“Tumble Dry Low” was all I could think as I was flipped like a pancake and gently slammed against the smooth, surprisingly abrasive ocean bottom. I’d love to say profound thoughts and unattained dreams glided through my surprised mind in my dying moments, but as the wave tried to churn me to butter, I actually just thought, “Socks have to deal with this business all the time.” A few decades later, the wave that I had been trying to body surf tired of using me as its plaything and continued past to hiss up onto a two-mile long crescent of white sand. Bureh beach looked beautiful as I gagged out a mouthful of salt water, its blue swells, transparent as each wave crested before turning to bubbles, were the temperature of an old bath and could float you for entire days. The furry palm tree-d mountains blasting up from the beach line promised to divulge the entire cast of Lost if you only waited long enough, and the rare cloud hurrying off to its work inland dropped only shadows, not rain. I glanced around for someone to propose marriage to, but, only seeing fellow dudes, I decided to head back to our beach hut and eat some papaya instead. What a waste of a picturesque location.
After days of working on project proposals and printing out papers to organize my school’s library, for some reason the idea of staying at a tropical beach for a few nights seemed like something I could tolerate. The tragically, miraculously underdeveloped beaches in Sierra Leone harbor small-scale operations boasting huts for sleeping in, hammocs for reading in, and dinners of fresh-caught fish for burying your face in. Violently giggling to myself as I read through Puck’s stunts and Bottom’s exuberance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream later that evening, I hardly noticed that my hammock was being rocked by the warm breeze coming from the direction of the orange sky that was busy extinguishing itself in the Atlantic.
Now, it’s a strange feeling and journey to coming back to my village from there, but I’ll at least try to explain the route.
The first thing to be done is find a shady spot because you might be standing by the side of the orad for a while. A taxi found and a price negotiated, nothing is left to do but try and brush enough sand off your legs to make the close quarters of 8 people ina 5 passenger car seem bearable (Seat belts? Don’t be ridiculous). Now you’re at Waterloo! Not quite a battleground but surely as crowded as Napoleon’s famous fizzle, Waterloo is a place you go to go someplace else. Sitting in a van, taxi, or lorry for an hour waiting for it to fill up can be sweaty, so thank goodness there are one thousandth of a million people shoving water for sale, rice cakes, and “COLD DRINKS COLD DRINKS ONE FOR TWO THOUSAND,” through your windows. Alright, hopefully you’re in the front seat as you drive out of town, you might have some sway over what the (possibly operating) radio blares and be able to hang your head out the window like a dog. Rogbury junction now? Great, usually they sell those skewers of some kind of bush meat and you usually don’t wait long for a taxi to Bomoy-Luma. Landmarks to look for along the way are Port Loko that has a wall around it, and the river with all the naked people washing in it. If you get to Kambia, you’d best get out and go backwards because you’re about to cross into Guinea.
Bomoy-Luma is an inspiring place. It inspires me to spend boku Leons on stuff. It’s the site of a tireless market that will probably still be maintained by cockroaches after mankind extinguishes itself. I think whatever spirit a bulk-buyer at Costco or Sam’s Club has, lives inside me and has translated itself into Sierra Leone. If you’re anything like me, when you find another lorry, taxi, unicycle, dump truck or winged Pegasus to take you to Rokupr, your bag will be a little heavier with flour and cheese packets and margarine and fruit. I suppose a lunar buggy would even have to stop and change a tire or fix a snapped axle on that next road, so don’t get too anxious if it’s not an expedited trip. My worst (just kidding, BEST) experience there entails escaping from a taxi with the kid that was sitting on my lap as a ditch of water attacked the car and drowned everything from my ankles up to my knees. If this happens, just lift the taxi out, continue on your way, and forget that your butt is soggy. Alright, so you’re in pretty much beauty-central now- Rokupr. The pimply road downhill to the warf gives your eyes an emerald dinner (you’ve been traveling for five hours, so any meal is appreciated) before you’re sinking up past your ears into the busy waterside fiasco. Somehow I’ve always showed up in time to get the last boat out that day, so if you’re going to try the trip bring a boquet of shamrocks for luck. At this point, feeling a pleasant little buzz through the boat from the speck of a motor perched on the back, you can think to yourself, “Home free.” That is if you can hear your thoughts. The density of humanity on those boats is red-line, and I’m working on copying their acoustic properties to amplify my lessons at my students. Alright, after Rocino, Makot, Rowolo, and Carpasseh, you’re bumping into the concrete warf in Mambolo. A short walk fraught with friendly greetings later, you’re unlocking the door to Mambolo Manor, throwing your bag down, and collapsing onto whatever surface will support your tired bones. Congratulations, you just traveled about a hundred miles and it took 7 hours.
Look, I know this is a stalker’s treasure map if they want to find me, but really- I’d love to have guests. Anyone, on any part of the creep spectrum, is invited.
Anyway, you might laugh if you watch the day in rewind and realize you had taken a bath in the ocean just that morning. As nice as the whole indulgence of the beach was, I guess I’m realizing how attached I’m getting to my village and community when, instead of thinking, “Good to be back in Mambolo,” I think, “It’s good to be home.”
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