Last night Joe and I moved into the flat where we'll be staying for the rest of our time in Freetown. We live above our Lebanese landlord (and his family), who happens to be a founding member of the Freetown Hash House Harriers (an international running group I used to run with in Muscat). So today I managed to tag along and run with them in an area near Hamilton Beach (out of Freetown and down the west coast).
It's hard to describe the Hash House Harriers without sounding like they're a bit of a cult! But I'll do my best... Made up of expats and locals, they get together once a week to go running, following a trail of flour along a route set up by a "hare" (one of the runners) earlier in the day. After the run, everyone stands around drinking beer, singing Hash songs and sometimes doing initiations of new members and forfeits based on events during the run. Everyone has a Hash name and refers to each other only by these names during runs. Just read that back and realised it definitely sounds like a cult. Oh well. It's still a great way to get to know people quickly, especially in the short time I'm in each country. At one point I found myself running next to the guy in charge of youth programming at UNDP, so (slightly breathlessly) managed to explain the focus of the work I'm doing with Restless Development and set up a meeting to talk about opportunities next week!
After the run we stayed on at the beach for the rest of the afternoon and I got to know some of the other Hashers, many of whom belong to the large Lebanese community that lives in Freetown. According to my landlord (Mr Jabba), they came over from Lebanon at the turn of the century, intending to go to the USA to find their fortunes but the boat dropped them in Sierra Leone instead and they never left. He and his wife (also Lebanese) were both born in Sierra Leone and have never lived in Lebanon. Both their children attend the Lebanese International School, and there are Lebanese restaurants all over Freetown. I seem to be living off falafel wraps and tabbouleh (no complaints). I even ran into a Lebanese Danny Devito lookie-likie at Hamilton Beach. Very random, and not something I thought I'd be writing about in a blog about my time in Sierra Leone!
It's hard to describe the Hash House Harriers without sounding like they're a bit of a cult! But I'll do my best... Made up of expats and locals, they get together once a week to go running, following a trail of flour along a route set up by a "hare" (one of the runners) earlier in the day. After the run, everyone stands around drinking beer, singing Hash songs and sometimes doing initiations of new members and forfeits based on events during the run. Everyone has a Hash name and refers to each other only by these names during runs. Just read that back and realised it definitely sounds like a cult. Oh well. It's still a great way to get to know people quickly, especially in the short time I'm in each country. At one point I found myself running next to the guy in charge of youth programming at UNDP, so (slightly breathlessly) managed to explain the focus of the work I'm doing with Restless Development and set up a meeting to talk about opportunities next week!
After the run we stayed on at the beach for the rest of the afternoon and I got to know some of the other Hashers, many of whom belong to the large Lebanese community that lives in Freetown. According to my landlord (Mr Jabba), they came over from Lebanon at the turn of the century, intending to go to the USA to find their fortunes but the boat dropped them in Sierra Leone instead and they never left. He and his wife (also Lebanese) were both born in Sierra Leone and have never lived in Lebanon. Both their children attend the Lebanese International School, and there are Lebanese restaurants all over Freetown. I seem to be living off falafel wraps and tabbouleh (no complaints). I even ran into a Lebanese Danny Devito lookie-likie at Hamilton Beach. Very random, and not something I thought I'd be writing about in a blog about my time in Sierra Leone!
 |
| Post-run Hash circle |
 |
| Initiation of new member - Hash naming |
 |
| With the Lebanese Danny Devito lookie-likie! |
 |
| Hamilton Beach |
No comments:
Post a Comment