On the Mend

     This is the part of the story in which the heart of a twelve year-old girl becomes as cold and hard as marble, as everything else is stolen from her. But as she comes to realize how much she truly has, it is not despair, but strength and hope that build and flourish in the heart of Mariatu Kamara. She patches herself up and, though the stitches get torn out every now and then, her wounds will heal and her scars will fade, and she will be on the mend.

     Mariatu's story is like that of many other Sierra Leoneans, but what separates her from the others now, what will be one of her greatest despairs, is the baby she carries. The baby, who will be her downfall, her greatest sorrow.... and her salvation. Mariatu speaks of her baby and of her thoughts and feelings on page 72, and again on page 73, the former being darker, angrier, and the latter being a bit calmer and more controlled.

     "Silence fell again as the last pill stopped spinning. A feeling inside of me, like nothing I had ever felt before, raged forth. An energy bubbled and swirled; I could not control it. I swung around in a fury and lashed out at Abibatu. I shouted at her. I spat at her. I hit her. I kicked her when she tried to grab me.
     Everyone in the room was awake by now and gaping at me. Abibatu stepped back as I threw myself on my bed and then onto the floor. For a moment, I had wanted to kill her. Then there would be no one to stop me from killing myself, and the baby inside of me, too."

     This quote describes Mariatu's reaction to discovering the baby inside her. In this section, Mariatu's mind is overflowing with fear, anger, and despair. She is afraid of what will happen to her when the baby arrives, she is angry at Salieu for what he had done to her, and she despairs because she knows she will not be able to care for the baby. She believes that, with the baby, she has no future, and this is what causes her feelings of depression, anger, hate, and hopelessness. The second quote, as was aforementioned, occurs after Mariatu has calmed down a bit.

     "As my anger subsided, I knew that if I killed Abibatu, there would be one less person in the world who cared about me. Abibatu rocked me in her arms while I cried and cried.
     'I don't want you to kill your baby,' she said softly, assuming it was the child I wanted to harm. But I wanted to die too.
     'I have no future,' I said to Abibatu. 'I have no future,' I repeated over and over again.
     'Don't talk this way,' Abibatu said firmly, spinning me around to face her. 'You have many things to live for. Your mother. Your father. Your cousins, grandmother, aunties. They all love you, and you love them.'
I shook my head. I didn't want to listen. The room grew quiet as the other girls returned to sleep. I watched a fly circling one of the kerosene lamps. Like a wave hitting the shore, something washed over me, and I came back to my senses.
     'You're right,' I told Abibatu. 'You're right.'"

     This quote describes how Mariatu concluded what she felt after calming down. Mariatu realizes that she does truly still have so much to live for. There are still so many people whom she loves, and they love her. Mariatu still believes that the baby is a subtle curse, but she decides to live, if only for the sake of those she loves. Mariatu listens to Abibatu, and Abibatu's message finally sinks in, and she realizes that she is right.

     Mariatu begins to accept her situation, she knows that if she doesn't, she will not be able to move on. Mariatu learns how to do simple tasks such as eating and washing using the stumps of her arms, and she takes comfort in knowing that there are many others like her. But she also knows all too well that the baby sets her apart. The following night, Mariatu has a dream that Salieu came into the hospital and sat down beside her to talk to her. In the dream, Salieu convinces Mariatu to keep living, and he tells her that the baby is a boy. On page 75, Mariatu responds to Abibatu's reaction to her dream, making Mariatu feel like her happiness doesn't really matter.

     "'Ahhh, so you're having a boy,' she said. 'That will make Salieu very happy.'
     'Him happy!' I responded indignantly. 'What about me? What about my happiness?' Back in my old world, I said to her, before the rebels, I had wanted to marry Musa, have four children--two girls and two boys--and wear a beautiful long Africana dress for my wedding. This had been my plan for happiness, I told her. Now it made me sad to remember it."

     This passage is significant because Mariatu feels as though people only care if the father of the child is happy. She feels as though Abibatu doesn't really care about Mariatu's happiness. Mariatu remembers what her idea of happiness was, before the rebels came and tore her world apart, but she no longer believes that it will bring her happiness; she believes that she will never have the opportunity to experience something that would truly make her happy. In truth, Mariatu truly does not know what her idea of happiness is now, if anything.

     But all is not lost in terms of hope and happiness for Mariatu. Another quote from page 75 shows that there is still hope for Mariatu as she finds a candle to light over the sea of darkness in which she resides.

