There is something slightly naughty about sewing a thousand pounds into the back pocket of your trousers in an airport toilet. But I am not money smuggling, I am going on a work trip to a place without cash machines, exchange bureaus, or electricity.

Arriving at Gatwick, I was informed at the Astraeus airline desk that our plane, due to carry on from Freetown to Monrovia, will infact go to Monrovia first, even though it is further away, and then return to Freetown. This is because the runway landing lights at Monrovia are not working and have not been fixed, and the plane must land in daylight in Monrovia. For me this means that the already-long flight will be two or more hours longer, and that I will not land just at dusk, but in full darkness.

The Sierra Leonean man behind me in the queue, three enormous Brixton market suitcases on a trolley, told the bony English airline worker at the head of the queue that it was inconvenient, this addition to our journey. I was just about to leap in and complain myself when I saw the airline man give a loud “tut”, then turn his back on the Sierra Leonean, and start talking to his colleague.

“You can’t get angry at us for feeling put out,” I said to the man, upset that he had been so dismissive of the African. I know for sure that he wouldn’t have turned his back on an English man.

“Well, it’s not my fault if Monrovia airport can’t fix their lights. They should have done it a month ago and I’m sorry to say it but it’s typical Africa not to have done it yet,” he said.

I bristled.

Then I remembered when I lived in Ziguinchor and our airport was closed for months on end because there was no airport fence and a plane had hit a pig crossing the runway. On the day that the airport was due to re-open, a new perimeter fence protecting planes and pork-life, Air Senegal cancelled our flight because they refused to land there, as the fence, after months of work, still wasn’t finished.

I had nothing more to say. But felt cross with the guy anyway.