Business is slow at Dori's spectacular weekly livestock market. The crowds of turbaned Fulani nomads and bejewelled Bella and Tuareg are as dense and...
Mark Weston
Mark Weston is a writer, researcher and consultant working on public health, justice, youth employability and other global issues. He lives in Sudan, and is the author of two books on Africa – The Ringtone and the Drum and African Beauty.
Ten things you probably didn’t know about Burkina Faso
We are now in Burkina Faso, the last stop on what has been a fascinating and somewhat challenging tour of West Africa. Here's a beginner's guide to one of the...
A precarious peace in Sierra Leone
"You wouldn't understand this country if you stayed here for five years. I don't understand it," says Nestor Cummings-John, the head of the Sierra Leone...
The Sierra Leone Guide to Prevention of Tourism
When I arrived in Sierra Leone six weeks ago and encountered its friendly people, spectacular beaches, lively nightlife and mysterious traditions, I wondered...
Bloodless Diamonds?
"It's not diamonds that are the problem," says Ali, a Lebanese diamond dealer in eastern Sierra Leone. "Diamonds are just stones. It's people that are the...
The Dollar Boys of Freetown
The leone, Sierra Leone's currency, is not highly prized abroad. Nor is it especially strong compared to more established currencies: in 1978 when it broke...
The Horror
This morning, presumably because of a burst pipe, a trickle of water was bubbling up through a hole in the surface of a busy Freetown street. Next to the...
A mobile world
Mobile phones are spreading through Sierra Leone like a cholera epidemic. Everyone either has one or aspires to one. Phone theft is common (my own lasted a...
A snapshot of Freetown
Had a surprisingly interesting tour of Freetown's port yesterday. It's the world's third largest natural harbour. Seventy years ago, the ship carrying my...
The wretched of the earth
I've been in Freetown for a couple of weeks now and am starting to get my head around the place. Sierra Leone has only recently climbed off the foot of the UN...
Recession hits the world’s poorest
Of course, traditional banks like Ecobank look down on microfinance as a small-fry, over-risky industry. In Freetown I met SB, who heads a...
Ecobank: An African Success Story
Last week I met someone high up in the Sierra Leone branch of Ecobank. He proudly told me the history of his bank. In the 1980s, because of widespread...
The face of aid
"The nature of the ties linking the African with the European has not really changed since the first Portuguese ships went sailing down the west coast of the...
Travelling in style
We achieved the record for a 'sept places' (seven-seater) the other day. This is considered the most luxurious form of transport in this part of West Africa....
Adieu Guinea-Bissau
And so we move on from Guinea-Bissau. The journey to Ziguinchor in the Casamance region of Senegal passed without incident, although reports of the road from...
Between a rock and a hard place
The next stage of our journey presents a dilemma. We have to get from Guinea-Bissau, where we are now, to Sierra Leone. The overland route would be by far the...
A prodigal son returns
Yesterday on our way back to Bissau from the south, we were stopped at a military checkpoint and forced to empty our rucksacks. Well, empty them until the...
Hotting up in West Africa
The arrest of a Nigerian national suspected of plotting to blow up a transatlantic plane is another worrying piece in the jigsaw of West African Islamic...
Plumbing the depths
This morning I went to an orphanage in Bissau (see @markweston71 on twitter for more photos). Can there be a less promising start to life than being orphaned...
In a land without land registries
A dispute broke out in our neighbourhood in Bissau when a woman bought a plot of land and began to build a small shop on it. A neighbour objected, claiming...
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