Manjama Institute of Agriculture: Making Palm Oil (Photo essay)

In the previous post I mentioned Manjama Institute of Agriculture (MIA) in Bo because it happened to be the location of our training. But apart from being a guest house and a conference venue that offers catering and accommodations, Manjama is also farmer field school, which trains over fifty students per annum. MIA has been in operation since 1985 and teaches much needed skills in agriculture, animal husbandry, carpentry in addition to providing micro-credit services to farmer groups.

The following is a photo essay, documenting the palm oil making

Stage One begins with the extraction of the oil from the palm fruit

Stage two entails filling the concrete tub with water and washing the pounded palm fruit. The seeds are pounded down in a pestle to extract yet more oil and the oil itself rises to the surface.

In the third stage the oil is poured into a large metal drum that sits over a fire. Cooking the palm oil is the final process.

The palm oil is now ready for retail!

Catching up:

I know, I know… There haven’t been very many posts (or rants) in the last two weeks, but I’ve been working in the provinces and Internet access has been minimal. Lets recap, last post I was on my way to Pujehun and Bonthe for two district-level consultations.
Here’s a bit on that trip:

Miriam Abu, Mustapha (the driver), four-journalists (Sheku, Aki, Solomon, Abu Bakkar) and myself boarded the Toyota Prado for a three-day, two-district trip. We set off on the road to Bo, and then as usual, we spent the night at Salmin’s guesthouse. Bo is basically the half waypoint to any place in the east. At dawn, we ate Salone sandwiches, composed of 5-block Fullah bread (1-block = 100 Leones), sardines, margarine, warm mayo and several slices of luncheon meat. The Pujehun and Bonthe consultations were held at Barri Islamic Secondary School in Potoru, and Tihun village. In both of these settings we began by affixing the Fambul Tok Banners to nearby trees, arranged forty-fifty wooden chairs into a large circle as the participants began to trickle in on the back of okada’s (motorcycle taxies).

All of the consultations are structured in more or less the following manner. The facilitator first introduces the chairperson for the event, who in turn presents all of the members of the high table (a traditional authority i.e. section, or paramount chief, a spokesperson from local government, a religious leader, and two representatives on behalf of women and youth). We then move to a general introduction of participants, followed by Muslim and Christian prayers. Next, all of those sitting at the high table provide five to ten minute statements. There is usually a short tea break at this time, then a facilitator sketches out the overall project framework. As I’ve said in previous posts, Fambul Tok stands for family talk and it’s designed to be locally owned, and community driven. We begin with a conversation about reconciliation and an open forum to discuss ongoing disputes at community levels. The conversation begins with the participants defining reconciliation, forgiveness and identifying barriers to sustainable peace in their communities. We then move towards identifying possible solutions and existing peace building structures that can assist in mitigating and resolving conflicts. Each consultation is organic in the sense that the issues discussed and proposed solutions are slightly different in each case. Lastly, all of the participants (2 representatives from each chiefdom) select a district executive, bearing in mind the proportional representation of women and youth.

Group Work

After two-days in Freetown, inevitably we were off again to Bo for a one-week training for the Kailahun District Fambul Tok Executive. The training was held at Manjama Institute of Agriculture, and was facilitated by Amy Potter (Associate Director for the Practice Center at Eastern Mennonite University), Ebun James (Council of Churches, Sierra Leone) and Francis Onyekwue (Forum of Conscious). This five-day workshop introduced the representatives from Kailahun to the Truth, Justice, Mercy and Peace model of reconciliation. We discussed trauma and its long-term effects, as well as the various approaches to restorative and retributive justice. The training also involved numerous focus groups, roleplays and other team building exercises. This workshop aimed at building the capacity of the 35 participants (Peace and Reconciliation Monitors) to serve as catalysts for peace in their communities. The idea is that this district executive will coordinate the various reconciliation activities taking place at chiefdom levels.

Kailahun District Fambul Tok Executive & Facilitators

Pujehun and Bonthe, Fieldwork:

On Friday we left for Pujehun. The consultation took take place on Saturday at a small town by the name of Potoru. Originally, the forum was scheduled for a week ago, but the organizers postponed it, because they felt there were not enough representatives from some of the more remote chiefdoms in the district. A lot of human rights initiatives and/or development projects in Sierra Leone begin and end in Freetown, or perhaps they might even extend to some of the district capitals. They tend to measure their success by the numerical turn out, or the number of events and focus group discussions held. They distribute t-shirts, a square meal, perhaps a banner or two and are on their way. This has been a recurring problem, particularly since donor savvy civil society organizations are often able to market their projects when their “results” are easy to quantify. It’s pretty seductive if you are a donor, wouldn’t you say?

What I find incredibly exciting about Fambul Tok is that the organization is committed to serving precisely those communities that are so often underrepresented. The concept is to provide an open forum where dialogue and peace building can take place. In my opinion, Fambul Tok promotes an incredibly powerful idea, that essentially war-affected communities themselves are endowed with the necessary tools to mitigate and resolve local grievances. What is oftentimes missing, are the necessary resources to carry out local practices, or to bring outlying communities together. Placing these communities at the helm of the reconciliation process seems like a given, but this has not been the case in praxis.

In every community we have come across in our consultations the response to the ongoing work of the Special Court and the late Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been similar. In terms of depth and impact, despite the sheer amount of resources allocated, participants complained that these initiatives have failed to bring about reconciliation, particularly at grassroots levels. This is not to undermine the work of the court or the TRC, for a long time I have been a proponent of transitional justice, and ultimately the court’s most important legacy might be to create a buffer against impunity at all levels of society. However, one can make the case that the sheer amount of resources committed to the facilities, logistics, outreach, consultants and countless international staff, and above all DUE PROCESS in a country with a dearth in both physical and social infrastructure, a country with clearly limitless needs and limited means is ethically untenable. As for the TRC, its recommendations have yet to be implemented, but one can only really blame the lack of political will on the part of the previous, and perhaps the current government. Most importantly, rural communities in Sierra Leone, the same communities that bore the brunt of the conflict, have not embraced these initiatives.

