Koindu Bobo

On the journey from there to somewhere. Seen, thought and heard along the way.

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Penthouse Ride. On the road from Kankan to Kissidougou, November 2011.

It's only scary when you are not used to it. They can ride like this for hundreds of miles on some of the worst roads in the world. And guess what, they arrive in one piece most of the time!

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Kabalaba - When religion and culture meet it'd all make sense. - Kankan, Guinea (November 2011)

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Could easily have been one I took on my trip

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how are you?

Is this you?

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Wired! - Fodekaria, Guinea (November 2011)

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Coffee On The Road - Yende, Guinea (November, 2011)

The blurry dark thing in the background to the left is coffee beans. The farmers spread it in the middle of the road for passing cars to start the process of de-shelling. You would think the cars would just grind it into a paste. Well, apparently not.

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Leaving Koindu. It's been exciting and sad.

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Home? - Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

I used to play marbles here, eat cassava here, break dance here, sleep under the moon light here.... I used to live here.

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Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

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Koindu, Sierra Leone (November, 2011)

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Peppe Hall - Koindu, Sierra Leone (November, 2011)

This was the grocery store. it used to be bustling with people, some selling, some buying, and others just milling around looking for the next opportunity. For some reason I think this was remodeled`. It looks almost newer than we left it. 

"Peppe Hall" used to also serve as a night club. At night, they would push the stalls aside, put up speakers and we (before we were old enough to go to the real night clubs) would dance into the late hours of the night. During these rave sessions, the pepper dust (from the afternoon) coming from the floor made us cough and sneeze. Hence "Pepper Hall". But nothing could stop us from boogieing to those disco tunes.

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If This House Could Talk - Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

This house, owned by an uncle, was one of the few houses not ramshackle, the roof removed and sold (leaving the walls to the element to consume). Instead it was used by the rebels.

Was it a prison? Rape house? Where atrocities were sketched, celebrated? Were the children kept here while they were initiated into a world that made hacking off limbs a way to pass time? Was it the “home” of some “big boss”? Did he wash the blood off his hands here, tried to wash the stench off his body here. Did he cry himself to sleep here; because even Lucifer was once an angel (and may just be acting out to be let back into heaven)?

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Blind Benevolence - Kissi Bendu Secondary School; Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

I learned a valuable lesson this day: Don't give without first asking what is needed. I don't know if I stumbled on it, or they did it just for me (because afterall Mr. Tengbeh was talking about the need for more classrooms), but all of a sudden in my tour, in the small room "library" where I first fell in love with books (getting all giddy from nostalgia), Mr. Tengbeh had some students start bringing out boxes upon boxes of books in varying stages of decay; maggots crawling out and all. "See," he says, "We don't need books. We have no place to put them. We don't need a library. We need classrooms." At that very moment my brother had a shipping container of books en route to Kenema Government Secondary School. And we were hoping to do similar for Kissi Bendu.

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iBoard - Kissi Bendu Secondary School; Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

Before the PC, before the laptop, before the iPad, Kindle and all these new additions to tools used in the classroom, there was the black board. It is still very much in style in many classrooms all over the world.

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Road to a Better Place - Kissi Bendu Secondary School students, Koindu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

I walked these same roads. From 1987 to 1991, I was one of these kids, every morning, in my blue and white, across the dusty (sometimes wet and muddy) roads, about 2 miles to school and back in the afternoon comfortably strolling under the heat of the African sun with sweat pouring down our backs, our heads alight with the kerosene of knowing. We were beautiful...and so are they! 

Today Kissi Bendu is still there, thriving with classrooms overflowing with students (that got up and sang "Good afternoon, sir" to me every time I stepped into their classroom). And Mr. Tommy Tengbeh is still at the helm as the principal.

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After Supernova - S. Bah Building in Koindu, Sierra Leone (November, 2011)

When this house was built back in the 1980’s, it was the star, the big shiny boy in town.  Standing majestically in the middle of the market place, the first floor stores flowed with people, from Guinea, Liberia and of course Sierra Leone; selling and buying wares to take all over west Africa and beyond.  On the two stories above, S. Bah (one of, if not the richest man in town)and his family loomed over the city. Mariama Juldeh, one of my first crushes, called this home. I used to stand at my auntie’s stall across the street hoping Mariama would come out and exchange glances with me. She did couple of times. I still remember how she looked, like the Rapunzel I read about in one of the books from our secondary school library.

Lower your expectations anyhow, there are some things you are never prepared for. After getting off the motorbike-taxi, I knew where I was. And yes, there were faded recognition all over the place. As I turned the corner, I knew I was coming up on the S. Bah house, but what I saw before me was nothing like what I had in mind.  In 2011, the S. Bah house is a shadow of its former self. The market is gone, the paint is gone, S. Bah and his family are long gone (of course!). But gone doesn’t begin to describe it. Like Koindu itself, the S. Bah house is like a zombie, dead and lifeless, holding on to life only by the sheer power of voodoo.

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After the Locusts - Kondu, Sierra Leone (November 2011)

Children played here Mothers cooked here Fathers built here Auties and uncles Cousins and newphews Grandparents and grandchildren We prayed here

Before they chased us away

Children really Trying out their new toys

Note: This is the compound I grew up in. It used to be in the heart of town. Now it seems it is in the middle of nowhere. Just as fitting; Koindu is nowhere