Communications was difficult due to the low priority of the project and limited experience on both sides.

After introductions by Ben, I found that communications with Sierra Leone was slow.

I was trying to discover the information required to do the most good for our MFI's in the least time, hopefully leveraging my limited skills in IT.

I led via email with a proposed set of improvements to IT infrastructure, and request for feedback and prioritization to probe needs.

Sierra Leone is GMT, so there are limited windows for business hour conference calls.  Most companies in Sierra Leone knock off right at 5PM.  Due to my commute, it takes me at least two hours from when I get up to when I get in.  To make things much worse, internet access in Sierra Leone is spotty.  Skype calls are almost impossible, and at best totally unreliable.

It took months to come up with a mission plan and agree on dates of travel.

I fell back to email only.  

On both sides of the conversation, everyone was busy and no one had heard of a successful mission of this kind. 

Toting a volunteer around with questionable abilities and agenda was probably not very high on their list of priorities.  I had huge long lists of questions about their existing and desired IT infrastructure, requiring detailed answers.  

I had to keep scrapping proposed dates due to a level of information that would ensure mission failure.

What may have helped at this stage would have been conferencing in with both the MFI and someone who had arranged operations with them before.  

I didn't know it, but Skype out to their cell phones would have worked a bit better.  

Having made a staff trip like this before would have been immensely helpful.   If I had done this before I would have proposed an agenda with a level of detail that would have shortened the discussion and legitimized the mission to MFIs earlier.

Ultimately, the agenda narrowed to two visits over the course of one week.  I would do whatever I could for Association For Rural Development at their main office in Freetown, and Salone Microfinance Trust at their headquarters in Makeni.  Originally, I had planned to visit BRAC in Freetown as well.

Next: Conference calls with NGOs