We came to Sierra Leone two months after my eighth birthday.

My father looked around wistfully and said, “It’s not Switzerland but they speak English”. For years we’d fall back on that phrase for those not-perfect but manageable situations.

Most of “my firsts” were in Sierra Leone; my first crush, first friend, first kiss, first heartbreak, etc.

Freetown’s the last place we’d live as a family – we would leave changed forever (not unlike the country), every one of us headed towards altered directions. It’s here that our lives would unravel way beyond our control.

We went there to be happy except our lives were varying degrees of sorrow with tiny splashes of the joy we could have known. I would love Freetown eventually, for its beauty and the inherent freedom it gave. I came to belong.

The Naimbana Street mosque prayer call would awaken us in the mornings.

My mom often said she felt a change coming; you couldn’t just have two types of Sierra Leoneans (the dirt poor and the filthy rich). She said a society couldn’t survive without its middle working people, and sooner or later someone would want to change that. I figured my mother was unhappy hence her pessimism.

I can’t explain my affinity for Sierra Leone; I imagine it‘s the war – otherwise it’s just another place I lived.

Saturday night was nostalgic, I attended a dinner and dance for Sierra Leone’s 46^th Independence Anniversary; the first time I’d been among that many Sierra Leoneans since leaving. It felt welcoming.

It wasn’t all at once; it started with the chatter, and then the music, the food and the people. It all came rushing back and it felt like I belonged.

Tags: Sierra Leone 46th Independence Day