SIERRA LEONE’S NEW AMBASSADOR ARRIVES IN MOSCOW IN AN AWE-INSPIRING WAY TO ASSUME OFFICE

 

MOSCOW, RUSSIA. - Sierra Leone’s new Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Mr. John Yambasu, landed at the Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow yesterday on the 20^th October 2010 at the start of his posting to Moscow.

H.E Mr. Yambasu and Entourage

  

    H.E Mr. Yambasu, together with a high-powered entourage from members of the United Kingdom Branch of the All People’s Congress (APC) Party were greeted with bouquets of flowers at the airport by the Head of Chancery, Mr. Ibrahim V. Kondoh, and staff of the Sierra Leone Embassy in Moscow, members of the Union of African Ambassadors and Executive members of the National Union of Sierra Leone students in Russia. In a short but exuberant reception in one of the VIP lounges at the airport, the Kenyan Ambassador to Russia, H.E Paul K. Kurgat ,who coincidentally happened to have graduated from the same University where Ambassador Yambasu did his preparatory Russia language course some 30 years ago was given the honour to chair the auspicious ceremony and he requested that there be a self introduction for fear  of mispronouncing someone’s name. He officially welcomed H.E Yambasu to Russia and to their Ambassadors’ Group.  “We hope to have a wonderful time with you and pray you enjoy your stay, but there are just two things I need to tell you about Russia: the extremely harsh weather and the Moscow ‘Probka’ (Traffic Jam)”

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Michelle Obama...a Sierra Leonean?

Mrs. Michelle Obama, nee Robinson, may be descended from a Sierra Leonean rice farmer who was probably captured in his farm in Southern Sierra Leone and sold in to North American slavery at the instigation of the Lords Proprietors of England, probably in the early to mid-18th Century. 

The Lords Proprietors were grand land speculators based in London who obtained grants from the King of England to develop the Carolinas in North America as a commercial enterprise in 1663 and 1665. Carolina was defined as land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. By late that Century, the Lords Proprietors were virtually bankrupt and desperate for survival when they happened upon a sea captain who, noticing the geographical similarities between South Carolina and Sierra Leone (hot, humid, swampy lowlands on the Atlantic coast; rivers-originating highlands in the Northern interior) and knew from experience that rice flourished in Sierra Leone, suggested that the Lords Proprietors adopt rice as their cash crop. They did and so the existing slave trade took a catastrophic turn for Sierra Leone’s successful rice farmers. 
 

Michelle Obama traces her ancestry back 5-generations to her great-great grandfather, one Jim Robinson, who was born into slavery in the Friendfield Plantation, Georgetown, South Carolina, a rice plantation. Despite its name: 8 0Friendfield’, it was most certainly not a friendly place for the enslaved inhabitants who toiled in swamps from day break to beyond sunset six-and-a-half days a week from childhood until a few months or weeks before death. Whereupon, they were interred in the plantation’s swamps! 
Mrs. Obama’s connection to Sierra Leone first came to light only recently when her Gullah-speaking relatives from South Carolina showed up in Washington for her husband’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States. The Gullah Language is a Creole-like language that originated with the West African-trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and still spoken in the South Carolina low country were rice farmers from Sierra Leone were forced to settle create the rice industry for whites. 

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DR. JONH KAREFA-SMART PASSED AWAY

One of the Architects of Sierra Leone's Independence, an outstanding Medical Professional, seasoned Politician,  ordained first Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone and a former flag-bearer of the United National Peoples' Party (UNPP)(The Lamp) has passed away peacefully yesterday evening (26th August)at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown. He died at about 20:25GMT with all the members of his immediate family gathered around him. Funeral arrangements will be announced later.

 May he rest in perfect peace!!!

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Have just started

 Hi everyone,
   this is the blog I've created about Sierra Leone in Russia. Hope to be giving you the latest of updates, news, activities and entertainment.

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