About 50 km around the western peninsula lies a busy and colourful fishing village called Tombo Town. I reached it after a bumpy one-hour ride on the back of my friend Demba's motorcycle. The road, a mix of tarmac stretches and rutted dirt, goes through the Krio village of Regent, where one of Sierra Leone's smallest and oldest churches still stands. From there, we passed a string of hamlets bearing grand colonial names such as Hastings and Waterloo.
Tombo, which means "land registry" in Portuguese, is off the power grid. At night, its 30,000 inhabitants seemingly disappear under the cover of hundreds of corrugated metal roofs. When morning breaks, they set out in their wooden boats to compete with an increasing number of foreign vessels trawling inside territorial waters. Some estimates put SL's annual losses to illegal fishing at $26 million.
Fishermen used to load their catch directly onto a train of container wagons departing for Freetown. But today, the lonely rails rust in the lapping sea.
Sweaty human heads have replaced steely piston heads as the main motor force for fish transportation.
A strong smell of drying nets and smoked fish fills the still air along the winding alleys packed with children and chickens. The tender white fish and the traveling white girl are on their way to the city.
Posts
