Landing in Sierra Leone

We were able to spend three days in Paris on our way to Sierra Leone... I'll be writing about that adventure on my other blog. So today I'll be writing about our arrival and first day.

Our flight to Sierra Leone was fairly uneventful - we flew from Paris to Conakry, Guinea with an almost full plane. All but about 15 passengers disembarked in Conakry - leaving a tiny contingent of us going on to Freetown after about an hour long layover. The flight from Conakry to Freetown was supposed to be about 20 minutes... but ended up being longer because the pilot decided when we were about 10 feet from the ground that he didn't want to land the plane after all and swooped back up into the sky, catching all our stomachs off guard. We still don't know why he aborted that first landing, but I can tell you that a split second decision like that in a huge Airbus A 330 catches your attention and makes you glad when you finally get on the ground.

Arriving in Freetown is always an adventure... as soon as you step off the plane (no jet gangways here - only stairs leading you down to the tarmac) you're greeted with a wall of humidity. The kids were blown away by the heat... Also - it's a Freetown quirk that although your plane parks less than 50 yards from the terminal, you have to board a bus and get a ride instead of walking the short distance yourself.

We had to fill out immigration forms as soon as we entered the terminal. Everyone took one and began filling in the blanks... Asia took Ethan to help and the older two sat next to me as I told them what to write. Before I knew it, Asia was tapping me on the shoulder asking for help... some woman in a uniform had grabbed Asia and Ethan's passports and forms and gone into a little booth. There, behind the glass, she had told Asia "I am your friend... what you do for your friend? I'll help you..." Asia was a little stunned, but told her "You'll have to talk to my wife." So I went to her little window, told her we didn't need her help and demanded the passports back. Having been to Sierra Leone before, I knew it was not uncommon for those in uniform to try to intimidate people into giving them bribes... when I refused, she let us have the passports back, stamped with approval for entry into the country. Crisis averted.

We went into the next small room of the airport where a man looked at our immunization records. Pass. Then to another man who asked us why and where we were visiting. Pass. Onto the next room to retrieve our luggage. Everything was there. Into the next room where another man asked the reason for our visit. Pass. He was courteous enough to remind us not to get bitten by mosquitoes.

We turned to make our way out of this last official checkpoint and saw an Sierra Leonean man holding a sign "COTN Banta". That's our man!
We introduced ourselves to Uncle Magnus - COTN's in-country Venture Team host. He had a helper and between the two of them, our bags made it out to the COTN Landcruiser... all our bags (15 including our five backpacks) were strapped to the top and we were on our way.

About a mile down the road, we stopped at Hotel Lungi. This is the airport hotel where I stayed my first night in Sierra Leone when I visited in 2008. I had assumed we would also be staying there this trip - but I was wrong. There are enough visitors from foreign countries now that Hotel Lungi has raised it's room rates to about $200 a night US dollars. A little steep for COTN's budget. However, we did wait there in their lounge until the remaining members of our team arrived on their flight. While waiting, we had some cream crackers and laughing cow cheese, along with Digestive Biscuits and sodas. (A 'meal' we would repeat several times over the course of our time in country...)
Once Meg and Matt's flight arrived and we had all their luggage tied onto the top of the Landcruiser, we were on our way into Freetown to find the guesthouse where we would spend the night. We caught the 9:00 pm (last!) ferry across the water to the peninsula that houses the capital city. Keep in mind that we were on Paris time by now, so for us it was 11:00 pm. We still had an hour long Ferry ride before we would even get to the streets of the city.

The drive to and time on the ferry were quite the experience. Many, many people in Sierra Leone try to survive by selling wares on the side of the road. This plays out in a scene entirely different from any sort of western shopping or driving experience. All along the edges (and even onto) the road there are people sitting with things for sale... it was dark by now so most tables had a single kerosene lantern (more like a single flame bunson burner than a lantern) to shed some light on their wares. Bread, shoes, q-tips, toothpaste, cast iron pots full of sauces to be put over rice, packaged crackers and biscuits... people everywhere hoping to make a sale. All the way to the ferry landing... people everywhere. For every vendor there were at least ten people standing around... talking, loitering, feeding babies... It was an overwhelming sea of people with seemingly nowhere to go and very little to do. I asked Magnus how late the streets would stay like that and he said it would look like that most of the night. As the only team member who had seen anything like it, I think it's safe to say everyone in the car was on sensory overload... a little scared, a little nervous... it's just SO different from our safe, quiet streets in america.

Once we boarded the ferry, we were able to go upstairs to the 'first class' cabin and wait for our passage across the water. Kyler was followed into the cabin by a boy about his age who kept asking if Kyler would be his friend. Poor Kyler wanted to be kind, but also had a sense the boy was looking for something besides friendship... Ishmael was loud and friendly, but also clearly hoping for some money from his new 'friend'. Throughout the ferry ride, there were several others who came through the cabin begging... one man with legs so bent he could only scoot along on his bottom at our feet... and some musicians who sang in the cabin expecting tips and were much bolder than the street musicians we are familiar with. Apparently 'first class' doesn't really exclude those who cannot afford to pay the fare if they can beg and then are willing to share whatever money they get with those who monitor the door. Another very different cultural experience and we've only been in the country a few hours!

The balcony of our guest house

When we left the ferry we were again treated to the crazy late night streets... even more busy on this side than what we just left... truly - there were people EVERYWHERE - so much so that there was barely room for vehicles to pass through the streets.

After a short (swerving, horn honking, motorcycle dodging, pedestrian avoiding) drive from the dock we got to our guest house. (A term that means place to sleep and little more, we found.) Magnus negotiated for quite awhile with the men at the front desk... turns out he was very concerned that we all get rooms with air conditioning. We all got air conditioning. And a bed. But little else. No running water. No towels. We had two rooms for our family - so Asia went with the boys and Savannah and I had a room together. We were cold most of the night... there were no knobs to adjust the air conditioner and we hadn't brought any warm clothes along... but we slept. A little. The guest house was right in the thick of Freetown and it's a noisy city. All.night.long.

Morning came - we all dressed and went to the 'dining room' for breakfast. Fried eggs, bread and nescafe.

Our poda-poda

After breakfast, we waited quite awhile (or what seemed like quite awhile to our american inner-clocks... these would become altered as we began to learn about Africa time... we quickly learned the difference between WMT {white man time} and AT{Africa Time}) for Magnus to show up... when he got there, we put all the luggage in the Landcruiser, then walked about two blocks to a store to pick up 'provisions' that we would be taking along to Banta.

It took about two hours to get the provisions, load them onto the top of the vehicle we would be travelling in, along with all our luggage and (at the last minute they decided to add) three twin size mattresses.

Now, since Magnus wasn't going with us up to Banta, we were going to travel by poda-poda. If you've never experienced a poda-poda, you should watch this... (this is not my video, but it gives you a really good idea of what I'm talking about when I say poda-poda...)

Six hours. Bumpy roads. Eleven people. Metal benches to sit on. Yay for poda-podas!

We survived the trip... and pulled into the COTN compound at Banta at around 7:30 pm...

As we drove through the compound and down the hill toward the children's village, someone in the car said "Welcome Home!"

And that was all it took to start my tears... I was back.