01/13/2024 Bikepacking Sierra Leone Day 158 : Cracked!

It was a rough night. I woke frequently with a feeling that I was suffocating under water. Without covers, I and everything were soaked inside and out. Even in the heaviest rains in New Zealand, it was drier.

As I was trying to get into my soaked and sticky cycling kit, a posse of 20 folks arrived on motorcycles. I had been reported by someone; the road was only 30 feet away.

They asked where I was going, and what I was doing. I fiddled with the fabric sticking to my skin; modesty isn’t important here. I explained the ride and told them I was heading towards Guinea. As usual, the crowd grew. Here we were in between towns, yet every walker and motorcycle decided to stop and look at the half-dressed white man who hadn’t slept well.

“You mustn’t sleep alone! You need to sleep with the people,” the leader said.

I told the story about Peter last night and how he had harassed me, and made me feel uncomfortable. They knew him, because I recognized his second name when one of them said it.

“I also asked at some houses, but they did not speak English. I did not feel safe with the military people,” I explained.

“We are trying to protect you from yourself,” the leader continued.

Now I was getting angry. Didn’t they understand anything I had said?

“I want to sleep by myself! Even from my tent, I could still hear the loud music from the village all night long!”

“No, you must sleep with the people!” The crowd continued to grow, half-encircling my tent. “What if you were attacked by a wild animal?”

This is where I lost it. No coffee, no sleep, I went into some sort of autopilot of anger, exhaustion.

“Leave! I need you all to leave now! I need my privacy! Can’t you see, I’m not going to hurt anyone? Everyone is always surrounding me. All day people stop me and say ‘Give me money! Give me, I want to be your friend! Take me to America! Give me money!!’ I never get a minute of privacy. All of you, leave now! Where are these wild animals everyone is always telling me about? Huh?! I had some ants walking on my feet. Huh!? Go! GO! Leave me alone! Give me privacy!”

That not exactly what I said, but most of it. I was shaking and crying and taking loudly. They stared as more people gathered.

“GO! Give me privacy!!!!”

“We are just protecting you from yourself,” he insisted. Next time you need to sleep with the people.”

“They won’t be a next time! Im leaving Sierra Leone today, and I’m never coming back. Give me my privacy now!” I was shaking.

“So, What is your mission?”

Ffffffffffffffffffff…..

Africa has cracked me.

********

I began riding, and after 5 grim miles, I realized
I had forgotten to take my drugs. I opened 4 packs of Nescafé powder and made a strong, cold, water bottle coffee. When that didn’t work, I downed a fifth. It was about this time that I got happier. I was up at 1,800’ and the air was slightly drier. Of course, the caffeine was helping to erase the unpleasant morning.

I’ll often seek friendly looking people to sit and talk with. This is going to be the last opportunity to speak English for a while, so I bought some water and sat on the bench. The typical crowd came, but it seemed like no one spoke English until Mickey arrived. I said, “You’re Mickey… like Mickey Mouse?”

“No! Like Mickey J,” he laughed.

After some joking around, he said, “We love your people! Normally we only get to see you on television.”

He had been to a few African countries, including Algeria to work for construction; didn’t he see white people there?

He asked for my WhatsApp, and I showed him the sticker on the back of my phone. I pointed to my number and said, “Use this one; the other number is for my wife, and another guy started sending messages to my wife.”

The crowd laughed as soon as I said this. They DID understand English after all. Often, the crowds will just sit and listen to me talk with one or two “leaders.”

Mickey helped me out of the funk. Thanks, Mickey J.

********

I cannot tell you about the several dozen checkpoints after this. A couple were good; many were bad.

The man at the “good” border post asked me my mission. We talked about all the different missions that people might do: Either religious or aid, and he said, “So, your only mission is to learn the culture of Africa?”

“Yes.”

“I like you,” he said as he smiled sincerely and held out his hand for me to shake. He told me that it had been 5 years since “one of your colleagues (white people)” came through this border. They got turned back, though, because they didn’t have proper papers for their motorcycles.

The rest of the checkpoints, many were not good. I’ve come to realize that all this hemming and hawing and time wasting… and then mentioning “appreciation” is just a strategy to extort money. People understand here that to Americans, time is money.

I am learning how to deal with this. At the boat crossing, a man named “Lance,” in a purple shirt was good. He looked at my papers and sent me to the boatman named Foday.

As I was waiting for Foday to arrive, another “police” in a red shirt walked down to the bank and said, “you cannot cross here. It is forbidden.”

“Huh?”

“You need to take the other route - the one through Gambia,” he said.

“You must be mistaken. Gambia is completely encircled by Senegal. There is no route to Guinea via Gambia,” I explained.

“Yes, you cannot take this route. It is forbidden. You must go through Gambia.”

“You are not making any sense. Do you mean Guinea?”

“No. Gambia. How are we going to resolve this?”

“Huh? You’re making no sense.”

“You need to resolve this problem with me. You are supposed to do something…”

I looked up the hill towards Lance in the purple shirt. He shrugged like a cartoon penguin and laughed. That was my signal that this was bullsh**

As quick as lightning, I snatched back my passport out of red shirt’s hands. I went down to the boat where Foday was now waiting. He yelled at me, but what was he going to do?

Guess what: this scenario would repeat itself several times in Guinea too! I now just grab my stuff back when they least expect it and ride away. They yell, but don’t chase. I also started blowing past the checkpoint as they yell at me. Only once did they chase me down on a motorcycle. This helped save some time, because the route was non-stop climbing and descending - steeply - on a course that resembled Downieville riding. Using a hardtail would be a fools mission here.