Greetings, justice, witches, my final week in Bonthe

I expect Many of you readers would be rather disappointed in my level of effort in this blog. So I hope to rectify that by this post. I have much to say about the last month, but where to begin? Work, culture, anecdotes? Perhaps I'll start by saying people have become more familiar with me being around. The 'hello pumui's' (white man) shouted from across town are beginning to be replaced by 'buwa' (hello), and 'nick!'. Greetings are still about as frequent though, and practically every person I pass by, whether passing by on the road, cooking, or shouting out the window from a room inside their house insists on saying hello and expect a reply of 'kawe n'gwoma' (thank god). Perhaps I'm getting used to it, but I find myself often pretending not to have heard, or giving a half hearted wave. But I do often find myself greeting most people as I walk by - it makes the staring a bit less awkward- I hope I don't bring this habit back to the uk, it might get me into trouble. One of the best things about working here is that, while there is limited expertise, somebody is always willing to lend a hand if they can (kids in particular) for very little in return. Because of that I've managed to make some very good friends among the kids in the neighbourhood. One of my tasks has been to measure water motion at various points around the estuary. I do this by releasing oranges (fruit brought all the way from the uk) into the river and following them for an hour. A seemingly pointless task to any local. Yet I've never had trouble finding people to accompany me and lend me a canoe for what is usually a 3-6km paddle. Even through thunderstorms on two occasions! Yet as friendly as the locals can be, they can be frightening when crossed. The atmosphere is often filled with shouting and arguments, but on one special occasion- a kid was caught stealing a radio. What I experienced was a form of justice unlike any I had seen before. The boy was suddenly surrounded by the entire neighbourhood 40-50 men, women, and children. Who managed to convince him to produce the stolen radio after a heated 10 minute discussion- and some pushing I might add. The return of the radio was followed by a triumphant cheer, while the crying boy was paraded to his home as if he was being led to his crucifixion, among chants of 'thief thief, we got the thief'. My offer to call the police to resolve the problem in a formal manner was politely refused . Aside from this rather amusing incident, I've also learned a bit about the dark side of the culture here. Among them is the strong belief in witchcraft. Since the birth of a new baby a few months before my arrival, my neighbours have reported hearing two very large owls outside their house every night. They think these owls are shape shifting witches who want to kill the baby as part of their sorcery. While a belief like this would be ridiculed in the UK, it is having an effect on the mood of my neighbours. One woman in particular is always shouting and constantly on edge. In a place where there are so many unknown causes of death, it would be easy to believe such things. On a lighter note, my health has been quite well over the past week. I had previously suffered from an infected small toe, but I have since grown a new one. There has also been a small but alarmingly deep hole in my leg, from what I think was a bug bite of some sort. I wondered whether it was one of those wasp larvae which feed within the flesh, but nothing as exciting. So after frequent visits to the hospital the hole is beginning to be filled in. There are plenty scars and cuts on my legs to show off to friends when I return. Finally, I should say that it is my last week here. And though I long to return to a place with access to YouTube, cooking stoves, coffee, and friends and family of course, there are many relationships I have made which I will miss. Most of all, I wish I was able to do so much more during my time here.

Important points after a long silence

So it has been a good long time since my last post. My sincerest apologies for that. Of course there is a lot to say about all that's happened since. To begin with, my supervisor (Francis Murray) and a team of experts came for a week's visit - one of the most intense weeks I've ever had. After adapting to the rhythm of rural village life, re-experiencing the sprint pace of the Stirling aquaculture department was quite a shock. Thankfully Francis fixed many of the problems I was having with my data collection, but there is still an incredible amount of work to do. During Francis' visit, I was advised to study the markets where oysters are sold, which really made clear what information will actually be important to people here. One of the issues I have found is the use of volume as a unit of sale. Oysters here are sold in cups (about 2300cm cubed volume), costing Le 1,000 per cup (~£0.13) regardless of the actual quantity of oysters inside. This quantity varies significantly by number of individuals - from 130 to 280 individual meats - and by value - 5 to 11 leons per oyster. The reason for the variation is partly the size of each meat, but also the habit of heaping mountains of meats on top of the cup- I hope I can post a photo when I get back. There is money saved by pursuing large oysters from sites further from Bonthe - as you can get more cups out of one harvest - but travelling to these sites is a strenuous and sometimes dangerous task. Another issue that has come up is the price of rice. Rice is a staple food, yet almost the entire country's supply is imported. Now for reasons which I suspect are production failures in southeast Asian countries, the price of a bag of rice (Le200,000) is now higher then it has ever been in the country. This change is causing a degree of unrest and getting enough food is becoming more and more difficult. I am curious to know whether this is just a national issue. To relate this back to oysters. Over the weekend, traders agreed to raise the price of a cup of oysters from Le1000 to 1500. Since the price of a cup of rice is Le1200 the rationale was: a cup of rice for a cup of oysters. This, and a radio broadcast of the activities of this oyster project with my supervisor Francis, was considered responsible for this change. As for me, I am rushing to get my data collection finished in time before having to head back to Stirling. Sadly I haven't been seeing the friends that I often used to spend time with in the evenings, but there is a lot of interesting work still to do.