     "Until recently, I had thought my cousin Adamsay was dead. I had even told the doctors, nurses, Mohamed, and Ibrahim that the rebels had murdered her. So many people were killed in that attack on Manarma, maybe as many as a hundred, I learned in Freetown. But Adamsay wasn't one of them. The rebels had cut off her hands too. After, she made her way alone through the bush to Port Loko. She was wandering the streets, a dirty and bloody figure in the crowded markets, when Abibatu's husband stumbled upon her. Abibatu had brought her to Freetown.
     When Adamsay and I were reunited in the girls' ward at the hospital, we cried and cried. We held each other for what seemed like hours, until she was taken to the operating room to have her wounds attended to. Since then, we'd spent most of our time together."

     The content in this quote refers to the aforementioned candle, the one of which had sparked a flame and rekindled Mariatu back to life. After thinking Adamsay was dead for a very long time now, Mariatu was overjoyed to learn that her best friend is actually alive. Just imagine, after thinking your best friend was dead and gone for weeks with no evidence whatsoever of whether they were alive, they suddenly come back to life to reach into the cold black water and pull you out into the light. Just imagine the pure joy that Mariatu must have felt when she saw her best friend, Adamsay, walking through the hospital's halls toward her; handless, but very much alive. Surrounded by so much pain, loss and death, to find out that someone you love had been spared from death would be one of the greatest feelings in the world.

     Now a family again, Mariatu, along with Adamsay and her cousins, Mohamed and Ibrahim, know that they must find some way to make some money so as they could care for themselves and each other; and together, they had found a solution: begging in the streets. Definitely not the best way to earn money, but it is the easiest for them, as none of them have hands. They work together, relying on the kindness and sympathy of passerby so at the end of the day they can put together all they had earned and buy a bottle of water to share.

     You have never seen anything like this in Canada, and the chances are that you probably never will. Sure, you see a homeless person every once in awhile, but never would you see children with no hands in the street begging strangers for some money so they could have enough to buy a bottle of water to share with their family. If something like this happened in Canada, it would be rapidly followed by a tidal wave of concern, argument, and action. The poor, homeless, handless children would not be poor or homeless for long, what with so many people fighting to help them. But in Sierra Leone, things are very different; you would see these children almost every day, and most people would barely bat an eye.

     After their bandages come off, Mariatu and her cousins are moved to an amputee camp called Aberdeen. A foul, dirty place with sickness at every turn, there was often not enough food to feed the hundreds that resided there. Mariatu and her cousins have to save their money to buy supplies such a food, which, along with fresh water, became increasingly difficult to find due to the war. A quote from page 84 describes just what happens, and how families get food in such a desperate time.

     "There was little for anyone in Freetown at the time, let alone us injured kids. Due to the war, farmers could not bring their produce into the city to sell. Meat, cassava, beans, and fresh water were increasingly difficult to find. That responsibility soon fell to the kids. We became the breadwinners in our families through begging."

     This quote gives us a peek into what the amputee children went through. The children that had been mutilated and amputated by the rebels are so much worse off than the others in the amp, yet it was up the the mutilated children to provide the money for food and supplies for their families. This massive responsibility should not be placed on the shoulders of a child, yet that is exactly what happens. Despite the great pressure, they manage to shoulder their responsibility and do what they must to provide for their families.

     At the camp, Mariatu experiences a rollercoaster of emotion, partly due to the baby inside her, flipping back and forth between joy and sorrow, causing stress levels to rise, and hope to dwindle, slowed only by the short moments of joy she experiences with her friends and family. But the real emotional rollercoaster ride begins when Mariatu's baby arrives. On page 95, Mariatu gets to see her baby for the first time.

     "Many hours later, I woke in a bright room, light streaming in through a big open window. I felt listless as I watched some dust dancing in the sun's rays. My eyelids were starting to close again when I suddenly remembered where I was, and why. As I tried to sit up, I was greeted with more pain. Pulling the sheet away, I saw that my stomach was taped and bandaged.
     I started to cry, and the other girl in the room called out for help.
     Abibatu hurried in to comfort me. After a moment Marie arrived, carrying my baby.
     'It's a boy,' said Abibatu, reaching over to take the child.
     A boy, just as Salieu had predicted in my dream. The baby was swathed in a blue blanket. All I could see were his round face and matted black hair. He was cooing. With one look at that little face, all my anger disappeared. The baby looked like I imagined an angel would, with his soft, chubby cheeks. 'I can take care of this baby,' I thought. 'I can even love this child.'"

     This quote expresses the instant love that Mariatu feels for her newborn son the moment she sees him. But that love was dampened to anger as soon as Mariatu learned that she had to feed him herself. Another quote, this one is from page 97, describes the bout of depression that Mariatu sank into.

     "I didn't rock Abdul in my arms. I didn't sing lullabies to him. I didn't talk to him. I don't know why.
     When I first saw the gaping scar on my stomach from the C-section, I felt like vomiting. All I could think was: 'What else? What other deformity will befall my body?'
     After the nurse removed my stitches, I headed straight to the washroom down the hall. In the privacy of a stall, I tried to rip off my bandages with my arms and teeth. My plan was to punch myself in the stomach until I bled to death. I couldn't get the bandages off, though. Eventually I gave up and rested my head against the wall."

