![]() ![]() Johnson Sirleaf’s life story is remarkable. We grew up in a way where we crossed two different worlds.” She laughs as if I’ve underestimated her and she’s relishing putting me right. ![]() ![]() “We went to school in the city, and spent the vacations here in my father’s village. “I learned to swim in that river,” she says. “This is where I grew up,” she gestures towards the view of the impossibly lush farm from a large window opposite her bed.Īs we continue our tour of her house she points towards a gash in the distance, where the luminous green bush makes way for a rush of wild, fresh water. An uncooperative key gives way and we are suddenly inside her “quarters”, a supremely modest room, with its small double bed, plain wooden dressers – one with a neat stack of baseball caps on top – and a light alcove that serves as a wardrobe, a dozen regal African cloth outfits queuing up on a single rail. We are in the poetically named village of Julejuah (pronounced Jool-ay-joo-ah), where Johnson Sirleaf’s family – the descendants of a local Gola chief – still live, and where she has built a small farmhouse as a weekend retreat. ![]()
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