Slow internet, harvesting, drinking water

A sincere apology for the lateness of this post. I must say that internet has been the most difficult thing about working here. It's made communicating with those outside the country very tough.

Yet there have been plenty of adventures and business over the past 2 weeks. We've been comparing the abundance and quality of oysters from various harvesting sites, one is known as a particularly high quality ground, yet is a perilous crossing for a small canoe through the River. From this, I've learned about the dangers of the occupation and the incidents that have occurred in the past. Often harvesters are caught in bad weather in a canoe loaded with 100kg of oysters, when the boat is pretty low in the water. In some villages only men are allowed to paddle canoes, which would outrage any feminist. Yet I later learned that this was a reaction to severe incidents in the past where women did not have the strength to reach the shore. Often such rules have good reason behind them.

Aside from work, the biggest adventure I had so far was  going for a full harvest with my neighbour. We reached the ground after about a 40 minute paddle, cut 90kg worth of oysters, and paddled back. Then spent up to 6 hours the next say steaming them I preparation for sale. What interested me was the fact that I went with a 17 year old school student who was going out to get some pocket money. He would earn about Le15,000 - about £2 for essentially 2 days work. Getting pocket money can be tough here in Bonthe. But I was glad to be able to do my favourite thing here - paddle into the pristine mangrove.

The next two weeks are going to be very busy, as I'm planning 3 days of field surveys in the next week, and my supervisor is coming the week after. So I hope to have some fun and cook some good food tomorrow.

In my last bit of news, we found a well with clean water - good enough to drink. One less problem.

Two weeks in

As anyone could imagine, quite a lot has happened over the past two weeks. Living in Bonthe is as much like village life as I've ever experienced. Every afternoon I fetch water from a well outside for my daily showers and toilet use, there is no electricity grid and all power comes from our personal generator which I use for about 1-2 hours of electricity a day - 3 if I feel indulgent and am willing to use my boat fuel, internet hasn’t worked since Thursday (I'm even writing this post offline as it's still not working on Sunday night).

But despite these lamentations, I am really beginning to get into the rhythm of life here. Every day my two translators (Richard and Amara) go with me to villages to interview, examine processing, visit harvesting sites, and analyse samples when we get back to the office. We've analysed a total of 178 oysters since I got here. This is to look at the variation in size and meat yield between each village's harvesting ground. We've found some variation in whole oyster sizes between harvesting grounds, but will need more samples to get clearer results.

This week I feel like I'm starting to adjust to the rhythm of life here. There are almost always kids running into the house or garden when I'm around. It's difficult to work when they're always passing through waiting for the next interesting thing I will do. One is sleeping on the floor by my feet right now.  The teenagers often help with samples for hours at a time. Then if I want to I can always have a Mendei (local language) lesson from the kids. Something I often do when I feel like procrastinating from work in the evening. I even ended up playing barefoot football yesterday while intending to go for a jog.

Perhaps the most fun I had this week was to help cut wood with a friend I've made here. All food in Bonthe is cooked in open fires, so there is a limitless demand for firewood taken from the local mangroves. I arranged to go with my friend Suleiman (a mangrove logger/high school student) - 18 years old. He and I both paddled for about an hour through pristine mangrove forest before he decided to fell a few of the trees. We spent about 40 minutes felling trees and loading the wood onto the canoe before paddling back. I was a bit alarmed about cutting down 4 mangrove trees from what seemed an untouched forest in exchange for 9 logs of wood, but I suppose it’s a way of life here (a way of life that might soon be compromised). Yet still, it was my first excursion in the mangrove and I got a lot of exercise.

Next week is going to be very busy since the tides are perfect for oyster harvesting. Amara, Richard, and I plan to visit 3 communities and examine their harvesting methods. Many more oyster samples to come! 

