Phew, kinda

Alright, Tim is here sending a quick e-mail to let his family know he made it ok. The taxi driver showed up early (what?!?!) and so I got there 30 minutes before his flight. I waited for a while outside sitting on a wall with like 40 Guineans for about an hour, and then I noticed that there was a lot of movement in the terminal. I walked over to a sketchy part of the outside and peered through the bars and tried to spot Tim. Someone asked me the name of my friend and they went and looked for him just as I spotted him. I noticed he was having some conversation that didn't seem to be going well so I decided to try to abuse my white-ness and get past the guards to give him a hand.

I went to the exit from baggage claim and asked the guard nicely then a little more sternly in French to let me through to help my friend who spoke no French. He refused and didn't seem in a mood to change his mind so I said "awa" without really thinking ("ok, goodbye" in both susu and pulaar) and walked away, and he immediately called me back and let me through. Right as I got to the next set of guards with the other guard escorting me through Tim was walking out of the terminal with a security guard carrying his bag. I thanked the couple of Guineans that seemed to have helped him get through and offered to take his bag, but there seemed to be some issue that nobody was telling me about.

Finally we stopped and the english-speaking Guinean woman who helped translate for Tim in my absence tried to explain to me what the situation was in English, and then I asked her to tell me in French because I wasn't understanding her and I found out that she had gotten Tim through by promising the Custom's officer a bribe that I was supposed to go back and pay.

To cut a long story short - I went on a rant to her, then to the security guard about a lot of different reasons why they were corrupt and why I wasn't paying them anything. My usual strategy is to argue until they get sick of me and let me go but since Tim looked tired (and I was also sleepy) I gave in and handed over 5,000 ($1) - my first bribe in Guinea. At this point the guard started saying that wasn't enough and then I went off on him some more, shoved the bill in his hand, ripped Tim's bag away from him and walked away.

The taxi driver took us back and charged me a very reasonable rate considering he picked me up at 2:10, and dropped me off at 4 in the morning, and now I think it's time to get some shut-eye.