Lighting the Darkness

By Frederick Kamara

With this book, the first volume in a series, I didn’t presume to write anything of immense importance or of any outstanding nature. The intent was merely to share some of my personal experiences as a child born in a small African village and then to relate details of my subsequent social contacts and opportunities, my studies, and some of my accomplishments.

I was born in 1946 in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, and I lost my sight between the ages of six and ten. But over the years, I went on to study first in Freetown, the nation’s capital, then in both England and the United States, eventually earning a B.A. degree and two master’s degrees, as well as rising quite high in civil service in my home country.

I fled Sierra Leone in 1997 because of the bloody coup d’état there. I was fortunate enough to be evacuated by American Marines with the help of my younger brother, Bob, an American citizen. Bob passed away on January 1, 2009. I dedicate this book to his memory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederick Kamara
• Release date: Sep 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005054342

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Introduction: Autobiographical Sketch

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Mystery Man

Chapter 2: My Grandfather

Chapter 3: The Sacrifice

Chapter 4: The Initiation

Chapter 5: I Am a Karande

Chapter 6: The Encounter

Chapter 7: I Am Mesmerized!

Chapter 8: The Fog

Chapter 9: The Chief

Chapter 10: The Surgery

Chapter 11: Binkolo

Chapter 12: The Good News

Chapter 13: The Journey

Chapter 14: The School

Chapter 15: Daily Routine

Chapter 16: The Hand Bell

Chapter 17: The New Headteacher

Chapter 18: Integration

Chapter 19: My Dilemma in Deciding the Next Step

Chapter 20: My Mind Is Made Up

Chapter 21: My Life at Fourah Bay College

Chapter 22: I Settle Down

Chapter 23: The College Campus

Chapter 24: Breaking New Ground

Afterword

Glossary

Foreword

This is an abridged version of a much longer work I wrote over several years, and I regard it as the first volume of a series.

I first conceived of the idea of putting on paper some of my personal experiences in life while I was doing graduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science between 1980 and 1982. I didn’t presume to write anything of immense importance or of any outstanding nature, but just to share some personal memories of the past with other people and with posterity in the hope that something interesting or amusing might be found in what I wrote.

The idea began to crystallize only after I had written my M.Sc. dissertation and had virtually nothing else to do while it was being typed for me by a close personal friend, Ellen Fofanah. I was then spending some time with my younger brother, Bob, in Landover, Maryland, in the United States. Rather than sitting idle the whole day through, I decided to implement my idea of putting down in writing some of my memories and experiences.

I borrowed a Perkins Braille Writer and got some braille writing paper from the Library of Congress, Division for the Blind and the Physically Handicapped, in Washington, D.C., and then set to work.

I wrote the first four chapters before I returned to London on September 2, 1982, after a six–week vacation in the United States.

By mid–September 1982, I had written another two chapters. Thus, the first six chapters had been completed and, with the help of a friend, Keith Goffin, I got them properly typed.

I returned home to Sierra Leone in late October of the same year. I had hoped to complete the first volume by June of the following year, but then misfortune struck. Barely a month after I returned home, burglars broke into my residence in Freetown while I was visiting my folks in Makeni, my hometown, and stole a whole lot of my personal effects, including the briefcase containing both the typed and braille versions of those first six chapters. I never recovered any of them. Naturally, my zeal was dampened.

It was not until late 1985 when, during another stopover visit in the United States on my way back home from Canada, where I had done a three–month research project with the International Development Research Center (IDRC) at Carleton University, Ottawa, that I decided to attempt to complete this first volume. This time, the manuscript was typed onto computer floppy discs by another family friend, Mary Koroma.

I finally completed this volume a few years ago, but after that faced problems finding a publisher. Now, thanks to the able assistance of David and Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books Editing and Self–Publishing Services, the book has been published at last.

Introduction

Autobiographical Sketch

I was born in 1946 in a small village, Rogbom Sella, near Makeni in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Makeni is the economic center of the Northern Province and the capital of the Bombali District. It is also the headquarters of the Bombali Sheborah Chiefdom, to whose chieftaincy line I belong.

