Paradise regained in Sierra Leone
Civil war tore the nation apart for 11 years, but the
beautiful beaches that were once the setting for the Bounty
chocolate bar advertisements are now back on the tourist
map. Katrina Manson reports from
Freetown.
Turtle
Islands, Sierra Leone, where tourists can watch the
day's catch come in
Its mountain-backed empty beaches are so pristine it was
once the setting for Bounty bar's "Taste of Paradise"
adverts, but many people may be more familiar with Sierra
Leone as the setting for a brutal civil war. For 11 years,
this small west African nation tore itself apart as
attackers amputated villagers' limbs with blunt machetes,
small children fired off Kalashnikovs they could barely lift
and an estimated one in three women were raped.
Seven years after the end of the war, however, the unlikely
prospect of tourism in Sierra Leone is back on the agenda.
And well it should be.
Few people know about Sierra Leone's sweeping many-coloured
beaches, its swim-perfect seas and glorious
rainforest-mountain backdrops. They don't know you can dine
on fresh-grilled lobster and refresh yourself with a cool
beer beside the ocean. They don't know about the country's
threatened primates and rare exotic birdlife, or that it is
home to the region's highest mountain. They are unaware that
its capital is one of the safest cities in Africa and that
people dance with a mesmerising lust for life until after
dawn. Or that, despite the decade of war, the nation's
tenacity, affection and spirit is what really defines it.
Born of the efforts of three waves of freed slaves from
Britain,
Canada and
Jamaica
in the late 18th century, the country's capital, Freetown,
was named for being a singular province of freedom in the
midst of a flourishing slave trade. In part because of this
dashing history, its poverty and its horrendous war, Salone
(as it is affectionately known) conjures up a special sort
of love - it is love against the odds, holidays against the
grain, belief in the face of disbelief.
Cecil Williams is among those who have been valiantly
working to bring that belief to light. He became head of the
national
tourist board in 1991, the year the war started, and
watched as the number of visitors plummeted from close to
100,000 a year to almost zero. Now the number of arrivals
has edged up to 4,000 a year, but most are visiting friends
or family, or are more likely consultants than carefree
holidaymakers.
"Tourism is still virgin here," Mr Williams explains. "But
there's great enthusiasm and people are starting to come. We
could have 10,000 tourism jobs in the next five to seven
years but it depends on government support - at the moment
we are grossly under-funded. "
Another acolyte of tourism's uphill struggle is Bimbola
Carrol, 32, who left Sierra Leone in 1997 when Freetown was
under fire. Just over a year ago he gave up a nine-to-five
job in London to go back to his homeland to start up a
tourism business. "I always saw myself returning," says Mr
Carrol, who is one of an estimated 50,000 in the diaspora
who have returned since the war ended. "It's down to Sierra
Leoneans to rebuild Sierra Leone. We have a responsibility
to give back to our society." Today he employs four people
and runs the popular, information- packed Visit Sierra Leone
website, which he started in 2004, as well as organising
trip itineraries. "It was only two years after the end of
the war and at that time no one was talking about tourism,"
he says. "But I had a much longer-term view about it: Sierra
Leone hasn't received as much credit as it deserves."
Tony
Blair, who sent in UK troops in 2000 to help bring
the fighting to an end, is among those hoping to generate
just this sort of credit. This week the former prime
minister has been wandering up and down the fine city sands
at Lumley beach - a long strip that brings together
Freetown's fishermen, joggers, lovers and sundowners. He's
been hanging with beach entrepreneurs, watching the day's
catch come in and seeing with his own eyes the tourism
potential Sierra Leone's president,
Ernest Bai Koroma, hopes to translate into jobs and
economic growth.
"There's no doubting they could transform this into a huge
tourism magnet," Mr Blair said in an interview during his
visit. "It is heavily dependent on donor aid and the country
needs to be released of this."
