Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to my American Brethren back home! And speaking of America, yesterday I visited and registered the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone. The visit, itself, was almost surreal. We had to first drive up a high plateau to get there, and the view from the top was breathtaking. Even through a thin fog, I could oversee all of Freetown from where we were standing. I heard that there is typically an official up at the peak to prevent people from taking pictures because you also have a bare view of the US Embassy grounds, but I was lucky enough to take a few snaps because there wasn’t anyone there.

Anyway, I met with the Public Affairs Officer of the embassy and had a nice little chat, my first conversation with an American since arriving in Salone. Public Affairs Officer, by the way, is a very intriguing job. Apparently, you move from one embassy to the other every two or three years and get to travel across the world. I’m not saying I’m going to all of a sudden try to become a P.A.O., but it does sound interesting.

The U.S. Embassy is having a 4th of July celebration today, which I was unfortunately not invited to. The P.A.O. told me she would have loved to extend an invitation, but apparently they’ve already invited over 400 people to an event which can only hold 150. One of my colleagues was invited as a member of the press whose heavily involved with the embassy, so she’ll just have to tell me all about it.

By the way, you might recall that in the previous post my co-workers were joking that we would be at the office or at work until 1 or 2 in the morning: After the mayoral debates (which, just as expected, started an hour and a half later than scheduled), I got home to my hostel at 1:42 a.m. You gotta’ love the promptness of Sierra Leonean events. The debates were quite interesting, though. A team of four from Awoko went to cover the event. One reporter was assigned as the photographer, two others as note-takers and I was assigned as the typist/story writer. Each of the note-takers took turns taking notes on the various questions and answers from the mayoral candidates and gave their notes to me so I could whip up a story. It was a bit hectic, but I think it went smoothly and our editors commended us the following morning for a job well done.

If I’m not able to access the internet tomorrow, it might be a long time before my next post. I’m off for Pujehun this Sunday and will be back Friday. I’m hoping to add posts/links to my columns on African politics and (still) my perception on the food!