Within the streets of Sierra Leone

In January of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic that shut down the world, my dad was taking a business trip to his home country of Sierra Leone. Since me and my siblings were doing classes online for the forseeable future, we packed over 15 bags and went with him.

The fields of my grandmother's compound at sunset. Lungi, Sierra Leone

My life in Sierra Leone is defined between two cities, Lungi, living under my maternal grandmother at her backcountry compound (estate) and, Freetown, enjoying rare weekends at my paternal aunt's shophouse in the inner city.

I spent most of my days in Lungi living with the many residents of my grandmother's compound. The loving woman she is, she let in many distant relatives, who always ended up staying for a while, so me and my four siblings made a nice addition to the bunch. Her compound was lined with mango trees, cassava stalks, papaya plants, and more. Sandy paths, mud-brick houses, and stray dogs line the memories of the times I spent exploring the surrounding community.

We would spend mornings exercising at the nearest beach, which would take us through the city seeing and conversing with our new neighbors. We would head back to the compound and do our classes under the mango trees. Then after, evenings would be spent at the nearby market, which would turn into communal gathering spaces after a long day's work. Nights were for relaxing around the house, swinging on the hammock, or sitting around the fire. The weekends always found something to celebrate and found us in a new place celebrating a wedding, a school performance, or something else noteworthy.

Traversing between the two cities was an experience in itself. The quickest and most common way we would travel was by ferry. We took a fifteen minute ride from the compound to the Lungi dock, where we would be surrounded by street vendors, other families, and the average citizens of the country. The thirty minutes on the ferry would be spent playing games, looking out on the water, or watching the newest street performer. Very reminiscent of New York City's subway vibe. Then we would get to Freetown.

Freetown was always busy, morning until night, there was always something happening. We would catch a cab to my aunt's place, always finding ourselves stuck in traffic, as if the roads weren't made with people in mind. In that trafffic, I was able to witness the city, admiring its makeup immersed in its routine. The times here would be for roaming the markets, walking the boardwalk, and enjoying the sounds of the bustling city during afternoon naps. The city offered a way faster, more connected way of living, that brought us back home for a second.

Four months there changed my life. I hadn't been back there since I was 7 years old, and at 15 years old I was able to enjoy and immerse myself in the culture in ways I couldn't before. Being born and raised in America suburbia as well, experiencing my culture firsthand, from its source, was a homecoming like no other.

Whilst there, my father also took us to many historic locations and developing communites, to keep us aware of the true state of the country. His purpose in this was to keep us grounded and in tune with the privilege of being born in the western 'developed' world. A side effect he didn't expect was my piqued interest in global development work, as I saw a lot of systems and structures in place that weren't working to better the country.

All that to say, Sierra Leone is a beautiful country and my words could never truly encapsulate the experience being there offered me.