Feb. 3

Before I share my recollections on my last night in the country, I wanted to share something I forgot to mention in the last entry.

On the night we get back from Pujehun, after everyone had dropped off their bags at Sahid’s place, I was sitting in the foyer of the house just outside of the living room waiting for the Internet to load when Augustine, the teenager who stays with Sahid and his family in Freetown, approached me very quietly. I could tell he was connecting with me since we first began talking about hip hop in America.

So when he approached me, he was very honest. Standing against the wall, he told me that his views about agriculture had changed since I had arrived. A few days ago, he was explaining how he, like many youths in Freetown, felt agriculture was not appealing to him. But he said he had witnessed my commitment to my assignment and how I had traveled to each youth farming group in the provinces to hear what they had to say about agriculture. That effort, he said, had inspired him to perhaps go into farming after he finishes secondary school.

That statement right there should be an indication that youths’ attitudes about agriculture in Sierra Leone are indeed changing.

My last night in Sierra Leone was a memorable one. I guess I made such an impression on one of the youth groups that I interviewed in Waterloo that they decided to show their appreciation by hosting a send-off party for me and my guides. Mind you, these are youths from a rural part of the country who often can’t afford to finish school, who don’t have anyone supporting their organization, who have to struggle for everything. Yet they plan this big celebration just for us. We ate, danced and perspired until about 2 in the morning.

They put so much effort into it. They cleared out a room in their multipurpose center and had a few lights hanging from the ceiling. They got chairs for me, Sahid and Theo to sit on, a table and a table cloth, plates, glasses, silverware, napkins and plenty of Fanta (for me, of course), beer and palm wine, and a D.J. These were all rare sites in most of the places we have visited at night. As I’m writing this, I can still hear LRG’s “Money in the Bank” and everyone jumping to the middle of the room and dancing in a circle when they hear it.

As I traveled back home, I stopped at Heathrow Airport in London for one of my layovers. I walked through the airport to my gate, and what did I see? A Tiffany’s store with the best of the world’s diamonds on display for all of those passengers who just can’t leave London without a piece of high-class jewelry in their suitcase. I want to qualify this by saying that I have no problem with Tiffany’s or anyone who shops there. But, at that moment, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that 25-year-old guy I met in Kono who was in that mining pit, knee-deep in the murky, sewer-brown water, working for meager wages and searching for a diamond he may never find.

Jan. 29

I’m starting to feel right at home. We spent most of the day Wednesday in Waterloo, in the Western Area Rural District, where we met with three youth farming groups. They all had interesting stories and seemed very determined to get their projects off the ground.

But they all mentioned one similar problem: Because they were women’s groups, they were all dealing with the issue of getting young girls out of prostitution (which is very common here because of the lack of job opportunities and the difficulty of funding education for young people). They seem to be having some success pulling former prostitutes off the streets with the incentive that farming could not only provide self-sufficiency but also income.

While we waited to start the day, I sat with Alhaji, our driver in Freetown, outside of Sahid’s house. Since I told him I was from California, he had been telling me about a friend he knows from San Francisco, Janet Allen. He told me he met her while she was on a Peace Corps mission in Sierra Leone. So he asked me to contact her when I got back home and give her his information. He carries her number and e-mail address on a piece of college-ruled paper in his wallet, perhaps just for opportunities like this. I consider this my reminder to follow up on his request as soon as I get back. He also showed me his tax receipt that he keeps in his wallet at all times along with the piece of paper with Janet’s contact information. He told me that the government makes everyone here pay taxes, 5,000 Leones a year (about $1.25 in U.S.). Interesting fact knowing that 70 percent of the population here lives in poverty, and jobs aren’t necessarily easy to come by.

It was late in the evening. Sahid, my other guide in Sierra Leone, invited me into the living room because he wanted to show me a documentary about his NGO, Democracy and Improvement Associate-Sierra Leone, which helps youths find employment in rural parts of the country. But a few minutes into the documentary, the generator gave out, which meant no more electricity for the night. So we moved a few chairs from the living room outside to talk and relax. There was a cool breeze that keeps my mind off the mugginess of the night. The only other light came from the moon.

After awhile, Augustine came to join me outside. He is one of the nine people Sahid takes care of, and when he isn’t in secondary school he helps out with chores around the house. The first question he asked me was one that I’d been waiting to hear since I arrived. “Do you know about Litt-le Wayne?” he asked. Of course, I responded. He listed a few other popular American rappers, and we got into a long conversation about how much hip hop has influenced young Sierra Leoneans. Augustine told me that he, like many young people in Freetown, listens exclusively to hip hop. He told me how much young people relate to the music, and I told him I completely understand. I also gave him my thoughts on how I love hip hop as well since that is the music I grew up listening to, but how I’m troubled with the images some artists portray in the music.

Augustine told me that the music gives he and his peers the message that black people in America take for granted the opportunities they have obtained since the Civil Rights Movement. He told me that people here have heard that the day a baby is born in America, they have a bank account. I assured him that reality is only true for some people born in the U.S. While we’re talking, I couldn’t help but wonder why is that if hip hop has had such a big influence over here and if American hip hop stars have made so much money over there, then why is it that Bill Gates is the person putting all this money into Africa and not a 50 Cent or a Lil’ Wayne.