Kabala, Sierra Leone
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Kabala is a large town in Sierra Leone. It is the capital of the Koinadugu District of Northern Province. It is the main town in the north of the country, and is set in a rural landscape.
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[edit] History
After the Anglo-Franco settlement of 1895, the British colonial administration post was moved from Falaba to Kabala, then an insignificant village not shown on the detailed maps of the British. Kabala is a place name in the Limba language literally meaning 'at Bala' or 'Bala's place.' The Limba languages utilizes the prefix 'ka-' as a place identifier. The town incorporates two chiefdom centers: Gbawuria the center for the Limba chiefdom of Wara Wara Yagala and Yogomaia the center for the Koranko chiefdom of Sengbe. With respect to native governance Kabala is literally split between the Limba and Koranko Paramount Chiefs. Kabala grew rapidly under British rule. Traders and merchants were attracted to this colonial administrative town from the 1930s, and after 1947 shop premises were opened by Lebanese traders.
In 2000 the United Nations reported that, after the Civil War, "Kabala, in the north, life appears to be returning to normal following fighting". In 2002 newspapers reported a visit to the town by "Bangladesh's visiting foreign minister", suggesting that the town had sufficiently recovered for it to be shown to important overseas visitors.
[edit] Population
The population has grown slowly but steadily since 1947, when it was 3,000, but the town received many refugees during the civil war of the late 1990s. The 1974 population was 10,335 - the last time a census was undertaken. It is now probably around 15,000.
Krio is the main language spoken, and it forms a lingua franca.
The population is remarkably cosmopolitan, but group loyalties are retained and groups often live in their own "sections" of town. The town is inhabited by Koranko, Limba, Temne, Sankaran, Fula, Mandinka, Mende, and Loko people. Islam is present, and there are two mosques.
[edit] Education
There are government-recognised secondary schools, all of which have religious affiliations. There is a new Islamic school, the Kabala Islamic Secondary School, which is as yet unrecognised.
[edit] Industries and infrastructure
The town is known for its cloth and tailoring, and especially for the of the making of the "ronko" gown, a traditional Limba and Koranko war shirt which is believed to have supernatural powers. The electricity supply is erratic. There are medical facilities. There are a number of traditional circular hut settlements on the outskirts, but mostly the buildings are single-story tin & brick.
The surrounding landscape is agriculturally rich, and there is seasonal rice-planting.
There is an 80-mile bus service from Makeni, but the surfaced highway peters out some 25-miles from Kabala and forms a winding dirt track.
There is a large Central Business District and roofed market, with large well-stocked Lebanese-run department stores. The market serves as an unofficial social centre as well as a trading centre. There is said to be a branch of Barclays Bank in the town.
[edit] Leisure
There is a cinema, which occasionally shows films. There is a traditional New Year's Day picnic on Gbawuria Hill to the west of the town.
