I don't want to go to Peru. / How do you know? You've never been there. / I've never been to hell either and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go there. - Richard Paul Evans

18 December 2019, Potoru to Bo, 72.4km
Family Guest House 100,000LLE (R146)

Not an inspiring day. Mainly on good tar, with some roadworks, especially coming into Bo, Sierra Leone’s second biggest city. In the city we saw a mini-bus with the words “God save the passengers” painted across the rear doors.
Taking a detour that criss-crossed the soon-to-be-completed tar road, I was approached by Lami, driver of large roadworks machinery. As soon as he heard I was from South Africa, he asked if he could get work there. Sad that even those who have a good job want out.
Today also some young men approached us, wanting our phone number. We have on occasion been persuaded to hand out our number. Inevitably, either we cannot remember who it is who later contacts us, or we cannot fulfil their need for help and work. We try therefore NOT to hand out our number, but, inevitably too, people find this unfriendly. “We Africans like strangers” was the explanation offered today when we asked why they wanted our contact details.
Since entering Sierra Leone, poorer than some other west African countries, we have been confronted with fairly regular demands for money or food. These demands do not, in my view, qualify as traditional begging. Those who demand something of us do not beg for a living; they approach us based purely on the colour of our skin. When they are clearly poor, I am more forgiving of their demands, but quite often a healthy looking man lolling at ease on his home balcony, will call out “Give me money”, triggering a vast irritation in me. I feel a bit like a mobile ATM, admittedly empty of cash as we decided before we left home not to give money to beggars. “Money, money, money”, they call. Or “Give me money”. Or “I want money”. Or, today, “Give me 1000” (about 10 US cents). Because I think it a bad idea to encourage children to beg from whites*, I sometimes go into (probably pointless) “education mode”, responding with “Don’t do that” or “Why do you do that?”, hoping it will make people rethink their strategy. To the boy who yelled “Give me 1000”, I replied “Don’t do that”. “Don’t do that, Don’t do that, Don’t do that”, he mimicked. And then, to my receding back, “Give me 1000, Give me 1000, Give me 1000”. So much for changing his mindset…
*If people begged also from wealthier blacks, it would make sense to me. Begging from a rare and random passing white, and especially yelling a demand in rude fashion to a moving target unlikely to turn back to make a donation, seems both demeaning and irrational.
Luckily, by far the majority of people are simply friendly. In this part of the world children chant “Boomyi, boomyi, boomyi” (white) in excitable fashion as we enter a village, others picking up the chant in a kind of Mexican wave as we reach and pass them.
In Bo at last, and tired, we checked into a large en suite at the Holiday Guest House on the Freetown road. When the manager opened the room door, the musty smell was so strong it almost knocked me back into the passage. The power was off (only 12% of the population has access to electricity, 10% of these being resident in Freetown), but the manager said it was likely to come back on shortly and that if not, they would run the generator from 19:30 through the night, enabling us to use the fan in the hot room.
After our bucket bath, we took a tuk-tuk (three-wheeler) to an Ecobank in search of cash as we were almost out. We visited three banks in the end, none of which dispensed cash for one reason or another. We were not too perturbed as we had stocked up our emergency US dollar stash while in Liberia where ATMs dispense either US or Liberian dollars. We had chosen to dine on Lebanese pizza (there is a large Lebanese population throughout west Africa, many being third generation) at Ruri’s restaurant. Not the best pizza in the world, nor the best service, and although the place was spotlessly clean, it literally reeked of air-freshener and the crackling TV was so loud we asked the waitress to turn it down. But she did offer to send someone to exchange $20 for us, said someone returning with the rate we had expected.
When we left the restaurant, we went in search of the money changer to change another $80, finding him on a sidewalk in the dark, and making a stress-free exchange. He told us to watch our phones, saying “It’s Christmas time”.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…