Day 0 - The journey

Fri 8th April

Some things I liked about my journey from London to Freetown:

• I liked the cosy familiarity of the airport at Casablanca, an airport I remember as a stopover from past travels. (It became less cosy when I realised that the inescapable airport seemed to consist of the pan-pipe equivalent of the same 3 songs on repeat for 6 hours!)
• I liked observing the cultural differences starting to seep through before I'd even arrived on African soil. In the plane from Casablanca to Freetown I was standing in a long queue for the toilet. The queue was long because one of the toilets was not available (I assume broken) When we were told that the other one was also unavailable, the responses from the queue exhibited none of the power politics or mind games that I might have seen back home. Nobody took the lady's name, asked to see her manager, or threatened to mention her in a letter of complaint to the airline. Nobody invoked the Human Rights Act or any other relevant item of legislation. Instead the response consisted of a bunch of large African women standing around a very quiet me and being gloriously direct: "Wat is dis?!" "Let me go toilet!" "We want wee-wee!"

Some things I didn't like about the journey from London to Freetown

• Everyone was trying to extract money from me when I got off the plane. For example, the water taxi from the airport to Freetown costs USD40. Despite acknowledging this, the man I spoke with refused to give me change from USD50. And as for the other staff working for the water taxi, the only way I managed to avoid their persistent requests for more money was to smile blankly at them and respond in French until they stopped asking. Even worse, I was talking to a man in crutches who was telling me he was a war victim and asking for money. He was quite open about the fact that he came close to me because I was not black and hence likely to have money. When I asked him if he simply saw money whenever he saw a white person, he said yes. I am SO glad I'm volunteering in Sierra Leone. This means I'll be working alongside and hence building real relationships with local people, rather than second-guessing their motives.
• I didn't like the fact that poor Brima, Mohammed and Moses had to wait from 3am to 6am because of all the delays in my travels. But I was pleased that they were warm and welcoming nonetheless.