Word: karefa
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...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...
...mature Karefa-Smart left Africa for the first time to study premed courses at Otterbein in Ohio. American medical schools were practically closed to all blacks, so he enrolled at McGill. As a British subject, he was drafted by the Canadian government during World War II, served his time in the Bahamas, and immediately after V-J Day, returned to his home village of Rotifunk...
...Karefa-Smart went right to work at the missionary hospital in Rotifunk with the American missionary who had originally inspired him to go on to college. And when she returned to America on furlough, he continued alone. Twelve to fourteen hours a day, he treated the Africans who came to him with every tropical disease imaginable...