The Bite of the Mango (16 page)

In Freetown, Kadi, Susan, and I stayed at the Barmoi, a brand-new hotel filled with Western comforts, including a laundry service, television, air conditioning, and a restaurant serving pizza and spaghetti. The hotel was gated, with at least four uniformed Sierra Leoneans standing guard at any given time. Surrounding the building was a tall cement wall topped with barbed wire.

A week before our arrival, soccer superstar David Beckham had stayed at the hotel as part of his UNICEF visit. Now the place was full of middle-aged men with Australian, American, and British accents, there to work with the many charities in Freetown or to advise the government on how to enforce the payment of taxes.

Since being in Sierra Leone, I had learned that our country ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index. The first week of my visit home involved my touring with UNICEF to see the organization’s projects in the eastern region of the country. I met with many poor Sierra Leoneans. I held their babies. I laughed and I cried. I learned that fewer kids go to school in Sierra Leone than in any other country in the world. Sierra Leone has the lowest life expectancy of any country, with adults lucky to live until they’re 40, compared to Canada, where people can live to 90 and still be healthy. Sierra Leone has few income-generating exports or commodities. The country has lots of resources, as I had learned from Yabom, including diamonds, bauxite, gold, iron ore, and manganese, as well as fresh water and fishing. Foreigners reap most of the profits, though.

“If I were a millionaire,” I thought, “I’d hire a minibus and pick up Mohamed, Mabinty, Adamsay, Memunatu, Marie, Alie, Ibrahim, my grandmother, and all the others and put them on an airplane to Toronto. But I’m not. So how can I best help my family? How can I be of help to the people of Sierra Leone?”

Ishmael’s book had inspired me to tell my story. When I heard him say during his Toronto speech, “What we need to hear next is the story of a girl from the war,” I got excited. I felt I had found my purpose. I could contribute by telling the world about war, about family, about being a girl in Sierra Leone.

But now a part of me wanted to take Mohamed’s advice and run far, far away, never again to return. My story was just one of thousands in Sierra Leone. What made it any different from anyone else’s?

Another part of me wanted to stay in Sierra Leone with my family, living in Yonkro or the tiny village outside Masaika. If war had never come to my life, I might still be in Magborou, married to a boy named Musa. I was very confused after visiting my grandmother and Mohamed.

I walked outside and flopped down on one of the chairs around the hotel’s sparkling swimming pool. After a minute, a tiny bird sitting on top of a trellis caught my attention. It was brown and yellow, like the bird that had fallen from the sky that day way back in Magborou.

“What should I do?” I asked the little weaver.

As the bird chirped three times and flew off, I remembered my flight after the rebel attack, my long walk alone in the bush, my close calls with barking dogs and spitting cobras. I saw the haggard face of the man who had led me to the clay road into Port Loko. I could still see his shaking hands as he passed me the mango to eat.

I knew then what I had to do. I may not have hands, but I have a voice. And no matter how nice my home in Canada is, my first home will always be Sierra Leone. The heart of my country is the heart of the people who helped me see myself not as a victim but as someone who could still do great things in this world.

I stood up, walked to my second-floor room, and opened my suitcase. I pulled out the formal red and gold Africana outfit that Kadi had made for me in Toronto. I smoothed out the creases and then pulled out of my travel bag a small box containing a pair of dangling gold earrings.

“Yes,” I said out loud, even though the room was empty. “I
will meet the president tomorrow. I will speak for all the people of Sierra Leone who are not being heard.”

Something in me had changed. I knew now that I could look forward
and
back—without any regrets—at the same time.

Sierra Leone

From 1991 to 2002, Sierra Leone was engaged in a brutal civil war. Armed rebels with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) destroyed villages and farms, and raped, maimed, and murdered thousands of women and children.

Today, Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa, is one of the poorest countries in the world. In rural areas, the average wage is less than one dollar a day, life expectancy is only 40 years, and most children do not attend school on a regular basis.

Women and children have been hit especially hard by the war. Traditional village life, in which women were treated with respect by men, by their families, and by the larger community, no longer exists. Many women are subjected to ongoing sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, largely a result of the poverty brought on by large-scale unemployment. Men, unable to support their families from agriculture or other jobs, are alienated and angry. Children, particularly girls, often endure rape at the hands of older men, and are frequently forced into early marriages.

MARIATU KAMARA
was born and raised in the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Her harrowing experiences as a child victim of war and the aftermath are the subject of her memoir,
The Bite of the Mango
.

Today, Mariatu is a college student in Toronto. She was named a UNICEF Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflicts, which involves speaking to groups across North America about her experiences. Prior to her UNICEF engagement, Mariatu spoke publicly for the nonprofit group, Free the Children.

Her professional goals for the future include working for the United Nations and raising awareness of the impact of war on children. She is also planning on reuniting several members of Aberdeen’s theater troupe, which she credits with her personal healing. She would like to make this an ongoing project so that she can share with youth the peacekeeping skills that she is learning through her own work with UNICEF and others.

In her spare time, Mariatu likes to listen to music, cook, shop, talk on the phone, watch movies, and go to parties. Most of the time she likes to stay home with family and be with her close friends. She is torn between her love of Sierra Leone and Toronto. She wishes she could live in both places at the same time.

SUSAN MCCLELLAND
is a freelance magazine journalist based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in
Macleans
, where she was a former staff writer,
Reader’s Digest
,
More
,
Chatelaine
,
Canadian Living
,
The Walrus
,
Today’s Parent
, and
The Globe and Mail
. She has won and been nominated for numerous investigative reporting and feature-writing awards, including National Magazine and Canadian Association of Journalists awards. Susan writes predominately on women’s and children’s issues and is the recipient of the 2005 Amnesty International Media Award. Her full biography and some of her articles can be viewed at
www.susanmcclelland.com
.

1
ECOMOG stands for the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group. It was a military operation deployed in Sierra Leone to help end the war.

©2008 by Mariatu Kamara and Susan McClelland

Edited by Barbara Pulling
Copyedited by John Sweet
Cover concept and design by David Wyman, wymandesign.ca
Digital image manipulation by Ron Giddings
Interior design by Sheryl Shapiro

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This edition published in 2012 by
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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

Cataloging in Publication

Kamara, Mariatu
               The bite of the mango / Mariatu Kamara; with Susan McClelland.

ISBN 978-1-55451-158-7 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-55451-159-4 (bound)

                 1. Kamara, Mariatu. 2. Sierra Leone—History—Civil War, 1991–2002—Personal narratives—Juvenile literature. 3. Sierra Leone— History—Civil War, 1991–2002—Children—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. War victims—Sierra Leone—Biography—Juvenile literature. 5. Amputees— Sierra Leone—Biography—Juvenile literature. I. McClelland, Susan II. Title.

DT516.828.K35A3 2008                j966.404092               C2008-903621-2

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Front cover: child soldier © Nic Bothma/epa/Corbis; hands of African woman © Getty Images/David Buffington; mango © iStockphoto Inc./Skip O’Donnell; smoke and sky © iStockphoto Inc./Tadej Zupancic; village in Sierra Leone © iStockphoto Inc./lcoccia. Back cover: author photo © J.P. Moczulski, Toronto, Canada.