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  West African Journeys,
Part two		    

Site of Black Diamond's former home 		In this two-week series, internationally known filmmaker Sorious Samura takes radio listeners on a gripping, personal journey through Western Africa.

  
FIRST HALF


This trip to Liberia is an intensely personal journey for Samura - the last time he was here in 2000 he was imprisoned along with three colleagues on a charge of espionage, a capital offense. After a week in prison during which he was tortured, he and his team were released following personal appeals to then-President Charles Taylor from, among others, Nelson Mandela and Jesse Jackson.

Liberia is still recovering from its brutal 14-year-long civil war. In this documentary produced for the BBC World Service, Samura profiles the journey of a former child soldier, Black Diamond. When she was 15, Black Diamond was raped and witnessed the murders of her parents by government forces. She harnessed her anger and joined the rebels. Samura travels with her as she now tries to come home, and reunite with the daughter who was conceived in that attack.
SECOND HALF


This journey begins on the shores of a fishing village called Godrich near Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone and Samura’s hometown. Samura meets Aruna Cole, a fisherman like his father before him. Aruna, perhaps like fishermen the world over, is very attentive to the spirits, and one particular spirit called ‘Mammy-wata’; the she devil of the water. Without her blessing or understanding, Aruna tells Samura, no fisherman can expect success at sea. She must be feared and respected

Samura himself cannot swim. As a child growing up in Sierra Leone, he, too, had been taught to fear the spirit that lived in the sea. As an adult, Samura is keenly aware of the dominant role superstitions continue to play in modern African life. And he questions how Africa can move forward while maintaining its rich traditions -- and while being pulled by the spirit world.


Click here to listen to West Africa Journeys, Part One.

     
   
     



THE CHANGING WORLD is the sister documentary series of PRI's The World. Each week, we offer American radio listeners two in-depth documentaries from the BBC World Service that probe issues critical to our understanding of our evolving world.
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