tomorrow!

I'm leaving tomorrow! Finally feeling somewhat prepared. It helped that at the conference this weekend, most of the people had been to Freetown and plenty had helpful suggestions. I'll be staying at a B&B at least for the first week (see how it goes). Post more on Tuesday or Wednesday, once I've got my bearings!

creeping up on me

Just realized I'm leaving in less than two weeks. ahhh! I feel totally unprepared. When we went to the Gambia, we left a week after we arranged the trip and somehow that was okay. Having had so much time to plan and organize this trip has made it way more stressful because I feel like there's so much I could be doing that I haven't thought of. There isn't. Can't book anything online. Can't get in touch with any more people. It's just: pack, take out the uncomfortably large sum of money that I'll have to carry as my only resource for two months (not looking forward to that) and get on the plane. And hope that the hovercraft to Freetown is running - I am not taking the helicopter! In other words, it's time to leave things up to chance. Which of course I hate to do.

visa success!

Everyone should go to Liberia:

I showed up at the visa office at 1:00 (had to get photocopies and pick up my malarone prescription first...and then I got lost). The emabassy officials from upstairs were clearly visiting their consulate buddies on lunch break and the atmosphere was really...well...boisterous. They all came out to talk to me (because I had my Obama t-shirt on), were telling me jokes and about how. as dual citizens, they were definitely voting for him, etc. They told me to come back at 3:00, when it would be ready. That is some good turnaround.

At 3:00 I showed up and there were a couple of other guys there. One was a very shady Dutch(?) man about 65 years old. He talked like it was 1900 and we were off to a jolly romp in the colonies, what what. He seemed to be involved in some kind of business dealings (diamonds??) and was waiting until today to get his visa for his trip on...Friday. And I thought I did things last minute!! Well, my visa took longer than everyone else's to get ready (I was there for half an hour), and because they felt bad about it, they gave me a multiple entry visa instead! And then, half an hour later, when I was in the nurse's office getting rabies and cholera part II, they called to tell me I had left my yellow fever certificate. Which I would have figured out, but probably not in time.

Moral of the story: Liberians are way cool. I just hope my impression doesn't change once I get there...

update

oh, he got back to me nearly two weeks ago. on the day my phone died on Snowdon. and the voicemail just showed up on my phone! ridiculous. but at least we're making progress.

bureaucracy

I don't understand why the Sierra Leone embassy requires a letter of introduction for my visa when they know perfectly well it's impossible to get in touch with people in their country. Please write back to me, archive man. Maybe it's an elaborate conspiracy to get me down to the wire and force me to pay the additional charge for a same-day visa instead of the normal 7 working days. hmmm. clever.

In other news, I could be getting my visa for Liberia, which doesn't require a letter from someone in the country. But I keep putting it off. Because I'm writing my upgrade (so I tell myself). Tuesday. I will do it Tuesday. In between some last minute trips to the archives. And before my upgrade deadline of Thursday night.

I promise this blog will be more interesting at the end of the month. For now, it's an awesome tool for procrastination.

full of diseases

I'm not sure if this is a reaction to reading too many 'Hot Zone' type books when I was little (it is, it definitely is), but I'm getting every single vaccine I can get my hands on for this trip: Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Hepatitis B, Meningitis (4 strains), Tetanus, Diptheria, Polio, Cholera, Rabies, Yellow Fever, and of course, everyone's favorite anti-malarial, Malarone. This may sound like overkill, but if you spent all your time reading about 'The White Man's Grave' (nasty nickname for Sierra Leone and Liberia in the days before quinine), you might be a little cautious too...