THE RETREAT
Eight Days in Sierra Leone.
A Homecoming Centuries in the Making: Guided by a genealogist, archivist, and transpersonal healing facilitator.
This is not just cultural education. It is ancestral healing. Under Dr. Aisha Abdul Rahman’s guidance, the eight days at Ye-Ruqor are structured to move guests through a journey of discovery, reconnection, grief, and restoration — culminating in the naming ceremony as a moment of genuine spiritual and emotional transformation.
01
Genealogy & Family History Research
Before you arrive, you will begin sharing what you know about your family history with Dr. Aisha Abdul Rahman — archivist, genealogist, and author of Tracing Our Roots, Reclaiming Our Legacy. During the retreat, you will work together on your specific lineage, building your family tree, interpreting DNA results, and recovering the names and stories of your ancestors. This is guided, personal, professional genealogy work — in Sierra Leone.
02
Sierra Leone Arts, Culture & Market Experience
Sierra Leone has a rich tradition of handcrafted art, textiles, jewelry, woodwork, and music that most of the diaspora has never encountered. During your retreat you will visit local markets and artisan spaces — not as a tourist with a camera, but as someone learning what your people make, what it means, and why it matters.
You will shop with intention — selecting pieces that tell a story, gifts that carry the culture home to your family. Every purchase is a conversation. Every conversation is a lesson. You will leave knowing not just what you bought but what it means and where it comes from.
This is how culture survives — when the diaspora brings it home.
03
The History, Language & People of Sierra Leone
You cannot come home to a place you do not know. Before the naming ceremony. Before the market. Before the cooking and the ancestral sites — you need the story.
During your retreat you will be immersed in the history of Sierra Leone and the Temne people — the transatlantic slave trade as it specifically touched this land, the routes that took your ancestors away, and the community that remained. This is not a lecture. It is a living conversation with people who carry this history in their bodies.
You will also begin learning Temne and Krio — the languages your ancestors spoke. Greetings. Names. Phrases. The words that connect you to this place. You will not leave fluent. But you will leave with something in your mouth that belongs to your lineage — and you will know what it means.
04
Traditional Cooking with a Local Chef
Food is memory. You will learn to prepare traditional Sierra Leonean dishes alongside a local chef with a published recipe book — one copy of which goes home with you. These are the recipes that fed your people. Now they feed you too.
05
Village Life & Community Connection
You are not staying near Sierra Leone. You are staying inside it — in Newton village, a living Temne community. You will spend time with elders, visit the market, connect with local guides, and experience the country as a citizen returning home, not a tourist passing through.
06
Ancestral Site Visits
Guided visits to sites of cultural and ancestral significance — the places that shaped the people who shaped you. Every journey is accompanied by local guides with deep knowledge of the land and its history.
07
Morning Meditation & Prayer
Each day begins with intention. Morning yoga and prayer ground the experience spiritually — creating space to receive what the day will bring before the work begins.
08
The Naming Ceremony
This is the culmination. On a designated day during your retreat, you will participate in a traditional Temne naming ceremony in Newton village, facilitated by the section chief. You will receive a name that connects you to your lineage. You will carry it home. This ceremony is not a performance or a tourist experience — it is real, it is rooted, and it will change you.
JOIN THE WAITLIST
Your Name Is Waiting for You in Sierra Leone.
Retreats are limited to 4 guests. Add your name below and be first to know when doors open.