CHARMAIN NAIDOO: Diary of an 'elderly' superhero in Freetown
'There’s something throat-catchingly moving about this town, this country, attributable to its history'
It began with a swollen head. There I was, a Guardian of the Galaxy, keeping the universe safe; protecting democracy. And so I donned my Superwoman cloak and headed to catch my 1.25am flight to Sierra Leone. I’d been invited, through the kind introduction of a dear old friend, by the Commonwealth to travel to the West African country to monitor their elections.There was to be no payment but the lure of being a world saving warrior, a peace missionary with a business class air ticket and a halo was enough. So off we set, Nairobi bound. Three hours and no sleep later, we landed in Kenya’s capital, then took off two hours later for Ghana. We sat on the tarmac in blistering Accra for another hour (having ditched our Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Business class luxury in Kenya) while our less comfortable plane vomited then ate new sweaty people who pushed past us business classers with babies and large pieces of luggage that dug into me, on the aisle. Onwards we went, to Liberia’s Monrovia w...
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