Peter Maybarduk

The Oldest Profession
July 9, 2008

Our first night in Freetown, after an Atlantic crossing 27 hours long, two flights over three continents, three airports, three shuttle buses, security lines, customs, currency exchange, many hours waiting and a hovercraft across the bay from Lungi Airport to Lumley Beach, Sierra Leone, Ian and I finally put away our bags and descend to our hotel restaurant for simple late dinners of fish and chips.

The bar is not crowded, but there are a surprising number of young attractive women seated. We order and choose an empty table on the veranda. Ian smokes; I take a moment to greet the only other person seated outdoors, a young woman named Jennifer.

Jennifer seems relatively shy and I initially enjoy one of my first conversations in Freetown. But within a few minutes, she tells me she’d like to give me a massage, and then “maybe something else.” And soon then after, other women emerge from the restaurant, introducing themselves, less subtle in their solicitations. Everyone is working.

Our first days in Freetown, women approach us in every restaurant and bar, and each time we walk along the beach or street. Some are probably not what we in the United States would consider sex workers. Some are simply keeping a casual eye out for an attractive man, and foreigners of means are attractive to some. But the stark class difference between Ian and I and many people we meet in Freetown blurs the lines between economic and social relationships considerably.

I suppose the challenge of interpreting each woman’s motives – and my own, for that matter – isn’t so different from many relationships anywhere. It’s a complicated question, why we take an interest in another person, and whether some of the reasons don’t quite measure up to the ideal of loving someone and wanting to offer what we can to further their happiness. And since so many of our relationships are imperfect this way, it’s harder still to say at what point complicated motives become wrong.

I suppose that’s one answer. People are simply people, trying to get by. And yet there are actions we do not, and should not, stand – like when a man we meet on the beach tries to rent us his adolescent sister.

Ian and I each befriend raray girls, as prostitutes are known here. Our first few days, Jennifer and I speak often, of many things. Usually, she eventually tries to persuade me to let her escort me to my room.

It is not as though I don’t consider it. I am young and think of sex often. And I am attracted to Jennifer. She is pretty, and a good size and shape for me. Her relative politeness and modesty adds considerably to her appeal.

But attraction, and the care Jennifer takes not to mention money or sex (would paying for someone’s breakfast, plus some dollars since she’s hard up, be paying for sex?), and even how normal our relationship starts to seem after a couple days, are not enough to overcome the deep sense of inequity setting off alarm bells in my mind. Ian and I come to the conclusion that, even if we did not have relationship commitments elsewhere, it would be difficult to feel positive about entering relationships with many people we meet here. This is not uniformly true, of course. But it seems only relationships with people of similar economic means or educational background – meaning Sierra Leone’s upper social echelon – would be free from the start of the pervasive concern we might be exploiting each other.

This is not a comfortable thought. I’m not exactly one to subscribe to dating only within my social class. But healthy relationships matter to me.

If we were staying longer, this concern might fade with time. If we lived here, and could take the time to get to know people very well as individuals, and if the community had the time to know us well, it would eventually become easier to separate the economic relationships from the deeper, emotionally meaningful ones. But the significance of inequity never falls away entirely.

Our third night in Freetown is the last I see Jennifer, before we switch into a hotel not used by sex workers. I’m up late, working in the lobby. There’s a tropical storm outside, and Jennifer is waiting it out. She approaches, and we talk. I share some of my music with her. She listens closely for several minutes, says it is wonderful, and I believe her.

She accepts that I’ve no intention of sleeping with her. Instead, she tells me a story, how she comes from a reasonably well-to-do family in Liberia, but ran away from home, because her parents were so overprotective of her. She doesn’t like the work she does now, but doesn’t have the money to get back. She’s hoping I can help her cross the final threshold, and buy her ticket.

I’ve a mixed opinion of her story. I think she could find inexpensive ways home. But I believe she’s suffering serious emotional stress from both the job and missing her family (let alone the physical risks her work entails). Part of me would like to help, but surprisingly, I think I don’t ever consider it too seriously. My mind is made up from the start that giving money to a prostitute who’s been soliciting me is not a good idea, even if it’s not in payment for sex. Seems too many things could go wrong. But I listen patiently, and talk with her as a friend about her problems for some time.

Several days later, my friend Jessica Lehman, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, tells me, yes, of course, being approached by prostitutes is quite common in the region. If you don’t sleep with them, she says, but do talk to them, you should give them something for their time. Implicit in her comments is the idea that company, companionship, conversation, is a service. She’s right, and it’s obvious now. And yet, I think I did not see it until Jessica mentioned it.

I don’t believe Jennifer will think of me much. But I wonder if, to the extent she does, whether she might remember me as a man who treated her as a friend and with respect – as I’d wanted and let myself believe – or simply as a man who wasted her time.