Pede Hollist - SO THE PATH DOES NOT DIE

I purchased this book when it was released drawn to it but its catch title but also the surnale of the author. After a number of false starts, unrelated to the book, I have now managed to complete it. In a nutshell, I must say that the story was rivetting and did not disappoint. Pede Hollist adds to other Sierra Leonean authors whose books I have had the pleasure to read such as Ishmael Beah and Aminatta Forna. Sierra Leone is often seen through the eyes of its brutal Civil War but try as I might, have never quite understood the dynamics thereof. In the prologue, Pede Hollist says "When Atala the Supreme wants to test a people, He does not send a stranger. He sends a Kinsman". Perhaps this is his way of summarising the travails of Sierra Leone. This book is intense and weaves through different themes without suffocating the reader. It speaks to different kinds of loss including the loss of dreams, of loved ones, of a country, of ideals...without passing judgement one way or the other. Sierra Leone or Serra Lyoa in Portuguese owes its name to the 15th-century Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra, the first European to sight and map Freetown harbour. The Portuguese name, Serra Lyoa refers to the “Lion Mountains” or range of hills that surrounds the harbour. Its capital Freetown is so named because the land was "purchased" from local Themne chiefs in the late 18th century as a new home for resettled freed slaves from Britain and North America, and of 'recaptives' taken off seized slave ships on the Atlantic after Britain passed the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Pede Hollist makes us see Sierra Leone through Finaba's journey - and her travails - from a village in Salone to Freetown then to the USA and back. The book has an "Americanah" ting to it. Its characters, irrespective of their nationalities, are defined in one way or other by the Atlantic Ocean. Be it the African Americans like Aman, Islanders like Cammy and Scraps or Africans like Bayo, Edna, Kizzy and Finaba. They all are somewhat tied to the motherland but with different pulls to the African path. (I must digress to say that during the 2021 Olympics, my sister remarked that we should root from all people from the African Diaspora, their countries notwithstanding because they were sons and daughters of Africa - whether or not they acknowledged it.) I was drawn to Cammy's story which helped me process something rather personal. We meet Dr Cameron Dexter Priddy (Cammy) at a party midway through the book. Cammy struggles with the loss of his brother whom everyone concluded had tied quite unexpectedly. Cammy's grief is deep because he had always known that Donovan was "ill" but yet could not process it. Many years on - as a Doctor - he grieves for Donovan and cries from the depth of his soul wondering whether he could have stayed Donovan's death had he told of his illness. Often the call of "Home" is strong. The paths back home can be long winded but they must ultimately lead us home. Yet home is different things for different people. Finaba explains that home is the place where one feels comfortable whether they live in a mansion with climate control or in a windowless hut sitting on the equator. Home can also be different places at different times. Like in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Americanah" it is sometimes difficult to explain to people why one might leave the presumed "comforts" of America to return to the travails of Africa. This is the challenge that Finaba had in trying to explain to her fiancé Cammy why she needed to return to Salone when all her life she had wanted to escape from it. According to Cammy, "the concept of home is a but a memory, a canvas of good times stitched together to cope with present realities." Yet according to Finaba it is a calling preordained for her that she must fulfil so that the "path does not die". The way I see it, some paths get to a cul de sac and die but other path's go on and on. Pede sneaks a happy ending upon us...I like happy endings.