Word: sierras
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...sudden departure would not be too traumatic. By now, Karefa-Smart must be used to drastic changes in his life--once, he was taken from his dinner table in Sierra Leone, imprisoned, and released just as unexpectedly 141 days later. Having witnessed the confusion and coups of Sierra Leone's birth and growing pains, he realizes that he cannot enjoy a peaceful retirement after a long, lucrative practice like that of most of his McGill classmates. His open-end appointment at Harvard is as secure...
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...
...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...
Karefa-Smart's political awakening came shortly after that, during a tour of East Africa. He was stunned by the exploitation of Africans in the mining industry throughout the copper belt, and, looking around, saw far more rigid repression than relatively liberal Sierra Leone had known...
Karefa-Smith returned to Sierra Leone and resigned all of his other posts to go into political life. With Sir Albert Margai, he organized the Sierra Leone People's Party, which eventually won Sierra Leone's independence from Britain in 1961. Over the next three years, he served in a variety of key positions: Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, and Acting Prime Minister during Margai's frequent illnesses...