01/07/2024 Bikepacking Sierra Leone Day 152 : Aid Alley

“Give me something to remember you by,” requested the armed guard at the hotel. This form of “give me” has become more frequent since the middle of Guinea, and it is more successful on me. After all, who doesn’t want to be remembered?

“I need everything that I have. I need my tent. I need my sleeping bag. I need my medicine. The only extra thing I have is the candy which I give to children sometimes if they are nice.”

“Where is the candy?” He asked.

“It’s right here,” I say, pointing to my feed bag.

“Give me candy then,” says this adult man with a gun. I hand him two pieces and say, “but you won’t remember me if you eat it…”

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I stopped a lot today. I talked to Peter at a military checkpoint with ropes across the road. After many questions with LONG pauses in between, and me trying to be super friendly, he finally started to smile. He pointed at my unzipped jersey and asked, “This way that you wear your clothes... Aren’t you cold?” It was 87F and probably 100% humidity. How is it that people go past me wearing full parkas and the hoods over their beanies?

“2024 is a good year; we haven’t had much cold,” he stated.

I was wishing this were a cold year.

“Aren’t you afraid of the wild animals when you are sleeping at night?”

I asked him which animals I should fear.

“They are cutting down the forest everywhere and now the animals come out and attack the people.”

I had just seen a fire burning right on the side of the road, and thought of the snowy egrets I had seen struggling to take flight in the hot air with ash fluttering around them. Maybe these are the animals I should be fearing? Like the ones who started the fires?

He continued, “So you have completed your mission?”

Since reaching the lowlands, many people think I’m a missionary. I wonder if because I’m on a bike, they associate me with the Latter Day Saints?

“No mission. Just a tourist.” Though secretly, I’m on a mission to figure this crazy place out.

*******

Up until Sierra Leone, sometimes when I asked somebody their name, they would regard me with suspicion. “Why?” would be a reply I received often in Mauritania. Rarely did people ask my name up North. In Sierra Leone, it’s nearly the first thing most people ask me! Usually I want to at least build a rapport with someone before I ask their name. Today when I was walking to groceries, an elderly woman named Fatima put out her hand to give me a high five as I walked past her. What the heck, I gave her a high five! Then she wanted to know my name… and even spelled her own name out for me. This is something I like about Sierra Leone.

Otherwise, it’s been challenging to find things I like.

I could see another military checkpoint in about 300 meters, but right here, there was a heavily armed man in fatigues flagging me down. Usually these guys are AT the checkpoint, not way in front of it.

As soon as I stopped, I knew he was drunk. He slurred his speech and stumbled as he put his hand on my shoulder.

“I love you, man. I want to be your friend,” he slurred out.

I’ve heard of fake military, but given that we were within sight of what looked to be a real checkpoint, I was confused. Do I run from this drunk guy with guns?

I ran.

When I got to the checkpoint, the soldiers looked like real ones. I pointed back where I had come from and asked, “Does that man work with you?”

“Yes,” came the answer.

“Is he drunk?”

The youngest officer said sheepishly, “yes.”

Now, putting on my “Spoiled American” hat, I said, “that guy scared me. He has guns and he is drunk.”

The older guy looked concerned, “Did he shooting at you,” he asked?

“No! But he is drunk with guns!”

“Oh, don’t worry. You are safe here. It is safe.”

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At a later checkpoint, another (less) drunk, but equally armed officer started talking to me for a long time. One of his questions was how old I was.

He couldn’t believe that I was 47; He said emphatically, “I AM 47!”

Next he asked, “Who do you think is more fitness? You or me?”

I had to choose my answer carefully, and tried to change the topic by asking him if he did sports. He carried on asking “who is more fitness?” A woman in uniform came by and kept tugging on his arm saying, “C’mon, Let’s go. C’mon, let’s go!”

She continued yanking at him, and when he finally looked towards her, I sped away. It is hard to take these checkpoints seriously.

********

I don’t even know what I’m seeing here:

A soldier is walking behind a guy in handcuffs. The soldier has his left hand on handcuff man’s right shoulder. They are just walking down the sidewalk, and handcuff man keeps stopping to fist-bump his buddies at the vendor stalls. Keep in mind, that’s a double fist bump in this situation.

********

The ride today was all paved with plenty of reckless driving and traffic. I stopped a bit in a few of the little villages along the road; it’s basically like one long continuous village. People just have their huts on the side of the road with a flat area. I guess because it’s Sunday, people are blasting music and dancing as I go by and wave. I adjust my cycling cadence to the rhythm of the music and it makes me feel good.

Speaking of the road: The ride title! I saw at least two Aid Vehicles every mile, which means that over 200 passed me on this stretch of road. As usual, the plethora of rusty signboards they leave behind are everywhere - sometimes overlapping each other.

They aid vehicles are easy to identify: Off-white Toyota Land Cruisers with a snorkel. The only other vehicle that looks like this is an ambulance. You could confuse them easily, though, because the aid vehicles drive as if they were ambulances on the way to the hospital.

You can also identify them by the blue ice chests strapped to the top in lieu of the more typical frayed rice bags overstuffed with mesquite and palm leaves. The stickers on the doors always have words like “Health,” “Care,” “Peace,” or “Children.” These Land Cruisers are just as likely to blare their horns and run me off the road as any of the other people driving past today.

An ironic thought struck me as I was letting a group of kids ride my bicycle while one of these Land Cruisers came blaring its horn at the kid: What if the sticker on the door said “Save the children” as it hits the kid on my bike? I didn’t have time to read the panel, they went by so fast.

Which begs the question: Where are these vehicles headed in such a hurry? The only time I ever saw some of these Land Cruisers stoped was the time I told you about in Tambacouamba, Senegal. I never see them in any of the remote villages. They have snorkels, so it’s not as if they can’t make it to these isolated places. 🤔

I’ll see if there is an answer some day.