     This quote shows just how severe Mariatu's depression becomes, short as it may be. She is eventually so upset that she has been mutilated so many times that she tries to kill herself, but fails. Now she wonders if she will ever be happy again.
     Mariatu is not bonding very well will Abdul, and it worries her family. Perhaps the reason for this is that somehow, Mariatu knows what will happen to her baby, so to avoid being ripped to pieces, she avoids becoming too attached to Abdul. Mariatu desperately wants to go begging with her cousins, but her aunt refuses to let her go. Eventually Mariatu declares that she is going with her cousins no matter what anyone says. An older lady named Mabinty volunteers to go with Mariatu, so she can go begging while Mabinty looks after Abdul.
     During one day of begging, however, Mariatu learns something that sets her on the path toward a good life. A quote from page 101 and 102 explains this.

     "One afternoon, quite by chance, I was holding Abdul while Mabinty was off talking to another older woman. I was standing impatiently, pacing back and forth, when a man dropped 40,000 leones (about $12) into my black plastic shopping bag. It was the most money I'd ever earned at one time.
     'Poor child,' he said to me. He patted Abdul on the head before walking on.
     'He took pity on you,' Mabinty said after I explained excitedly what had happened.
     'Why?' I wondered.
     'Because you have not only yourself to feed, but Abdul,' she said. 'Watch. You start carrying around that child and you'll get more money than anybody.'
     Indeed, passerby always singled me out when I held Abdul. From then on, I earned more money each day than all of my cousins combined."

     What is said in this quote is what sets off a chain reaction for Mariatu, spiraling toward a new life. Carrying Abdul around whilst begging catches the attention of more than a few people, who told some journalists about her. One short quote from page 104 shows what gives Mariatu the opportunity for a better life.

     "The representative then led the journalists on a tour of the camp, asking me to follow behind. At one point he directed me to stand still, with Abdul in my arms, so that the photographers could take pictures of me. I remember it well. My bare feet were caked in mud; a dog barked wildly in the background; behind me was a clothesline."

     It is this very picture that sparks the flame that burns its way to Mariatu's freedom. Mariatu's life consists of a constant exchange between moments of joy and hope, and moments of depression and sorrow that make her fall to the ground and feel as though she might never rise again. It's like flipping a light switch on and off, flickering between darkness and light. But chapter six sinks into the blackest night of all for Mariatu Kamara.

     The reason for Mariatu's sudden despair in this chapter is the death of her ten month-old baby, Abdul. This massive blow finally shatters Mariatu, as she blames herself for the death of her child, believing that he died because she didn't love him enough. Mariatu does all she can for her baby, but in the end it is not enough. She believes that she has no future and that her life is meaningless. Baby Abdul haunts Mariatu's dreams, and drains away her hope. But one night, she dreams of Salieu, that he and Abdul come and sit down beside her, and tell her that Abdul's death is not her fault. It is the last time she ever sees Salieu, and the dream nudges her out of the endless darkness.

     From then on, Mariatu slowly but surely finds her way back into the light. She finds more small moments of joy and happiness, and she becomes a better version of who she once was. One such moment of happiness is when Mariatu joins a theater troupe, which she ends up enjoying immensely. But one day, Mariatu is given the opportunity of a lifetime, an opportunity that will again change her life, this time for the better. On page 125, Mariatu is informed of a man in Canada who wants to meet her.

     "Comfort motioned me to a chair beside her desk.
     'A man phoned from Canada,' she said, sitting down across from me. 'His name is Bill, and he wants to find the girl he read about in a newspaper article.' Comfort reached over and handed me a newspaper clipping. To my surprise, it showed a photograph of me, holding Abdul. 'Is this you?'
     'Yes,' I said quietly, staring into the face of my little son. 'That's me.' I had to blink back my tears.
     Comfort didn't seem to notice my distress. 'If you are the person in the photograph, this man Bill wants to help you. His family read your story, and they would like to give you money for food and clothes.'"

     This man from Canada will be her saving grace, her salvation to a good life in a place without war, a place where Mariatu can finally be free. An even bigger surprise for Mariatu is when she finds out that a second man, named David, wants to bring her to England for medical treatment so she can get prosthetic hands to eat and write with. Faced with so many decisions, both of them good, she must choose the one that gives her freedom.

     I titled this blog On the Mend because, after being faced with so much pain and suffering, so much sorrow and loss, Mariatu still finds small moments of joy. And though she falls down every now and then on her journey, she always finds the strength to get back up again. With all that had happened to her, with all that she had endured, despite all of her suffering, she chooses to not give up. And with that choice, and with her determination, she is finally on the mend.