I felt it then, the first time that I stepped
outside the plane in Lungi International.
Enveloped by a suffocating blanket,
I stood, arrested by the heavy air.
The skies were dark, I could not see its palms,
but soon I found that mine were damp.
This pattern would repeat each morning as
we left our air-conditioned chalets and
exclaimed ‘it’s hot again’, as if surprised.
As if…
        These vibrant midnight scenes still tarry.
The virgin walk across the unknown runway
towards conflicting voices, thick and urgent.
The chaos. Papers waved. Bribes sought. Unmoored.
Sidestepping through the scrum to find our car.
Escape. A momentary peace behind the windscreen.
We drive past twinkling kerosene and figures
emerging from the darkness, eyes lit up,
rushing to meet the ferry at the harbour;
meeting instead a herd of cars. We sit,
the mercury rising, ‘midst the midnight hawkers.
Cicada lullabies meet drowsy eyes.
The ferry never comes. ‘It’s broken down.’
This news does not inspire my confidence.
‘Don’t worry there are two’, I’m told, ‘the other
will soon arrive.’ Alas, that’s late as well.
Strapped in, I sleep a stuffy, restless sleep,
one eye half open so as not to miss
the novelty, the other stupefied with heat.
A decade on and home, I find September’s
unexpected heatwave stirs up old ghosts
wakes up, recalls, these vivid memories
of sticky hands and distant drowsy streets.

* As Sierra Leone is sometimes known by its people.

Walking out in the hottest day of the year yesterday awoke memories of my first moments in Sierra Leone some twenty years ago.
(11.09.23)

© Ben Quant 2023