Meet me in Makeni… (How I love alliteration.)

Okay, the hotel doesn’t have running water, showers or flush toilets… and the beds are uncomfortably lumpy… There’s limited electricity from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. (nothing during the day) The mosquito nets have holes in them… and the overhead fan makes enough noise to wake the dead (grinds, clangs, clunks and whirls…) The complimentary morning coffee is a pot of Nescafe and the “continental breakfast” is a small, under-cooked loaf of white bread with a dollop of margarine. Makeni is hot… dusty and noisy. And it certainly isn’t Freetown.

But, it does have some elusive charms including a “main drag” that looks like it’s a set from an old spaghetti western. I kept thinking I’d meet a cowboy or two as I strolled amidst the okadas (motorcycle taxis) and vending stalls. Many of the buildings are two storey colonial structures… balconies and railings line the streets and I swear I could hear a tinkering piano from deep in the bowels of a “saloon”. By the way, they spell “salon” (as in hair-dressing and “barbing”) as “saloon”… which takes me back to the days of marking term papers at Sheridan College.

The drive from Freetown through the countryside to Makeni was incredible. Scenes that reminded me of those made-for-TV docu-dramas about African wildlife and “primitive” villages were everywhere. Around every curve or over every hill, there appeared a small collection of mud huts with thatched roofs, subsistence gardens, clean clothes hung on tree branches to dry and young children in various states of dress.

I’ve just returned from hosting a two-day workshop on journalism and human rights at the Fatima Institute in Makeni. Makeni is about three and a half hours drive outside of Freetown… “into the provinces,” as they say. It’s remote, in other words. And the Fatima Institute is a lovely little college that started as a Catholic mission site. Most of you know how I feel about missionaries and Catholics. Yikes! The Institute is one of two colleges in the area and it hosts a mass communications program, under which I was invited to give my workshop.

The workshop, “reporting from the frontlines: getting the most from your subjects” was attended by approximately 60-70 reporters, students and college faculty. I arrived in Makeni on Friday at noon and by 2:00 p.m. was enthralling a hall full of eager, bright learners. Of course, the promise of dinner on Friday evening and a certificate presentation on Saturday evening helped fill the hall.

The workshop covered topics such as, the fundamentals of journalism, what is news, interview skills and then story outlines and structures. I’ve heard and read on the evaluation forms that they really enjoyed the participatory aspect of the workshop… and the “fun” of having a Canadian lecturer talk to the group. Interestingly, the cultural and language barriers weren’t as prevalent as I’d thought they’d be.
They, of course, didn’t “get” my references to hockey, the prime minister or the CBC news… but they enjoyed hearing stories about Canadian journalists.

There’s a strange phenomenon here (one of several) around “certificates”. It seems with every workshop a certificate is awarded to the participants. It denotes nothing but attendance but is highly valued. I think it’s probably due to the lack of formal education in the country. So, every workshop, every training session and almost every meeting awards a certificate… which is often laminated and carried around in a dirty, beat-up file folder. People, especially the journalists, covet these “awards” and in every meeting I’ve had with reporters, they swing them about proudly.

So, at the end of my two-day workshop, we held a formal certificate presentation ceremony… much like the ones I skipped when I graduated from anywhere. Photos were taken with certificates, hands were shaken, smiles were recorded on little video cameras… and there I was… matriculating in Makeni. (oh how I love alliteration)

Till next time,
Stephen