Photo: Allison Cross

Last month, the government of Sierra Leone passed the Broadcasting Act and created the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation, a new public service broadcaster.

The Act will effectively merge the state broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting System, with United Nations Radio, set up during the country’s brutal civil war in an effort to resolve tensions.

Many have hailed it as a step towards fostering a healthy, democratic media environment in the post-conflict West African country, free from international intervention and dependency.

But like many things in this country, the implementation of a neutral public service broadcaster free of corruption won’t be simple or easy.

According to the Broadcasting Act, the president, Ernest Koroma, will still have the power to appoint the director-general and the deputy director-general of the new broadcasting corporation, leading to doubts that leadership will have any chance at being free of political biases.

Sierra Leoneans are fiercely political and support one of two rival parties, the ruling All People’s Congress or the opposition, the Sierra Leone People’s Party.

The Problem Of Coasting

Photo: Allison Cross

Ethical, independent and politically neutral journalism has a long way to go in Sierra Leone.

Journalism in Sierra Leone suffers from a series of complicated obstacles. The majority of journalists engage in a practice called “coasting” whereby they accept money from organizations to write favourable stories.

It’s very normal for a non-governmental organization or a government ministry to hold a press conference and then hand out brown envelopes full of cash to the journalists who attended.

The journalists then return to their offices and write positive stories about the organizations in question or boring, step-by-step accounts of what happened at a routine, government meeting. Critical or investigative journalism is virtually non-existent.

Most journalists accept the cash because they simply aren’t paid enough by their employers. Most aren’t provided with batteries, notebooks, pens or tape recorders. They don’t receive any money for transportation either.

If they want to continue practicing journalism, and feed their families at the same time, they have to take the money provided by the NGOs. It’s a frustrating cycle.

Corruption And Bribery

Some journalists abuse their power in a quest to obtain even more money. It’s not uncommon for a journalist to approach a prominent member of society and threaten to write an unfavourable story about that person. The journalist is promptly bribed not to write anything bad.

When journalists do pursue their own stories, they are often about political infighting, rather than about the concerns of individual citizens or human rights violations. Accusations against public figures are often published without any substantiation.

Editors regularly mismanage money and hog equipment, denying their staff salaries or insisting they pay a typist out of their own pocket to get their story typed on a computer.

A free media system is the key to any well-functioning democracy. Journalists must be free to ask tough questions and demand accountability from their elected officials.

But pushing boundaries in this country can have serious consequences. Libel or slander, whereby a person is defamed by an untrue statement made in the media, is a criminal offense in Sierra Leone, rather than a civil offense in Canada or the U.S. This means a team of burly police officers can show up at your door and throw you in prison, even if you have yet to be convicted.

It’s difficult to imagine a public broadcasting system that will be instantly free of these obstacles against journalists. Certainly, its creation is really only the initial step in a long process of fostering a vibrant journalism industry. The need for a public broadcaster is, in the very least, on the radar of the ruling political party.

It’s a step forward and one that should be monitored very closely.

What are your thoughts on the importance of a free media system and democracy? Share in the comments!

Beachwalkers / Photo: Allison Cross

Most of the foreigners in Sierra Leone are here to work or volunteer, rather than to travel for the sake of traveling.

I have yet to encounter a bona fide tourist who’s in the West African country purely for pleasure and exploration. Most of the sun worshippers at River No. 2 beach on Saturdays – arguably the nicest beach in Sierra Leone – are NGO workers like myself, taking time off work to enjoy the country’s undeniable beauty.

It’s not particularly surprising tourists are largely absent from Sierra Leone.

Most people only know of the country because of its brutal 11-year civil war that ended in 2002, where rebel and government soldiers murdered thousands of people and cut off the hands and feet of many others.

Since then, Sierra Leone has gained a reputation for being one of the poorest countries in the world, with extremely high rates of maternal and infant mortality. Crime and petty theft are common. Advanced medical care is largely unavailable and most of the roads are in awful condition.

Even if these conditions that discourage tourism didn’t exist, anyone wishing to visit Sierra Leone must still obtain a visa, at least three or four vaccinations and a generous number of malaria pills before they enter the country. It’s no doubt intimidating for many.

Heed the Warnings

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was in Sierra Leone a few months ago, trying to promote the country as a tourist destination for Europeans, even though the country still confronts major infrastructure issues like the inconsistent supply of water and electricity.

No 2. River beach / Photo: Allison Cross

As a result of this list of warnings and dangers, development workers are full of stories about what you should and shouldn’t do. Many of them make sense for any sensible traveler.

You shouldn’t walk alone at night. You shouldn’t carry large amounts of cash. You should be cautious about making friends, until you know you can trust them.

