Situated between the larger well-constructed stores and the market buildings proper, lies a section of prefabricated shacks and semi-permanent stalls. This is where the smaller African traders, who deal with manufactured goods, are sited. The two sectors do to some extent compete directly, however, the smaller traders also specialise in a variety of smaller items not widely found in the 'Lebanese stores'. You are also more likely to find there those manufactured goods that have been imported from Guinea. Most of these stallholders are Fula and Mandingo, a few are Temne. Cloth-traders, tailors and other specialists are to be found here. The tailors are mostly men. Those situated near the market tend to operate independent enterprises, although a number of tailors also work on the verandahs of the Lebanese shops. The market buildings proper consist of two open planned iron roofed rectangular buildings, however, the market activities are not necessarily confined there. In the dry season, many traders display their goods outside. The vast majority of table traders inside the buildings sell basic foodstuffs, and are mostly women. There is a lack of specialisation within this general category, and on the same table one may find tomatoes, potatoes, sugar, oranges, rice, eggs, etc. One noticeable exception to this is the fish whose sale is dominated by women. Fresh and dried fish (bonga, Kr.) is regularly brought up from Freetown. The fish sellers are situated near the market butchers. Outside the market buildings there is a clear tendency for sellers of a particular commodity to congregate together. And so one observes clusters of wood sellers, palm oil sellers, sweet potato and potato-leaf sellers, and so on. The basic foodstuffs are mainly sold by women, whilst men dominate the baking and butchering, the sale of medicines, clothes and kola nuts. The size of female market enterprises varies a great deal. Market women may be seen vending with goods only worth thirty pence. However, for many women trading is their full-time profession, and their larger and more permanent stalls may hold goods to the value of a few hundred pounds sterling. (*13) Whilst the market is the visible commercial centre of the town, it is also a social and, in a sense, recreational centre, which provides a meeting place for individuals and groups. It is an obvious focal point for the giving and receiving of news and information. The main marketing activities take place during the hours of daylight, especially between nine and four o'clock. However the market place remains a focal point for social interaction even during the early hours of darkness. Between the Lebanese stores and the main market buildings, sellers of African 'fast foods' such as cakes, fried fish, boiled and roasted corn, groundnuts and, occasionally, roasted meat, gather, under the flickering shadows of kerosene lamps. It is mainly young men who gather at the market place at night, to stand around and gossip, meet their friends, and to listen to the music playing at the nearby bars, but since the fast food sellers are young females there is always the possibility of spending the evening in mixed company! (*14) Specialisation is not entirely absent from the CBD. There is a branch of Barclays Bank on one of the corners of the market centre, and within fifty yards of the market place are two petrol stations, which, including that at the market bar, makes three altogether. Close to the centre there are a number of eating or 'chop' houses, a photographic studio and a 'recording' studio. Within the market itself there is a motorbike taxi rank. The riders operate during the day and well into the evening, carrying messages, or people, in and around town, or frequently, further afield. Two

15

MAP 1:5

KABALA LAND USE

motorbike mechanics, assisted by a number of apprentices, also work within this central area. Outside the CBD there are very few commercial enterprises of any standing. There is a cinema that sporadically shows Indian and Chinese films, a couple of small all-purpose shops in Bankolia, and a cluster of small stores around Yogomaia market but, for the most part, commercial activity is limited to small scale and occasional sales made from house verandahs, or to the portable tables of the "cigarette traders"; a notable exception is the sale of palm wine in the Limba section of Gbauwria. The commercial dominance of Kabala market is underlined by the 'failure' of Yogomaia market. Built in the 1970s, in the same open-planned, corrugated roof style, this market was in theory, meant to offer an alternative marketing site for the people of Yogomaia. However, it is clear that the decision to build the market was much more of a political move than a necessary, or even warranted, economic one. The building was funded by a local Kuranko politician and, despite the fact that the market was opened as Siaka Stevens Market, it has not been a commercial success. (*15) No more than twenty women petty traders of basic foodstuffs, usually garden produce, use the market. A couple of prefabricated permanent stores have managed to establish themselves alongside the market place; both these shops are run by Fula women and stock the usual wide range of imported foodstuffs and everyday household items. Whether this is a point for further commercial growth remains to be seen. At present, since the market at Yogomaia is so small, local residents are obliged to visit the CBD to get the range of goods they require at prices they are willing to pay. Kabala grew and developed because it functioned as an administrative centre. It is then, perhaps, not surprising that even today most of the administrative offices, many of which were built during the colonial period, are situated on the periphery of the town. The district office, police station and local prison, district court, education and electoral offices, post office and even the forest ranger's office are all contiguous in an area east of the commercial centre. (See map 1:5) However, in terms of local government, there is a dual administrative structure. For whilst, as we have seen, the Kabala/Yogomaia conglomeration functions for the most part as a single nucleus commercial centre, in fact Yogomaia and Kabala are both separate chiefdom headquarters. (*16) The buildings of the Warra Warra Yagala chiefdom, of which Kabala is the headquarters, are situated at Gbauwria, the Limba section where the chief lives. A similar administrative cluster is to be found around the Sengbe chief's compound in Yogomaia. (*17) During the mid-1960s, the time of Harvey's brief study, most of the town's educational facilities were concentrated in the centre of Kabala. There were two primary schools: the D.E.C. primary school, the oldest in the district, being situated just north-west of the CBD, and a Catholic primary school, situated along the Makeni road. There was also one Catholic secondary school, situated near the Catholic Church. The one other school, situated a mile outside town beyond the Bankolia section, was run by Americans, solely for the children of American missionaries working in Sierra Leone. The school still functioned during the time of my stay. Over the time I was in Kabala I did not see one pupil from this school enter town. Neither