I started losing my sight when I was about six years old, and I lost it completely four years later, after unsuccessful eye surgery.

In May 1956, I became one of the first three pupils to be enrolled at the country’s first school for blind children, the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Freetown, the nation’s capital.

From the School for the Blind, I entered the Albert Academy, a secondary school primarily for boys, also in Freetown.

After graduating from secondary school, I taught briefly at the School for the Blind before entering Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, from where I graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History, thus becoming the country’s first blind university graduate.

I then taught briefly at the Albert Academy before joining the Sierra Leone civil service in October 1972, in the then Ministry of Social Welfare, subsequently becoming the nation’s first blind senior civil servant, attaining the position of Chief Social Development Officer—equivalent to Executive Director of Social Services—for the entire country.

In 1973, I won a Rotary Foundation Fellowship to study at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, for one year, starting in September of that year.

In 1980, I won a British Council fellowship to pursue graduate studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), University of London, from September of that year. I obtained a Master of Science (M.Sc.) degree in Social Planning from there in October 1982.

In May 2008, I obtained a Master of Arts (M.A.) Degree in Special Education and Human Development from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

I have done research in a number of areas, including Attitudinal Ramifications of Rural Development in Sierra Leone, which I carried out partly at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and partly at home.

I have received several post–graduate diplomas and certificates as a result of participating in studies, seminars, workshops, etc., both at home and abroad.

Book–related website and contact information:

https://www.dldbooks.com/fredkamara/

Fred-1966

Frederick Kamara in 1966

Fred-2013-grayscale

Frederick Kamara in 2013

Acknowledgements

I wish to start by expressing my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to the following people who helped to type and/or put on computer disks the original manuscript: Ellen Fofanah and Mary Koroma in the state of Maryland, USA.

My thanks and appreciation also go to the late Mr. Ezekiel A. Coker, formerly residing in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, who painstakingly went through the first edition of this memoir and gave me most invaluable advice and suggestions that have helped improve this edition.

My special thanks and appreciation go to the late Mr. Samuel F. B. Campbell, my former headmaster, teacher, and mentor at the Milton Margai School for the Blind; my teachers at the Albert Academy, especially my former principal, the late Mr. Max, and his wife, Mrs. Ada Bailor; as well as my lecturers at Fourah Bay College, especially Professor Eldred Jones, Dr. Eustace Palmer, the late Dr. Abdul Karim Turay, and the late Mr. Jonathan Edowu Hyde, all of whom contributed to what I have achieved in life, and most of whom are now deceased.

Finally, my sincere thanks and appreciation go to all those who have helped me in diverse ways in this venture.

Frederick (Fred) John Momodu Kamara

Chapter 1

Mystery Man

I took my first breath of life on a Monday morning. It was very early in the morning, just after cockcrow. That must have been somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00. The place was Rogbom Sella, a little village some four miles or so from Makeni.

My mother and the traditional midwives who attended to her had no way of telling the time, as they had neither clocks nor watches. In fact, they were all illiterate, and clocks and watches did not form part of their repertoire. In the entire village, it was my father alone who had a clock, and that was out of necessity. He had to know exactly when to leave home for work. He had to walk about five miles to his workplace in Makeni every morning, and he had to be there before 8:00. He was Roads Overseer in the Public Works Department. He could not afford to be late, or else he would be reprimanded by his boss, a very strict white man.

In time, he got himself a bicycle. That saved him from having to walk those many miles to and from his workplace every day.

To my father, I was just another child who might not survive infancy, as had been the case with so many before me—my mother’s first two children and children of his other wives. At the time of my birth, my father had five wives (including my mother).

To my mother, however, I meant the whole world, even though I was not the first or only child. I was her sixth child, but the first two had died in infancy. The three surviving children before me were all girls. And so she had been longing for a son so earnestly that, when I came at last, her joy could hardly be described. Her very first child was a boy, but he had died when he was just a few months old. Then came a girl who also died, at the age of six.

