Maureen's Update from Sierra Leone #6: I Met the Famous Y.S. Mansaray!

Una Kushe, after another long day of driving and red dust swallowing, we arrived in Fadugu. For those of you who haven't read it, "Black Man's Grave," is a book that two returned Peace Corps Volunteers, John Amman and Gary Stewart wrote about Sierra Leone's War. They had both been stationed in the village of Fadugu at different times and were receiving letters from villagers that contained more up to date information than what they could gather in the news. When they realized this, they decided to compile the letters and publish them chronologically with the story of the village, its people and how they were affected by the war.

Obviously, I have a pretty vested interest in this topic, I've read the book a couple of times, but it isn't every day one is able to meet those who've only lived in the imagination. To me and my little circle who have shared this book, these are our heroes, who've lived through this horror and persevered. And now I have the privilege to meet some of them, shake their hands and best of all, we are building our next school there.

We arrive at night. I take another outside shower, am assisted by a little girl, and since I am doing this with the headlamp on I doubt there is much one can't see from the outside. I know very well that most of the grandchildren are on the other side of the shower, (to be clear, am just topless, out of sheer terror and the fear of being rude have decided to keep pants and sneakers on) I don't think they were out there to be voyeuristic, but rather to assist me (the shower was
confusing, b/c it was a nailed up toilet and it was far out from the house) but to comfort myself I pretended to shout at them that they better not be looking, I know their granddad (AK Bangura) and I'm not afraid to name names. Part of me wishes the whole episode were filmed from their perspective, as I am sure I seemed pretty insane.

After we are clean and shown to our rooms in a back house at AK Bangura's house, we have dinner with YS Mansaray. Farah actually falls asleep at the table, so we force him to bed. No Palm wine or ceremony because it is so late. Then YS takes Jim and I on a walk through the town. Fadugu is still very much a market town. They have two "cinemas" where films (I think they were all Nigerian) are projected, and of course, one can buy popcorn. All of this is done via generator, as even though that IMF-funded hydro-electric dam is somewhat nearby, it will not be providing power to any of the villages, just major cities.

YS also takes us to meet some of the teachers and "community teachers." Over half of the teachers at Fadugu are community teachers, which means they are volunteers. There is (and has been for some time) a big problem with teachers getting paid on time if at all. So it is hard to find teachers. With a community leader like YS, around to inspire his village, Fadugu has the kind of spirit that turns out a force like that. It was really amazing to see. Many times I find myself wondering if he really sleeps.

The next morning, we went to see the school SLVP is helping with. Fadugu's school is overcrowded, a problem that is getting worse and worse because the hydro-electric damn is forcing villages from their homes and they are being relocated here (for example, one classroom has 85 children in it!). That is why we are building a smaller annex to catch the overflow so that they have normal (will still be really big class sizes by US standards at around 45 students). They have made extraordinary progress already. Jim was there just a few weeks ago and the ground had been cleared and the foundation had been laid. We are now back and the walls are 4 feet high.

Then one of (for me) the highlights started with the drumming by about 7 boys/young men led by 12 girls wearing white tops, grass skirts, with painted ankles. They marched across the school grounds to meet us, sang a long welcome song for us (which included our names), and man could these girls dance. They were all different ages. I suspect that it's kind of the cream of the crop, as I was later told that the Fadugu Cultural Dancing Team came in 1st out of 7 districts. Both Jim and I tried to video tape this, I of course ran out of memory at some point into it, and couldn't change the card then and there. But they were singing and turning, clapping, pausing, stomping, they had a leader who would blow a whistle to indicate position changes. And at one point, after the battery died, they pulled a shimmy move that would have been snapped up by the likes of
Beyonce in a heartbeat. My mouth was literally hanging open and I had to remember to smile so I looked as grateful and impressed as I felt.

It was too big to implant in the blog so here is the link to the YouTube post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFE_hul5PA0

After their performance, scroll to the bottom to watch the poorly filmed video, we were given a tour of the school and their brick making facility, which was impressively fast (they have moist sand that they can just tightly pack (now, that dude has some muscles) and compress then let bake in the sun). Then we saw Y.S. Mansaray's office, which had impressive (all handwritten in the *fingers crossed* Mansaray font) records of teachers, students, grades, the history of the school, maps of Salone (the first that I'd seen and which I photographed extensively for selfish reasons, to simply have up to date ones).

We then saw a series of chiefs of varying levels until we got up to, and I could be wrong on this because I think there were about 4 different languages going on, none of which were English, the
Paramount Chief (a big deal, there are only 12 in Salone and these are sitting members of Government, like the US house of representatives). And I was able to hand over the last of the $USD. Liberating, because I was no longer responsible for it, and very fun, because it made them "gladi past mark" (very happy). With the progress they are making and the extensiveness of the estimate Y.S. was able to give us, we know that cash will put them at about half way finished. To everyone who contributed to that stack of $USD thank you so much, I hope you enjoy the video, it's as much yours as it is ours.

Then Y.S. took us on a daytime tour. We saw the house that John used to live in when he was a volunteer, yes, it's still standing. Unfortunately, it's one of the few buildings from before the war that seems to be left. I am getting better at identifying pre-war and post-war architecture. Pre-war structures have much more elaborate column work, post-war buildings look as though they were put up in a hurry and are much plainer looking. Sometimes we drive by and all we see are the 5 or 3 pillars sticking out of the forest indicating that there was once a building there. On the other hand, many people, like Farah and Albert are rebuilding directly on top of the old foundation, kind of a way to fly in the face of that destruction.

After walking through the market and seeing the graves of the former chiefs of the village (interestingly, only figures of authority are given elaborate gravesites in prominent places, what we might call a cemetery or something to that effect). Everyone else, regardless of religion is buried out in the bush. Not sure as to what if any kind of marker, coffin, ceremony, etc. goes on there, and definitely couldn't really ask about it. Definitely going to look into this when I get home as my curiosity is now getting the better of me.

In conclusion, Y.S. Mansaray and his descendants might be the coolest people on the planet.

Next update: Matru Jong (this is the town where the author of "A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of A Boy Solider" is from and began his journey)

Naim daht,
Mari (I only answer to this and/or Obama now)