16

were local children encouraged to visit this American outpost. Two large guard dogs, that patrolled the school grounds, discouraged such visits. Since the 1960s educational expansion has shifted the focus away from Kabala. There are now three primary schools in Yogomaia, a government school (formerly known as the Islamic primary school), a Missionary Church of Africa school (MCA), and an Ammadhiya Muslim primary school. There is also a primary school in Bankolia. There are two more government-recognised secondary schools, both situated on the outskirts of Yogomaia, the largest and oldest of these being the Ammadhiya Muslim Secondary school and the smaller, more recent school established by the MCA. A very recent, but as yet unrecognised, secondary school has been built in Bankolia, the Kabala Islamic Secondary School. Apart from the DEC primary school, all the schools have religious affiliations, although they do not cater exclusively for their own respective congregations. Excepting, of course, the American missionary school. The population of Kabala is very heterogeneous. The ethnic complexity of the town has been brought about by migration, over many decades. Presently, ethnic groups do not occupy specific sectors of the town. However, distinct residential areas do exist and ethnic clustering does occur. These differences are, to some extent reflected in differential rates of expansion, between different sections of the town. For example, the Limba are predominant in Gbauwria, their "traditional" section of the town. Kabala town centre and Bankolia, the residential section that lies to the East, are ethnically heterogeneous. These cosmopolitan areas include large groups of Temne, Mandingo, Fula and Kuranko, as well as Mende, Loko and Yalunka, etc. The Fula are most numerous in Yogomaia, and the neighbouring "New site" area, although Yogomaia is also the "traditional" centre for Kuranko and Sankaran. (See below) Yet despite these clusterings, members of all the various ethnic groups are to be found throughout the town. Various areas of the town are recognised and named, and may be characterised, to some extent, in terms of the predominant group or groups living in that area. However, the divisions and distinctions drawn in this fashion are of a very general nature. Save for the chiefdom boundary, that divides Yogomaia from the rest of the town, residential areas do not correspond to formal political structures. Generally speaking, neighbourhoods are not of formal significance in day-to-day affairs. There are no "strangers quarters" in the town, apart from, perhaps, the government workers' residential area, incorporating the police barracks, which is situated close to the District Office. (See above) Houses are uniform in structure, the iron roofed mud-brick, or concrete block, rectangular bungalow being the most usual construction. There are no "traditional" circular huts within the town, (*18) and "storey" buildings are limited to the market centre. I estimated that Fula made up between one quarter and one third of the population of Yogomaia. (*19) I did not carry out a census, although I did endeavour, with the help of an acquaintance, to identify all the Fula houses in the section. The resultant sketch map is reproduced unaltered from my field-notes. (map 1:6) It shows that Fula are widely distributed throughout Yogomaia. Clusters of Fula residences do occur, for example at the northern end of Musaia road, and south around Jalloh Street. More

17

MAP 1:6

SKETCH PLAN OF YOGOMAIA, SHOWING APPROXIMATE DISTRIBUTION OF ETHNIC GROUPS.

noticeable however, is the cluster of Yalunka around the playing field, and the cluster of Kuranko in the South-West, situated near to the Paramount Chief's compound. The map does not indicate the large number of ethnically mixed households. Also, in some instances, the map classes households owned by Fula and rented to non-Fula, as those "occupied" by Fula. Nonetheless, it reflects the general pattern of ethnic distribution. The predominance of Fula in Yogomaia, as opposed to other sections of the town, is linked to the history of Yogomaia's recent development. Since the 1950's the numbers of Fula settled in Yogomaia, have increased dramatically. New residential areas, developing north of Yogomaia, also show a predominance of Fula households. It seems likely, should this trend continue, that Yogomaia will come to be more clearly recognised as the Fula section of town, and perhaps identified as the stranger neighbourhood. The large numbers of Fula in Yogomaia, I would suggest, is not simply the result of a deliberate strategy to live in close proximity to each other. The distribution of long-established Fula families throughout the town indicates that the trend towards a concentrated settlement pattern is of recent origin. The modern tendency is more accurately seen as a reflection of the greater wealth of the Fula community, who are most actively involved in the expensive business of purchasing plots of land and in building new houses. Yogomaia is the headquarters of the Kuranko chiefdom, Sengbe. However, the Kuranko settled here, clearly, do not have the wealth and resources their Fula co-residents possess.

18