Up-country odyssey: Two weeks on the road in Sierra Leone

By Chief Petty Officer 2^nd Class Bobby Okoh

While deployed in Sierra Leone, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve Smith and I recently had the rare privilege of accompanying our Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) counterparts on staff visits to two forward operating bases (FOBs) on the country’s wild Atlantic coast, far from our base in the capital, Freetown, Just getting there was half the adventure.

We travelled in two Land Rover Defenders on some of the roughest roads either of us had ever seen, through jungles and villages, and crossing waterways by ferry or on old, narrow bridges that held up without benefit of maintenance. The spectacular sunrises and sunsets rivalled Hawaii, and in places the scenery was like something out of The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

After picking up our RSLAF companions, the “IMATT Express” rolled out of Freetown on the morning of 21 March as a two-vehicle convoy. We made good time on the good tarmac road to Bo, where we spent the night in an IMATT house. The next day, as we headed due south to Sulima, we noticed many dead and dying palm trees. The locals tap the trees for sap that they ferment to make palm wine, and the trees die slowly from over-tapping. On the river banks, we saw fishermen and people panning for diamonds.

As we travelled, we ran out of paved road and switched to gravel, and then to tracks. Sometimes we weren’t even sure we were driving on a track at all, but our RSLAF brethren assured us we were still on course.

When we reached the cable ferry at Bandasuma, the RSLAF sailors decided to have lunch at the “chop bar” beside the ferry terminal. We planned to join them until we looked in the pot and saw that the lunch special was “bush meat” — monkey.

The Bandasuma ferry is a small vessel guided by a cable suspended across the river. It could take only two vehicles and we had to help pull it across the river, which is about as environmentally efficient as I have ever seen. Even after getting a decent workout, we still tipped the ferry crew because they rely on such generosity to continue operating.

The road from Bandasuma to Sulima got progressively worse. In places, the vehicles passed through puddles so deep that water leaked in under the doors — and this was the dry season! Two hours later, we were in Sulima.

The village of Sulima is located in the extreme southeast corner of Sierra Leone, about 10 km from the Liberian border, on a spit of land in the estuary of the Moa River. Founded as a trading post during the 19th century, the village now includes a large population of refugees from Liberia and a substantial Ghanaian fishing community. Here, you can watch the sun rise and set on the endless sky and ocean, and listen to the constant roar of surf, enjoying a year-round average temperature of about 24º Celsius.

At the eastern edge of the village, FOB Sulima overlooks a beautiful lagoon where two Inshore Patrol Craft — open boats fitted with outboard motors — are kept ready for rapid deployment in the event of rescue or boarding operations. The accommodations are in the traditional local style, built of mud and bamboo by the FOB’s 20 sailors and their Officer Commanding. After a quick tour, we found a suitable place to pitch our tents.

One of the purposes of this tour was to deliver a training package referred to as Individual Training Directives or ITDs. At FOB Sulima, it was done very simply, without classrooms or even books, let alone computers and PowerPoint presentations; just some chairs and an easel in an open area under the mango trees, shared with the passing goats, chickens and dogs. That’s what I call “back to basics.”

The teaching day started with prayers, first Christian and then Muslim, and then we dove right into Health and Hygiene. Once the class was under way, I went to the lagoon to conduct a detailed inspection of their Inshore Patrol Craft (IPC), and their safety and rescue equipment.

As part of the three-day ITD session, I helped teach seamanship and boat-handling, and took part in two patrols by IPC.

During one patrol, we came across a man channel-fishing with illegal nets made of a fine mesh that catches fish of all sizes, not just the large ones, and scrapes the seabed clean of marine life. (A legal fishing net has holes large enough to accommodate three fingers of a man’s hand.) When the fisherman saw us coming, we could tell by the look on his face that he knew he was caught. He offered no resistance to arrest. We put two sailors aboard his boat and escorted it back to the FOB.

Our next tour stop was Bonthe Island, mid-way up the coast. To get there, we returned to Bo, then drove another seven hours to Bonthe. Some of the roads were mere mud tracks, and we passed tracts of land devastated by rutile mining. The forest that once blanketed the area has all been cut down, and in places the landscape looks like desert surrounded by jungle.

From 1990 to 1993, during the civil war, Captain Daniel Mansarray, the current Commanding Officer of the RSLAF Maritime Wing, commanded FOB Bonthe, fending off intermittent attacks by the Revolutionary United Front and raiding the mainland. To this day, the villagers of Bonthe hold him in great esteem.

FOB Bonthe, on the other hand, was in dire need of renovation to make it even liveable. There was no source of electric power, not even a generator. The only well was contaminated, so the water could be used only for washing. For quarters, the sailors had only a wide open warehouse with its ceiling falling away, divided into rooms with jury-rigged partitions made of available materials: sticks and palm branches, and sheets of corrugated iron and tarpaulin. The warehouse also sheltered the FOB’s supplies of food and fuel, a major health hazard. To supplement their diet, the sailors raise crocodiles, a local delicacy.

Lacking a generator or potable water, the sailors have a special arrangement with the Bonthe Village Hotel down the road to provide them with water and electricity from their generator. In return, the sailors provide various services; for example, the sailor who maintains the outboard motor of the FOB Bonthe IPC also fixes the motors of the hotel boats.

Outside the FOB, the island was serene: friendly people, no vehicle traffic (everybody walks everywhere), curious children following us around. The islanders speak impeccable English — not Krio, the Freetown dialect, but proper, old-fashioned British English. (Back in the day, this was a summer resort for the British colonial administrators.) For all these reasons, Bonthe has excellent tourism potential, especially for fishing, hiking and boating.

On 31 March, after three days of training, we left FOB Bonthe and headed back to Freetown, a 12-hour journey.

Overall, the staff tour of the FOBs was a real eye-opener, and the chance of a lifetime. Without this opportunity, Steve and I would never have got such a close look at how the people of Sierra Leone — especially the sailors of the Maritime Wing — get by outside the capital.