Webmaster's comment: December 11th marked the first anniversary of Amistad's landing in Freetown, Sierra Leone - that visit touched each and everyone from Amistad's team who was privileged to visit Sierra Leone. We all became Friends of Salone (that's how Sierra Leoneans casually refer to their country). We follow reporting from there and simply are thinking how we can help our friends.

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

High maternal mortality levels in Sierra Leone contribute to its low human development rank (file photo)

 DAKAR, 18 December 2008 (IRIN) - For the second consecutive year Sierra Leone has come last in the UN Development Programme ranking of human development indicators of 179 countries.

Some analysts say Sierra Leone is nonetheless advancing in some areas and that the impact of the country’s 11-year civil war must be taken into account for a full measure of progress.

The UN Human Development Index measures development based on three principal dimensions: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. These are measured by life expectancy at birth; adult literacy, and combined gross enrollment in primary, secondary, and tertiary education; and per capita income in terms of purchasing power.

Life expectancy in Sierra Leone is 42, or just over half of the life expectancy in the top 20 ranked countries. Just 25 percent of women are literate, with the level at just 37 percent for the entire population.

“Sierra Leone’s placing on the index should be a call to action for everyone who is interested in the well-being of ordinary people in Sierra Leone,” Engilbert Gudmundsson, World Bank Sierra Leone country director, told IRIN.

Read the full report published on IRIN website

Freedom Schooner Amistad left Freetown several months ago, but her spirit is still present there.   

The Lantern Parade Festival In Sierra Leone (history) in the capital, Freetown, on Saturday, 26 April, celebrates its 47th Anniversary of Independence from British rule. Sierra Leone, a country that has suffered an eleven-year civil war, is back on its feet and back in business. 

This parade was viewed by his Excellency the Vice President of Sierra Leone, Government ministers, the Mayor of Freetown, and other important Sierra Leoneans in public offices. There were very impressive lanterns, from the British handing over power, to other historic legacies, such as Amistad, the story of Sengbe Pieh and fifty-two others who fought with their own hands to gain Freedom, Justice, and Equality. There were judges to decide the best lantern to climax the occasion.

Listen to Interview with Donald George (In Krio)
by DJ Hedd from African Diaspora Radio 

(click the arrow button below) 

The AMISTAD Team made many friends while in Sierra Leone. In the hectic times of juggling many tasks in Freetown, we did not even have enough time to express our gratitude to all of them and properly present their profiles on our website. I am still on the road, filming and photographing, so updating the website is not always that easy. As I am organizing my notes and photo archives I will try to express properly our gratitude to our Sierra Leonean Friends and simply say that we already miss them.

Josephine Kargbo, in this photo with Capt. Bill, became one of our most trusted friends and supporters in Freetown. She is a Curator of the National Museum in Freetown – part of the Monuments and Relics Commission of Sierra Leone.  We brought with us to Freetown only one copy (heavy - 3 lbs) of the beautifully edited book by Judith Dupree, Monuments: America's History in Art and Memory. The book's chapter dedicated to Amistad is placed between the Alamo and Gettysburg Memorial. We were delighted to present the book as a token of our gratitude to the Monuments and Relics Commission of Sierra Leone. We are looking forward to working with you again, Josephine!

The text for the closing remarks I made at the Farewell event in Freetown, Sierra Leone came from the saying that my Grandmother used: “Every closed eye ain’t sleep and every goodbye ain’t gone.” This spoke so well of my feeling upon the occasion of the day: we were leaving Freetown after 57 days. The ship and the Nation were saying goodbye, but we will still be together in spirit and soul.

We have become a part of the fabric of the city with untold hundreds of people wearing the green, white, and blue Atlantic Freedom Tour bracelets, with the more than a thousand school children who walked to see the ship, with the street vendors whose stalls surround the Naval base where Amistad was housed who would shout “Amistad” whenever one of the crew passed on the street. The people call out “Captain” when they saw me on the street or riding by in a car. The name Voytec Wacowski that melded into “Amadou Barrie” to all who met our stalwart IT-Guy/Webmaster/ Video & Still Photographer, who was adopted in to the Fulah Tribe (Polish Branch). The city and national governments who extended themselves well beyond their limited resources to provide a memorable experience for us and an opportunity to participate in the rebirth of the nation.

