The commercial heart of this city, a fusion of New Orleans and the Wild West, is now one big block party. Nine months of rule by a brutal junta has come to an end.
Military men are still in power across a broad swath of Africa from Niger to Burundi.
Sierra Leone's President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who came home last week from exile in Guinea, is the first democratically elected African leader who has been ousted by force and subsequently restored to power. The hope is that his return will deter other coups across the continent. But the base for democracy in Sierra Leone is shaky. The previous government was a military junta that formed an alliance with Liberia-backed rebels and built a reputation for cruelty. When the junta could no longer control the country, its ragtag army initiated Operation Burn House, systematically torching buildings.