But some of their advice I find myself ignoring. I eat at local restaurants where the food is cheap and I take motorcycle taxis that drive far too fast. I do this partly because my budget is much smaller than the average development worker in Sierra Leone.

No one drives me to work in an SUV and my budget for training is small, as is my living stipend. It’s enough to live and eat, but it’s nowhere near extravagant or comparable to a North American wage.

Even though the house I live in leaks when it rains too hard, is sometimes overrun by spiders and snakes and has no running water, it’s still far plusher than the home of an average Sierra Leonean. But when I tell other foreigners how I live, they often shudder and proclaim: “I could never live like that.”

Experience What Is

I go further to ignore other pieces of advice because I’d rather get to know the country I’m living in for what it is, rather than
experience the niche foreigners have carved out for themselves.

It’s certainly comforting to enjoy some overpriced bacon and eggs and a coffee at an assortment of popular ex-pat hangouts, but I’m careful not to make a habit out of it. Why travel halfway across the world to eat the same food I can get at home?

Admittedly, I often pine for the ease of a vehicle, and its air conditioning and seat belts, but I still believe I’d miss too much if I went everywhere in a car.

The journalist in me would ask the car to the stop, so that I could explore that village on the other side of the bridge on foot or talk to the women who wave to me as they sit in a circle, cooking their food.

If you’re always in an SUV with tinted windows, always in Western-style restaurants with air conditioning, you will indeed miss experiencing the real culture and atmosphere of your destination.

Of course, the manner in which you travel and the risks you take are personal choices. Living in a country as chaotic as Sierra Leone isn’t easy and every foreigner will have a different way of coping.

But human beings are incredibly adaptable, as I have very quickly learned about myself.

If you don’t push yourself into new and uncomfortable experiences, it’s unlikely you’ll ever discover how adaptable you really are.

How has travel pushed your own personal boundaries? Share in the comments!

Photo: Allison Cross

God is everywhere in Sierra Leone.

Sometimes he’s Jesus and sometimes he’s Allah, but words praising his existence are plastered all over NGOs, schools, hair salons, stores, restaurants and vehicles.

I hear him everywhere I go, as gospel music blasts from massive, low-quality speakers on the streets and as Muslim calls to prayer ring out five times a day.

If the power happens to be on, one of my favourite restaurants in Bo district plays the same set of Christian music videos over and over throughout the day. I unconsciously hum to the tunes as I munch on rice and fish.

God even finds his way into the exchange of pleasantries. Ask someone how they are in Sierra Leone, and you’ll quickly receive the answer: “Fine. Thank God.” Sometimes they’ll skip the “fine” and just thank God.

This atmosphere of religion doesn’t just come from inside the country.

Hundreds of relief and capacity-building organizations in Sierra Leone are funded by church ministries in Europe, Canada and the U.S. There aren’t many other foreigners in Bo district, but the first ones I met were Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness missionaries.

About Faith

Approximately 10 per cent of the population of Sierra Leone is Christian, while 60 per cent practice Islam and 30 per cent practice African tribal religions.

Photo: Allison Cross

The three live fairly peacefully with one another, although there is some pronounced resentment and skepticism expressed between belief circles. Muslims outnumber Christians, but the former are more visible and vocal because of their focus on recruitment.

Few of the people I’ve met know quite what to do with me when I say I’m neither Christian nor Muslim.

My first night in Sierra Leone, one of our drivers, a loud and joyful man named Lamin, asked me if I was a Christian.

I told him that technically I was, as I had been baptized in the Anglican Church. But I told him I didn’t practice any religion and that in my country, people subscribe to many religions. I told him that many subscribe to nothing at all but consider themselves spiritual.

He leaned towards me, a sober look on his face. “Muslim. Christian. It doesn’t matter what you are,” he said. “But you have to pick one.”

Relationship With The Divine

I’ve been invited to church on many occasions, and despite being very curious about the services, I’ve always declined. The obliging Canadian in me wants to say yes, but I know if I give in to one Sunday service, the invitations will only increase.

Photo: Allison Cross

I have difficulty explaining the fact that I don’t go to church. No reason I give seems to satisfy the people perplexed by the fact that I spend my Sundays at home. I sometimes explain that I wasn’t raised going to church.

If I’m feeling brave, I’ll say I don’t agree with the teachings of the Bible and the inconsistent manner in which people follow it. If I want to create confusion, I’ll try to explain that I’m spiritual, and that I believe in “something” – but that I’ve never been able to say what that something is.

They find their joy and satisfaction in their relationship with God, I tell my critics, and I find my joy and satisfaction in my relationships with people, my work, and the world around me.

