Word: karefa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Karefa-Smart traces his determined optimism and sense of community to his childhood among the indigenous tribes of Sierra Leone. His grandfather was Paramount Chief of the area, and concern for all of the Chief's subjects naturally flowed to others in the ruling family...
...Karefa-Smart was a third son, and not in line for his grandfather's post. "So I had to look for other fields," he says. An American missionary encouraged him to attend the American Missionary Society's local grade school and the high school at the capitol, Freetown...
...Karefa-Smart's understanding of his own people was based on his parallel education that began when his grandfather decided that, at the age of six, he was ready for initiation into the secret Poro Society. Seventy-five years ago, that society gaimed fame for its resistance of British domination. But by the 1920s, it was actually an indigenous community school, and becoming a member was like making a social debut...
...secret just in that there were passwords that only members knew," Karefa-Smart explains, stripping away the mystery. "We learned tribal history, tribal customs, tribal traditions. At the end, we had a big ceremony in which we were introduced to the tribe as new members...
Intent on helping the missionaries at the local hospital, Karefa-Smart decided to become a doctor--an almost unreachable goal for an African then. He was the first member of his community to go to college, and only the second from an indigenous tribe in the entire country to go to professional school. The first was Sir Albert Margai, Sierra Leone's first Prime Minister; Karefa-Smart became Margai's top aid and the country's first Foreign Minister...