We Gone Home When We Gone Salone

“Historical Study Tour of Sierra Leone” (#3 of 9)

To learn about the second tour theme, “Resistance,” we visited a site that only recently has become known to Sierra Leoneans:  Old Yagala. At this village, the Limba people defended themselves against African invaders engaged in the slave trade.  The visit was transformational, even to those who did not make the hour-long mountaintop trek.  In a show of institutionalized resistance and from a mesa where they built Old Yagala, the Limbas barricaded themselves and saved their people from becoming cargo on slave ships during Transatlantic Slave Trade.

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The mountaintop view was splendid, I’m told.  My son Simeon journeyed with others, while Natalie and I stayed with our daughter Sara who had become drastically sick upon arrival at Yagala Village in the foot land.

Like the Old Yagala villagers, cultural enthusiasts also need to deploy acts of resistance against others – even ourselves – who may try to deter appreciation of heritage.  My awareness of this need occurred during our second day in Sierra Leone, following our return from Bunce Island to the hotel.  Famished and eager fa nyam, or to eat the meal we’d been promised, several participants jumped off the bus and headed immediately through the hotel lobby to the pool, the site of our meal the day before.  Danceable music blared poolside, but the site was barricaded as we approached: it was a private event.

“Dah ain fa we!” I said with resignation to a fellow participant walking toward me after I’d about-faced.   Upon recognition of the meaning of my Gullah Geechee statement – “That affair is not for us!” – he exploded in laughter. At such a time and on such a cross-continental adventure, language and laughter became armor to overturn disappointment about a delayed meal, crowded bus, bumpity-bumpity dirt roads, or rural privies.

During our outings, many relaxed back into the language of our childhoods – the Gullah and Geechee words and expressions we’d learned to be ashamed of, to turn both our backs and our mouths to.  Our conversational exchanges became our modern-day, institutionalized resistance.  All who engaged felt the better because of it.  “We gone home when we gone Salone!”