First Day in Conakry (4 August 2013)

to Conakry

Conakry from top view; does it really look like an African country located at the equator?

It is very amazing to see a country located at the equator have such swampy area around the airport. When we looked at it from about one kilometer altitude from the ground, during our plane descends to the ground, we thought we were landing in one of swampy European countries. We landed around 5:00PM local time, which is 1:0PM Boston local time. The airport is very small, but it was highly secured. We saw significant number of military force with machine gun on their hand, scanning the area in all directions.

 Scientist who greeted us in Conakry (from L to R, me, director general of the institute, Kathryn, Drs Bamba, and Kitha)

People who are waiting relatives or guests like us, are not allowed to enter the airport and they have to wait outside the airport. We were a bit panic when we did not find anyone until we totally left the airport, then we saw a man standing with banner that says "AMBER". Conakry trip was a kind of 'blind date' style. We did not have hotel information or detail itinerary, we were just told that everything is arranged. The two professors (far right in the above picture), who greeted us at the airport, drove us to the place where they arranged for our accommodation. We stopped at one place and were asked to fill accommodation form, which was in French of course; then we were taken to our room which is located totally at different location. The room looks reasonably fine, but we were so scare for the security as it is located in the middle of dark suburb, and has no restaurant for dinner. The problem is that restaurants do not open till sunset, but we don't feel comfortable being un-escorted after sunset.  For that night, thankfully, the director general of the institute drove us to the nearby Chinese restaurant which was open even during Ramadan.  It was surprisingly good too. Ninety percent of the population in Guinea is Muslim, and they are fasting for Ramadan during the day. Hope our real scientific mission will start tomorrow!!