Periscope
12 NEWSWEEK.COM OCTOBER 18, 2019
AFRICAits residents live it, see it and travel
it—as I saw it in the Peace Corps.
So, I started my journey on a motor-
cycle taxi. The driver wore a football
helmet with no strap. It was too large
and slipped around on his head. Occa-
sionally he reached up with one hand
and gave it a quick rotation, twist-
ing the eyehole around so he could
see. We weaved and darted between
vehicles, my legs brushing against
bumpers and sides of cars, swerving
around pedestrians, accelerating
quickly into seemingly impenetrable
walls of traffic and somehow emerg-
ing from the other side.
Four vehicles later, we squeezed
into an already overloaded poda-poda,
a minivan. I sat on a fold-down seat.
Next to me on a small wooden stool
crouched the teen whose job it was to
tout, load passengers and collect fares.
Every few hundred yards, he jumped
out and handed me his stool to hold
until we started up again. We wound
our way down the mountain side. As
we rounded each curve the top-heavy
vehicle rocked outward, and I stared
out over the precipice onto the tops
of the houses clinging to the sides of
the steep ravines.
The poda-poda left us at Pee Zed,
named after a trading house once
located there. Pee Zed was jammed
with stalls and people. Building walls
were black with soot and the street
ankle deep in trash. A sour stench
rose from the open gutters. Vendors
carrying everything from electronics
to clothing to hardware jostled, shov-
ing samples toward prospects. Lining
the street were verandas crowded
with shops, banners and customers.
They looked over fragile-looking rail-
ings at the mass below. The vendors
carried small battery-powered bull-
horns with recorded messages like
“The best of the best is here and not
to be missed! Best price! Best price!”Preferential access to the western
markets? Expand Peace Corps? All of
the above and more? In a career in
international business, I have worked
in dozens of countries in Europe,
Australasia, Africa and the Americas.
I’ve worked for the world’s largest
corporations as well as NGOs like
the World Bank. In the process, I’ve
talked to literally hundreds of devel-
opment experts, executives and gov-
ernment leaders about development.
None believe more aid will work.
To find out what would work,
I headed to Africa. In particular,
Sierra Leone, a small country on
the west coast of Africa famous for
Ebola and blood diamonds. It is one
of the poorest nations in the world,
184 out of 189 on the U.N.’s Human
Development Index, far below coun-
tries like Haiti and Iran. For centuries,
Sierra Leone has been the epitome of
hopelessness. In 1827, popular author
Frederick Chamier wrote he’d trav-
elled widely and, “never knew and
heard mention of so villainous and
iniquitous a place.” Robert Kaplan,
25 years ago, used it as the proof case
in his influential article “The Coming
Anarchy.” Central America is well-off
compared to Sierra Leone.
But it is also a country that could
be a model for economic revival.
And I had another reason for focus-
ing on Sierra Leone. I lived there in the
Peace Corps almost a half-century ago.
I have a baseline from which to mea-
sure Sierra Leone’s progress, or lack
thereof. And I have skin in the game,
in the form of friends I hadn’t heard
from since the war. So in 2018, I went
back, deep into the bush where jour-
nalists and even aid workers rarely go,
to talk to people the academics and
experts don’t talk to. I found a face-to-
face reality that was far more daunting
and desperate than I’d expected, but at
the same time I came away convincedthe solution is out there. But it’s not
doing the same old thing that hasn’t
worked for hundreds of years.my journey began in the capital
city of Freetown, made famous in
the book, Blood Diamonds. I opted
to travel upcountry as poor locals
do, using public transportation and
on foot, eating whatever I could find
along the way. Prominent business-
man Alfred Gborie called that, “A very
bad idea.” He was right.
Sierra Leone is roughly the size
of South Carolina and roundish,
with two Yoda-like ears that jut
out on either side. The left ear is
the Western Area where Freetown
is located. My destination was the
right ear, the rough border town of
Kailahun, where both the war and
Ebola started. The few Americans
who travel beyond Freetown usually
hire an air-conditioned Land Cruiser
and driver. It’s not just about com-
fort. Smaller roads are a nightmare
of rocks, ruts and mud. Vehicles
are falling apart. Drivers are often
drunk. And there are still a lot of
unemployed fighters around. Every-
one knows visitors carry wads of cash
because electronic payments aren’t
used upcountry. Kaplan called West
African cities at night “some of the
un-safest” on earth.
But I wanted to see the country as“As Americans
are still experiencing
400 years on,slavery corrodes
everything it touches.”