There was a long pause between me and my sister who came immediately before me, a space of about seven years. This made my mother fear that she had reached the end of her childbearing days. She consulted all the soothsayers (or medicine men) she could reach. Most of them made very optimistic predictions and gave her hopes of getting a son.

Time passed, but nothing happened. At length, I came along. It must have been like a miracle to her when she first realized that she was expecting a child again after all those years. Needless to say, her fervent hope was for it to be a boy, and indeed, it was.

At first light, news of my birth was dispatched to my maternal grandparents and other relations at Makeni. My immediate senior sister was one of the news bearers. She was then just about seven years old, but her physical structure made her look much older than she was expected to at her age. It was said that at only seven years of age, she looked like she was nine or ten. Thus she was able to undertake the long walk from Rogbom to Makeni and back, and at times, when she chose, she did it all alone. In fact, she did it fairly often, whenever she wanted to see our grandparents, of whom she was very fond.

When she woke up that morning, on learning that she had a baby brother, the excitement was enough to spur her to undertake a trip on her own initiative to pass the exciting news on to the old folks on Banana Street.

The very first person to arrive at Rogbom from Makeni that morning was one of my mother’s younger brothers, Pa Santigi, who had previously staked a name claim on me—that is to say, he had requested that my mother name after him the child she was going to have, if it was a boy. Therefore, when he learned that my mother had given birth to a son, he lost no time in going to see that his wish was fulfilled.

Pa Santigi had a bicycle. That was why he was able to get to Rogbom before anyone else. He made it in a big way, taking many gifts for his newly born namesake. They included items such as bath soap, laundry soap, powder for both baby and mother, towels, and so on. At that time, he had just opened a shop on Banana Street, where he sold an assortment of goods that included some of the items that made up his gifts to his baby nephew.

Shortly after I was born, my father played host to a renowned Islamic teacher and great diviner (or Alpha) from the far north of the country, somewhere beyond Kabala. He was very well known for his supernatural powers. He was paying one of his occasional visits to our area, and this time my father had the singular honor of hosting him in our village—and more important still, under our own roof. It was the first time he was stopping over in our village for a few days. My mother took advantage of the opportunity to consult him, first of all on my behalf, and then on behalf of her other children. What was our future like?

This baby, the venerable man began, is a wonderful child. I see a bright star over his head. He is going to be somebody you will be very proud of. Take very great care of him. But he has a few obstacles to get over. If he can cross them, then all will be well.

At the end of the consultation, however, he pronounced gloom.

I see a dark spot over your head, he declared. One of your children, the youngest of the girls, will go either blind or insane unless a white ram is offered as sacrifice to avert it. And this child, too, he continued, when he grows as big as this. He indicated a height that would imply me being about four or five years old. Another white sheep should be sacrificed for all your children. When it is slaughtered after the offering, you should dip the pointing finger of your right hand into its blood and dab it on their foreheads one at a time, starting with the eldest. You should dip your finger afresh for each one. They should not wash their faces until the next morning.

When I was a few months old, I had a slight fever. After it was over, my eyes became tightly shut. My mother did all she could to get them to open again but could not. I didn’t manifest signs of any childhood disease which could have been the possible cause. At length, my mother was advised to take me to the hospital at Makeni and have the doctor examine and treat me. She heeded the advice and took me there.

The doctor himself did not seem to know exactly why my eyes had remained shut involuntarily. He decided to admit me to the hospital and put me under observation. My mother and I had to serve a period of hospitalization which lasted for a couple of weeks.

According to my mother, the whole episode ended as mysteriously as it had begun. Without my taking any medication throughout the period I was under observation, the long–shut eyes just opened one day and never shut again after that, except when I slept. The doctor decided to keep us in the hospital a few days after that for further observation. When he became quite convinced and satisfied that all was well and that there was no longer any cause for alarm, he discharged us.

