Looking back

Dear readers:

I’m back in the United States, for now, and so will no longer be updating this blog regularly, though I may still occasionally post news or stories about Sweet Salone.

I will leave this blog up as a resource for those who want to learn more about Sierra Leone – through the eyes of a newcomer in 2006 and a not-so-newcomer in 2010. If you’d like more current news and updates, check out Visit Sierra Leone's blog or sign up for their newsletter. Please also visit the Welbodi Partnership, a deserving effort to improve child health in Sierra Leone.

For those of you who have been following this blog over the years, thanks for reading and for your patience with my infrequent posts. I hope you’ve come to develop a soft spot for sweet, striving, startling, spectacular Sierra Leone.

And if you’d like to join me in a short trip through memory lane, look back through the archives from the last few years, and find:

stories of dust and rain...

of lazy Sundays and hectic Fridays...

of a broken health system and young lives lost and saved ...

of poverty and presidential inaugurations ...

of football stadiums and tiny village cinemas...

of mountains and tiny villages and urban chaos ...

of optimism and giving credit where credit is due...

and so much more.

Sierra Leone is still a deeply poor country, but it is not the same country it was in 2006, when UN forces kept the peace and the lights were out across the capital. With any luck, it will celebrate its 50th birthday next year with an unprecedented – and deserved – sense of hope and possibility.

Maybe you should even go celebrate with them. As a recent article in the UK’s Independent newspaper notes, “wildlife, white sands, and a new wisdom” await you.

For now, kushe and tenki.

Ryann