Sierra Leone Highlights

I spent the past few days in Sierra Leone with a few other students on the trip. Traveling around the African continent isn't exactly like traveling around Europe, but we found reasonably priced tickets and made friends with the guys at the Sierra Leonian consulate, and off we went. Here are the highlights:

1- Driving around Freetown for two days in search of a waterfall and a national park. The first day, our taxi driver, Alhaji, was well-intentioned but didn't speak English or know where he was going. The second day our taxi driver, Abu, didn't like us any more than we liked him, probably did not have a driver's license, and didn't speak English or know where he was going.

2- Trying to follow the gist of conversations in Creole, which is a mixture of English, Portugese, French and African languages.

3- Staying on the Banana Islands, where we hiked in the rain forest, swam on secluded beaches, and ate fresh-caught fish and locally grown papaya.

4- Sleeping at a YMCA hostel. It really is fun to stay at the YMCA.

5- Realizing that its unacceptable to generalize about "African" traditions, "African" issues, or "African" culture. Africa is a huge and very diverse continent. Even in Sierra Leone, only about an hour plane ride from the Gambia, there are countless differences!

It was a fabulous trip, full of adventures, and made me want to travel all over the African continent!