(I will conclude my rant here… more to come about the actual consultations tomorrow…)

A bit about the work:

In response to Ethan’s comment, I am staying at a house just off Spur road. The place has five rooms, most of which are self-contained (bathroom within). It is a palace, compared to the cramped one-bedroom my mother and I share back in New York. When you rent a house in Sierra Leone, it is completely barren. The organization has been furnishing the house piece by piece. First we brought in the beds, then a gas cooker, curtains, a fridge, a television (to watch Nigerian soap operas), and finally a fan! The place is incredible and we actually get electricity more than a few hours per day. The National Power Authority has been quite reliable lately for large parts of Freetown. You can attribute this to the APC government’s initiative to bring in ten Megawatt Power Plants from abroad. This is supposed to be a temporary solution until the hydro-electric dam is completed. We shall see when the utility bills reach the majority of users though.

For the meantime, I am the only inhabitant of this giant space, but that will all change come March, when the documentary crew returns. Yes I neglected to mention the documentary crew, I will explain… Fambul Tok’s partner organization in the states is called “Catalyst for Peace”. This organization supports ongoing reconciliation efforts in post-conflict African settings. The organization is providing funding and logistical support, while the film crew is documenting the process.

I begin my day with 5 block bread (500 Leone), laughing cow cheese spread, and a cup of tea with far too much sugar and powdered milk. (God I miss freshly brewed coffee!) I then take my daily dose of doxycycline, chug about a liter of water and head for blue bell to wave down a cab or a poda-poda. One cannot talk about working in Freetown without mentioning the traffic. In the early mornings and late afternoons gridlock is incredible. It takes about an hour or more to reach work from my house, or vise-versa. It is not just the volume of traffic but the narrow roads, which contribute to the congestion. The Forum of Conscience office is a two-story building on Fort Street, near circular road. Once at work, I select five or so local newspapers to read. Their spin varies, but I find the Standard and Concord Times to be better in terms of content and presentation. I then move to a cup of nescafe and work on one of several reports.

FOC has several ongoing programs, including a security sector, police and community engagement program. Although I mainly work within the Fambul Tok community reconciliation initiative, there is a constant trickle of people involved with one of the other activities. All of the staff is Sierra Leonean with the exception of myself, and Rebecca a German student, which is coordinating a cross-cultural learning program between university students from Munich and Milton Margai College in Freetown. The German students are part of an organization called Commit and they arrive sometime in March to meet with Sierra Leonean counterparts. They will then visit secondary schools across the country to conduct workshops on the importance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report and seeing its recommendations implemented.

Friday we leave for Pujehun and then Bonthe for two district consultations.

More to come soon…

Second Update: The Process of Banking in Sierra Leone

The bright idea was to open a savings account with one of the local banks, for one I would be able to better manage my money and I would be relieved from having to worry about “tief-man” discovering secret caches of 100-dollar notes tucked away in my luggage. My organization suggested the government’s financial institution, Sierra Leone Commercial Bank. The SLCB building in downtown Freetown is the home of eternal queues (sort of like Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s novel Wizard of the Crow), but we will get to the queues.

First, as a foreigner one needs to have two sponsors in order to open a savings account. In addition, one requires two passport photos and a photocopy of your passport. For the photos you make your way to Lion Photo on Siaka Stevens and Bathurst Street, and fend of the two-dozen or so amateur photographers that are hustling for customers (changing money on the black market is a similar experience). Now back to the bank…

After filling out the necessary forms and waiting on several long queues, you are ushered into a back room where half-dozen people are waiting for a lone secretary. Her desk is raised about two and a half feet off the ground, she seems regal, slightly disinterested and speaks to you in a very low voice. The woman or “auntie” places your’s name on the list to obtain a bankcard and you are asked to return in a few days. When you return to retrieve your newly laminated credential, you are sent away for another day. Now if you wish to deposit in another currency vis-à-vis dollars, euros, pounds, etc you must make your way to the foreign exchange department. Once you’ve lost a few thousand Leones to the official exchange rate, you have successfully made your first deposit!

Several days later you decide to make your first withdrawl. After making your way into the air-conditioned heaven of SLCB, the queuing begins. You first wait on a queue to check your balance. Twenty-five or so people crowd around a teller, which first collects the bank cards, hands you a green withdrawl slip and writes your balance on a strip of paper. The next endless queue begins at the opposite end of the bank. Since SLCB is the government bank a bulk of the customers are police officers, teachers, correctional officers and other civil servants. It is the beginning of a new month and everyone is collecting their monthly salary. Despite the long wait and the obvious frustration written on my face, most Sierra Leoneans are warm, good-spirited, and incredibly patient.

Several times on the line you are greeted, “Eh boh, ow di bodi,” (How is everything) “Tell god tankie” (Tell god thanks) “Kusheau” (good work). The idea of having to spend three-quarters of your day making a simple banking transaction is hard to swallow. Thankfully, or perhaps regretfully there are ways to circumvent the unnecessary red tape. In Sierra Leone as in most developing countries there are ways to get around the tediousness. In regards to banking what occurs is someone introduces you to a bank manager, and a daylong process becomes a fifteen-minute affair. There are no bribes involved, it’s all about whom you know. Sort of like some of the posh parties in New York that if you know the right people queues cease to exist. But, what can you do, you are an expat, it is impossible to make your experience genuinely authentic.