Sierra Leone is often sensationalized as a place of extreme violence and suffering—of blood diamonds, child soldiers, war amputations, and Ebola and now the highly addictive drug Kush. Before Before captures daily life in a different country, one Betsy Small first encountered as a Peace Corps worker between 1984–1987, and then rediscovered when she returned decades later with her daughter. Living in Tokpombu, a remote community of forty rice-farming families, the author faced struggles that changed her forever and witnessed the growing tensions in this rainforest village—between the young and old, between the traditions of oral history and honoring the ancestors valued by the elders and the siren call of the illicit diamond mines faced by the youth.
Before Before offers a rare portrait of everyday people, with particular focus on the lives of women and girls, before the brutal war of 1991 tore the country apart. Through Small’s account of immersion in another world as she witnessed injustice and was welcomed as a friend, readers are invited to explore the shared ground of our humanity.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
Chapter 1: Witchbird
Chapter 2: Folds
Chapter 3: Chief’s Decision
Chapter 4: Do You Want a Box?
Chapter 5: Good, Better, Best
Chapter 6: Swimming Lessons
Chapter 7: Bawbee(s)
Chapter 8: Beauty Season
Chapter 9: Those Who Were Not Loyal
Chapter 10: Fishpond
Chapter 11: Directions of Wonder
Chapter 12: Felt-Tipped
Chapter 13: Good Morning, America!
Chapter 14: Strident Cry of the Weaver Birds
Chapter 15: Be All and End All
Chapter 16: Perception
About the Author :
Betsy Small is the Executive Director at Creating Friendships for Peace. Learn more at her website www.betsysmall.com.
Review :
“Betsy Small’s beautiful writing transports you straight to the sights, sounds, and smells of Tokpombu, and immediately brought me back to my years in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. Before Before is a vivid account of what we all learn intimately as volunteers: we set out to share and teach, but return as the ones truly taught.”
“When JFK established the Peace Corps he had modest expectations of fostering mutual understanding between Americans and people of other nations and cultures. He underestimated the impact it was to have on those of us who served. Betsy Small’s masterpiece tells that story. In a small village in Sierra Leone she finds her resilience, empathy, understanding, and grit. In the Krio and Kono languages Learn and Teach are interchangeable—a fitting metaphor for this extraordinary book.”
“In Sierra Leone, we have many sayings—Wan an bangul noh bah shake (It takes many bracelets on a wrist to make a beautiful sound) is an example. The stories and memories invoked in Before Before are illustrative of this core belief—that it takes many voices to tell a story. These chapters not only tell stories of Sierra Leone from a whole new perspective, but they weave an intersection between what people want to hear and what they may not yet understand.”
“Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone offers a rich and compelling ethnographic account of life in a Kono village in eastern Sierra Leone in the 1980s before the onset of the Sierra Leone civil war in 1991. It represents one of the best recollections of life in pre-war Sierra Leone and it should be preserved to help future generations appreciate what life was like in Sierra Leone before the war.”
“Riveting, revealing, and brimming with heart-stopping beauty and cruelty, Before Before is not just a great book, but an essential one for these times. It's a model of compassion and of humility, and of brilliant story-telling that both honors and chastens humanity.”
“Written with elegant and vivid prose, Betsy Small’s timely and important memoir, Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone, transports us to the farming village in West Africa in 1984, where she landed as a newly-minted Peace Corps Agriculture Volunteer only a few years before the country and its people would be unimaginably scarred by civil conflict and disease. The extraordinary depths of research, self-reflection, and care that Small plumbed to bring this story to the page of not only the community she encountered then, but also the unbreakable connections that remain 40 years later, despite all that has changed, are what make this book immeasurably compelling. A must-read for all who seek to understand how our shared humanity is stronger than the forces that strive to tear us apart.”
"A powerful commentary and memoir that challenge Western narratives of Sierra Leone."
“A masterful blend of autobiography and ethnography, offering readers a window into Sierra Leone’s past and present through the eyes of a thoughtful observer and a loving mother. The 2013 visit with Lilly adds emotional depth and narrative symmetry, reminding us that stories—like lives—are never truly finished. They echo, evolve, and invite us to listen anew.”
