"This is where the war ends" the taxi driver told me today. He was showing me the Peace Bridge, former Congo Cross bridge, thus named to indicate the place where the rebels were stopped when they invaded Freetown in 1999. It is such a powerful statement - this is where the war ends.
Posted in
Sierra Leone
My journey to Sierra Leone is starting.
I have found a couple of lists of books to read on Sierra Leone:
this one from the
Africa Book Centre, and
this one on
Amazon. There are a number of texts on the history and the conflict and the situation of the country right now, but I will have time for that. I like to approach a country through its literature and its art.
I will never forget what a friend told me one night, in a local pub in
Man, in the western part of Côte d'Ivoire: he was explaining
zouglou songs and their lyrics, and he said that the musicians and the singers had sung the war before it happened. They had foreseen it all, and he went on showing with this and that song how they had really talked about what would (and did) happen in the future. I have since forgotten the songs, but I never forgot his words.
Artists, poets and writers can see what we don't see.
Posted in
Côte d'Ivoire,
libri,
Sierra Leone
Uhm... doing my security training pre-departure, and what's the first example that comes up?
Posted in
Sierra Leone
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