Sierra Leone

2008-01-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

In my three weeks stay in America, I have studied a system so secure, well planned and strictly implemented but across the Atlantic Ocean, I never thought that I would hear a different story and almost an exact opposite of this system.

In class I met Mohamed, another Foreign National sent for training and he's a great story teller, he talked about his childhood, his family, his community and his country Sierra Leone. We have almost the same history, traditions and culture, we've been both under a colonial power, both experienced certain type militarism, poverty and corruption but I think no country has ever endured the turmoil that took place in their country few years ago...

If you've seen the movie "Blood Diamond" it took place in Sierra Leone and during this chaos Mohamed was a young family man with 3 kids and extended family. In that time, everybody seems to be an enemy, a rebel in military uniform, a military doing a rebel's act. For them to survive, he took his family on a journey out of the country on Dec 23 and reached Conakry, Guinea on Jan 3. It was hard, he said because you'll have to pass through forests, rivers, swamps and most of the time hiding from the rebels...

Amistad, remember this movie? The hero in this movie is also a Sierra Leonean Sengbe Pieh who was portrayed by the same actor in Blood Diamond Djimon Hounsou an African from Benin. Mohamed gave me a book "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah who was a boy soldier during those dark years which I read from from cover to cover during my flight going home. He gave me a 5000 Leones which has Pieh as the hero...

K A P T Y U R D

Sierra Leone