As we left the hospital ward that morning, the nurses showered me with kisses. Goodbye, mystery man! they said.

Mystery man or wonder man was the name everybody, both patients and hospital staff, had given me because of what had happened to me, and because I had earlier stayed for a few days without consuming anything other than water. Yet, in all this, I did not manifest any symptoms of any illness at all, except for the fever I had before. Even then, I seemed to have recovered completely from the fever. Before, I had refused to breastfeed or take in anything but water and then subsequently shut my eyes. My mother told me that I resumed normal feeding just as mysteriously as my eyes had opened again. That was why it had been speculated that I was not an ordinary child but had mysterious or supernatural powers that I seemed to be demonstrating.

On leaving the hospital, my mother decided not to take me back to Rogbom just yet, and so we went to live with her parents in Banana Street for a while. We must have stayed there for something like two months. During this time, I was being looked after by a respected maraboo–man or Alpha in the Makeni township to ensure that my supposed supernatural powers were curbed to non–dangerous proportions. At the same time, he had to make sure that no external occult forces could prevail over or subdue me. It was only when he was quite satisfied with my situation that he allowed my mother to take me back to Rogbom.

There was a tradition in my family—or, to put it more precisely, my mother’s part of the family—that when any of her children reached the point of being weaned, he or she was taken over to Banana Street and left with the grandparents. I was no exception to this rule.

My mother normally suckled her children until they were almost three years old, but it was widely believed that boys should not be suckled for that long. I was just slightly over two years old when it was decided that I should be weaned. Thus my own turn came to be taken to Banana Street and left with my grandparents.

Chapter 2

My Grandfather

Pa Musa, the old man that I knew as my maternal grandfather, was really not my biological grandfather. In fact, I never knew either of my real (or biological) grandfathers, neither paternal nor maternal. They had both died before I was born. But Pa Musa was as good as any; he cared for me and loved me passionately.

Pa Musa hailed from Bullom, but he had lived in Makeni for quite a while before he met my grandmother. Apart from his main occupation as a butcher, he was also a town guard. This simply meant that he was one of a small number of men who were responsible for seeing to it that peace and order prevailed in Makeni township. They did not get any remuneration for this; they were voluntary policemen for Makeni and its environs. Indeed, they were even more than that; they often served as judges as well. Their main rewards were usually special favors from the paramount chief.

Pa Musa and others had to attend to matters of law and order, including arresting (and at times even punishing) all types of lawbreakers: thieves, vandals, murderers, rapists, rogues, and so on. They had to guard the town both day and night, but not by standing guard in some specific spot. However, as it was then quite a small town, and in any case, there were not many troublemakers around, guarding it did not pose any problem for Pa Musa and his colleagues and did not interfere with their normal pursuits.

In addition to being butcher and town guard, Pa Musa was also very actively involved with trade in kola nuts. This tied in very well with his main occupation as butcher, since he often bartered kola nuts for cows at the border between Sierra Leone and the Republic of Guinea, which was then French Guinea. He usually bought kola nuts from the villages surrounding Makeni. As a result, he was very well known in the whole area and had friends and customers in almost every village around.

He was visiting friends at Masuba (one of the surrounding villages) one day when he met my grandmother and fell in love with her at first sight. After a rather brief period of courtship, he won her over. They got married less than a year after they first met.

They first settled down in Rogbaneh, which was then a little village between Makeni and Masuba but is now part of Makeni proper. After a while, they moved over to the area that later became known as Banana Street. Initially, they put up at someone’s house, but later they acquired land and established their own home in the same area.

They didn’t buy that land. It was not the custom in those days to buy land in those parts of the country. Through the good offices of Grandma’s uncle, Sub–chief Pa Kapr Soya, and by virtue of the fact that Grandma was a native of the Makeni area, she and Pa Musa requested from the paramount chief of the area, Bai Sebora Kasanga i, a piece of land to erect their home, and the paramount chief was very generous toward them. He gave them