For the attention of William Bangura of Sierra Leone and America: APC Scores Big
William,
Just a short note which might run longer than intended at the beginning.
I got married at the US Embassy in Freetown on Hiroshima Day, 1969. As to how and why this happened you'll have to wait for the authorised version - hopefully edited by Professor Harrow & Co – however my cousin ( another first cousin) Lucy Hamelberg was the Secretary at USIS and that also has something to do with it.
I'm thinking along these lines this afternoon, two hours before candle-lighting time in Stockholm, because of your reply to my query which was:
" I should like to ask you and I would like you to explain it to us about you and some of the Negroes over there, how come they are showing such overwhelming love and support for Ohporto Hillary C? Am I missing something? Why not Bernie? What has Hillary ever done to deserve their support?
I am patiently waiting for a reply from you which will be grounded on "facts and comprehensive research"
When it comes to the US, perhaps because of the information overflow, and our extreme focus on the US - for me, since the days of Dean Rusk up to these most recent days , I am surely more informed and opinionated about the US in general than about Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Bamako, Cairo, Soweto , Brazzaville and Kinshasa combined. Perhaps because of all that literature, poetry , jazz and dance , rhythm and blues, soul and rap - not to mention the civil rights struggle etc.
In secondary school in Sierra Leone, we had a lunch programme - i.e. US – Aid donated bags of flour to our school and just as you have heard that Jesus turned water into wine, so too that US flour was regularly turned into bread - our lunch - hot buns with some blue band margarine (a little salty) smelted in and we baptised those loaves, called the school lunch "Kennedy". I hereby grant you permission to believe that this was our own secular version of what Catholics call "the holy Eucharist" – the main difference being of course that whereas the Catholics believe their holy Eucharist to be " the living body and blood of Jesus", we were only exceedingly grateful to JFK for our free daily bread and butter - especially those amongst us who prayed " Our Father Who art in Heaven, hollowed be Thy Name , Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven , give us this day , our daily bread…."
And thus love for JFK grew in the same tradition as he who is alleged to have fed the multitudes with two fishes and five loaves of bread. So, be not surprised dear William when I tell you that in the fourth form - circa 1962 I represented the US in our mock session of the UN General Assembly debate ( the bombastic Mukhtarr Mustapha a few years older but already a great orator - represented Cuba and dutifully conveyed his greetings from Fidel Castro); suffice it to say that after the debate the American Ambassador came over to shake hands with his boy. Well, I had done my research.
From the beginning of the Peace Corps initiative in Sierra Leone right up to 1965 during which time my cousin Cyril Rogers-Wright jnr (a first cousin) was the liaison officer in Freetown, we always had a couple of peace corps volunteers staying at home (usually African- American – but also toubabs) to help familiarise them with the Krio language and Sierra Leone Creole culture. Surprisingly, every once on a while one of our Soul brothers would be recalled – back to the states – and the reason we were given was : wanted by the FBI for this or that crime under investigation…. Now I leave it to you to go figure.( This was at a time when the main news in print ( about world & US) was TIME and NEWSWEEK…
About my own personal US connections in those days – some of the returnees - those who had studied in the US and returned to Salone, and the many peace corps acquaintances and the dozens of exchange students that I went to school with and who were my good friends, and the many American teachers I've had in various places during the period 1966- 2016, not to mention all the American friends and acquaintances in Sweden ( some of them radical exiles) and in the United States have contributed immensely to that awareness and different understandings. In my last days in Freetown , before moving to Magburaka I remember playing table tennis with the US Ambassador's kids at their home…and by the way, one of the last people I met I my very last visit to Sierra Leone in April 1970, was Mukhtarr Mustapha – still in his Harry Belafonte hairstyle - we had a drink at Kit-Kat and I'll have you know that although we were good friends and had the same close friends – Desmond Easmon, George Morgan and that group, it was only years later that I got to know that Mukhtarr was not Temne but Creole ! And that was during a discussion about Mukhtarr Mustapha's marriage with the daughter of Nana Akufo-Addo, a former President of Ghana. " You know that Creoles like marrying Ghanaian women " I was told and replied " But Mukhtarr is not Creole, he's Temne" and everybody laughed and asked me, " So is his father, M.S. Mustapha Temne?" and I answered "Of course" and everyone burst into laughter, one more time!
Anyway, as the saying goes, " home is where the heart is" ( I'm talking about your s, your heart) and since you're always talking about it – and about them (your hobby horse ) – Sierra Leone's APC , well here's some more : things are happening and here's the latest : APC Scores Big followed a few days later by some heads rolling in the mighty rumble: the cabinet reshuffle . Your petition " I cry for Tonkolili " gained traction – and I suppose that we would like to hear from the horse's mouth - in response to some of the responses in that thread. C'mon. You are a man of the Temne people and the Temnes and the other Sierra Leone people would like to hear your voice on these matters of great importance.
"Knowledge and truth our forefathers spread, Mighty the nations whom they led"
" Make Sierra Leone Great again! You're only flesh and blood with a memory capacity less than my neighbour Jonas Von Essen. So, stop being aloof like Sheikh Bangura when you could be more like the Sheik of Araby
Wishing you a pleasant weekend
Cornelius
On Friday, 18 March 2016 17:16:34 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
For the attention of William Bangura of Sierra Leone and America: APC Scores Big
William,
Just a short note which might run longer than intended at the beginning.
