March 3 :: Waterloo, Sierra Leone
March 3 :: Waterloo, Sierra Leone :: 40km / 3562km total
Up far earlier than expected after yesterday's madness, I pulled my bike out of the box, looked through all my bags, and counted my money. Somehow I made it here in one piece, will all items and money intact. Don't ask me how. Given the less-than-spectacular hotel that I was in I quickly assembled my bike and readied myself to leave. I paid a hotel attendant $1.50 (5000 leones) to hold into my bike box for me until I return, promising another 5000 leones during retreival. He couldn't have been happier, and I have a cheap backup if I can't find a better box in Freetown when I leave.
I checked in with my Freetown-London airline, changed money, grabbed some food, and pedalled through Freetown, bound for the countryside. It was 10 a.m. and it was depressingly hot... and humid for the first time this trip. The scenery was incredible - tropical, lush, beautiful, and a smooth paved road to boot. But soon I was melting, all the usual bodily warning signs of impending heatstroke (headache, nausea, fatigue), and had to settle for the junction town of Waterloo. I pulled into the only hotel for a long hot afternoon. Safe food was hard to find, even the bottled water was suspect, but I ate a pineapple and it was great!
All through West Africa I've seen signs for international development projects for this and that, like Qatar building a mosque, Belgians building a bridge, etc etc. War-recovering Sierra Leone is crammed with these type of projects, its hard to go more than a few kilometres without seeing a sign for this country sponsoring this building, or that school, etc. I'm sure many of these projects are completely altruistic, but there is certainly political maneuvering being done, and hearts to be won. A good example that made me laugh was a rice development project in one town sponsored by Taiwan, then 10km later, in the next town, a rice development project sponsored by China! The thing is, no one can touch England here, when it comes to hearts, minds, and everyday talk. No, nothing to do with colonial history, current politics, etc. England has one thing that outshines all other countries. The Premiership. On MANY cars and buses here are painted Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc. One guy I met had a large Liverpool tattoo, although I'd bet large sums of money that he's never been to England. The recent surge in skill of West African footballers on the international scene is certainly a factor - consider that West African countries dominate Africa's world cup qualifying, and do relatively well considering their meagre resources.
Of course, being Saturday, all the men were gathered in large viewing halls watching Premiership games, and to a lesser extent games of the Spanish League. Being a moderately-versed soccer fan I watched along, game after game, nothing else to do. I wandered outside for a drink around 9pm during one game, and noticed something funny about the moon. I pay lots of attention to the phase of the moon, because sometimes a full moon allows for a very early start to a day, and I knew the moon was full at the moment... but it wasn't. It was a half-moon all of a sudden. What the hell!!! It could only be one thing, and a re-viewing 20 minutes later confirmed that I was witnessing a lunar eclipse. Cool! I told all the men inside the viewing hall, and they couldn't have cared less, since Sevilla was making a comeback against Barca. Sigh. It was a full, beautiful, lunar eclipse, undimished by city lights, for in the Sierra Leone countryside there is no power after dark. Oh ya, Sevilla won, 2-1.
Up far earlier than expected after yesterday's madness, I pulled my bike out of the box, looked through all my bags, and counted my money. Somehow I made it here in one piece, will all items and money intact. Don't ask me how. Given the less-than-spectacular hotel that I was in I quickly assembled my bike and readied myself to leave. I paid a hotel attendant $1.50 (5000 leones) to hold into my bike box for me until I return, promising another 5000 leones during retreival. He couldn't have been happier, and I have a cheap backup if I can't find a better box in Freetown when I leave.
I checked in with my Freetown-London airline, changed money, grabbed some food, and pedalled through Freetown, bound for the countryside. It was 10 a.m. and it was depressingly hot... and humid for the first time this trip. The scenery was incredible - tropical, lush, beautiful, and a smooth paved road to boot. But soon I was melting, all the usual bodily warning signs of impending heatstroke (headache, nausea, fatigue), and had to settle for the junction town of Waterloo. I pulled into the only hotel for a long hot afternoon. Safe food was hard to find, even the bottled water was suspect, but I ate a pineapple and it was great!
All through West Africa I've seen signs for international development projects for this and that, like Qatar building a mosque, Belgians building a bridge, etc etc. War-recovering Sierra Leone is crammed with these type of projects, its hard to go more than a few kilometres without seeing a sign for this country sponsoring this building, or that school, etc. I'm sure many of these projects are completely altruistic, but there is certainly political maneuvering being done, and hearts to be won. A good example that made me laugh was a rice development project in one town sponsored by Taiwan, then 10km later, in the next town, a rice development project sponsored by China! The thing is, no one can touch England here, when it comes to hearts, minds, and everyday talk. No, nothing to do with colonial history, current politics, etc. England has one thing that outshines all other countries. The Premiership. On MANY cars and buses here are painted Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, etc. One guy I met had a large Liverpool tattoo, although I'd bet large sums of money that he's never been to England. The recent surge in skill of West African footballers on the international scene is certainly a factor - consider that West African countries dominate Africa's world cup qualifying, and do relatively well considering their meagre resources.
Of course, being Saturday, all the men were gathered in large viewing halls watching Premiership games, and to a lesser extent games of the Spanish League. Being a moderately-versed soccer fan I watched along, game after game, nothing else to do. I wandered outside for a drink around 9pm during one game, and noticed something funny about the moon. I pay lots of attention to the phase of the moon, because sometimes a full moon allows for a very early start to a day, and I knew the moon was full at the moment... but it wasn't. It was a half-moon all of a sudden. What the hell!!! It could only be one thing, and a re-viewing 20 minutes later confirmed that I was witnessing a lunar eclipse. Cool! I told all the men inside the viewing hall, and they couldn't have cared less, since Sevilla was making a comeback against Barca. Sigh. It was a full, beautiful, lunar eclipse, undimished by city lights, for in the Sierra Leone countryside there is no power after dark. Oh ya, Sevilla won, 2-1.
posted by Graham Durrant at 1:26 PM
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