Proud to call Canada home
Published Thursday July 2nd, 2009
Canada Day marked the one-year anniversary that Saa Andrew Gbongbor received his Canadian citizenship, an occasion he'll forever celebrate along with the birthday of his new home.
But the refugee from Sierra Leone said it was no coincidence they fell on the same day.
"One thing I believe is every man has the right to rule his own destiny," he said. "The Lord has planned this stuff, and he wanted that day to be a special one for me, but it was all for me to be free."
Gbongbor received an invitation on short notice to the citizenship ceremony at The Playhouse last summer. He had to rush from that stage to another down the street at Officers Square, where he was slated to perform as part of the Canada Day block party.
"I felt like the happiest man in the world that day, it was so joyous. I couldn't sleep that night," he said.
His song lyrics are set to bouncy reggae rhythms about many things, including his struggle to find a safe haven in Fredericton.
And he has much to sing about. Members of his family were murdered by rebels before his eyes when he was a child, as a blood diamond feud ravaged his village. The survivors in his family finally had to flee to a Gambian refugee camp when Gbongbor was 15.
But his mother, a nurse, didn't make it. She was captured and forced to treat the rebels. Eventually she managed to escape, but she's still separated from her son. They've managed a few phone calls since then, but they haven't seen each other for nine years.
In 2004, after six years in the refugee camp, Gbongbor and the rest of his immediate family (except for his mother) were granted safe passage by the United Nations to Fredericton.
But Gbongbor's struggle didn't cease in New Brunswick, and there were times that his fight for citizenship didn't seem worth it.
During his third year at St. Thomas University in 2007, Gbongbor put on one of his first big shows. It was meant to raise money for family members who didn't make it out of Sierra Leone.
But the event's good intentions were marred when posters of Gbongbor to promote the concert were defaced with racial slurs.
"At first, I felt maybe here is not my home, that I'm not a fit in this community," he said.
"But I tried not to let that overcome me. I tried to be able to walk away from it."
In the end, he said, the bigotry was nothing compared to what he faced back home. And both were no match for the love of his new friends. Brendan Mittelholtz, a recent University of New Brunswick multimedia grad, has been working with Gbongbor on music videos for his songs.
The aspiring filmmaker is hoping to stitch that footage into a documentary about Gbongbor. And he said one of the best scenes will be from the citizenship ceremony last year, when he snuck his camera into The Playhouse to capture Gbongbor's big moment.
"I've never seen anyone more motivated musically," Mittelholtz said of his friend.
He's helping Gbongbor produce a CD/DVD bundle due out later this month. The singer will then tour throughout the Maritimes.
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