Sierra Leone – a Continuum

February 2025

I landed in Sierra Leone with a feeling I hadn’t recognised in years. I travel constantly, sometimes to a new country every week and somewhere along the way the thrill that used to electrify me at every landing began to thin out. I stopped asking for window seats and started wearing an eye mask on every plane and even car journey just to catch some sleep. I’m not proud of that. Travel, for me, has never been a checklist, yet routine has a strange way of softening even the extraordinary.

This time felt similar at first. I wanted to visit the country, but I wasn’t particularly fazed either way not because I wasn’t interested, but because beneath the performance of the “fearless guide who knows everything” sat the truth – I knew nothing. And that put me in a strange kind of fear. Not fear for my safety, but fear of the responsibility of bringing fourteen perfect strangers into a place I had never set foot in. Even with my very basic level of knowledge, I understood that Sierra Leone carried a history both monumental and painful, and I was terrified of not giving it the respect it deserved.

Before arriving, I did what most of us do before confronting something uncomfortable, I tried to cram facts. Thank you ChatGPT, I memorised the dates, names, timelines and told myself if I know enough I can bluff it .. spoiler alert, I am an idiot. If there is one thing this country would teach me is that no amount of reading prepares you for Sierra Leone’s story, especially when told by someone who still carries its scars on their body.

Our local fixer, Bassi, was one of the most extraordinary men I’ve met anywhere in the world. He didn’t sugarcoat anything, and he didn’t lower his voice to ease us into the hard parts. Instead, he spoke with a kind of courage I have never seen in a man… sadly. He shared his story with vulnerability, with tears, with a strength that I still find hard to fathom. He didn’t curate it, he owned every chapter of his life in a way most of us only pretend to online, posting the highlights while he stood in front of us with the truth.

The History-ish

To preface his story, it’s important to understand that Sierra Leone was one of the largest departure points of the transatlantic slave trade. For nearly two centuries, tens of thousands of men, women, and children were stolen from their homes, branded, and forced onto ships bound for the Caribbean, Brazil, and the southern United States. Those who survived the journey were sold into plantation labour, sugar, cotton, coffee industries built entirely on their exploitation.

When they were taken, they weren’t stripped of their humanity (that, I believe, was something the captors stripped from themselves). They were stripped of everything else, their names, their families, their languages, their cultures, every personal freedom and connection that made them who they were.

The ripple effect isn’t a metaphor here it’s the reality of Sierra Leone. Its story can’t be written neatly or in isolated chapters and I don’t think any amount of reading and ChatGPTing could have prepared me. The trauma of the slave trade carved deep fractures into communities, wounds that, generations later, helped fuel the 1991–2002 civil war, a conflict so recent it still shapes every family tree. Bassi was pulled into that war as a child, losing his family and being separated from his brother. And he was not alone. Nearly everyone I met had lived through it in some way, each carrying a story as heavy and significant as the next.

Bassi had also survived modern-day trafficking a sentence I still struggle to comprehend. Standing there listening to him, surrounded by travellers who had come for an “educational experience,” I watched the weight of his words settle on the group. At one point a traveller asked him, “Can we have a moment?” because their grief just by listening was simply too much to hold all at once.

My instinct was discomfort, how could we ask him to pause his own story? Others wanted me to encourage him to continue, even if it made some of our group uneasy, and I felt caught between both worlds. I’m learning that grief is not a performance, and there is no correct or polite way to move through it. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how many degrees you hold, how much money you have in the bank, you are either born with that kind of fortitude or you are not.

Reflecting

After returning, I fell into a deep rabbit hole of reading and wanting to find answers to questions that I am still yet to find the answer for but here’s the truth that shocked me most – there are more enslaved people in the world today than at any point in human history. More than during the height of the transatlantic trade. We like to believe slavery is a closed chapter, but the world simply found quieter ways to continue it.

Bassi understood that more than anyone. He guided with humour, dignity, presence, and refusing to disappear, he changed all of our lives so maybe by sharing his story we can bring just a little bit more attention to it. Following him through his own homeland felt like being shown Sierra Leone in the most sincere way and the last week I have really been thinking about how I as a privileged person should be doing more.

Why This Trip Mattered More Than I Expected

Sierra Leone cracked something open in me. It forced me to confront the emotional distance I had built to survive life on the road. It reminded me why I do this job – to meaningfully connect people to places that deserve to be seen clearly and respectfully.

Side note: My plan in returning to Australia was simple, replace the equipment I’d lost, rebuild, and start telling the stories that genuinely make us rethink the world. Sierra Leone is at the top of that list. Over the last few days, I’ve realised how deeply I need to make this happen, and how committed I am to continuing to show up and give voice to the people and places that are so often unheard.