Ellen Sirleaf Interview (page: 7 / 8) Nobel Prize for Peace	Print Interview

Your grandparents came from different parts of the world. Where were they from?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: My maternal grandfather came from Germany, and he was one of the many German traders that penetrated the West African coast and did business in one of our rural areas. But during World War II when the allies were fighting Germany, Liberia, being so close to the United States, with the emancipated slaves having founded the country, we identified with the Allied forces, and also declared war on Germany and expelled all of the Germans who were in the country. So my grandfather left the country when my mother was at a very, very early age.

Just him, not his wife?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: No, not his wife, just him. His wife was my grandmother, my mother's mother. He left the country and left her with my grandmother, who was an illiterate market woman, a native woman, and they never heard from him again. We never pursued that heritage. My mother's mother, as I said, was a native marketeer, and both of my father's parents were indigenous.

Wasn't your grandfather on your father's side also a leader?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Yes, he was a chief. He was a Gola chief. So absolutely, that really set him apart. So the leadership factor comes from a long history. It's part of the heritage.

The Gola people have been in Liberia for a long time, haven't they?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Yes, they were one of the original tribes that settled there sometime early in the continent's history. They were some of the first that came down and settled in that area.

Were you a serious student when you were growing up?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Yes, I was.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I wasn't a valedictorian or anything like that, but serious enough to have made every class and to have been one of the outspoken ones in our graduation, our high school graduation. It didn't work out that way, but (I was) one recognized as one of those that would go far in terms of a profession. It ended up that way, but it didn't start that way since I got married right after high school and had four children before going back to college.

It sounds like you weren't thinking much about a career when you got out of high school.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: No, I wasn't.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I quickly settled into marriage life which -- as a high school education -- that didn't mean very much in terms of a profession. And with four children born successively almost every year, I became a housewife very fast. It took a while, and perhaps driven by seeing some of my high school classmates leave the country and go and pursue a college education and all becoming professionals, that really drove me to go back to college at some point, and that started a whole new career.

What did your husband do?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: He was an agriculturalist. As a matter of fact, he had come back from the University of Wisconsin, where he'd done work in agriculture, and that's how we got married. And then, after our fourth son was born, it was the year we both went back. That's when I went back to college, and he went back to do graduate work, again at the University of Wisconsin.

Did you bring the whole family to the United States?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: No, no, no. Fortunately we have, in Africa, the extended family system. There's no way we both could have gone to school in the U.S. with four young children. So two got left with my mother and two with his mother. That's how we were able to go back to school.

That's quite a sacrifice to make for education, isn't it?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: It is. It is quite a sacrifice, because you leave your children at an early age and you miss the time, those early days of their childhood. It's a sacrifice that so many of us in the underdeveloped countries have to make if you want to pursue a profession. In our case, you can always come back and try to make it up. I'm glad that our family was able to make up and to see them all go through college, and now married and in professional life.

They've given you grandchildren as well, haven't they?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: The grandchildren are moving up. They're beginning to complete high school and getting to college. They're on the way!

Did you enjoy reading books when you were a kid?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Yes. That was part of our upbringing in those days. Unfortunately, today, most of the children, it is too difficult to get them to read these days because they're all hooked on television, DVDs and all those things. But in our days, all you had other than sports and other types of entertainment, was to read.

Do any books stand in your memory as being especially wonderful experiences?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: You mean way back then, when a child? Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and all those things that kids read all over the world. Yeah.

All books in English?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Yes. English is the official language in Liberia.

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