Escape from Guinea

[aggienaut]

July 16th 2014, Conakry, Guinea - In the early hours of morning I listen to the patter of rain on the windows and the ululating call to prayer reverberating around the city in the dark pre-dawn hours. My back aches, my nose is running, I have a sore throat, a general feeling of fatigue. What are the initial symptoms of ebola, you might idly wonder? Well they are an achey back, a running nose, a sore throat, a general feeling of fatigue...
   I lie there contemplating this until 7, whereupon it's time to drag myself out of bed and pack for my flight out of the country. If they even let me leave the country?? The flight is a full 14 hours away at 9pm but This is Africa and you can't be too careful. I've been told The Organization will pick me up at 8:00 to take me to their office nearer the airport.
   I sit in the hotel restaurant listlessly picking at my croissants and eggs. 8:30 rolls past. 9:00. 9:30. Every half hour I text the Organization staff to ask where they are and strangely they are always "almost there!" I wish I could be in bed, not sitting in this uncomfortable stuffy little dining area. As the morning grows stale the heat and humidity ratchet up uncomfortably.

   At 11 the driver finally arrives, to take me on the bumpy ride through the steaming city to the Organization's offices, where I can feel sick and uncomfortable in a more corporate setting.
   At 17:00 the driver takes me to the airport. He parks and says goodbye as I get my luggage and make my way the short distance to the terminal entrance.
   "You have to pay to bring your luggage into the terminal" the weedy staffmember at the door tells me with a smile like I've made a mistake he's kindly redirecting me about.
   I laugh like it's a funny joke and try to go around him but he blocks my path, a smile still plastered to his face. I'm in no mood for this. Fortunately my driver hasn't left yet, I turn on my heel to return to my driver explain what's happening, while he's barating the driver I walk on through. I've found in Nigeria people in positions such as him often "jokingly" pitch for a bribe but easily laugh it off when you just laugh, but this is not the first time here in Guinea I've found they have a bit of a harder edge about it.

   Just inside the terminal, staffmembers in white medical coats flank the entrance hall watching everyone entering. I do my best not to look sick. I'm sure I don't have ebola but getting quarantined in Guinea on suspicion of having it sounds like the best way to get it. I make it around the corner before having another coughing fit. Fortunately no one seems to be paying attention to me. I sit by the gate trying not to blow my nose too often and/or look too sick.
   Finally I'm able to board the plane. I breath of a sigh of relief as we lift off. Until this moment I'd been preoccupied with escaping Guinea, my innate optimism assuring me that _I_ surely am not the next victim of the worst ebola outbreak in history, despite being at ground zero of it. But now, safely on a flight jetting away from all that, this small idea in the back of my head gets a little bit bigger, what if I am about to become Europe's "Patient Zero??"


July 17th, Göteborg, Sweden - After being miserable on flights for nearly 18 hours, Conakry to Paris to Frankfurt to Göteborg, I've finally arrived at my destination, tired sick, miserable, possibly spreading infectious viroids like some evil Johnny Appleseed to doom millions, but on the plus side there were giant pretzels in the Frankfurt airport.
   Between airports in Europe there's no passport control, in fact they just briefly look at the ticket without even asking for an ID. The guy at the currency exchange in Goteborg is chatty though, he'd spent some time in Australia and asks me where I just came from. I say "Guinea, West Africa," as blithely as I can, hoping he hasn't seen any news about the ebola outbreak and isn't about to connect the dots with my obviously runny nose and sound some kind of alarm, fortunately he does not.
   If Guinea is 3rd world, and the USA is 1st world, European cities like Göteborg must be 0th, the smooth clean high tech access to public transportation is on a whole other level from the US. After an hour on buses I arrive at my destination, the Eriksberg district of town, once an area of commercial docks and shipyards its now full of trendy cafes, hip loft apartments, ubiquitous fit and successful joggers along the riverside boardwalk. And soon my destination is in sight as some tall masts loom over the buildings. The Swedish Indiaman Gotheborg

   As I stop to take the picture that should be to the right here, a proud local starts telling me about the ship -- a replica of a historical Swedish ship launched in the 1730s that made three journeys to China and back, a journey that could be so lucrative at that time that each journey ended up being a sizeable percentage of the Swedish GNP. As for my impressions, the ship is quite a bit bigger than the other ships I've sailed on, with masts towering 54 meters (15 stories) above the water.

   I step aboard as the crew is having their end of day muster. They're mostly Swedish plus a German and Netherlander, but their working language is English. I don't let on that I can speak some Swedish, I'd rather surprise them later than disappoint them with my rusty Swedish. Jonas the bosun gives me a tour.
   The first deck below the upper deck is literally the cannon deck, looking mostly authentic and lined with cannons. The deck below that is compartmentalized with watertight bulkheads and includes a big commercial galley (kitchen), and the forecastle where the crew sleeps. There are some bunks along the walls but they're all taken so I'll have to string up a hammock -- a very traditionally nautical method of sleeping I've never actually done aboardship before. Especially as, in the traditional manner, one fixes the hammock to the ringbolts provided via one's own knotwork, one must be confident in one's abilities! And below that is the thoroughly modern-looking engineering deck.
   I join some crewmembers in a grocery run a short walk ashore, and we all work together to make a dinner of taco fixings, though I'm feeling very fatigued and unwell. As soon as we're done with dinner I string up my hammock and go to sleep.



