Return to Sierra Leone - Chasing the Dream

After almost a year of looking for some investment for establishing some sort of mining operations I was able to approach a gambler who thought I was serious enough to make this happen and trusted me with 10,000$ saying that once I arrive in Sierra Leone and everything checks out he will wire me the rest of the investment money - another 90,000$, little did I know then that when I arrive back to Sierra Leone, nothing which I had been told was the truth and that the people who were expecting my return were simply plotting to get the cash - what is known in Sierra Leone sland as Chopping the money, meaning literally Eating the money, and thus I had little chance of success to begin with.

Having landed safely in Lungi Airport, I had my driver wait on me outside the terminal, I had made arrangements prior to my flight by calling the driver from Israel and letting him know the time of my arrival so he can cross the sea on the ferry to Lungi and collect me and my luggage from the airport. Ibrahim the driver was a reliable driver the last time I was in Sierra Leone and also a trustworthy person, so I figured I could make use of his services once again.

I also called the people who were expecting my return and let them know I was arriving in Lungi and gave them the details of my flight, I arranged the driver Ibrahim to pick them up and meet me together at the airport, later I found out Ibrahim didn't pick up those guys, and they were actually waiting for hours for him to come pick them up, he didn't show up because it turns out he had a passenger and he wanted to make some quick cash before he comes to the airport to pick me up, so he totally forgot about those guys, which pissed them off, and instead after done with his fare, he came straight to the airport and waited for me, the other guys after having to wait for hours with no driver showing up had to take the late ferry service, which they told me was no more than a few wooden planks put together in a shoddy manner, and they said they feared for their lives while taking that ferry to the airport, too bad they didn't drown on that ferry, those guys were a bunch of assholes, to be honest.

Let me take a few steps backwards, and tell you how this all thing began.

I was in Montreal, Canada in 2008, just on vacation by myself, had flown in from Toronto after visiting some friends, and decided I wanted to see more of Canada before I go back home.

In Montreal I went out to see the nightlife and in one of the bars I met this Sierra Leonean guy who was actually from Guinea, who told me all about his great country of Sierra Leone, we sort of connected, had a few drinks, and we kept meeting on the following days for more drinks and he showed me around a few clubs and more bars, before I went back to Toronto, I made sure to exchange information, facebook contacts, etc, so we can keep in touch.

for sometime I forgot all about this guy, his name was Mohammed (later I found out Mohammed is a really common name in Sierra Leone, almost every other guy is called Mohammed, I have a theory why that is but more on that later).

Mohammed seemed a cool guy, so I had fond memories of him, he seemed to be charming and charismatic and an overall nice guy to hang out with.

When I came back to Israel, for a while I was just chilling doing some work, I was working in Sales at the time, when I got an offer from some people working in the Diamond exchange for a sales position selling diamonds on the phone to the states, I was curious so I went on the interview and landed the job, the job was shit, but the idea of being surrounded by diamonds was quite interesting, however throught working in that company for about 3 months I havent seen a single diamond, I was just looking at certificates and talking about them on the phone, I wanted to see real diamonds, and to know where these things originate from, I knew they had to come from somewhere.

I did a little research and I found out a lot of diamonds come from Africa, and Sierra Leone specifically, boom, suddenly it clicked to me that I had met this guy from Sierra Leone in Canada, and that he seemed like actually a great guy, and also I remembered some stories he told me about being involved in mining somehow.

I decided to call him up, and ask him if he still knows people in Sierra Leone and if he thinks it will be possible for me to go there and explore the possibilities.

Needless to say, I called him and we started talking about it and he said that he absolutely has people there that he trusts and that can lead me in the right direction (how far from the truth that was) and aid me in establishing a real business in mining, buying and exporting of rough diamonds.

I decided I'm going to take this seriously and found a teacher who promised to teach me everything about rough diamonds, this old guy close to 70 years old, who seemed to know a lot of people in the business, and also seemed to be very experienced and knowledgable about diamonds, he told me stories about being in Russia and dealing with rough stones in the 70's and 80's and how he was dealing with the highest levels moving millions of dollars worth of goods, I decided I'm going to trust this guy to teach me all I need to know. The lessons were twice a week for two months, and I did get to see like 100 different stones in the rough and examine them closely, having the teacher give his explanations about each individual stone, and showing me how it is going to look like after they cut it into a polished diamond, to be honest, I didn't really become an expert after two months, but I thought it will give me enough knowledge to identify stones when I'm in Sierra Leone, and know how to value them, if they are good stones or not, what I failed to realize is that the diamond business is EXTREMELY complicated and you must have many years of experience and having seen thousands of different stones to know exactly what is what and how much these little shiny are actually worth, when you are there on the ground and all these shady africans try to sell you their stones, they will tell you the most ridicilous amounts of money that they want for their stuff, and you have to know exactly what it's worth otherwise you are going to lose all your money.

Anyways back to my story, I was in close connection with this guy Mohammed all the time I was studying about diamonds and told him every day about what I was learning, he was getting very excited about the fact I really wanted to go to Sierra Leone and meet up with his people there, actually his people were the family of his fiancee, her fater to be exact was said to be some sort of politician in the country, I later found out he was some low level delegate of a remote province somewhere in the North and had absolutely nothing to do with diamonds, instead he was trying to sell me fake gold, which I turned down of course, because I had zero knowledge about gold and was only interested in diamonds at the time.