Yes, we said goodbye but we are not gone, because we are taking part of Sierra Leone with us in the form of four crew members who are citizens of Sierra Leone; from the Navy, Port Authority, and the Murray Town part of Freetown. We left the giant Sierra Leone flag that flew over the ship during our stay in the safe-keeping of the Minister of Tourism and Culture and the Mayor of Freetown, to be returned to fly again when the ship returns.

We were given a mandate by the Minister to tell the story of Sierra Leone as we saw it; a warm beautiful nation with material and human wealth yet untapped, the place to start and develop business ventures and be part of a potentially unlimited source of growth, a place of peace and security. No sadness, but joy, the joy of being part of making dreams come true for Sierra Leone and AMISTAD America. The dream of seeing  "Sengbe’s Boat” anchored off the Portugese Steps where so many sons and daughters of Africa came home from the pain of bondage across the sea, the dream of a small group in the United States who longed for the story to be told on the shores of Sierra Leone.

No, our goodbye ain't gone, and our closed eyes ain't sleep. T.E. Lawrence said it so well when he wrote: ”Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind, awake to find that all is vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous for they may dream with open eyes and make it a reality.”
 

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008. Freetown, Sierra Leone. Just after noon, the Freedom Schooner Amistad officially left the anchorage off the Government Wharf in Freetown after an almost two-month-long stay. This begins the next leg of the 2007/2008 Atlantic Freedom Tour with the destination of Goree Island off Dakar, Senegal, where she is expected on Wednesday, February 13th.

Just a few miles up the river from the Amistad's anchorage in Freetown, there is an island of great importance that is not yet known as well as Goree Island in Senegal. Bunce Island is a slave castle, one of the “warehouses of humanity” European slave traders built along the coast of West Africa to facilitate their trade in human beings.

Between 1670 and 1808, British traders based there sent about 50,000 men, women, and children into exile on plantations in North America and the West Indies. Bunce Island has a closer link to the United States than any other slave castle in West Africa. During the mid-1700s, it sent thousands of African rice farmers into bondage in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and in recent years the Gullah people in those states have made several historic pilgrimages to the castle. Slave ships based in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also purchased African captives at Bunce Island.

Today, Bunce Island is an officially-protected site in the West African nation of Sierra Leone. The government of that country is now making strenuous efforts to preserve the castle and develop it as an educational resource for future generations.

In 1989, the US National Park Service conducted a survey of the castle at the invitation of Sierra Leone’s president. NPS officials said they had “never seen a site so important for American history in such urgent need of preservation.”

In 1992, Colin Powell visited Bunce Island. He described his reaction to the castle in emotional terms in his autobiography My American Journey:
“I am an American…but today, I am something more. I am an African too. I feel my roots here in this continent” (p. 534).

Read more about the exhibit on the history of Bunce Island and its links to the United States that is available for venues in the United States and Great Britain during the 2007 bicentennial of Parliament’s prohibition of the Atlantic slave trade and the 2008 bicentennial of the prohibition of the Atlantic slave trade by the U.S. Government. - "Bunce Island is the most important historic site in Africa for the United States."

Excerpts from the Christmas Message  of The Mayor Of Freetown Cllr. Winstanley.R.Bankole. Johnson

"...On the international front, I am pleased to inform you that this Council scored a number of successes during the year that will presently see our city regaining its past glory. For example, October 25th annually is now recognized by Hull City Council as “FREETOWN DAY” and our recent re-affirmations of Sister-Cities links between Kingston-upon-Hull in the UK and New Haven, Connecticut in the USA – home of the La Amistad which is currently berthed on our shores as part of the “Freedom Tour”, also represent significant steps in that direction. We continue to patiently wait to see the actualization of the dreams inherent in those accords 

I must on your behalf register our thanks to our delegates from the Amistad America Inc. in New Haven, Connecticut for giving us the rare opportunity to embrace our heritage through the visit of the replica schooner – the La Amistad - and to all those who contributed to making the programme successful. I wish all our visitors a safe return journey and pray that the cords of love and friendship struck will never be broken...