First days in Bonthe

My departure for Salone 5 days ago seems like an eternity. I'm already starting to miss tap water, dental floss (which I forgot to bring), and my shave. I've spent four days in Freetown (the capital) arranging affairs, polishing my plans while I had internet, and doing some surveys of markets in the area. Travel to Bonthe yesterday was delayed until 3pm after buying a new generator for our office, exchanging my money, and waiting at the bank for 2 hours to get a bagful of bricks of cash! So 7 hours, a flat tire, and a late night boat ride later, we were finally in Bonthe.

After spending my first day here, I've realised that I'll have to put restrictions on things which I've never thought about before. As I've only brought 450 pounds to last me the two months, my expenditures are limited to Le 57,000 (£6.50) a day. Now this seems reasonable, but I am on an island. So I'll have to think about:

1.  water - I've bought 50 litres of drinking water with me, meaning I have to limit water consumption to 900ml a day. Otherwise it's going to hit the daily Le 57,000 budget hard.
2. Boat fuel - My supervisor in country, Salieu, has kindly offered to buy 300L of fuel for me out of his own personal account (he hopes to get reimbursed in the next few months). Which will be the main limiting factor for trips to villages. If I use 20L per day, I should be okay. I'll have to organize my fuel usage accordingly.
3. Food - I hope to negotiate a cook from somewhere who's willing to make breakfast and dinner for as little as Le 30,000 (£3.50) a day. I understand her displeasure with the deal, but my restricted daily budget means things are going to be tight. I might have to make my own food from the firewood stove.
4. I'll have to think about paying for other things such as samples, money to make people talk in surveys, a weekly beer if I'm lucky.

I'm kicking myself for not bringing much money (£600). But I've never lived in a place where I can't draw out cash, so it's going to be a tough adjustment. Maybe I'm going to appreciate certain things much more at the end of these two months.

But so far the work has been good. We've visited four communities in the last 3 days, and distributed three books for recording harvest quantities (something villagers have not done before). Some villages were a lengthy walk away, especially for my translator Richard, who retired a few years ago. But the community here has been very kind and excited to have a young foreign researcher amongst them. 7-8 kids are in my room watching me write this post as I speak. It's sometimes difficult to concentrate on work.

We've learned a lot in the past few days, and expect to learn much more.

The Journey Begins

Standard Sierra Leone oyster survey kit

So after spending the last couple of weeks preparing for the trip, the journey has finally begun. Right this moment, I've set up camp for the night in a very generously furnished Nero Coffee shop at Heathrow as I wait for my flight in the morning.

The photo is a culmination of my efforts over the past couple of weeks gathering all the equipment I am going to use. It’s a laboratory in a suitcase - 1 portable oven, 25 scales for weighing oysters in all kinds of ways, a manual vacuum pump, secci disc, pH me

ter, as many water sampling bottles as would fit in my case, a pair of horrendous sandals (which I plan to use as little as possible), and more. Notice that I hadn't even begun to pack my own clothes when the photo was taken. Thankfully, Brussels Airlines has a generous weight allowance, and I was

exceptionally well equipped for weighing my baggage.

My supervisor, Francis Murray, has spent hours over the past week developing my qualitative research skills - turning interviews, meetings, or group discussions into numerical figures that can be easily understood. In the past I have been used to counting plankton and measuring temperature, yet this is a new and intimidating field for me. But I am beginning to get my head around it.

I'll admit that because I have spent most of my time buying equipment and reading about qualitative research, I know shockingly little about oysters and mangroves. Thankfully, there is a 7 hour plane ride to solve that problem.

A comfy camp for the night at Heathrow

But the plan, once I get to Freetown (the capital) will be to hit the ground running. We need to identify the range of products of products sold and where they are sourced. But more importantly, we need to learn more about the lucrative fresh oyster tourist market. All exciting stuff.

 

A quick bio and my role in the project.

As a 22 year old aquaculture master’s student from Stirling University, I found the prospect of developing oyster culture in Bonthe, Sierra Leone as part of the Darwin Initiative project an exciting yet challenging task. Because both my parents work in NGO’s in Southeast Asia and after living in Vietnam from age 11-18, the decision to take part in a development work for my thesis was not difficult. My part in the project will focus on studying the management, property rights, markets, and livelihoods of oyster fishing communities in the Sherbro estuary Marine Protected Area. I will also be modelling water quality within the estuary to determine distribution of oysters and sites where culture could be possible. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities I will find in Bonthe, but will learn a lot from working in a new field and being a new member of the community.