A Visa Run, Lost Networks, and Unexpected Dutch Connections in Freetown

Good Day – November 12th

Well, today is the idea to make an attempt to get a visa for Liberia.

Visa Challenges

As you already noticing, those visas are a big deal and are in transition to being electronic or the Internet. But I have not felt too good about those ventures yet. I felt like for Formartinier that ended up paying twice for it pretty much.

So when I can, I want to do it in person. For now it turns out that I’m staying about a kilometer and a half from where the embassy is, provided that they’re still in the same place, which hasn’t always happened. So I’m going to be walking there.

At the Embassy

And so I did walk there and was there right in time. So there was no excuse for anybody else to be ahead of me and just get on with it. Well, it was a matter of an application and then the good news was that I could have it in about a week, seven days, and that meant a fee of $100.

Well, somehow I wasn’t intending to stay another week in Freetown. It’s an okay place, but places to go and things to do. So then the expedited way came up and that meant paying an extra $50 which was not receipted for, and then I would be able to get it maybe the same day or maybe not, but sooner than seven days.

Bank Run at Ecobank

So I opted for that option and got most everything kind of done. And then of course it comes to the payment part. Well, same song and dance that needed to be going to a bank and Ecobank at that.

I had dealt with Ecobank a little bit before. They did not share which branch I needed to go to. And looking at the map, a lot of them had ATMs only and that was not going to work.

So I needed an open branch so I opted for one. I had walked to the embassy, so I now had to go pick up my car to make it to be able to make some hay. Another option would have been to take either a taxi or the little scooter things or jump on someone’s motorbike.

But since I had plans for the car later, I figured I may as well drive. And it wasn’t that far away anyway. Well, the first Ecobank I went to pointed me to the one that I already had been close to.

This wasn’t very obvious. The bank was on Wilcoxon Road, but the address wasn’t. It was off the side street.

So hard to find, difficult, whatever. So I ended up going to that bank and I’m in line and the network goes down. Oh, we’ve heard that before.

Well, did that for a while and then decided that I should go and do the car thing if I’m not getting anything done here anyway.

Car Inspection Plans

So I drove to the car place. There was a recommendation from a few people, Sarah Motors in Freetown, and I explored what the options were. I spoke with the owner who I had spoken with by phone before. And so that was all pretty straightforward and you basically pay for the inspection unless they also get to do the work, then they deduct it from the inspection fee.

Well, I wasn’t going to make any time sitting around, so they were going to do the work anyway. So I opted for coming back tomorrow first thing. So that will be the 13th to attend to that since it was already early afternoon and it wasn’t going to be happening all in a few hours anyway.

Meeting Alpha Jolo

So onwards back to the hotel and I decided to have a beer in the outside area of the hotel. And there was this person floating around and we started a conversation. Well, it turns out this was Alpha Jolo.

I hope I pronounce it right. Alpha is someone born in Sierra Leone.

He really speaks almost better Dutch than I do these days. It turns out he’s a physiotherapist who got his education and time spent in the Netherlands from 1997 to 2019 and was a physiotherapist in Leiden last.

We had conversations like we were back in Holland. It was absolutely amazing. We were both very, very surprised. It turned out that he has an office below the hotel where I’m staying, and as a rare thing, he opted for a beer after work this one time, and we ended up having a great conversation.

Well, I found another friend. It was really a fun thing. He’s now permanently in Sierra Leone, although he also has a Dutch passport as well.

He has both, so he can still go back and visit and what have you. A very jolly person. It was a pleasure to meet him.

Another Dutch Encounter

That wasn’t it for the day. Then I went to another place, a restaurant, and there were people having conversations. It turned out a young lady there was also from the Netherlands, doing all kinds of NGO work in Sierra Leone and having done so since 2021.

We had a bit of a break to chat. It’s all over — people are all over — and it’s a big part of what I enjoy: meeting people who do everything and anything, who have things on their mind and a purpose, who want to do things.