Valentine's Day 2003. The plane from London touches down on a typical sweltering night at Lungi International Airport, just a short ride in a dilapidated military helicopter from Freetown. Once the tired passengers and I have collected our luggage and passed through customs and immigration, we are greeted by a throng of young men, clambering to assist us with our bags, guiding us through the otherwise easy process of arranging a ticket for the helicopter. Anything for a generous tip.

Welcome to Sierra Leone, a country where legions of young men and women need to find a way to support themselves and their families or, given the opportunity, they will return to the only profitable activity they know: the business of war.

That night I moved into the compound of a Krio family in Congo Town, on the more affluent west side of Freetown. The compound would be my home for the next two months and living there exposed me to the complicated interrelationships and interdependencies of people in Sierra Leone. My interviews provided my data but my day-to-day relationships with my Sierra Leonean friends, acquaintances and cohabitants provided the all-important context for my research. Through them I learned about the power and dependency relationships between men and women, and people of different ages, classes and ethnicities that enabled and shaped this war and provides the context within which peace will be built – or lost.

In Freetown, most people get around by poda poda (public minivans) or public taxi. Both take a set number of passengers, have set rates and go set routes, though they are not labelled. Except at the final stops, a person wanting to catch one of these poda podas needs to stand at a given but unmarked place and as the poda poda slows down, she needs to shout out where she wants to go. If the poda poda is going there – and if it has room – the driver will stop, the ‘apprentice’ (driver's assistant) will open the door and she can get on. If not, the poda poda will not stop and she must shout at the next one.

People say that many poda poda and taxi drivers are excombatants, trying to find new ways of surviving and perhaps saving money for school.