The place to Store, Eat, and Keep in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s Capital

On most Saturdays throughout her childhood, MaryAnn Kai Kai would buy groceries together with her household on Rawdon Road in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Vogue was throughout Kai Kai, who grew up admiring the huge closet of her grandmother, a diplomat’s spouse. “She had every kind of African prints and the most recent fashions from the U.Ok.,” Kai Kai says.

At the moment, she makes customized caftans and attire underneath the label Madam Wokie, a reference to her great-great-aunt Madam Wokie Massaquoi, a former member of Sierra Leone’s parliament who as soon as met Queen Elizabeth. Kai Kai has proven her beautiful tie-dyed m’boubou robes on the runways of New York and Lagos and outfitted Idris Elba, the Duchess of York, and the primary girls of Angola and Nigeria.

Kai Kai additionally strives to offer again. In the course of the pandemic, she launched a program to show ladies to hand-dye material utilizing the gara approach, which originated in Indonesia. The fabric patterns that Kai Kai makes use of usually embrace cow’s eyes. Final spring, with the assist of the Sierra Leone Financial Diversification Undertaking, she helped prepare 800 ladies throughout the nation to make batiks and beads. At the moment the ladies promote their wares on the seashores outdoors city and within the extra distant Banana Islands. 

To discover Freetown’s inventive tradition, observe Kai Kai’s information to town. 

The place to Keep

“From the veranda of Cole Road Guesthouse, within the suburb of Murray City, you may see the Atlantic Ocean, and the courtyard is stuffed with fruit bushes. “

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The place to Browse Artwork

“One in every of my favourite artists is Hawa-Jane Bangura, who has a by-appointment-only studio in Cockle Bay. Her work explores African historical past, tradition, and identification, and she or he actually performs round with colours.” (Above: I Am Not My Hair.) 

The place to Store

“On Malama Thomas Road, you’ll find distributors promoting tons of various materials, from Sierra Leone’s gara and kontri material to Ghanaian, Nigerian, West African, and even Dutch prints. I additionally prefer to browse carvings, beads, jewellery, and drums at Large Markit, on Lamina Sankoh Road.” 

The place to Eat and Drink

“At Cole Road Visitor Home, I order recent juice, like ginger, mango, or hibiscus, the “ros bif” corn tacos, and the spicy jerk goat with plantains and rice. On weekends, everyone heads to the nightclub there, Warehouse, to bounce and listen to DJs. It has a mixture of all ages. The house owners are two sisters. Many of the employees, together with the bouncers, are ladies.”

For one thing downtown, Crown Bakery does a fantastic Sierra Leone–type jollof rice with fish, beef, and hen. There’s additionally art work on the market.” 

The place to Hit the Seashore

“I at all times see locals out within the waves at Bureh, River No. 2, or Tokeh Seashore (seen right here), on the Freetown Peninsula. After a day within the solar, I prefer to hit Franco’s for lobster and oysters — the tables are proper on the sand.”

A model of this story first appeared within the April 2024 problem of Journey + Leisure underneath the headline “All Eyes on Freetown.“