Wave of hope: in Sierra Leone women are particularly affected by the corona crisis - surfing should encourage them

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Kadiatu Kamara on Bureh Beach in Sierra Leone: "Surfing helped me through the Ebola crisis, now it should help other women through Corona"

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

Kadiatu Kamara doesn't need to look around.

She relies entirely on her hearing and her sense of the sea.

The crest of the wave rolls closer from behind with a hiss.

"This is yours", she calls out to her friend Jariatu Sesay and gives her board a hard nudge.

"The sea washes your worries away," she says, while she looks after her friend, who is now pushing her delicate arms through and pushing up her narrow chest.

That was also the reason why she started surfing herself.

Back then, during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone between 2014 and 2016.

It was a very difficult time, says the 22-year-old and shakes the salt water from her short dreadlocks.

Surfing helped her not to lose heart.

That's why she wants to teach other young women and girls.

Just as the board carried you through the Ebola crisis, it should now bring others through the corona pandemic.

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Surfer on the beach in Sierra Leone

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

Jariatu Sesay pulls out her right foot, and then she stands - for the first time.

"Look at me," she cheers.

"I'm surfing! I'm surfing!"

Although the number of corona cases in Sierra Leone is officially low, the population is feeling the consequences of the pandemic.

The import figures fell, the prices rose.

People get by, survive with the help of friends and relatives.

But poverty is growing.

The main thing is to eat - no matter what it costs

It is times like these when the crowd of street children grows in the alleys of the capital, Freetown, when more and more and younger girls are selling their bodies for a bowl of rice.

The main thing is to eat.

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For women in Sierra Leone, learning to surf firstly means overcoming your own fears - hardly anyone can swim

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

According to the World Bank, around 40 percent of the population in the West African country live on less than 1.60 euros a day.

70 percent of young people are unemployed or barely employed.

These people have neither leeway nor reserves.

In the evening, when Kadiatu Kamara and her friends talk about their first surfing experiences over fish and chips, one of the young women will casually tell that she had herself tested every month for a long time: HIV, hepatitis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.

Another reports that she used to "party a lot" and made a living from it.

But since the outbreak of the pandemic there has been a night curfew in Freetown.

Sex work, drug delivery services - the sources of income in nightlife - have collapsed.

There are hardly any other jobs.

The young women have left the city and are currently living in the countryside.

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The three women now share a tiny room.

Two mattresses on the tiled floor, thick curtains in front of the barred windows

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

Here they share a small room, two mattresses on the tiled floor, and the three friends' shoe collection in the corner.

Rent they do not pay

taxes and insurance does not exist.

A bowl of rice with some fish stock costs around 20 cents.

In times of crisis, the cost of living can be reduced to almost zero.

"Women in particular don't have it easy here," says Kadiatu Kamara.

Your friends nod silently.

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Sierra Leone is a dangerous country for women: there are hardly any real jobs;

many make some money in the nightlife

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

Many women in Sierra Leone drop out of school after primary school.

Not infrequently to get married.

Then the children come.

And for women in Sierra Leone there is hardly anything more dangerous than that: having a child.

One in 89 pregnancies ends with the death of the mother.

Only in Chad and South Sudan are more women currently dying in childbirth, according to the World Health Organization.

Human rights activists also complain that there is a real culture of violence against women.

In fact, the problem of sexual violence is so great that the government was forced to declare a national emergency in 2019.

The minimum sentence for rape has now been increased to 15 years.

But little has changed for the women in the country.

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"Surfing helped me through the Ebola crisis, now it should help other women through Corona," says surf instructor Kadiatu Kamara

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

On the contrary: All over Africa, women were hit particularly hard by the corona lockdowns, says Matshidiso Moeti, Africa director of the World Health Organization.

Your situation is currently worse than it has been in years.

Can surfing of all things help?

Yes, says Kadiatu Kamara.

Sport can't help you when you're sick.

But he could help to bear the consequences of the pandemic better.

The narrowness, the uncertainty, the hardship.

"When you surf, you learn to overcome your fears. It gives you confidence."

And Kadiatu Kamara knows what she's talking about.

Like almost all women in Sierra Leone, she couldn't swim when she first started surfing.

She nearly drowned on one of her first attempts.

When she finally crawled onto the bank, spitting salt water, she swore she would never surf again.

And she stuck to her resolution for a long time.

Until Ebola came.

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With the surfers came tourism, but since the outbreak of the pandemic there have hardly been any guests.

Poverty in the former fishing village of Bureh is growing again

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

"It was a time of fear back then," she says.

"Nobody knew how bad the epidemic would be. Families were no longer allowed to visit each other, we were no longer allowed to shake hands, no longer hug, no longer touch each other. People were taken to the hospital and never came back. Thousands died. That was when I found my way back to surfing. "

In the water she could forget her worries, there was only her, her board and the sea.

She, who almost drowned, learned to swim.

"The sea almost stole my life," she says.

"And it gave me a new life."

She learned how to ride a wave, how to keep your balance, and how to dive under the biggest breakers.

"As women, we were never taught anything like that. We let ourselves be pushed and beaten."

That must end, says Kamara.

"We must no longer let the waves beat us like driftwood in the surf. We have to learn to swim and surf the waves."

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It rains a lot in autumn.

Then the women stand by one of the huts for tourists and watch the clouds

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

That's why she now wants to set up her own surf school.

For girls and women.

It should be closer to Freetown and much easier to reach.

She found a place on the beach at "River Number 2".

There, under coconut palms and old mango trees, her school is supposed to be.

However, she still only has one board.

Kadiatu Kamara is currently writing to acquaintances, friends and supporters in the USA and Europe, asking if they can help her send her more surfboards.

So far in vain.

But that doesn't deter them.

A board is enough for now.

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Beach in Sierra Leone

Photo: Benjamin Moscovici

"I dream that one day young women everywhere on the beaches of West Africa will bravely throw themselves into the surf."

A start has been made: two young women learned to swim today.

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