The car is stationary in the busy morning traffic, the queue
snaking down the hill in front of us and up the slope beyond. The windows are
open, the humid morning breeze carrying upon it the shouts of the street
traders, and the never-ending hoots of Freetown’s bikes, tuk-tuks and cars. “Tissue,
tissue, tissue!” cries a man carrying a metre-high stack of tissue boxes as he
weaves between the queues.
The sky above us is hazy – the sun a dull red disc just
rising into a white sky above the city hills. It is harmattan, they tell me:
Saharan dust caught on the trade winds and carried high across West African
skies from November to March. “You think this is hot? Wait until after
harmattan!”
Weaving inbetween the lines of traffic, a fleet of
wheelchairs ascends the hill towards us. People affected by polio, I wonder.
Several have a weak or wasted arm or leg. Their family push the chairs from car
to car and gaze impassively at the occupants.
The car begins moving again and our driver weaves us in and
out of the city’s winding streets. We pass churches, markets, mosques and
always colour, voices, hooting and warmth.
We pull up outside a set of metal gates set in a peeling
whitewashed wall. Connaught Hospital, my new place of work. Opened in 1912 by
the Duke of Connaught a weather worn carving proclaims it the “product of
British philanthropy”. With 300 beds it is the adult referral hospital in this,
a city of over 2 million people. The gates open, we drive in and I start my first day at
work.
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