A Letter from Kabwata

I flew into Freetown last week. As I was escorted from the arrivals gate I found a sea of humanity outside the airport calling out to arriving passengers for the exchange of money into the local currency or as taxis. Thankfully, someone was waiting for me and he took me straight to the place where I needed to pay for my fares to go across to the mainland using the “sea coach”. As I sat in the small bus that looked like its retirement from active service was long overdue the bags of other passengers were being heaped next to me until I felt as if my life was in danger. I got a picture of the heap of bags towering over my head. I thought to myself, “This is certainly worth posting on Facebook as I recount my travel tales”.

When the bus was full, we started out for the “sea coach” port. Within a few minutes, we left the tarred road and the bus went through a bush path with our bones rattling at every pothole we hit because the rickety bus’ shock absorbers were finished. As I was about t…