A walk through the town

Today has been set aside for filming odds and ends and recording sound, so in the morning James and I are taken to the HIV house by Alusine from the hospital, who runs this project with Action Aid.

As we walk through Kambia town he describes the area as it used to be with tarmac roads, electricity and infrastructure like the postal service. There are few middle aged men here because so many died during the war, but those we have met, like Moses and FT, are incredibly well educated compared to the younger people we encounter. We talk about the economy, the lack of job opportunities and the fact that even a senior civil servant would only earn a maximum of 150,000 Leones a month (£25). The democratic election has inspired hope for the future but as we walk by the wrecked old buildings listening to Alusine’s stories, the lasting effects of the brutal ten-year civil war are put into sharp relief.

The HIV house is set back from the road, and exists as a membership organisation for HIV positive women to get free drugs and medial treatment and to provide support for each other. We meet about twenty women, many of them with children and some who travel far to visit the house. They tell us about the micro grants they have received to set up small businesses: each woman pays back 5,000 Leones to a month to the project and they would like to expand to employ a coordinator and eventually become self-sustaining.

The programme also runs a sensitisation programme, to try and remove the stigma associated with HIV and educate people about safe sex, but many of these women have not even told their husbands about their status. Both Alusine and the woman we meet from Action Aid remark on the change in these women since they joined the project and gained a reason for optimism. My auntie Val has given me some baby clothes from Gap where she works in the US and I leave a bag with the women, who are very pleased.

In the afternoon we record drumming and singing for the film’s sound track. Then, as James is feeling ill and Greg is on the final edit, Toby and I walk to Hassan’s for a beer, to thank him for the coconuts and to say goodbye. Isatu is there as usual and I leave her with a packet of Haribo star mix.