But most people still don’t like this, and will launch into a diatribe about how I need God in my life. I’ll explain that I have incredible admiration for the devout and for their willingness to help people and to support each other when they need it.

I try to explain that this respect doesn’t mean I am willing to join them in their faith.

It’s a precarious position to be in, one I’m sure is experienced by people living in their own countries and by people living abroad: to attempt to respect the beliefs of those around you, while firmly holding on to your own.

What are your thoughts on god abroad? Share in the comments!

Photo: Allison Cross

“Do you have a husband?” It’s a question I get asked every day, sometimes two or three times.

It’s usually as I ride on the back of a motorbike on my way into town from my house, which is out in the country. Clutching tight to the small handle on the back of the bike, doing my best not to fall off, I’ll lean forward to try and hear the driver as he talks to me from inside his bulky helmet.

“Are you married?” he’ll ask, again.

In the beginning, I was mostly honest. I’d say I wasn’t married, but I’d fib a little and say I had a serious boyfriend back in Canada.

As more and more men asked for my phone number, asked to see me every day and asked to be my Sierra Leonean boyfriend, I upgraded the serious boyfriend to a fiancé. But I soon discovered this didn’t dissuade the constant winks and offers for love, marriage or sex.

The men in Sierra Leone are aggressive. They whistle and hiss at women as they walk the streets and I’m told I get the brunt of the public attention because I’m a foreigner.

Roaming Eyes

Some days it’s easy to ignore the calls, but other days a knot will form in my stomach, my cheeks will burn and I’ll long to turn around and release stream of expletives in their direction. But I’ve never done that. Instead I’ll keep my eyes forward and keep walking.

And it isn’t just men who see me on the street. Boys as young as ten lick their lips and call me “baby” as they try to sell me fruit. Men I meet while out working with local journalists will lean very close to me as we talk – too close – and let their hand fall from my shoulder and trail down my back.

Others won’t look me in the eye as we talk, instead letting their eyes roam up and down my body.

Speaking to veteran journalists before I came to Sierra Leone, they warned about the male behaviour, and how it might shock a Canadian like me so accustomed to political correctness. But they counseled me to use the attention to my advantage, and seek out interviews male foreigners would never be able to attain.

Fight or Flight?

Speaking to a local female journalist for advice on how to avoid so much attention, she recommended I placate the men who sought me out, and tell them that although I’d love to spend time with them, I’m committed to my fiancé and to my work.

I was encouraged to laugh about it and throw some humour on the whole situation. I didn’t want to burn any bridges with these men, she told me.

I didn’t like this advice. I didn’t like the idea that I had to appease men in order to stop them from harassing me and touching me without my permission.

Some men take disturbing liberties with the bodies and freedoms of women in Sierra Leone. The West African country has extremely high rates of rape, forced and underage marriage, teenage pregnancy and female genital mutilation.

Widows regularly lose their property when their husbands die, after his brothers or children from previous marriages claim it as their own. Sexual violence was used widely as a weapon of war during Sierra Leone’s brutal 11-year civil conflict.

But speaking up against abuse hasn’t been a part of the female culture in Sierra Leone. Three laws enacted by parliament in 2007 made domestic abuse and child marriage illegal, but many rural women are still unaware of what their rights are.

The Dilemma

Speaking up about abuse can mean women are ostracized by their husbands and exiled from their communities.

None of this is to say many women haven’t successfully entered aspects of public and political life in Sierra Leone. But the liberties men continue to take with women’s bodies are unacceptable to me.

Living abroad requires finding that tricky balance between holding on to your own ideals and adapting to the ideals of your host country.

For me, it’s eight months of uncomfortable but generally harmless advances by men. Whether I stand up or not only matters to me and whether I feel offended or unsafe in a certain situation. But there’s much more at stake for a woman in Sierra Leone.

I’m left wondering if it’s better to try and take a stand, to set an example, or to let their fight for equal rights and respect run its own course.

As a foreigner, what’s the best way to deal with sexual harrassment in other countries? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Allison Cross, with some sweet shades.

Landing late at night at Lungi Airport in Sierra Leone, I couldn’t see much of the country where I’d be spending the next seven months.

It was dark as I exited the plane and crossed the tarmac, except for a few fluorescent lights glowing outside the terminal. Riding in an SUV towards the ferry that would take me to the capital Freetown, I could just make out the shapes of palm trees, clotheslines and dwellings in the darkness.

Without stable electricity, residents of Freetown spend their nights in almost total darkness. As the car wove through the streets on the way to the guesthouse, I could see street vendors huddled around kerosene lanterns.

I pressed my face to the window to try and see what they were selling. The streets were still crowded, even at midnight, but the darkness made the city seem mysterious and intimidating.

