 Yo, what up everybody? It's your boy Mr. Ghana Baby right here in Freetown. Trust me, Freetown is way too beautiful. I never expect Freetown this way, but she brought me in a place that I've never been in my entire life. Why do you have to bring me to a place like this, don't you? It's one of our best features. I have to share it off. I have to share it off. To the world, huh? To the world. To the world. To the world. What is your name? Elaine. Elaine. Yes. Your accent is beyond me. Elaine, hey, I have to take it away. Oh wow. I can speak Korean if you want me to, but yeah. Exactly. So let's just speak with the English. You know, like your accent basically didn't live in Freetown. Nope. I moved here two years ago. Two years ago. So where were you? I was in the UK. In the UK? Yes. You know the last time I did a video about a UK returning to Gambia and she said, England is a dam and it really got me into trouble. Why? People are researching me. Who's this guy? I don't know who's serving. I wouldn't say it's a dam, but you don't have this. Wow. You don't have this in the UK. Let me know. Why do you have to live? Okay, if England is not a dam, can I say it's heaven on it? No, it's definitely not. I mean, I don't want to be horrible to England because you know I grew up there, but I prefer Sierra Leone. Why? There's nowhere like home. Why did you move back to Sierra Leone? I was tired of that England way of life, the hustle, the commuting, the trains, striving every month to make ends meet. Like, you know, and there was no, there was no, there was no form of, I found myself always wanting to go on holiday and I don't think you should, that should have, that's how life should be. You know? How striving? You said you're striving to, yeah, just to make ends meet. Like, you know, paycheck to paycheck every month, you know, paying bills, doing all these kind of things. Like, it was really painful. It was starting to get to me. So I realized whilst I'm young, and I can make this move, I might as well do it now. You're living in Freetown. How long have you been here? I've been here two years. Two years. Two good years. In Freetown. Going and coming in at the same time. Yes, so I was going and coming and then I made the move in 2017 finally and I was like, I'm done with the UK. I'm coming back home. Yes. You're coming back home. You believe that Africa is home, huh? Africa, I'm living my best life. Maya, I'm living my ultimate best life here. How can you live your best life in here? Maya, what day is it today? Today's Tuesday. Okay. Tuesday. And we're at the beach. Oh, okay. You can't do that in the UK. You can't do that in America. You can't do that. And only in Africa can you go to the beach on a Tuesday. You're trying to tell me that you don't work during weekdays? I mean, I have my own company. I work for myself, so I am able to do these kind of things, which is another reason why I moved back to Sierra Leone. So you moved back once you had to do things for yourself? Yes. I wanted to go down that entrepreneurial route and I've been fortunate enough to be able to just go straight into it, because I know people who come and had to work before they can do what they want to do, but I've been able to come and now I own my own business here and I mean, you could but not the way I would have liked to. I mean, you know, in the UK, there's, you can do things. The UK opens doors for you, but I feel like nowhere opens doors more for you more than home. Like home is home. Home is home. Your case home. I've never felt more comfortable than in my own home. Do you not feel comfortable in your house? I feel so comfortable. Exactly. So you're trying to tell me that UK is not home for you? I mean, it's a different type of home for me. Wow. There's levels today. My best life. Your best life. That's a good statement. Can I also say I'm living my best life? Of course. Of course. Let me know. The experience in three towns, huh? Yeah. It's a lady. Like I want to say, like, are you living in here or you are surviving? Because I've talked to so many young Africans who are telling me that life in Africa is so difficult for us. That's why I return to move to Europe, America to live our best life. But you are living the best life here. Let me know. Are you living or surviving? I'm living my best life. I guess it's different for where you're coming from. When you're here, you don't know what's out there. When you've been out there and you've come here, here's better for me personally. And I try to tell people this all the time, like, you don't know what's out there, the struggles that are out there. And I always say I prefer Sierra Leone struggles. I prefer Sierra Leone struggles. She's called Young in Free Town. Yes. Why Young in Free Town? The main aim of the channel was to show that you can be young and you can live in free town. Obviously I'm Sierra Leonean. So I meant like in the white team of things, you can be young and live in Africa. But because I was moving to free town, you can be young and live in free town. Back in the days, it was like, if you were calling back home, it was to speak to your grandma, speak to