The guys who were waiting for me at Lungi were John Koroma, the fiancee's father, also called the councillor, Francis his son, Karifala, Mohammeds own brother, who came specially from Guinea, and another jolly roger called P.C Paul, that was his nickname, guy had a big ass prison tatoo saying "only the strong survive" and he was a cool guy for a while, used to run to the store every time I wanted something and come back with the stuff carrying it on his head, one day I gave him his daily allowance and the next morning he came by the house with a desk on his head, saying he got it for a good price, I asked him why do you need a desk, he replied it was a good deal, the guy didnt even have his own place, he was sleeping around people's houses, people in Sierra Leone are crazy.

So after I arrived in the airport and met with the guys, I went to the councillors house, there I told him I have 10,000$ and I wanted to open a bank account so my investor could wire the rest of the money and we could start the mining project, of course he took me to some shady bank where I opened my account, the Bank name was Union Trust Bank in Freetown, my advice to you, Do not put your trust in Union Trust, it is a very shady institution, I wouldn't trust my money there again, after opening the account I called the investor and wanted to give him the bank details, turned out he got cold feet after speaking to some people and he told me something like, listen use the money I gave you to buy some stones if you can and come back home with the stuff, I said hell no, I came all this way I'm going to try something on my own, and I had arranged my own money to be transferred from my own account, 20,000$ from my private account, all the cash I had, transferred into SL.

I didn't know that all the councillor wanted was just the cash, he didn't have any true intentions of having an actual mining project with me, and to tell the truth I don't think he even knew the first thing about mining, he kept introducing me to different people which he said were miners which seemed shadier and shadier as the time passed, I decided I'm not going to stick around with Mohammed's guys much longer.

My first trip to Sierra Leone

The first time I visited Sierra Leone was in July 2010, I was there for a month, it was a crazy time, I admit, mostly due to the fact I was there completely by myself surrounded by a group of people who pretended to be my friends, while the whole time they were plotting to get money from me in different ways to enrich themselves, a fact I chose not to accept because I was very keen on seeing the real Sierra Leone and get past the money grabbing techniques and manipulations.

I was adamant on my desire to travel deep into the bush to meet the real people of Sierra Leone and to see for myself the real possibilites and real opportunities that exist behind the shrouded mist and behind all the false promises and fake smiles of people who only see a white man as walking wallet for them to ask for handouts in different ways, even a blind man asking you for some coins isn't always a blind man, if you know what I mean.

Most of the time I was there that month I was travelling all around the country, I went up north to the Northen Province and visited the chiefdom of Koinadugu, I went to a village called Dalakuru where I met the Paramount chief and were shown where Russian people are digging much gold in the hills of a place called Lake Sonfon - a beautiful place, nice people, and the gold is being snatched under their noses while they are starving, the people there are very poor, the access to the place is very bad.

I remember we were in the SUV and there was a bridge to cross made only from two shoddy tree trunks that were laid down between two sides of a chasm, which were right on top of the lake, and the stream was very strong, crossing those wooden trunks was a bit scary to be honest, and I was very proud of the driver for being able to cope with the situation, those Toyota Land Cruisers are a must if you go around the bush, a normal sedan just wouldn't make it in one piece, our driver Ibrahim might have been a real bastard dissapering at night to sleep with all the town's Kolonkos (prostitutes) but was right on the money when it came to the driving part, really did his part for a spankin 100$ a day, around 400k Leones, the local currency.

We went around for few weeks, going from the Northern Province down to Kono the diamond mining district, where I was shown different types of diamonds which were extracted from the grounds of Njiama chiefdom in Kono, I was also taken to the actual site where they allegedly found the stones, they offered me a program where I will locate an investor for them from Israel, my country of origin, so that we can allegedly expand the ongoing mining operations and start new ones on other productive lands as well after the rainy season is over and the massive rains have ceased, the rainy season is from July to November, something like that, very heavy rains, the heaviest i've seen in my life, it doesnt stop pouring for days, you can say it rains cats and dogs and maybe some cows too, even the size of the drops are massive, not to mention the thunderstorms, the thunderstorms I've seen in Sierra Leone are the craziest I've seen anywhere in the world, 

It is said that the Portoguese explorer who discovered the coasts of Sierra Leone first named it The Lion Mountains (Sierra Loa) due the fact it sounded to him like lions were roaring on the hills when he saw the lightning flash on the mountains and heard the massive thunders, I try to imagine him on the boat sailing those turbulent seas in the middle of a thunder storm, with tremendous ligthing bolts hitting the mountain side on a dark night, must have been quite an experience, brave man.

All in all in Kono I gathered information and decided I will go back home to Israel and find an investor who will agree to come back with me and help me fund a diamond mining operation, in Kono, hiring some local people and getting a mining license for a good piece of land, offered by the locals. I said goodbye to everyone and went straight to Lungi airport where I boarded the plane back home, only to spend the next 10 months looking for someone who would be interested to make the investment, in the end I found a gambler  who gave me 10,000$ cash in 100$ bills, a plane ticket back to Freetown, sending me there by myself thinking I will manage to get things organized by myself, I failed to do so because I was being tricked by the people I had met on the previous trip, they were just planning to take the money from me and send me back empty handed, when I found out their true motives I bailed out on them and was now completely on my own, alone in Freetown, with 2000$ (what I had left after all the handouts) and a dream, to somehow succesfully build a business in Sierra Leone in mining and exportation of rough diamonds, a dream which became a nightmare.