We are on a high Monday morning 30th August we are going to see the container unloaded and our precious bus is to be driven off by me - being selected for my driving skills as an instructor obviously nobody had actually seen me perform - We crawl in traffic to the docks - during this journey Tony receives a phone call seems we are invited to dinner that night with Isha Johansen the founder and owner of FC Johansen who is interested in helping us in our plight - when we arrive Howard is pulled up for trying to photograph the docking schedule "no pictures or filming allowed only by permission of security and port authority"
We cause a bit of a stir as people realise why we are there - we all have to pay 5000 Leone to gain access to the dock - Armani works his magic and we are shown to the security office - who takes us to the head of security who takes us to the shipping agent who takes us to the the boss and eventually we are given permission to film our ship and container arriving.
When we get to the shipping line office we are told there has been a mistake and our ship did not dock and would not arrive until 10 am the following day Tues 31st - THE DAY WE GO HOME - talk about cutting this fine but should it dock on time we may be able to offload and present the bus dockside just before having to leave and leave the rest to Armani - we were making inroads and friends everywhere we went but it was slow and unpredictable at best- Tony and I shared a tin of corned beef with a stolen spoon from the hotel with the odd mouthful going in Howards direction as we discussed where to go from here almost everyone vounteered to stay and make sure that our cargo was safe before we left - little did we know at the time - after this visit to the docks we felt resigned to the fact we had failed in out attempts to hand over the bus - but happy at all the other things we had acheieved contacts and frienships formed - we now headed for one of the main hospitals in Freetown where there is a charity called Sightsavers to hand over the bulk of the glasses we had collected ------ here Alex takes over as this was his baby so to speak and propbably the only thing troughout the entire trip that went without a hitch
We cause a bit of a stir as people realise why we are there - we all have to pay 5000 Leone to gain access to the dock - Armani works his magic and we are shown to the security office - who takes us to the head of security who takes us to the shipping agent who takes us to the the boss and eventually we are given permission to film our ship and container arriving.
When we get to the shipping line office we are told there has been a mistake and our ship did not dock and would not arrive until 10 am the following day Tues 31st - THE DAY WE GO HOME - talk about cutting this fine but should it dock on time we may be able to offload and present the bus dockside just before having to leave and leave the rest to Armani - we were making inroads and friends everywhere we went but it was slow and unpredictable at best- Tony and I shared a tin of corned beef with a stolen spoon from the hotel with the odd mouthful going in Howards direction as we discussed where to go from here almost everyone vounteered to stay and make sure that our cargo was safe before we left - little did we know at the time - after this visit to the docks we felt resigned to the fact we had failed in out attempts to hand over the bus - but happy at all the other things we had acheieved contacts and frienships formed - we now headed for one of the main hospitals in Freetown where there is a charity called Sightsavers to hand over the bulk of the glasses we had collected ------ here Alex takes over as this was his baby so to speak and propbably the only thing troughout the entire trip that went without a hitch
pic is en route clock the road "maitenence guy" in the glasses
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