your aunties, you know, those people who are back home. But now, I mean, there's so many young people here, young in free town. And what do you talk on your channel? We just tried to showcase free town in the most positive light as possible. We tried to show people who are doing amazing things, young Fritoneans who are doing amazing things. Sierra Leoneans who are striving to show their country in a better light. Is it expensive to live in free town? At the moment, yes. How expensive? It's expensive. Things are going up. Because we were matched against the dollar. No, but I'm still a millionaire in this country. It's all relative. It's relative. It's not easy. It's very easy to be a millionaire here, but the money doesn't take you far. It's all relative. I came here at $100. The $100 I want you to change. They gave me a million. Well, there you go. That's how bad things are. As in you're getting a million for $100. We're matching. That's how bad things are. And with that kind of inflation. But she's saying that it's expensive to live in here, but she's still saying that she's living her best life. This is what I mean. The struggles are different. Exactly. So when you counterbalance everything, yes, okay, it might be more expensive, but I can buy cucumbers for less than 20 pence. And the UK and buying cucumbers for 30 pence. So think about the struggles are kind of different in terms of things. So for me here, it's expensive, but if I was to go to the UK, it's even more expensive. It's all relative, you see. This is an interesting conversation. Is there anything that you think I need to ask you, but I'm not asking you? I don't know. If you'd like to know what it is I do here in my business. Okay, tell us more about your business because all this is just a conversation. I don't have any script that I want to ask you. No, that's fine. I totally understand. Tell me something more about your business. So when we moved here, we realized that... So ICE is a big business. I don't know if it's big business in Ghana, but we do crushed ice here, drinking ice because people like to come to the beach, bring their ice, bring their drinks, call their drinks. So we started an ice business and what we do is we manufacture crushed ice and ice cubes and we deliver. So we deliver these items to people's locations, venues, parties, even beaches. So we're the only ones that I know of at the moment in Freetown who is offering this kind of service. So you've been in Freetown, we have a serious traffic problem. So can you imagine? Can you imagine? We take that stress out of people's event planning. Yeah, so that's what we do. Which means you employ people to work for you at the same time because Tuesday you need to be at the... I've worked already this morning, I've done my job. You're still creating jobs for people? Yes, so what we've done in the community that we have our factory, we've hired local people from the community because it's labor intensive, we've had young local boys who are out of school but who still want to do something with their lives and we pay them and they're so happy with what they're doing. I want you to send a message to young Africans who are out of Africa. You know, they were born in the UK, born in America, born in other part of the world but they really want to go back home. They have the desire to come back home but they don't know how. Do you have any message for them? The one thing I'm going to say to you now is Africa is green. You understand what I mean by Africa is green? I don't understand. It's fresh, it's green, it's ripe. I mean, us coming in now, I have a bunch of friends who are from the diaspora as well, us coming in, everybody's finding their niche, you know, and coming in, not even to sound rude to the people who are here, but coming in with that different mind frame, you're able to see things differently and you're able to start things that people may not have thought of here and you have that advantage. So, yes. There is this UK girl, she's black, and she's black, okay? And then she told me that, what am I? All my life, even though my parents are from Africa, but I'm still scared of going to Africa. Were you scared when you were coming? No, I know. But do you think you have friends that are scared of coming to Africa? Yes, I mean, on my YouTube channel, we get so many requests on things that people want to know and you get the most, people ask me if we have running water here. People ask me what kind of bugs we have here. So, you know, things like that. I mean, okay, running water is not everywhere, but for the most part, you've gone with the water, haven't you? Exactly. So, it's not as bad as how the media say. See it with your own two eyes. If, might I say, if you can travel to Spain, you can travel to Japan or you can travel to Turkey, you can come home. It's time for you to come home. Make sure you go to your YouTube channel, go subscribe, and go see all the positive vibes about Freetown Sierra Leone. It's your boy Mr. Ghana, baby, and I hope you enjoyed this amazing episode. Don't forget to like, share, and tell somebody that it's time to go back home. I am Maya.