At first instance a tour of Koidu seems quite normal with smiling children and market traders everywhere. However not far from the centre David takes us to “hill farm”, this was the suburb of Koidu that suffered the most carnage during the war. As we drive around we see that between every one or two houses there is still a burnt out shell of a house. David provides some chilling statistics: over 190,000 houses (i.e. 94%) were burnt or otherwise destroyed by the rebel army. In 2002 a drive along these roads would have found every house burnt out and so it is a positive sign that there is so much repair and resettlement going on. David puts this down to the spirit of the people to forgive and to go forward in such a short space of time – he makes the point that many current neighbours were on opposite sides of the war and have lost mothers, sons, fathers and daughters, yet still they can now live side by side. The condition of the surrounding roads is very poor which means that motor bikes are used by the majority. We find the whole story quite remarkable.
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