A Trip to Mother Africa Curtis J. Franks “At long last, I am finally on the continent affectionately and accurately referred to as Mother Africa, the Cradle of Civilization, home of all humanity.” That’s what I thought when our plane from Paris landed at a dimly lit airport in Conakry, Guinea. I would venture to say that the majority of our group had similar thoughts and feelings. Shortly after our arrival, a gentle rain began to fall, a reminder that it was indeed the rainy season. I interpreted this also as a sign of Mother Africa’s place in the giving of life. It portended good things for the trip and for those on the journey, if we were willing to be flexible. Therein lay the key to the trip: to be flexible and prepared to make adjustments, in schedules and attitudes, on the fly. As I wrote in the last issue of the Avery Messenger, funding from the Fulbright Hays Group student-abroad project made it possible for me to travel and study in Guinea and Sierra Leone with 11 other educators from the Charleston area for approximately 35 days this summer. Selection was competitive in nature. Each of us was required to submit written proposals explaining how the trip to the Mano River region of West Africa would expand and enhance our base of knowledge, and how the experience might be shared with others. My opportunity to share this experience involves the numerous programs and projects that the Avery Research Center sponsors that pertain to the African imprint on the history and culture of the Lowcountry. The area under consideration has been one of the main areas of focus for Avery and its collections, especially the English-speaking countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, we have few holdings that relate to Guinea. Thus, the Fulbright grant afforded me an opportunity to collect materials from Guinea to add to the Center’s collections. In my proposal, I stated that, while in Guinea, I would collect and document architecture, textiles, food ways, music, musical instruments, landscape, adornment, and art. Throughout the trip, adaptability and flexibility were key. The journey was arduous as we traveled by van, jeep, small boat, moped, motorbikes, and foot over terrain that one simply would have to witness to believe. Long stretches of the roads were not only unpaved but had huge holes as well. The journey from Conakry, Guinea, to Freetown, Sierra Leone, ordinarily takes no more than nine hours; we spent almost 15 hours on that trip. The various modes of transportation were required if we were to experience the diversity of the area—that is, the “diversity” of ethnic groups and landscapes, and how those two key concepts manifest themselves in the architecture (urban and rural, traditional and modern) and the flora and fauna. Our interinery included visits to slave fortresses (Bunce Island in Sierra Leone; Boké, Boffa, and Fareniya in Guinea); museums, colleges, and universities; churches and mosques; markets and clothing cooperatives; and various industries (bauxite plants in Fria and Kamsar, Guinea). Throughout our travels, I was amazed at the variety of the landscape, especially in Guinea, where the majority of our time was spent. We saw clear evidence of the linkages between the Mano River region and the Lowcountry of South Carolina and the Sea Islands. This was especially the case in Freetown and Bo in Sierra Leone and in Kan Kan and Kamsar, Guinea. The prevalence of brightly painted, decorative wrought-iron doors and gates reminded me of Charleston’s architecture. On the trip to Bo, Sierra Leone’s second largest city, we immediately became aware of the natural beauty of the rural countryside: lush green grass, some of it similar to the Lowcountry’s sweetgrass, stately palmetto trees, and tropical fruit trees, all heavily loaded. In Bo, as in many rural areas in West Africa, the majority of the structures are made of a thick, mud-based brick that resembles stucco. The structures are conical in shape, with thatched roofs on top of sticks. Usually, several huts or traditional houses encircle a compound. Separate from the main buildings is the cooking area or kitchen, which has a thatched roof but is open around the sides, gazebo-like. Throughout the rural areas, we saw from the road numerous mortars and pestles, which reminded us of the importance of rice in West Africa. Centuries ago, labor and ingenuity provided by enslaved Africans from this same region were directly responsible for the cultivation of rice in colonial South Carolina. Another common and familiar site is the fanner basket, used to winnow rice. In Bo, we viewed rice fields and the tools and instruments used to prepare rice for consumption. In Bo, several people in our group attended St. Augustine’s Methodist Church. The service was very uplifting and was driven by the familiar call-and-response method of singing and preaching. The service was rendered in Mende, English, and Krio, and the Krio resonated with us right away due to its linguistic kinship to the Gullah language. (We also encountered a Krio speaker while attending a Muslim prayer service in Kan Kan, Guinea.) Besides these connections with the Lowcountry, we were particularly struck by the reminders of the civil war in Sierra Leone, which ended in 2002 after about a decade of fighting. We saw amputees playing soccer on the beach. We visited Njala University in Bo, which was destroyed during the civil war. By Western standards, the university library is nonexistent, with very few volumes and subject areas. It was heartbreaking, but the reality is that university officials are starting over. (Members of the Fulbright delegation donated books and supplies and made a monetary contribution to the school.) To complicate matters further, the university and the nation are dealing with day-to-day issues of survival. Officials at the university stated very clearly that their objective is to make education more practical and less theoretical. They feel that their challenge is to develop an educational system which will result in the production of food for the nation. Throughout our travels in both Guinea and Sierra Leone, there seemed an urgent need to produce food for a large segment of the population. The church we visited was founded at the onset of the civil war and served as a refuge for the people of Bo throughout the war and after. It was quite obvious to us the importance assigned to the church by its congregants. In fact, the church, which was sizable, was filled to capacity, with some of the congregation seated in folding chairs in the aisle. As was the case throughout our time in West Africa, the people in the church were extremely hospitable to us. On numerous occasions we benefited from the importance that Africans, regardless of their ethnicity, assign to interpersonal relationships, as well as the practice of a very special and unique kind of African humanism. A pervasive optimism, which appeared to be infectious, was especially evident in Bo, despite the devastating impact on the area’s resources, human and otherwise. In fact, it was through the stories of the people that survived the civil war that we began to get a sense of the war’s enormity: the relatives and acquaintances killed, the natural materials needed to make baskets and other items destroyed. Throughout our travels, we made presentations to students in colleges and universities, public and parochial schools, and community groups. We were always accorded respect, and the students were very attentive. But, at the end of the day, invariably the question from them was, “How will your time here studying and sharing benefit us concretely?” Of course, the same question now is being posed on the back end of the trip. As a partial answer, I offer the following: as a grateful beneficiary of the Fulbright Program, I have and will continue to speak and write about the experience, offering my perspective of the African connections. In closing, let me say how truly grateful I am to have had the opportunity to travel to the Mano River region of West Africa under Fulbright Hays’ sponsorship. The trip afforded me the opportunity to add to the Avery Research Center’s material culture holdings, as well as its photographic collection. Additionally, the trip provided opportunities to document the diversity in landscape, architecture, ethnicities, and other facets of life in the region, a region in which people of African descent in this area have very strong historical and cultural connections. Though the area is still impacted by the recent civil war, Africans in each of the respective countries are forging ahead in a very optimistic and positive manner. As was stated in a National Geographic Magazine issue on Africa (September 2005), “Despite all its problems, African peoples produce magnificent art, graceful cultures, terrific music, great works of the mind, and astounding acts of political and moral courage.” All of these were on display during our visit to West Africa. All of them will remain indelible in and on the minds and hearts of those who made that journey and who have promised to share their experiences with others.