Wikipedia
Mabilafu is located about 110 km east of Freetown and about 30 km south-west of Makeni. It is on the bank of the Rokel River, the largest river in Sierra Leone. Mabilafu is the main village of the same-named Mabilafu Section, which contains six villages. The Mabilafu Section is one of the sections in the Malal Mara Chiefdom in the Tonkolili District in the Northern Sierra Leone Province.
In 2013 the village encompassed roughly 140 houses with a total population of approximately thousand people. The large majority of them were Temne – the prevalent ethnic group in this area – and Muslims – the predominant religion in Sierra Leone. However, animist believes and secret societies such as the Poro-Society play important roles in the everyday experiences of the people.
Most houses of the village are along a dead-ending dirt road that approaches the Rokel River approximately at the right angles. Closer to the river the road splits and the lower part of the village is wider (see satellite image of Mabilafu). This lower part of the village is older than the upper part, where most houses just had been constructed recently. The village is divided roughly in four quarters, each for one of the four #landowning families of Mabilafu. The mosque can be found in the lower part of the village, where the people also have constructed a new village center, an open sided, zinc roofed cement building with a seed storage, a small stage and wooden benches. Meetings and other events take place in this village center. An Evangelical Mission Primary School is located by the end of the upper part of the village. In 2013 a total of 265 children from Mabilafu and surrounding villages were enrolled at this school that also distributed a daily meal provided by the World Food Program.