Britain, the former colonial power, today gives more money
per person to Sierra Leone than anywhere else - an amount
set to rise to £50m next year. Yet the west African country
remains bottom of the UN Human Development index, investment
shy, with more than 70 per cent of its people living below
the poverty line and the world's highest
maternal
mortality rate. Unemployment is worryingly high,
particularly among potentially volatile young men.
Supporting tourism may pay dividends: the industry will earn
sub-Saharan Africa $66bn this year - accounting for
6.7 per cent of the continent's GDP and directly employing
3.34 million people. In Sierra Leone, the
World
Travel and Tourism Council says the country already
earns $90 million from travel and tourism and is likely to
grow at 5.8 per cent a year for the next decade.
Mr Blair, who has placed nine experts from his advisory
group into Sierra Leone's government to help improve
decision-making and boost business, says he is pinning his
hopes on a November investment conference to drum up
much-needed interest in the sector. His father used to teach
at the university and told him about Sierra Leone as a boy.
He said: "The potential is obvious absolutely everywhere but
now it needs real investment. It's critical to provide the
infrastructure - the airport, port, making sure the
necessary roads are built."
Getting around the country is hard, electricity and water
are in short supply and accommodation often lacks the
sumptuous appeal oflow-impact boutique tourism developed
elsewhere in the continent. But the country offers something
else - extraordinary natural beauty, and heart.
Fishermen at Tombo
In researching the first-ever guidebook to the country,
people willingly offered me help, advice and displayed a
reassuring devotion to their land. When I thought it might
be possible to scale the famed
Mount Bintumani from the east rather than the west as
everybody seemed to do, I turned up unannounced at a nearby
village where elders pointed out the mountain's magnificent
silhouette and showed me the way. Keen to reach the
vine-covered crumbling remains of a slave castle sat snug on
Bunce Island in the middle of the
Sierra Leone River, I watched its elderly caretaker
gingerly bail out water from his leaky canoe.
The country's heritage is both moving and horrifying: the
dilapidated slave fortress is thought to have sent 50,000
slaves mostly to
north
America, throughout 140 years of operation, linking
black Americans more closely to Sierra Leone than any other
African country. Among them is US actor and Grey's Anatomy
star
Isaiah Washington, who traced his DNA to Sierra Leone
and has since donated money to historians devoted to
bringing life on Bunce Island to light.
There are an estimated one million Sierra Leoneans living
abroad who send back $250m every year. And while personal
links are likely to form a strong link for many visitors,
there are already some travellers with no ties at all who
are discovering the charms of the country.
"We wanted to go somewhere before all the tourists got
there," said Claire Thomas, 33, a Londoner who holidayed in
Sierra Leone earlier this year with her boyfriend.
The couple stayed on an exotic island filled with fresh
figs, guavas and starfruit, spent the night in an eco-lodge
at a chimpanzee sanctuary, swam beside the fine
white
sands of River No 2 - the setting for those Bounty
adverts - took a boat trip down a mangrove-lined river,
watched tailors, vegetable growers and bakers at work, and
even found people willing to accommodate their vegan diet -
impressive in a land where meat, fish and diary products are
prized protein.
For Ms Thomas, who works for a development charity, it was
also a chance to contribute something meaningful. "We wanted
to give something back rather than giving aid," she says. "I
just thought it was amazing, I was really surprised. It was
really peaceful and relaxing and we didn't even get one
mosquito bite. Everyone was so genuine and friendly and I
felt really safe."
Ms Thomas, part of a first trickle of tourists, booked her
trip with one of one of two
UK tour
operators who are taking a chance on this post-war
west African state. "I came into tourism not to book flights
but for economic development, " says Judith De Witt,
director of the UK's Rainbow Tours, which offers week-long
trips to Sierra Leone from around £1,500. "Sierra Leone was
stable but wasn't getting the kind of coverage it deserved.
It reminds me of the good old days of
Madagascar." Now, finally, Sierra Leone's chance may
be coming.
Katrina Manson
is co-author of the Bradt Guide to Sierra Leone, published
on
15 May, 2009