Friday July 18th - In my delirium I apparently mis-heard what time the morning muster was, and thought it was at 6:55 instead of 7:55 so I have ample time to sit in the pleasant morning light of the aft cabin, looking at my buttered bread (certainly not up for anything more complicated) without an appetite, and wonder if I really might have ebola. Maybe now that I'm in Sweden I should go see a doctor. I picture the doctor's office quickly emptying as I explain I want to be checked out for ebola. At least being quarantined here would be infinitely more comfortable than in Guinea.
   I spend the morning up in the rigging tarring. What is called "stockholm tar" in America is just called "tar" here. Extracted from pine logs, it has to be kept hot so one has to keep refilling one's pot from a pot on a stove on the dock and then scrambling aloft to where one is working, painting the fragrant (in a truly delightful pine-y sense) hot tar onto the rigging. Working aloft with tar is fun (really), and on a beautiful ship like this on a beautiful morning like this normally I'd consider myself to be living the dream ... I feel fatigued and unwell and count down the minutes until fika, the 9am coffee break, and then till lunch at noon. It being a Friday, after lunch we just clean the vessel and then finish around 14:00, we'll be off till Monday.

Saturday, July 19th - Waking up at 8:00, I'm actually feeling better. This was before I learned that tropical diseases are often cyclical in their symptoms. I stroll around the pleasant gentrified neighborhood, and enjoy a cup of delicious coffee and the kind of pastry I dream about at a cafe along the riverbank, served by an attractive blonde Swedish girl with casual pigtails.
   I join the German volunteer, a timid young man named Jonathon, in visiting the islands off the coast outside the mouth of the Gota river -- the area known as Kattegat.
   We buy a ferry pass at a local little convenience store, and boarded a ferry near our nautical home. The ferry stopped at the first island, which consisted of low green hills and little houses, but a number of people, especially with bicycles, disembarked and cycled out of sight over a hill. Jonathon looked at each other and shrugged, and waited to the next island.
   The next island was named Köpstadsö, we look at each other, shrug again and disembark this time. It's a beautiful sunny summer day, in the waters of the Kattegat around us sailboats are lazily tacking about and motorboats are buzzing by with bikini-clad women dangling their feet off the front. I admire some sailboats (funny story, two weeks later in urgent care when asked if I could identify various shapes on a vision chart I'd say "oh no I can't tell if that's a cutter or a sloop!").
   There's a bunch of wheelbarrows on the dock by the ferry landing which we quickly realize is what people who actually live on the island use to take their groceries from the ferry to their houses since there's no cars on the island. We split up, he, a "musical therapy" major, wants to sit in contiplative thought for a few hours, maybe compose poems or something, while I want to explore quaint forest paths and little coves. So we agree to meet again in two hours and I explore the quaint forest paths and little coves of the island. It's a delightful little arcadia.
   Two hours later we catch another ferry to the larger island of Styrsö. Arriving there at Styrsö town I look at a map, see a church ("kyrka") ruin on a map and decide to go there. This time Jonathon comes with me, along a nice footpath through the forest.We arrive at the site of the kyrka ruin in an immersive quiet contemplative setting of lapping water, rolling green hillocks, forest, islands, and the occasional bleeding of sheep. There isn't much to see of the ruin itself but a vague rectangular outline in the ground. Jonathon wants to sit a bit and write some more, so I do a bit more exploring, and take this photo from atop a nearby hillock:



   But it's 20:30 and the sun is near setting, so we hurry along a path through the middle of the island back to the ferry dock. The evening sun streams sideways through the trees and it's quite beautiful. I know we were running late for the nine something ferry but am also keen not to let ferry-catching-neurosis ruin my enjoyment of this beautiful place. We definitely missed that ferry but there's another one around 10:00, so once back by the ferry dock I sit at a bar with bad service and order a beer, while Jonathon went off to watch the sunset from somewhere quiet and contemplative.



   Even after 22:00 it's pleasant on the open air top deck of the ferry - a perfect evening. The sun has finally set and the sky glows a sherbet orange. There are still a few sailboats blithely enjoying the conditions, and on the horizon, silhouetted against the orange glow, giant windmills slowly turn. I feel refreshed from a day of feeling better and enjoying zen-like idyllic little islands.. but will the feeling last?



(spoiler alert: no)

Comments

[alycewilson]

Another fascinating travelogue!

[bleodswean]

You are a superb spinner of yarns and it's delightful how well you tell a story. You've got me hanging on here for dear life!

[adoptedwriter]

I travel vicariously! Wow! Do you ever sleep?

[mollywheezy]

Great job! You make me feel as if I am in whatever country it is with you. :)

[muchtooarrogant]

And to think, once you escaped from Guinea, I blithely assumed you'd return to the U.S.

Great ongoing story.

Dan

[reidharriscooper]

While how you handle LJ Idol prompts to do travel journals is always fascinating, it is truly when left to your abandon that these amazing adventures you have come alive. I also become jealous, not just in the adventures, but your ability to recall them and tell them in such grand ways.

[roina_arwen]

I always enjoy reading about your travels and travails, but this made me pause and giggle a bit:

and the occasional bleeding of sheep.

I’m hoping you meant bleating?? I’d hate to think people were just randomly bleeding sheep!

[erulissedances]

I love that ship! What a treat to have worked on a rigged ship like that.

- Erulisse (one L)

[halfshellvenus]

where I can feel sick and uncomfortable in a more corporate setting.
Hahaha! I love the touches of humor in these stories.

This is a beautiful setting, and such an unusual activity in a modern age. Though I know tallships have figured in some of your other stories over the years. Has Cristina been on one yet?