My first impression of Sierra Leoneans is how much they laugh. This is one of the perverse stereotypes of Africa, that people are poor but happy, but it's not a trueism; people in Senegal are frequently sucking their teeth and appearing to be not happy in the slightest. But most of the people I have met in this green and hilly city do seem to be laughing. My taxi driver, Ibrahim, laughs whenever I say something, even if it's not funny, and he laughs even when I am talking on the phone to someone else and definitely not saying anything funny. It's nice to be around, it seems a well-rounded place.

Yesterday I ran around the city and was met with the usual disdain at the various ministries, but I did meet incredibly helpful people, one of whom took the entire afternoon off to help me secure an interview with the governor of the central bank. At lunch time, slightly disgusted that I had a personal taxi service to myself and therefore wasn't out there meeting anyone except my taxi driver, I made him take me to a lunch spot, perched on the edge of the cliff going down to the sea.



Outside, a man was selling jeans. Inside, two men in stetsons discussed over beer and hot pepper soup what appeared to be a legal case, the one advising the other how he could "get off". We ate our soup and cassava, and Ibrahim chewed the meat. I went to the toilet, down an incredibly narrow and wet hallway, and through a wooden door which was so narrow that even sideways I scraped both my back and front on the soggy mouldy wall. the toilet seat was refreshingly English, mounted on a block, with a drain falling to the sea below.

Afterwards, to my delight, Ibrahim took me down the steps and along a gutter (was this where my hot pepper soup had landed just moments before?) to the dried fish market where women and children hustled, pigs slept amongst the effluence on the beach, and a small boy shitted right where he was.



It was nice that it didn't occur to Ibrahim that it might be unsafe for me with my expensive camera and wallet full of Leones. Of course, it wasn't, and the only people who paid attention to me were two kids who winked and asked me to take their picture.



On the way back through the streets of colourful wooden houses, I saw some buses and taxis with carefully painted tail slogans. "Sea Never Dry" and "Leh Dem Talk", and then, "Jesus is Lord" printed around a halo emblazoned on the perfectly round tummy of a man coming towards me. "Eats eats," hissed a young boy through the car window, selling snacks.