DAVID SWICK, "FREETONG COMES TO TOWN: SIERRA LEONE TROUPE BRINGS COUNTRY BACK TO HALIFAX ROOTS," HALIFAX DAILY NEWS  (APRIL 18, 2003).

Copyright Halifax Daily News 2003

Charles Haffner has been to Scotland, Puerto Rico and Denmark, but has now arrived in a place with a family connection. "I wanted to come here," the man from Sierra Leone says, "because our ancestors came from Nova Scotia."

Many of the people of Sierra Leone, on the coast of West Africa, share a remarkable heart connection with Nova Scotians. It's a connection stretching back more than 200 years, to shortly after the founding of Halifax.

Thousands of blacks came to this province after supporting Britain in the U.S. war of independence. They were disappointed: promises of land and rights were not fulfilled. And so, in 1792, more than 1,000 Nova Scotia blacks sailed to Africa.

"When the Nova Scotians arrived in 1792, they founded their own town, and called it Freetown," Haffner said. "Today it is the capital city of Sierra Leone.

"There is a church in the very centre of Freetown, known as Zion on the Level Church. There are two Zion churches in Freetown, one on the hill and one on the level, the plain. The one on the level was founded by Nova Scotians, and is still there."

Haffner is one of the Freetong players, a four-person theatre- dance group that is finishing up a three-month tour of Ontario with a visit to Nova Scotia. On the tour, they have performed for more than 21,000 students and 11,000 adults.

Yesterday afternoon they were gearing up for their 90th tour performance, in front of Grade 5 kids at Portland Estates elementary school in Dartmouth. The 91st and final performance is tomorrow, at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax.

Haffner said he saw a radical difference between schools in Ontario and here.

"Here in Nova Scotia, every class we have talked to knows this history. Their teachers know. Whether white or black, teachers know it well ... But in Ontario, most people said, `Huh?' They did not know the connection.

"Also, we did not see a black cultural centre with so much energy as the one here. The blacks of Nova Scotia are really into their history. History is here. Black history is here."

Most of Sierra Leone's five million people come from 13 major ethnic groups. The one made up of the descendents of slaves, Haffner said, is called Creole.

"If you are Creole, you are either descended from the Nova Scotians who arrived in 1792, the Maroons (who arrived from the West Indies) in 1800, or from the British domestic slaves who arrived after slavery was abolished in 1772."

When performing for high school students, the Freetong Players include songs and information about the war that brutalized their country between 1991 and 1999. When performing for younger students, they have softened the information.

But even younger students would see that one of the players, Mohamed Lappia, is missing a leg. He is one of the victims of the war, which saw fighters indulging in the sadistic ritual of chopping off civilians' arms and legs.

When in Toronto, Lappia was fitted for a prosthetic leg, which was offered for $5,000 instead of the usual $18,000. When the troupe goes home next week, Haffner said, Lappia will be the proud owner of a new leg.

"We have raised money for this on this tour, and we are so grateful to Canadians for helping," Haffner said. "We hope he can walk off the plane with his new leg. And his mother doesn't even know."