I
posted this photo on my Facebook page a few days ago, but on reflection, I
thought the image needed fuller treatment.
What is amazing about the hole in question is that it has endured
for so long. One would have thought that the person responsible for filling up holes
in roads would have noticed it by now and done something about it. Or, if it
had managed to escape his or her keen eye someone else must have brought it to their attention. For crying out loud, the thing is located on a “FO-RODE”,
the intersection of four roads, all major, and through which traffic passes
into and out of central Freetown. So,
one has to conclude that it is a marker of some purpose. It is obvious that a
thing of beauty it is not, unless our Master or Mistress of The Roads comes from an aesthetic
that is uniquely different from yours and mine.
Is its purpose functional? I would have thought not. It is
difficult to see what use a 2 metre-diameter hole could serve in the middle of
a busy thoroughfare. I know. You say it slows down the traffic and prevents reckless
speeding. But there are other ways in which traffic is slowed down throughout
the city, but which we won't bother with right now. So, I can’t buy that. Nor can I buy a proposition that it serves as a drain to take the run-off from
Freetown’s famously extreme downpours. That definitely does not wash because, if it was one, shouldn’t it have a grill cover to prevent the
unsuspecting from being washed in as well?
I can’t think of any other purpose, try as I might.
Except, perhaps, that perennial, ever-lurking about in Salone. The one staring me in the
face all along, hidden right there, in plain sight. But here, I have to lower my voice
an octave or so: It could be a “Debble Hole” (Devil Hole). And no one dares touch
it. Even talking about it is risky enough and one may have truly exceeded the bounds
of caution by actually photographing it. The mere thought of the transgression makes me quite nervous now.
Meanwhile, the thing stays in place. Till Doomsday, one
presumes.
We just have to learn to love it.
Tell Fren Tru
