A City on the Bay

Freetown, Sierra Leone

On Sunday, March 8, our medical team boarded a Kenya Airlines flight from Accra, Ghana to Freetown, Sierra Leone. We were met at the airport by the advance team members Jeremy Maller, Steve Iwan and Joseph Kebbie as well as HCJB Global radio partner Dr. Momadou Conteh. Conteh, on top of being a pastor at Abundant Life Faith Center, also heads up New Life Ventures radio. The team stayed at his house, most of the guys spreading out camping mats on the floor.

When you arrive at the airport in Freetown, you actually arrive across the bay from the main part of the city and must cross in a ferry (or in the expensive, scary, aging helicopter shuttle). As we left our luggage secured in the vehicles, the team climbed the steep stairs to the passenger deck to enjoy the ferry ride. As the colorful masses filed in and we got underway, the Muslim preacher with the megaphone was our first clue that we were travelling to a country where Christians are the minority.

The more aggressive vibe and the sense that people were on edge or somewhat fearful was our first hint that many invisible wounds were still raw from the civil war that raged from 1991 to 2002. Tens of thousands of deaths occurred during that time. Nearly one third of the nation’s population (around 2 million people) was displaced during the fighting.

The country is still rebuilding and much of the infrastructure remains non-functional. It is amazing to me that Freetown, an entire city of nearly 2 million people perched beautifully above the bay, has no widespread electrical power grid and no centralized water system. Hauling water appears to be a never-ending task for everyone and noisy, smelly generators rattling long into the nights seem to be the status quo for those who are lucky enough to be able to afford them. The team got intimately acquainted with this phenomenon on the very first night. “Honda’s Ode to Diesel Fumes” serenaded our dreams.