I got married at the US Embassy in Freetown on Hiroshima Day , 1969. As to how and why this happened you'll have to wait for the authorised version - hopefully edited by Professor Harrow & Co – however my cousin ( another first cousin,) Lucy Hamelberg was the Secretary at USIS and that also has something to do with it.
I'm thinking along these lines this afternoon, two hours before candle-lighting time in Stockholm, because of your reply to my query which was:
" I should like to ask you and I would like you to explain it to us about you and some of the Negroes over there, how come they are showing such overwhelming love and support for Ohporto Hillary C? Am I missing something? Why not Bernie? What has Hillary ever done to deserve their support?
I am patiently waiting for a reply from you which will be grounded on "facts and comprehensive research"
When it comes to the US, perhaps because of the information overflow, and our extreme focus on the US - for me, since the days of Dean Rusk up to these most recent days , I am surely more informed and opinionated about the US in general than about Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Bamako, Cairo, Soweto , Brazzaville and Kinshasa combined. Perhaps because of all that literature, poetry , jazz and dance , rhythm and blues, soul and rap - not to mention the civil rights struggle etc.
In secondary school in Sierra Leone, we had a lunch programme - i.e. US – Aid donated bags of flour to our school and just as you have heard that Jesus turned water into wine, so too that US flour was regularly turned into bread - our lunch - hot buns with some blue band margarine (a little salty) smelted in and we baptised those loaves, called the school lunch "Kennedy". I hereby grant you permission to believe that this was our own secular version of what Catholics call "the holy Eucharist" – the main difference being of course that whereas the Catholics believe their holy Eucharist to be " the living body and blood of Jesus", we were only exceedingly grateful to JFK for our free daily bread and butter - especially those amongst us who prayed " Our Father Who art in Heaven, hollowed be Thy Name , Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven , give us this day , our daily bread…."
And thus love for JFK grew in the same tradition as he who is alleged to have fed the multitudes with two fishes and five loaves of bread. So, be not surprised dear William when I tell you that in the fourth form - circa 1962 I represented the US in our mock session of the UN General Assembly debate (the bombastic Mukhtarr Mustapha a few years older but already a great orator - represented Cuba and dutifully conveyed his greetings from Fidel Castro); suffice it to say that after the debate the American Ambassador came over to shake hands with his boy. Well, I had done my research.
From the beginning of the Peace Corps initiative in Sierra Leone right up to 1965 during which time my cousin Cyril Rogers- Wright jnr (a first cousin) was the liaison officer in Freetown, we always had a couple of peace corps volunteers staying at home ( usually African- American – but also toubabs) to help familiarise them with the Krio language and Sierra Leone Creole culture – surprisingly every once on a while one of our Soul brothers would be recalled – back to the states – and the reason we were given was ; wanted by the FBI for this or that crime under investigation…. Now I leave it to you to go figure.( This was at a time when the main news in print ( about world & US) was TIME and NEWSWEEK…
About my own person US connections in those days – some of the returnees - those who had studied in the US and returned to Salone, and the many peace corps acquaintances and the dozens of the exchange students that I went to school with and who were my good friends, and the many American teachers I've had in various places during the period 1966- 2016, not to mention all the American friends and acquaintances in Sweden ( some of them radical exiles) and in the United have contributed immensely to that awareness and different understandings. In my last days in Freetown , before moving to Magburaka I remember playing table tennis with the US Ambassador's kids at their home…and by the way, one of the last people I met I my very last visit to Sierra Leone in April 1970, was Mukhtarr Mustapha – still in his Harry Belafonte hairstyle and I'll ä have you know that although we were good friends and had the same close friends – Desmond Easmon, George Morgan and that group, it was only years later that I got to know that Mukhtarr was not Temne but Creole ! And that was during a discussion about Mukhtarr Mustapha's marriage with the daughter of Nana Akufo-Addo, a former President of Ghana. " You know that Creoles like marrying Ghanaian women " I was told and replied " But Mukhtarr is not Creole he's Temne" and everybody laughed and asked me, " So was his father, M.S. Mustapha Temne ? " and I answered of course and everyone burst into laughter, one more time!
Anyway, as the saying goes, " Home is where the heart is" ( I'm talking about yours, your heart) and since you're always talking about it – and about them ,your hobby horse – Sierra Leone's APC , well here's some more : things are happening and here's the latest : APC Scores Big followed a few days later by some heads rolling in the mighty rumble: the cabinet reshuffle . Your petition "I cry for Tonkolili " gained traction – and I suppose that we would like to hear from the horse's mouth - in responses to some of the responses in that thread. C'mon. You are a man of the Temne people and the Temnes and the other Sierra Leone people would like to hear your voice. On these matters of great importance.
"Knowledge and truth our forefathers spread, Mighty the nations whom they led"
Sir William is it not time to" Make Sierra Leone Great again!"?Remeber that you're only flesh and blood with a memory capacity less than that of my neighbour Jonas Von Essen. So, stop being aloof like Sheikh Bangura when you could esaily be more like the Sheik of ArabyWishing you a pleasant weekend
Cornelius
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