Past, present and future !!! (part 1.5)

From Past to but getting to the present

Ebony and Ivory (Swalee and Kei) were running about in the dust and mud tracks of Sierra Leone long before Stevie Wonder penned one of his most famous numbers, and it as only just occurred to me whilst writing this trip down memory lane, why it as always been a favourite of mine. So here was Swalee, a young black African lad who looked as though he didn’t have the strength to stand on his own feet let alone clean a house, fetch and carry, fill large a copper boiler and empty the shity bins, but he certainly did and far far more, which I will relate to you, as this part of the story unfolds.

In the first couple of months that Swalee was with us he would turn up in the morning just as Dad was being picked up to be taken to the camp. You could have set your watch by him, the puzzle was how did he know? Swalee had no watch and even if he had he couldn’t tell the time anyway. He always had his work done by 4.00 o’clock just about as Dad’s Land Rover pulled onto the drive ! (I mean a bear patch of reddish dust). Still It was amazing how is timing was so spot on each and every day. The mystery was solved after about a month, Corporal Bangora Dads driver was also Swalee’s uncle, so with a very slight detour Bengora would pick Swalee up in the village and bring him down to the house. In the evening Swalee would set off up the track as soon as Dad arrived, and waited out of sight till Bangora picked him up for the return journey to the village. It’s not that Swalee could not have walked to and from the village as it was only a little less than half a mile. And Swalee would walk far greater distances into Freetown, about four miles with his two eldest sisters who were 12 and 11 to sell mango’s and African apples in the fruit market, and as mango’s were everywhere, so it was that everyone else was selling the same goods, they would be there all day for just a few pennies. What they didn’t sell they would leave to rot by the side of the road.

So why did Swalee scrounge a lift in the LR for such a short distance. Well simply to ride in a vehicle which was a novelty in its own right, but why the subterfuge? Had Bangora been found out he would have been placed on a charge, busted back to private and as dad said at the time he would have got 14 days in the guard house with loss of pay, and that would have meant real hardship for his family. I remember when Dad found out he gave Bangora a real dressing down, but chose to turn a blind eye to the actual indiscretion (my Dad was a real C.S.M. “Company Sergeant Major” and a proper sod in many ways, but he did have a good side to him) He told Bangora, “no trips to the Mammy markets or trips into Freetown, and for Gods sake don’t get caught or we’ll both be in the shit, savvie”.

Now, there was no way that Swalee could be kept busy from 7.30 to 4.00 ish five days a week so in the afternoon from about 1.00 o’clock when I got home from school there was time to kill and slowly at first but surely our friendship began to develop. Yep, those were the days School bus at 7.30 arriving at Wilberforce camp at 7.45 School started at 8.00 and finished at 12.30 home for 12.45 then the rest of the day was mine. The idea was that you stayed indoors out of the midday sun, but you all know the song “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. Yep, that was me all over out in the sun at every opportunity. I was and am of a fair complexion and don’t go brown I just burn so after a few months my hair was white and my body bright red. I looked a right sight when we returned to England on a six month leave in February 59 I was ridiculed by all the local kids in Sheffield, not surprisingly I couldn’t wait to go back to Africa.

I digress, Swalee would do anything for Kei, and Kei to my shame at first took full advantage of this fact. The Bungalow was surrounded by a very large compound the wall was constructed of concrete and steel plates. But within the compound was a very, very large garden full of everything you could think of Mango trees were common place but we had two of our own, Coconuts about 3 or 4 palm trees, Bananas, at least again 3 or 4, African apple (which I have never seen since, it was about the size of a large bulb of garlic, pink in colour and when cut into tasted of apple but as though you had cut a thin slice that type of texture) Pineapples in rows producing fruit as they grew over a period of time, and last but not least yams which tasted like S**t but the locals liked them. The garden was I hasten to add was well laid out on our arrival and nothing to do with my parents gardening skills.

So how did I take advantage of Swalee, I used to love watching him climb the palm trees for coconuts. Or climb the mango trees for far more mangos then I could have ever eaten. It was a case of Swalee fetch Kei coconut, or fetch Kei Mangos, with a little point of a finger soon got the message through. Now I have explained that Swalee was about six stone or less when he first arrived, but I didn’t mention his feet, apart from the fact that they were enormous ( and in Swalee’s case it was very true what they say about big feet ) but in addition to that they were very flat and wide, which made climbing coconut trees an absolute doddle for Swalee. As for me I never quite got the hang of it. My last effort ending in a fall of about 12 feet and a broken arm for good measure.

So whilst in plaster Swalee took me into the village to meet his family. If you were to think perhaps of the poorest family you know, by comparison they would almost certainly be extremely rich. These people had nothing, and I wont even try to describe the living conditions. I was introduced to various siblings over a number of visits for they were never all there together at any one time. I knew each one by name, but sadly with the passage of time I cannot remember any of them other then Swalee and the baby of the family Primbelee I cannot say for certain that that is the correct spelling but pronounced in three syllables sounds like Prim-be-lee. There is a very good reason why I remember Primbelee, but that’s for later.

