5871 km from Mecca

May 30-31

Airline Agent in St. Louis: "Your destination?"
Freetown.
"The computer isn't finding that. Where is it?"
In Sierra Leone - it's the capital.
"Ohhh"
"And where is that?"
West Africa, mam.
"ah. I see...so why are you going there?"

And so began the journey to Sierra Leone. After the short hop to Dulles and then the overnight flight to London Heathrow, I met up with fellow iEARN intern Sara Douglass, enjoyed an "Expresso Frescato Medio" at Costa Coffee and checked in at the gate for the British Airways flight to Dakar. There we met Eddie, who will be working with a pediatrician at St. John of God Hospital in Port Loko, and Alex, an economics grad student researching the status of development in Sierra Leone; both are from the US.
We also encountered two ladies returning home from the US. Adama works for the Network Movement for Justice and Development in Freetown and was returning from a UN conference in New York. ??? works for the Campaign for Good Governance and helps coordinate their international interns. She was a returning from a UN moderated forum in New York that was developing a document on violence against women in Sierra Leone, which was initiated in the late '80's, but due to the war is just now being implemented. Representatives from various civil society institutions were present to balance out the government's sometimes overly optimistic picture.
We stopped in Dakar, Senegal to refuel and then continued on to Freetown, finally arriving at Lungi shortly after 2100 Thursday. Adama helped us through immigration and then we waited for our luggage inside the terminal.

and waited.

While we were ushered into an office to fill out paperwork for the missing luggage, Adama had a policeman go outside to look for Frederick to have him wait. However, he had already left, as he had to get back to the ferry, or he would have missed it. (The airport is across the bay from from Freetown) Sara called Dabo, but couldn't understand him until just about everyone around us said "Dabo? I know Dabo" and talked to him for us. We handed a young man, named Alex, $100 for helicopter tickets to Freetown. Alex shouted at various people inside the hangar and we were rushed out to the tarmac to a Soviet-era helicopter for a thankfully short flight over the bay. Let's just say there's no FAA regulating what flies in Sierra Leone...

Upon landing, we were met by Moses and Dabo, two of the iEARN staff, and hopped into a taxi blinged out with blue and red flashing lights. We met Andrew, the director, at the iEARN center, who took us to Lumley with Dabo to exchange money and purchase some water. Lumley was still vibrant with hundreds of people hanging around and dancing in the pubs and streets - although all the electricity is from generators. We went back to iEARN, paid Musa the hostel manager 17000 Leones and went upstairs (iEARN's office is on the second floor and the top floors are a hostel) to our room, where we collapsed into our beds while the city below us was still pulsing to music.

A note on the title: The seat displays on the BMED - the BA subsidiary that flies to the more interesting locales in Africa, the Middle East, and former Soviet Republics - planes have a compass oriented towards Mecca and the distance.