december 18,2006

monday

kent beach and freetown

today turned out to be a very eventful day. yeniva's friend drove tiana, samantha and me to kent for a beach party. i was seperated from the group and got the chance to experience some of the traditional customs of sierra leone.

later that evening i was able to meet my cousin duraman conateh and my father's cousin abubakar kanneh. what an exciting, tearful and joyful reunion !!!

in 5 minutes 35 years worth of question marks were answered. in prepartion for my trip i made photo albums of pictures from my father's life in america as well as pictures of my mother, brother and myself. my cousin and uncle were so pleased that i could in turn answer questions they had in a matter of minutes as well. soon we were sharing more details and learning more about each other than anyone of us could have dreamed to learn in a life time !!

my family had grown exponentially. in a matter of minutes i know had an uncle and aunt, 13 cousins and an additional 4 more uncles on the kanneh side and more cousins. i later learned that the conateh and kanneh family's have been and continue to be strongly connected.