"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)

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