No matter how short is the flight between departure and arrival airport, with the nightmare of airport bureaucratic nonsense, you always end up spending at least half of your day dealing and shoveling paperwork around. Today’s flight to Freetown was only 45 minutes, which went well over all, except that I arrived in Sierra Leone after the hours allowed by the airport authority. I didn’t realize that it closed early due to maintenance.
Things were going well so far, I was getting a great reception and was excited to thank the Sierra Leone people and government for their recognition of Kosovo. Little did I know yet that this place would end up costing me an arm and a leg due some very high charges that you would never see in the normal world. It seems like the worse off a country is economically, the more money they want for services. Despite trying to straighten things out over the phone and through written emails, it still ended up costing me over $700USD for my 1043kg, single engine plane. In the normal world, you could land an airliner aircraft for that price!
Additionally, Safe Skies, the airplane handling company was being really difficult. They ended up charging me another small fortune. I’ve never paid so much in my life! Especially since there wasn’t even AVGAS involved and they were just the result of some other nonsense charges that they just added to my invoice to please customs.
Zainep Bah, an airport handling agent, helped me to go all the way to town to make sure that I was not lost somewhere half way to the city. From the airport to the capitol city, you have to take a taxi up until you hit the dock where all of the boats are parked. Since Freetown is on a peninsula, you have to take a ferry or a speed boat to town. Speed boats take about 20 minutes and a ferry close to one hour. If you were to take an auto taxi it would take about 8 hours since there is a lot of wetland and swamps that you would have to go around to get there.
Since I arrived on a Friday, I was off to find a hotel for the night. It was not in the best condition, but I had no choice and had to deal with it. On Saturday morning, I woke up early and Zainep was again willing to help me out. This time, talking to the media. I would like to thank Ibrahim Kanu, who met me early in the morning and who stayed and helped me for the next two days. He was my guardian and introduced me to many great people while in Freetown. I was able to complete three wonderful interviews with national newspapers. Thanks to Mr. Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya with the Standard Times, Mr. Jon-bu and William Freeman with Awoko newspaper and Joe Minah with the Exclusive Newspaper for their interviews.
On Sunday, I could not do anything explore Freetown and the beaches until Monday, when I could meet with the MFA. It is always exciting to me to explore a new city in a new country. Though everyone here looks different and there are many ethnic groups, most of the people I meet in a new country are very nice and welcoming.
Like the past few countries, Sierra Leone has had a checkered past. Since it is the third largest natural harbour in the world, it was once used as a trading post for slaves and it was only in 1960 that it gained independence from Britain. After that, there were many different government administrations until the 1990’s when the country entered civil war and many people died. By 2007, a lot of drug cartels were using this country as a base to ship drugs to Europe. The newest administration has worked hard to try and change this and maintains good relations with Western countries.
Mr. Ibrahim V. Kondoh, who just took office as the Director of Protocol was very appreciative of the fact that the people of Kosovo have lots of respect for the people and the government of Sierra Leone. I asked him and his Ministry to try and help Kosovo with other African countries. He reassured me that this was part of their commitment to a new country that they themselves have accepted as an independent nation. Overall, it was a great meeting.
Now, it is time for me to fly for four hours to the next country and I have learned that if I ever visit Sierra Leone again in the future, I will be sure to fly a commercial airliner instead of a private plane unless I have a fat wallet.
The Daily IIJ
Awoko Newspaper
Standart Time PDF
