Traveling in Africa

Sunday morning I was preparing for a trip to Makeni and then to Njalla to take Gabriel, Precious and Oxford to college. The night before I put a roof rack on the top of my car because I figured we would need the cargo area since I was taking all of their things plus all of Jesi’s research supplies back from Jui for her. I made it to Wellington by 10:30am Sunday morning to begin packing all of the things on board and securely fastening them with good ratchet straps to avoid any trouble with the police saying my load was not good. By Noon we had everything loaded, packed, and strapped down ready for the best roads, or is it worst roads? That Sierra Leone could throw at us.

Church let out by 1pm and after chasing down a bag of rice we were on our way to Makeni. As any proper road trip in Africa should, we had bags in the front with me and Oxford, bags in the middle on top of Precious, Aminata, Gabriel and Deborah. Aminata wanted to tag along and Deborah is a fellow Oklahoman working at the Orphanage.

The car was absolutely loaded and the only retail space that remained was on the Hood, but thankfully we didn’t have to use it. On our way from Freetown to Makeni there is a police check point with signs portraying Skulls and cross bones on them…No problem right? Well the police officer insisted that our load was improperly fastened and that we should pull over to the side for an inspection, but after a staring competition between Oxford, me and the policeman he waived us on. I really wanted to get out and make him try to pull just one thing off the roof, but I didn’t want to cause a scene or get locked up.

After that it was smooth sailing all the way to Makeni where we dropped Deborah, Aminata, and Gabriel off and headed for Njalla. There are two options from Makeni to go one you return on the road you came back to the first round about, then head that way (150+) miles or you can take a short cut that is about 35 miles of non paved road then its only 30 miles to Njalla. As everyone knows I took the short cut…Well 3+ hours later we made it to the other side, you see the road was bad, real bad. It was like a road you would have to pay to drive on in Oklahoma, because it is an off road 4x4 rock crawling mud bogging fun fest! Water only came to the hood once and it caused quite a scene because we had a crowd of non believers standing by because there were other stuck vehicles in sight. They were yelling to use low gear as I entered the pit, but I insisted we were okay and then wham! The their was mud on the hood. I preceded to put the car in the “wide open” position and mud was flying in every which way, of course the windows were down in the process, and we came out the other side no problems at all! When we came out a gave a loud Heyyyy! And the crowd was pleased. The only option at that point was to turn around and go back through 25 miles of that obstacle course of a road.

I told Oxford this would be a day he will never forget and we can talk about years down the line as this was his trip to college and it turned into a real African Adventure even for him. We passed through many villages would had to think me and Oxford were big time oil investors or something of the like. We were both sharply dressed, him past me as he was wearing a suit top and I was in a nice button up shirt, both sporting the nicest shades around.

That night we got everything unloaded at school for Precious and Oxford and found their rooms. I stayed the night at Jesi’s house and the next morning I went to find Oxford and Precious to say our goodbyes and I was on my way back to work. I was difficult leaving my main man and Operations Manager at College, but I know it is for the best.