The Dark Shadow of the Cotton Tree

In the shadow of the "Cotton Tree" and under its powerful gaze was born Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone. The "Free City" was founded as the new homeland of a group of 400 slaves liberated by England in 1792, giving birth to a new society of freed people who, inspired by the greatness and majesty of that tree, made it their symbol. A natural monument with which the jungle pays tribute to a new world freed from slavery. Today, the "Cotton Tree" continues to grow and stands powerfully over the tall buildings that surround it on one of the city's main avenues. Located near the Supreme Court and the National Museum, it is a link between the present and the past of the city that has grown by reading respect for the values that those first inhabitants deposited in its roots between its branches. Throughout all this time, its branches have provided shelter for all the generations born in Freetown since its founding. Today, its deep shadow extends much further than we could imagine. If we get close enough and look carefully, we can see how its foliage has become the home of hundreds of bats that sleep during the day, invisible in the shadow of its dense crown, and at night, they awaken and fly, covering the sky with a dark and ominous cloud. Like animated letters written on the sky in the rock language of the jungle, the "Cotton Tree" seems to draw its metaphor about the terrible social reality that is hidden in the shadows of the city that grows at its feet. And it tells us a children's story not suitable for children, the story of thousands of them who live abandoned in the shadows of what UNESCO named the worst country in peace to be a child. Orphans or abandoned, persecuted, violated, enslaved... thus the most tender shoots of the Cotton Tree grow, invisible under the splendor of its foliage, threatened by a justice system that pursues them as criminals. When we hear them speak, we are surprised by the familiarity with which they use words that should not be part of a child's vocabulary: Tramadol, Gonorrhea, Cocaine, AIDS... Words with which they construct the story of their lives, but that cease to be used when we leave the past behind and direct the conversation towards the future, when we encourage them to dream. Dreams form sparks in the darkness that point the way out of the slum.