TIS, This is Salone
- stutiginodia
- Jun 28, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2022
Esther and I have recently taken to looking at each either, shrugging and saying TIS, This is Salone. TIS is many things. It’s a sigh of frustration, a general resignation, an explanation. It’s a humorous chuckle, a reminder to be patient, and an attempt at understanding. Most of all, it’s a coping mechanism for the many unexpected challenges that crop up every day.
We say TIS when our food takes hours to prepare at a restaurant or when our driver leaves us stranded at a beach outside the city. It’s TIS when our one-on-one interview gets co-opted into a large focus group discussion. When our tailor shows up several hours late at the office to take our measurements. When IT changes the Wi-Fi password but refuses to share the updated one. It’s when the electricity goes out and there isn’t enough fuel to run the generator. The list could go on and on.
It's easy chalk up these daily annoyances to individuals, blaming them for their incompetence and unreliability. So, when there isn’t enough fuel to run the generator at the office and all work is disrupted, we look at the engineering team. Power cuts are common, the engineering team is aware of the fuel needed to run a generator, yet they fail to secure it. Why? TIS.
Behind that frustrated TIS though, lies the realities of a country struggling with a fuel crisis. Following a fuel price hike in mid-June, the country is now waiting for a second expected price increase to go into place. In the meantime, petrol companies are hoarding fuel, gas stations are collecting bribes, Freetonians are queuing up to fill up their cars or generators or jerry cans, and the price of my morning keke is on the rise.
This is Salone. A country where poor governance, corruption, weak institutions, crumbling infrastructure, and abject poverty all combine to make life difficult. They amplify everything from the minor inconveniences that I’ve learned to shrug off to the infuriating injustices that rile me up. In this environment, it’s easy to see why systems don’t exist, and why the ones that do, don’t work. In their absence, Sierra Leoneans have no choice but to create their own informal arrangements, ones that rely on WhatsApp and networks and norms to keep the city going. Ones that can be confusing, making it harder for outsiders to navigate Salone. Ones that often make me experience the city as unreliable, unpredictable, and uncertain.
For a planner like me, Freetown is a lesson in giving up control. Restaurants don’t have menus online, Google Maps doesn’t have traffic data, taxis don’t have fixed prices. TIS. The app-loving, itinerary making, fairness obsessed parts of me sometimes struggle to co-exist with this city. TIS is my way to acknowledge the many interplaying factors that explain the eccentricities of Freetown. It’s my realization that well-functioning infrastructure is a privilege, not the norm. And it’s my daily reminder to be flexible, a mantra urging me to just roll with the punches.
This is also Salone
It's easy to paint Salone as just a frustrating, exasperating, chaotic place. But Salone is also beautiful, colorful, even peaceful. It has gorgeous, untouched beaches and some of the pinkest sunsets I have seen. I am always turning a corner to be confronted by breathtaking views of the hills, the city, the ocean. Or to be inspired by the patterns of the fashionable Ankara dresses all around me. Here are some pictures showing this Salone.
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