Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone

Betsy Small | PCV in Sierra Leone 1984–87, University of Michigan Press, 2025

Betsy Small’s Before Before is a deeply personal and historically rich account of Sierra Leone, blending memoir and ethnography with emotional resonance. She draws from her Peace Corps service in the mid-1980s and a return visit in 2013 with her daughter to create a memoir that is more than a recollection—it is a meditation on cultural exchange, colonial legacy, and the fragile threads of memory that bind us across time and geography. 

Set in Tokpombu, a remote rainforest village in Sierra Leone’s diamond district, Small’s story begins with her assignment as an agricultural Volunteer tasked with improving rice yields despite having never even seen a rice plant. The village, home to 40 rice-farming families, becomes the center of Small’s transformation. There, Christians and Muslims live side by side, elders pass down oral histories, and the rhythms of life are shaped by ancestral wisdom and communal labor. 

But within four years of her departure, a brutal civil war erupts that would change Tokpombu forever as the once peaceful village becomes ground zero for the violence. Small does not shy away from describing this reality, and the juxtaposition of her idyllic memories with the scars of war forces readers to confront the fragility of peace and the cost of global indifference. 

Yet the book’s emotional core lies in the author’s return in 2013, accompanied by her 13-year-old daughter, Lilly. This journey, decades after civil war ravaged the region, becomes a poignant act of remembrance and healing. Lilly’s presence reframes the narrative: what was once a solitary coming-of-age story becomes a shared intergenerational pilgrimage. Readers will be struck by the contrast between Small’s youthful naiveté and Lilly’s wide-eyed curiosity, as well as the resilience of the villagers who survived multiple rebel attacks over the intervening years. 

Before Before is a masterful blend of autobiography and observation, offering readers a window into Sierra Leone’s past and present through the eyes of a thoughtful observer and a loving mother. The 2013 visit with Lilly adds emotional depth and narrative symmetry, reminding us that stories—like lives—are never truly finished. They echo, evolve, and invite us to listen anew.