The Returnee

     They say life is made up of memories, the good ones and the not so good ones. Your first kiss, the first beating in school, your first crush, your first fight. a series of firsts that shape your experience. You can neither get enough firsts nor can you have enough memories, but every now and then you sit back, delve through those myriad memories and smile at that experience that's treasured close to your heart.

     For me, that experience was a trip I took to Bo in 2003. Two years after the war was declared officially over, in the middle of the national reconstruction and resettlement stage, a few days after I had taken my WASSCE exams, at a moment I was deep in the desert of self-discovery, I took the return leg of a trip I had undertaken in early 1992. Back then, the war had just started and I was hard pressed to recall anything about the trip as a combination of my Mom's back and my spindly legs combined excellently to keep me ahead of the rebels who had just started their movement by attacking my town.

     My interactions with the provinces in the intervening years were all centered around hearing tales of the progress of the war, seeing the geometric increase of new faces around my area and the gigantic fear that would strike my heart whenever my Mum, (whose business required her traversing the rebel infested highways ever so often) showed up at home or was leaving on another journey. They tell me now that I always used to cry when she left, I don't remember that part (yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

     Those intervening years had made me very much a "Fritong boy". With a full creole name and an educational background that had taken me to a lot of "creole" schools, this trip was going to be some experience.
As the government bus gradually chased the sunrise on rickety roads, I was confronted with all I'd heard on the news about the war. Burnt out busses littered the roads, broken checkpoints were not uncommon and half naked children with varied wares would greet us at every small town. Unlike today, the journey lasted close to a whole day.


     Then I was reminded of the hospitality that is common among Sierra Leoneans but more renowned among those in the provinces. Constantly bamboozled by the many family members I had never known I had. Had anyone told me I was a long lost prince, I would not have disputed that. Such is the exceptional treatment that was meted out to me on that trip. Needless to say I did not want to leave, but I had to and I did. Not before sampling all the delights a vibrant and laid back town had to offer to a young man out on his own with thoughts of the world at his feet.

     So if you want to hear those stories and relieve those experiences with me, then join me on this year's GWB Ball and maybe over drinks or on the dance floor, we can trade stories while basking in the company of other Sierra Leoneans.