"Hello Tony"

Sorry for the delay in posting, but its been a pretty busy couple of weeks here. So I'll drop a few different Blogs online today for all to read about the latest and greatest here in Salone.

So the big man (Mr. Tony) was here last week (Tuesday and Wednesday). Here was here for a total of 36 hours (give or take).... and let me tell you, its a bit of a circus. Not as bad as it would be in the US, as the Brits are still a bit more relaxed with security than the Americans (at least they are perceived to be more relaxed). But still pretty nutty. Without going into the specifics of his security detail, I can tell you that I know his 'cops' pretty well now. Most I've met in London and some I've done Advance work with before, but there were a few new faces who had never before been to Sierra Leone. All good dudes.

Anyway, we had lots of prep to do for the visit. We write briefs, briefs, briefs and more briefs. Then we create presentations, then we do dress rehearsals, then we set up meetings, then we invite everyone to the meetings, then we arrange logistics and advance parties for all of the meetings, then we adjust everything for security, then we run through all plans again, then we change everything, we plan meals, we plan for coffee, we plan for power failures, we plan for water cutoff, we plan for bad weather, etc etc etc. Anyway, finally we execute our plan around his 36 hour trip and luckily all goes down pretty well.

Spent quite a bit of time with the big man along with my other private sector development colleague. This is a reflection of Mr. Tony's belief in thriving private sector being absolutely cornerstone to good leadership and good governance. Regardless of your political views, I find this a hard position to challenge. The Aid model is not sustainable and although helpful, you need private sector players to invest and achieve commercial returns in order to attract other investors and other investors, and so on.

Overall it was a very good visit. Had dinner with his chief of staff and traveling secretary, and a few other colleagues from the London office also came down for the trip. Additionally, we had a big full team dinner with Mr Tony before jetted off. Unfortunately, he had given alcohol up for Lent, and thus no crazy party stories to share. But in general, he's a pretty fun guy to chit chat with and loves to take the piss out of people (as most Brits do). And damn right impressive in meetings!!

And thus, after an insane 36 hours, he hopped on his jet and left. Our whole team waived goodbye and then preceded to get absolutely hammered!! We all went out to a bar called Atlantics which is down on the beach. Atlantics is my fav bar in Freetown. Its down on Lumley beach and is an open air place with tables both inside and on the beach sand. We don't have many bars, but this one is a good one! My head hit the pillow at 3am and I didn't arrive at Statehouse the next day (Thursday) til 11am...