Conakry, Guinea
Friday, October 28, 2011
18 hours later I found myself in Africa with someone's cat!! This is where it is going to get interesting. Guinea is known for numerous delays mainly if not always, because it is corrupt there and everyone is taking bribes- and that is on a normal day. I am prepared for many more roadblocks because of Snooka. I picked up my baggage at the baggage claim and Snooka. As I picked her up a man in an orange vest that read "vet inspections" hailed me to go with him into a small room to go through the pet records. He was trying to tell me that the records were not complete and that I would have to pay him (the equivalent of $7) No way! I told him that I was not going to pay and that I wanted to be on my way. So I headed out of the office with her and headed for the exit. Just before the exit was an inspection point. Here a woman in uniform said "money". As in, I was not going to pass through until I paid her. That's is when I heard my name. It was Osmann, an aquaintence of Sherry who agreed to pick me up from the airport
. He paid off the inspector (like $2) and we headed to the parking lot with Snooka for her to be reunited with Sherry and Kenny. I loaded my luggage into his car and he agreed to drive us to the Guinea-
Sierra Leone border. It is roughly 80 miles. was getting my first glimpses of Africa. It was hot and dirty. There were hoards of people. I was amazed. We stopped at the side of the road to "ease ourselves" (bathroom break). There was a small hut with a bunch of kids. We asked to use their bushes to ease ourselves. We scored some pankakes from the woman and took a picture with all of the kids. Continuing on the journey we stopped at many checkpoints. As I mentioned earlier, everyone wanted a bribe. we passed through at least ten checkpoints and each time someone demanded money. The trip with no stops should have taken just over 2 hours but after all of the shenanigans of the checkpoints it took close to 5. We finally reached the Guinea/
Sierra Leone border and said goodbye and thank you to Osmann for the ride. With only a few more miles to go we found a motorcar and piled in headed for the village of Kambia. we arrived in Kambia which translates to "come be here" or "be in peace here". It was dark, I was tired. Kenny headed for the market to grab some items for dinner and we headed for Sherrys house. We arrived at Sherry and Kenny's house. A pretty kick-ass house
compared to the surroundings. They have a 3 bedroom 3 bath house just
of the main area of the village
. There was, however, no running water
or electricity. When we arrived at the house Sherry and Kenny's friend
Alex was there to meet me. He lived in a village about 20 miles away
and was staying the night. Kenny came back with the items for dinner
which consisted of some hard boiled eggs and onions with bread to make
egg salad. The only light available was by way of cell phone or the one
LED lamp they had in the house. We sat around the table eating egg
salad and drinking beers in the dark. After awhile I was off to bed for
my first night in Africa.