Between the bungalow, Wilberforce village and Wilberforce Camp a distance of about 3miles in total, that was made up of half a mile to the village, and two and a half miles to the camp. Directly outside the compound to the right was a concrete gun emplacement from the second world war vintage, just past that and a sharp right turn took you onto the track for the village, but once through the village and the track started to be covered by a high canopy of trees with thick bush to both side’s of the track. Not somewhere you would not want to be as darkness descended or in the rainy season or the monsoon season as it was correctly known. One day not long after returning to school and during the monsoon season the school bus broke down not that long a distance after leaving the camp and just before it would have normally turned onto the track towards the village. Now when you say monsoon rain I don’t just mean a heavy downpour, I mean rain that is so thick it’s like walking through thick fog and it bounces back off the ground to about waist height. Down each side of the roads are monsoon ditches and even on the tacks there are ditches, which are supposed to allow the rain to drain away without flooding the roads, needless to say they didn’t work. They just could not cope with the capacity of rain fall.

But there I am about two miles from home, the driver is going to go back to the camp for assistance, which would be about an hour at least. So me being the big brave white hunter, I decide to make my own way back home. Not the best decision I had ever made, about 15 minutes into my quest and now deep in the cover of the canopy and bush, with the rain beating down through the canopy it makes some really strange noises, I sensed that in the distance was the clearing of the village was close at hand but I couldn’t really see it I just sensed that it was there. Then suddenly a heavy weight dropped onto my right shoulder, Oh S**t it’s a snake that’s dropped out of the trees. As I let out a scream and a quick swish at my right shoulder. Kei,Kei it me Swalee, “Christ you made me jump” Swalee looked at me gone out I don’t think he understood a word I had said. Apparently Mum was getting a bit panicky by me not being home by 1.15 under normal circumstances you were never more then five minutes late. Somehow Mum had managed to communicate her concern to Swalee and he had set off to look for me. I was never so grateful to see those big bulgy eyes, to lead me home. I remember telling Mum I was fine you needn’t have worried. The truth was I was crapping myself.

I am sure from that day forward our friendship blossomed. Our first of three moves came after we had been at the bungalow for six months, and for about a month prior to moving we had Swalee climbing up and down the fruit trees in particular the Coconuts and Bananas, Yams and Pineapples and African apples not for our use, but so Swalee’s sisters could take them to the mammy market. Being able to offer a wider choice of produce, they earned in that month what they would have earned in a year under normal circumstances. Our move to the flat at Signal Hill, along with Swalee. As the arrangement with Corporal Bangora continued which Swalee loved because he was now travelling nearly three miles to get work, but on the more open roads he travelled mainly laid down in the back of the LR. Nothing much happened At Signal Hill apart from one occasion when the communal swimming pool was open (which wasn’t very often as no one ever cleaned it) I went for a swim, Swalee stood by the edge of the pool and I beckoned to him to jump in, though reluctant at first he eventually jumped in we were having a great time until some Staff Sergeant from the Pay Corp’s turned up and I got a right rollicking. My first lesson into the us and them syndrome. Whilst Sierra Leone never adopted a segregation policy it did occasionally raise its ugly head within the Colonial Civil Service. The left overs dregs from the days of the raj.

We then returned to England on a six month repatriation leave, whilst it was great to be home to see the family, I was still enrolled into school for about 5 of the six months. I detested every minute of it and could not wait to get on the plane back to Freetown once again.

On our return new quarters were waiting for us back in Wilberforce but this time within the camps perimeter. When Dad returned to work a new driver was allocated to be batman/driver etc. Having made enquiries as to the whereabouts of Corporal Bangora we were to find out that he was in Hospital after being attacked with a machete during some tribal ritual to do with Ju Ju (Voodoo) but alas there was no trace of Swalee Dad went to see Bangora in hospital to see if he knew the whereabouts of Swalee. Indeed he did as Swalee had turned 15 during our absence he was now a man and had had to undergo the tribal initiation into manhood. Which consisted of certain tribal markings three small lacerations to just on top of each cheek bone, a series of markings under the skin on his chest. But the knock on effect of becoming a man was that he expected to take his baby sister to the town of Bo, famous for the diamond mines of Sierra Leone. With the intention of selling her, “yes that’s right selling her” With Swalee now a man he was expected to make his own way in life and take a wife by the time he was sixteen. His family could no longer therefore afford to keep the youngest child, and being a girl it was considered the easy option and the done thing. So did little Primbelee finish up in effect what would have been a modern day version of slavery.

The answer to that and how we were reunited with Swalee will after wait for the next part of the story to unfold.

But a thought for you to ponder in the meantime. Was Madonna right to buy a African child ? it certainly wasn’t something that was unheard of in Africa. It had been going on since 1674, and in the modern era it was still happening in the late 50s. And almost certainly still happens today.