It Took A Broken Leg

About the Book

When Western education, then called the white man’s school, first came to the town of Dubayabia in the land of Romron at the heels of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, horribly frightening stories about that dreadful trade still lingered in the minds of some parents. Those stories made some parents terrified of sending their children to a white man’s school when they reached school-going age, hiding them instead, or sending only strangers. Also troubling for some residents of Dubayabia region in those days, called the Traditionalists, was the advent of foreign religions preaching against, and indiscriminately branding, their African tribal customs and cultural practices, including their safest and most cherished music and dances, as unreligious or, worse, as pagan practice. For one child named Mawudor in particular, his father, Mordibor, an ultraconservative Muslim of the Tukulor tribe, decided to send him and his elder brother Baba to a faraway remote rural village called Futa in a neighboring foreign country to study the Qur’an and acquire aspects of their Tukulor culture, instead of sending them to school. When Mordibor shared his secret plan for his sons with his friend Pa Manika, along with his other concerns about what he perceived as the un-Tukulor customs and practices of his sons’ maternal relatives in Dubayabia, his friend tried unsuccessfully to talk him out of it. Mawudor’s grandparents also tried and failed in their own way to stop Mordibor from sending their beloved grandson away. While Mordibor wanted to send his sons away to acquire Islamic and Tukulor values, instead of Western education, his son Mawudor, on the other hand, liked and dreamed about attending the white man’s school, and he also admired the customs and practices of his maternal relatives. Even fate, it seemed, was not on his father’s side. After just two years in that Koranic school in Futa, Mawudor and his brother Baba had an accident, a fall in which Mawudor broke his leg. When Mawudor was sent home, following the accident, and his father saw his broken leg, he was devastated. Mawudor’s life, it seemed, had been changed. Even the region of Dubayabia’s most famous herbalist, Mawudor’s grandmother, couldn’t fix his broken leg to its original form. Mordibor, realizing how handicapped his son Mawudor had become, changed his original plan and finally decided to send him to a white man’s school together with his younger brothers. It Took a Broken Leg is a family story in which this author chronicles the eventful experiences of the main character, Mawudor, back in time through a maze of raw African tribal beliefs, customs, and practices characterizing his people, practicing Muslims with keen interests and beliefs in secret societies, spiritual devils, and witchcraft.

About the Author

Dr. Alhaji Hamid Charm was born July 20, 1945 in Kambia Town in Sierra Leone, West Africa. After successfully completing his Elementary and Secondary education in Kambia, he gained admission to Njala University College, a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone in 1967. Upon graduating in June 1971, Dr. Charm took a teaching appointment at his Alma Mater, Kolenten Secondary School Kambia where he taught Geography, English Language, Literature in English, and also formed the school’s first drama group, the Kolenten Drama Group that staged his popularly acclaimed play, “Dance of the Witches,” a social satire. In January 1980, Dr. Charm proceeded to the United States of America under the African Graduate Fellowship Program, AFGRAD to do the Master of Science degree in Education at the University of Rochester in New York. He returned to Sierra Leone upon completing his program in June 1981 and took up appointment in the Ministry of Education in Freetown as a guidance and counseling officer. He was promoted Inspector of Secondary Schools in 1987. That same year, Dr. Charm was again admitted at the University of Rochester in New York under an AFGRAD Fellowship to do the Doctorate Degree in Education. Upon graduating, he took up a counseling position in the Rochester City School District in 1993. Dr. Charm and his family now live in Rochester New York where he works.