Short flight from Guinea-Bissau to Guinea compared to some long ones in the past. Thank you to the Civil Aviation of Guinea and the airport personnel who helped me get my clearance to their country much faster than the normal procedure of 3-5 days in advance. The help of our friend from the Guinea-Bissau tower was also a positive contributing factor.
Landing and parking the aircraft here in Guinea gave me a better sense of security overall than previous two countries. One thing that I quickly realized (which did not take long at all) was that they love the $$$ in this country. Even to come and say hello to you they expected you would give them something as a tip right away. I guess they expect me to handout $100 bills to everyone that has an exposed badge and works at the airport.
My taxi driver who looked like the big shooter type businessman comes with the attitude of telling me “Do you know how much I charge for my services”, I said no, I don’t. “$75USD to bring you to a hotel and bring you back to the airport.” Right away I made it clear to him that he could stop the car and let me take another one and that all I was willing to give him 10000 African Francs (equal to about 15Euros and was all that I had) otherwise, I would not use him. He tried to give me some nonsense of security concerns and that I was safe with him. I found out later that you could get a yellow cab type taxi for 3-4 Euros to get to town, so he still made 10 extra Euros off of me.
I also quickly realized that the hotels were expensive, especially for the quality that I was getting. The first hotel we entered was $120USD. It was more than my budget allowed and nothing special, so I kept looking.
For the next two days, I was busy chasing the media for interviews. Thank God I speak French or I would have never made it down in this part of the world. Guinea, and many other countries in this area were colonized by the French many years ago, so many people still speak that language.
I owe a big thank you to Mr. Bah Abdoulaye, who interviewed me with L’Observateur. He was excellent help to me during my two day visit in Guinea. Not only did he interview me, but he brought me to several other newspapers in town and knew exactly where they were located in town.
His partner, Mr. Mamadou Dian Balde, editor in chief of the newspaper L’Independant also wrote an excellent article about our request for the government of Guinea to recognize Kosovo’s independence. I liked the tone of his article and the title ““James Berisha, Pilote Kosovar Nous demandons a la Guinea de reconnaitre l’independance du Kosovo”, which basically means that we are requesting that the government of Guinea recognize the independence of Kosovo. Very explicit and straight to the point.
Mr. Nadhel Diallo from radio FM Liberte 101.7FM also deserves a big recognition for the wonderful in depth interview that he did on his radio. He had many great questions and was pushing his government to do something about Kosovo’s independence.
Next, I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They were great in receiving me, especially since I had no pre-arranged meeting planned in advance. Mr. Bakary Fofana, Minster of Foreign Affairs, was very aware of my visit to Guinea and took great time in telling me that his country was well aware of our request to be recognized as an independent nation. He expressed to me that the people of Guinea really cared about their brothers and sisters in Kosovo. He told me that the letter that I hand delivered from Vlora Citaku, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, would be forwarded to the higher chains of command also. So it was a successful meeting.
The country of Guinea itself has seen some political unrest in the past decade or so. It was only last month that they voted for a new president. The election itself had to be postponed several times and the locals are very insistent on gaining a non-military president..
Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world with a history of corruption, the people of Guinea were very nice. They all seemed to comprehend and know the values of their country. I’m very glad that I was able to communicate with many of them in French.
L’independant PDF