I lay in bed that night wondering what kind of place I’d see the next day, often distracted by the intense humidity and a combination of mosquitoes and bed bugs.

The City Awakes

Very early the next morning, I heard the signs of a noisy, bustling city before I saw it.

Downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Babies screamed. Cars honked and slammed on their breaks. Water thrown from buckets slapped the pavement. Music blared from speakers on the backs of trucks.

As I eventually explored the streets, I discovered a city that was loud, hot and crowded. The legendary heat of the West African country made sweat pour down my face.

In the daylight, Freetown was full of activity. Stalls crammed side by side on the streets sell anything you could ever want: luggage, toothpaste, jeans, passport photos, fruit, mayonnaise and cell phone minutes.

As a foreigner, people call out to me often, asking if I needed to exchange American dollars or if I want to buy some bruised mangoes. The men are particularly aggressive, quick to ask if I’m married and whether I’ll share my phone number with them.

The air is thick with different smells: food cooking on coal fires, exhaust, spices and sewage. Garbage lines the streets and the sewers are only partially covered by rickety cement grates.

A New Home

As I worked on getting settled in Sierra Leone, I learned I would have to use patience in everything I did.

Opening a bank account took three hours. Getting wireless Internet to work took three days. Driving two kilometers in heavy traffic kept me in the car for an hour. If they told me it would take five minutes, it would usually take an hour.

Although vibrant and extremely friendly, Sierra Leone seems to be a country of many contradictions.

Average people wear name-brand clothing castoffs from North America, like Nike and Puma, but survive on no more than $1 a day. Poverty is everywhere, but everyone owns cell phones, which are fairly cheap and along with SIM cards, very easy to obtain.

Running water is extremely rare and most people bathe and cook using water in buckets obtained from wells.

But while I was taking bucket showers, I was able to buy a USB stick that gives me reliable, although quite slow, Internet access anywhere in the country. It will certainly take me some time to adapt.

What questions do you have for Allison? Share in the comments and she can answer them in future posts!

For those looking for a job, a career, a mere direction in their lives, travel can seem like a meaningless distraction-a money-sucking way to delay those awful first few years in the working world.

When I got out of university, I was obsessed with finding the ultimate job in my career of choice. I paced the living room floor of my parent’s house nightly, raving like a maniac about interviews and resumes. They absorbed my frustrations and then meekly suggested I travel instead.

“Travel?!” I asked, wild-eyed. “Travel? Then, I’d come home and do what? Huh? What then?”

Within a month or two, I’d landed an internship, and then another. After that, I got a real job. After five months there, I hopped to
what I considered the ideal position.

Life Catches Up With You

I’ve now been working solidly for more than a year, but because of my position hopping, I won’t be able to cash in any vacation days for a good six months.

My mind now wanders back to what everyone said about taking my spare time and filling it with a trip somewhere, and let me tell you, it isn’t fun confronting the harsh reality of your own decisions.

One very uncomfortable and unfortunate thought sits at the back of my mind and resurfaces on every bad work day:

You should have gone traveling when you had the chance.

It’s true the opportunity will always be there, but not without potential for ruin by sticky grown-up details such as job contracts,
family responsibilities and financial stability.

As time passes, age creeps up upon you, and before you know it, your ability to sleep in a hostel, wear the same underwear for three days and haul a backpack through six countries has evaporated.

And when you’re stuck in one place, your travel fantasies become all the more graphic, making it hard to get excited about a day of fact-checking and proofreading.

Solace In A Daydream

I find myself browsing last minute flights to Cuba and signing up for newsletters about backpacking trips through Vietnam. With jealousy, I pour over the travel albums and videos of friends and colleagues, wishing I was next to them on that Thai elephant.

But dwelling on your stationary status will only encourage you to hate where you live. Travel doesn’t have to take you across the globe or even across the country.

Even the smallest efforts to distance yourself from what you call home can reduce the desire to quit your job, sell your belongings, close your eyes, stick your finger on a map and go.

As a journalist, I travel on a daily basis. Twenty kilometres to the recycling plant. Six kilometres to City Hall. Sixty kilometres out on the water with the Coast Guard.

I’m trying to expand my coverage, but my bosses will only let me go so far.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep planning that trip to India, and the one to South Africa after that. I’ll also invest in a blow-up doll to place at my workstation while I’m gone.

Allison Cross is a journalist who lives in Nanaimo, BC. While she enjoys undertaking communication of all kinds, she has a focused interest in print media that addresses culture trends, travel and youth rights. Visit her personal blog.

Have you ever had to make this choice yet? How did you decide? And do you ever regret your choice?