... Please accept on behalf of my dear wife, the Mayoress, Councilors and Staff of the Freetown City Council, our sincere wishes for a Merry and Blessed Christmas and a Prosperous New Year in advance."

Read the full text published by Standard Times Press News on Dec 21st, 2007

"If it's not bleeding, it isn't  news ..." said, about reporting from Africa, Charlayne Hunter-Gault  a noted journalist and international correspondent who has reported from Africa for PBS, NPR, and CNN.  She was one of  the panelists invited to "There You Go Again: Orwell Comes to America" conference at the New York Public Library (Nov. 7, 2007) where historians, linguists, cognitive experts, journalists, government officials, and political consultants gathered to assess the current state of public discourse — and journalism’s response to it.

I am afraid that she is right.  The news about Amistad's visit is not spreading despite  being picked up by Reuters and the BBC.  Monitoring the news outlets via Google News or Yahoo News Searches shows a lack of interest from mainstream American media.

There is a widely shared opinion here that Amistad's visit could not be better timed. We came here just a few months after  important democratic elections that changed the presiding government in a peaceful way. Not that common in this part of the world!  Freedom Schooner's mission is to use the lessons of history to show how important leadership and action are together.  Sengbe Pieh - the hero of the 1839 revolt - should be used as a role model. One must take his own destiny into his hands and not wait for miracles. Here we can see many people doing just that, to change their world.

I personally can sense everpresent hope and the expectactions of Sierra Leoneans that this might be the time for permanent change and healing in this country.  Many people say to me ; "we are tired of violence - we know, that the only way to move on is to get working together."  I feel here the same vibes that changed my own home country, Poland, and Eastern Europe after the fall of Berlin Wall. 

Shouldn't this be news?  An American flagged vessel carrying students from the US, UK and Canada reaches safely the West African Coast in a trip unparalleled by any other American tall ship .  For some naysayers in New England just a few months ago it felt like traveling to the Heart Of Darkness...  Freedom Schooner made it... She is safely docked in Freetown flocked by thousands of Sierra Leoneans.  We are all welcomed here and with no exceptions falling in love with the country and its people. 

Last but not least !  Can you imagine many more countries where during the official welcoming ceremony a Muslim cleric would genuinely pray in front of the Stars And Stripes for an American ship and her crew? 

This is Good News... but there is no blood. Is this a reason why the Amistad's visit is not getting more attention in the USA?  With the exception of our local friends from The New Haven Register and New London's The Day no one else seem to be interested.

( DISCLAIMER:  The text above is a personal rant of the frustrated webmaster and photographer documenting the Amistad's visit in Sierra Leone.  As I got recently "adopted" and given a Sierra Leonean name of Amadu Barrie I feel obliged to use all the means available to me  to spread the Good News from Freetown.

I ask everybody to spread  information about The Amistad Freedom Tour - send the link http://www.amistadamerica.org to your friends, post it on any webpages that you control,  search the Web occasionaly  for "Amistad" and tell our story to your friends)

Ambassador June Carter Perry visited the Freedom Schooner Amistad on Thursday, December 13th.  Her visit to Government Wharf in Freetown was an opportunity to chat with Sierra Leoneans waiting to see the Freedom Schooner and the exhibit presenting the National Hero of Sierra Leone - Sengbe Pieh - the leader of the Amistad Captives' Revolt of 1839.

Madame Ambassador listened with interest to the story of the Amistad Peace Pole. This simple piece of wood is inscribed with message of Peace to The World in several languages, including sign language and Braille alphabet.  Interestingly, the Peace Pole started its journey through the world in 2003 in Chicago - the hometown of Ambassador Perry.