Poet Oumar Farouk Sesay pays tribute to the Importance Of Personal Responsibility in Sierra Leone

Oumar Farouk Sesay is a leading Sierra Leonean poet. His first volume of poems, "Salute to the Remains of a Peasant" was published in 2007. His second collection of poems, "The Edge of a Cry" was published in 2015 by the Sierra Leonean Writers Series (SLWS). Farouk is a graduate of Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. BECAUSE WE ARE POOR (For those who use poverty as an excuse for our failings as a people) So, because we are poor, we must quarry the mountains, gouge the boulders, let them roll downhill. So, when it rains, the entire mountain will peel off and cascade down the slope to end our life of misery. Because we are poor, therefore, we must fell the hundred years old trees, deplete the biodiversity and haul the trees to China for nickels and dime like a man selling his kidney to buy whisky. Because we are poor, we must cut down trees at the Guma valley reserve to starve the dam of water, then we demolish reservoirs a...