| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

lungi

Page history last edited by rsb 13 years ago

We flew out of London, through Malaga, and ended up at Lungi international airport in Salone at about 7:45PM local time.  It was hot.  The airport is chaotic and packed with people.

 

Lungi is a town outside of Freetown whose primary claim to fame is the airport.  To get to Freetown, you either take a ferry, a speedboat, a helicopter, or a water taxi.  Water taxi is the safest thing, but you can only take a car on the ferry.  We were being picked up by someone with a car.

 

Speedboats, helicopters, and ferrys have all had very bad accidents in the recent past, but speedboats are probably the most dangerous, especially at night because few people use lights on their boats.

 

Photo & Video Sharing by SmugMug

While on the plane, I was seated next to another white person.  The conversation went something like this:

 

Them: "So what are you doing in Sierra Leone"

Me: "Well, we're going to build data networks and then take a few days off to see the country."

Them: "What business are you in?  Do you work for a mining company?" (note: good guess: it appears that 90% of non-native people traveling to Sierra Leone work for a mining company)

Me: "No, we're in microfinance, we're trying to help some other microfinance companies."

Them: "Oh, I'm in microfinance, too!  What company do you work for?"

Me: "Kiva"

Them: puzzled look

Me: "Kiva.org.  We have a website that you can go to, and provide collateral for entrepreneurs."

Them: "Never heard of 'em.  But that's what I do, too!  I provide loans to entrepreneurs!"

 

Talka-talka-talk-talk-I find out that this person works for a company in Las Vegas that they can't name and travels with heavily armed security to make loans and collect payments from small diamond miners in Sierra Leone.  I ask why the security.  She says, "Well how could we collect payments without security?" 

 

What she does might validly be considered microfinance.  Dangerous and possibly harmful microfinance requiring the pointing of AK47s, but still, strictly speaking, microfinance.  I realized I'm going to have to start getting more specific about what Kiva does.

 

As it turns out, they were a good person to know.  She warned us not to let our bags go for any reason, or to give anyone money.  When we got to the airport, her contact somehow circumvented all the lines, took hers and our passports and yellow fever cards, and rushed us through to baggage claim, where he returned our ID.  Hurdle 1 overcome.

 

Then we saw Charles, our contact at ARD, which was a huge relief.  Charles was sporting a welcoming "Rich Bodo" sign and had an awesome mustache.  After we got our bags, Charles got us over the second hurdle - a sign that says "You can not negotiate customs charges." and a couple guys waiting to inspect all luggage coming into the country.  

 

This could have been a deal breaker.  There is no way customs knew what the stuff we were bringing in was, and we were about to be charged a non-negotiable percentage of it's perceived value.  I assume that value would be judged to be as close to the total amount of cash we had on us as possible.  We could have been broke before we started.

 

The customs officials were cut short as Charles had the right knowledge to get us through without incident, and got us outside to head to the car.

 

After we got outside, a dozen or more people surrounded us, and tried to take our bags, several of them in military uniform.  They clearly wanted money, but didn't come out and say it.  I chatted with them while we loaded up, gave them an obama button, which just confused and disappointed them, and we headed off.  Charles was very apologetic about the airport, not that it was his fault.

 

I'm going to come right out and say that Lungi airport is a huge barrier to the growth of Sierra Leone, and tourism is a non-starter until the corruption there is fixed.  More on this later.  That said, I'm pretty confident that if you really had to navigate that airport alone as a foreigner, without valuables in your luggage, you could do it without getting completely fleeced, but it would not be free - maybe budget a couple hundred bucks and hope for no charge.  DHL shipping works for valuable stuff in Salone.  If you bring actual valuables in your luggage, maybe you should bring receipts.

 

We arrived in a line of cars for the 9PM ferry at 8:30PM, and waited until 9:30PM there.  I might be slightly off on those times, but we were there for a half hour ahead and after the scheduled loading time.  This was an interesting time, waiting in line at a gate under some streetlights.  Any time I saw a line of cars in Sierra Leone, a line of entrepreneurs grew on either side selling their wares.  Dozens of entrepreneurs surround you with their businesses on their heads.  I immediately start doing the numbers when I see entrepreneurs.  Noah and I got out of the car when we got bored and tried to say hi to the locals.  We were pretty jetlagged and lame conversationalists, but at least the kids were amused.

 

Charles went to investigate the ferry, and came back with the bad news.  The ferry crew decided that there were not enough cars to justify their working another two hours, and therefore, the ferry trip was cancelled.  Were we in a libertarian utopia?  Anyway, we would have to stay in Lungi that night.

 

Charles found us the last room in the last guest house that had availability in lungi, and we paid about 30USD.  We had a beer in the courtyard and listened to a very interesting radio newstalk program that brought us up to date on some local political issues.  I killed a few mosquitos and slept like a rock.

 

 

Next:

Freetown Sierra Lighthouse

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.