By Karim Bah
Can You Smell The Economy?
I try to do just that to check the health of the economy aka money in people’s pockets or shall me say, bread and butter. How? I don’t know what methodology my academic friends will call this but this is what I usually do to check out the health of the economy.
On major public holidays I go around in my “area” hanging my nose in the air to smell what’s cooking, literally. If a lot of people in my neighborhood are frying chicken (not Forl Wesi or Forl Fut) and cooking lots of jollof rice, then I can conclude that the economy is good or at least families have some cash in their pocket to afford to cook very nice food, Jolof Rice with beef and chicken in our case, for the family. Most families hardly afford meat or fish. It is only on big occasions like Christmas or Eid, when families can provide meat or “Good Fish” for the family. Most of the time, we depend on Forl Weis or Forl Fut or “Mina Fish” to get by.
On December 25th 2020 (Xmas Day) I woke up in the morning and opened my windows. Didn’t smell much of frying going on in the neighborhood. The smell was nothing to write home about. Later in the morning, I started to catch a little bit of smell of jollof rice and beef. But only from very few homes. I took off. I took a walk around my neighborhood just to check. Yes there was cooking and smell of jollof rice, but really not like one would expect on a Christmas Day. I kept wondering about this and said to myself that maybe it’s the shortage of cash in the banks close to Christmas. People couldn’t access their cash to shop.
I decided to wait for New Years Day 2021, another “Big Holiday” in Freetown in particular. The tradition in Freetown in particular is for families to cook a lot and go out to the beach on Picnic. We call it “Outing”. If you go to the beach on New Year’s Day it is packed full of people – families, neighbors etc on the beach having a good time together, eating a lot and “chilling”. In some cases, whole neighborhoods Hire Buses to go on “Outing”.
So today I went around in my neighborhood again to check. To my surprise all what my nose got was huge dose of Keinda and Bennie. I don’t know if this is the case in other neighborhoods but this made me very confused about the success of JJ Saffa’s Bread en Butter Economy. Or maybe it’s fear of Covid? People are saying the JCs are bringing the Covid home with them. I don’t really have any conclusions yet but am just concerned. If New Year Tan So….hmmmm
Pls share your experience about what you smelled in your neighborhood/Area this New Year’s Day 2021.
Smelling the Economy in Freetown.
