden stand where two women stand and wait for you to buy tickets... But you can't buy tickets from them ... You must pay for the tickets in an equally carefully manufactured stand just behind them ... Pay your money ... And give your name ... Then- and only then - can you complete you ticket acquisition by providing the named tickets to the women 4 steps away ..." name" you are asked - as she checks the ticket!! Then ticket in hand you are moved about 10 steps away to wait for a mini-bus to take you to the jetty ... Yes I should have said - the 3 ways you can get from lungi airport to Freetown are-
Helicopter - 15 mins flight time
Pelican or other speed boat or ferry - about 30 mins
Road - 2 hours if you are lucky

We opted for helicopter .. But as they were not running - pelican. Pelican is a 20 person speed boat that zips between the airport jetty and freetown .. Approached by hand made wooden walkways across the water that have seen better days ... Then onto the boat.. Your luggage is tagged with a blue numbered tag so they know who it belongs to... After all some mermaid could well jump the boat and run off with your bags !!! It's all possible in Freetown !!! Oh yes ....
Having travelled at about 20 MPH in the pitch black across to the mainland - you pick up your bag to find that a queue is now formed - your blue ticket is required to identify that the bag belongs to you... There are 18 people on our crossing - there were only 10 bags stored on the front - all 18 of us were walking along the same wooden gang plank - and they wanted my blue ticket . Normally common sense would prevail and I would be in better humour and search through my hand luggage to provide a blue ticket of suitable numeric standing... But in Africa there are few rules that supersede the law of the shilling .. In other words you can buy most things - and buy your way out of most things if the price is right.. The man said I could not keep the bag without the ticket - I told him it was my bag and walked off .. He really only had a choice if I gave him - which I didn't ..

Up this wooden gang plank ( yes another carefully manufactured piece of engineering ) - I saw my cousin waiting .... I have never met him .. I don't remember him from my time in Freetown - but he is defiantly my cousin...

My family name is Aboud - and there is one thing that is said about us ... That you could line up 100 people from an Arab background and be able to spot the Abouds .... Once you know what one of us looks like - you can spot the rest.

This became even more apparent on the flight into Freetown when I was asked if I was related to a xyz Aboud - a tv personally over here - by a complete stranger on the plane... All look the same .. I am not sure if this is some form of racism ? But you all look the same to me as well so I suppose not !!! Hee Hee.

So no need for introductions or asking who this man was - I knew him at first sight .. Toufic Aboud .. Son of Rose Aboud - and grandson of Abraham Aboud - who is also my great grandfather. Yes we are about the same age but one generation apart... It's a blog in it's own right to try to explain this one... So don't ask ... I said DON'T ASK!!!!

He has come with his driver and now I have a lift to the pre- booked hotel. The family KINGDOM resort .. The name does not even begin to describe the place. No seriously it doesn't !!!! Set on the shores of 7 miles of golden sandy beach called lumley beach - Lumley beach was the cats whiskers, the bears boll**ks of the 1970's .... And kept in all its historical glory - it's is a walk back in time ... But the staff are freetonian and as such you are looked after with care and concern.. Freetonians are the some of the warmest people in the entire African continent.

But which ever way you paint the picture - it's a place that was at it's best some years before I arrived.

Finally here - arranged to travel around the following day - just get to the room - get some food - and sleep .....

Remind me to tell you who I shared the bed with on my first night tomorrow !! You'll love it ...

But as you can tell - there is just too much going on and bareguitarists need their beauty sleep ..



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