By Christopher L. Heuertz
We walked through an open-air market, down a side street in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, West Africa. The vibrant colors and smells of the fruit and vegetables filled our senses. The road was narrow yet full of life. We were surrounded by children laughing and playing all up and down the street. Nearly every vendor greeted us with warm and sincere hospitality.
Before we knew it, the market opened into what appeared to be a valley—more like a crater—on the edge of downtown. Slowly, we walked down a long concrete staircase, into the worst slum I have ever seen. Having traveled in nearly seventy countries throughout Asia, Africa, and South America, I was blown away by the density of poverty and texture of suffering that marked every detail of Kroo Bay.
Kroo Bay is the poorest slum community in the capital city of the world’s poorest country. It’s a former fishing village turned into an informal coastal slum with around six thousand residents—more than four thousand of them children.
Located below sea level, where two of Freetown’s major rivers meet and drain into the Atlantic Ocean, it floods with sewage every time there is major rainfall in the city. This forces residents to spend countless days and nights fighting to save their homes bucket by bucket.
It’s overcrowded, congested, and clogged with trash.
If it weren’t for the laughter of the children and the smiles of the vendors, it would have seemed one of the most hopeless places in the world.
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