Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 08/01) - When Foday Dumbuya's mother called him from Sierra Leone in 1999, he did not believe it was her.

He thought she was dead. It's been a long journey for Foday to get his family to Yellowknife, but Thursday marked the end of that journey and the beginning of a new one.

First there are sweatpants for the women, who arrive at the Yellowknife airport in late winter wearing skirts. Then Foday Dumbuya takes off his shoes and donates his socks to his mother for her bare feet.

Then, Amadu Dumbuya, Foday's older brother, learns how to use a zipper.

"You put it down. Stick it in ... right up," instructs Sandra Dumbuya, as she gently moves the two sides together and pulls it up. "Voila ... then you won't be cold."

After 11 years of separation, Amadu has just embraced Foday, his brother, and spent minutes of restrained bliss in the Yellowknife airport baggage area last Thursday evening.

Two days after he left Ghana, and 18 months after leaving Freetown, Sierra Leone, he is in Canada.

He is going to his new home.

Welcoming feast

It's just after 5 p.m. Thursday. Foday backs a huge Salvation Army van to the front door of Shaganappy Apartments, where he is preparing an apartment for his relatives arrival.

He puts his shoulders down and opens the back doors. The howling wind threatens to swing them shut as Foday hauls boxes of food inside. Provided by the Salvation Army, the boxes are stuffed with canned goods and dozens of loaves of bread.

Foday doesn't look tired, but he must be. He and his wife, Sandra, slumped into bed at 3 a.m. Thursday. Even then, said Sandra, sleep wasn't soon in coming.

After carrying everything into the elevator, then out again and into the room, Foday is warm. He takes off his coat and tells his children to turn down the thermostat.

"Just remind me to turn the heat back on," he says. "It's hot for us but it may not be for them."

He explains that in Sierra Leone there is no summer, winter, fall or spring. Students are taught three seasons: rainy, dry and harmattan -- the monsoon season. It gets cold when the temperature hits 20 C.

But though Yellowknife weather can be fierce, Foday puts things in perspective: "It's nice to know they won't be waking up in the morning hearing gunshots."

And strangely, the blizzard outside is perfect.

"It's actually a good welcome. I won't have to explain in the winter how cold it is," he says.

The apartment living room is open and bright. Aisha, his six-year-old daughter, scampers about. "We need a TV!" she exclaims.

The living room walls are lined by new-looking couches. "We got them ourselves," says Foday of the furniture. "We have been preparing over the years."

He takes a moment to reflect. His relatives are scheduled for arrival in Yellowknife on the 9:38 p.m. flight.

"Finally -- we can't believe that it's happening," he says. "It's been a long haul. We just hope that they are happy."

He thinks about Sandra, Aisha and his eight-year-old son, Amadu Jr. -- named after his brother. They have never met any of the relatives.

"In three hours they will know them," he says.

Hearing his mother's voice again

Three hours later, Foday, Sandra, Aisha and Amadu Jr. wait at the airport. They don't talk much, but inside they are babbling with a jittery blend of nerves and agonizing excitement.

Aisha twirls around the baggage area, pirouetting past the rows of seats. Sandra stands alone, making small talk remembering previous arrivals of relatives.

These dalliances with happy memories are the luxuries of life in Canada, a far cry from the Dumbuyas' birth home.

Foday comes from Sierra Leone, a small diamond-rich country in west Africa. He left his family 11 years ago to seek new frontiers in Canada.

In 1991, the country erupted in a brutal civil war. The Revolutionary United Front attacked Freetown, the capital -- and Foday's hometown. One of his cousins was hacked to death. Rebels torched his mother's house in 1999.

For weeks, he heard nothing from his family. Then one day, he reconnected with someone claiming to be his mother. He didn't believe her, and asked her a series of questions to prove who she was. It was her.

"I thought they were dead. I couldn't believe I heard her voice. I had to make sure it was her," he says.

Foday lobbied the community and government for donations, trying desperately to bring his remaining family members to Canada.

That was two years ago. Now his mother, brother, sister-in-law and their two children are minutes from Yellowknife. Three more will come in two weeks.

Emotional arrival

The family arrives amid a swirling tempest of natural confetti, their brightly-coloured African clothing billowing in the arctic wind.

Amadu takes a few steps down the ramp, then backs up.

The wind is ferocious, the snow biting.

He walks down, arm raised to protect his face from the elements. It's the first time he has seen snow.

As the five new arrivals walk into the airport, other passengers burst into a spontaneous round of applause. There are lingering hugs, the kind of embrace that happens without words because none are needed.

Amadu Jr. recognizes his grandmother from photographs.

"I will teach her to speak English," he says. "It will be a little hard. (I will also teach her) to make a snowball and to read."

Sandra is looking forward to the evening ahead.

"Tonight we're going to go home and take them to the apartment and sit down around and talk," she says.

And Foday isn't quite sure what to say.

It's been more than a decade since he has seen his family. He has gone from believing them dead, to worrying that he would never see them again to saying, again and again: "momo" -- thank you.

"I don't know how to express my emotions," he says. "I never expected that I would see her (his mother) alive again. It seems like I'm dreaming."