I first read about Mariatu Kamara in Chatelaine of all places. Mariatu, like Ishmael Beah is a young author who recounts her experiences as a child during the civil war in Sierra Leone.

I bring up Ishmael Beah because he wrote the forward to Mariatu’s book and also because one of the questions P. asked him when he was on his book tour a few years ago was why there weren’t any accounts of the experiences of the female/girl child during the war in his book. He said he had purposefully left those out because he didn’t think it was his story to tell. He later on mentioned half jokingly that maybe we could tell that story one day; I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my memories of Sierra Leone were not of the horrors and atrocities of war. But this is Mariatu’s story to tell and she tells it in her book (with Susan McClelland), The Bite of the Mango.

I’ve been meaning to write about this book for months, everyone in my family read this book months ago – but I just couldn’t seem to make time to read it.

My mom burst out laughing one afternoon while reading it – this was a little disturbing to me, “Why are you doing this? War is not funny†I said in mock horror.

Yes, this is a sad book, but it’ll also make you laugh, it’ll make you angry, it’ll break your heart and make you cry but above all, it’ll make you hopeful.

It’s Mariatu’s story told effortlessly about her circumstance and life growing up when the war reached her village.

There’s the barbaric and irrational act of violence that has left her without hands, a permanent physical reminder of the horrors she’s endured.

There’s her having a baby when she was but a baby herself.

It’s a tale of what is undoubtedly the ugliness of war and the hard journey to reclaim oneself.

It’s a little about forgiveness and going back home.

It’s quite an easy read for book with such a hard theme.

It’s a little about happy endings too.

Now twenty-three years old, Mariatu lives in Toronto and is a UNICEF Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, she also runs the Mariatu Foundation.

We came to Sierra Leone two months after my eighth birthday.

My father looked around wistfully and said, “It’s not Switzerland but they speak Englishâ€. For years we’d fall back on that phrase for those not-perfect but manageable situations.

Most of “my firsts†were in Sierra Leone; my first crush, first friend, first kiss, first heartbreak, etc.

Freetown’s the last place we’d live as a family – we would leave changed forever (not unlike the country), every one of us headed towards altered directions. It’s here that our lives would unravel way beyond our control.

We went there to be happy except our lives were varying degrees of sorrow with tiny splashes of the joy we could have known. I would love Freetown eventually, for its beauty and the inherent freedom it gave. I came to belong.

The Naimbana Street mosque prayer call would awaken us in the mornings.

My mom often said she felt a change coming; you couldn’t just have two types of Sierra Leoneans (the dirt poor and the filthy rich). She said a society couldn’t survive without its middle working people, and sooner or later someone would want to change that. I figured my mother was unhappy hence her pessimism.

I can’t explain my affinity for Sierra Leone; I imagine it‘s the war – otherwise it’s just another place I lived.

Saturday night was nostalgic, I attended a dinner and dance for Sierra Leone’s 46^th Independence Anniversary; the first time I’d been among that many Sierra Leoneans since leaving. It felt welcoming.

It wasn’t all at once; it started with the chatter, and then the music, the food and the people. It all came rushing back and it felt like I belonged.

Tags: Sierra Leone 46th Independence Day

I went to hear Ishmael Beah speak last night, and when he uttered those famous words; “call me Ishmael†(when someone referred to him as Mr. Beah) a lady in the crowd thought it was metaphoric, but I’m not going to get into that.

I wasn’t sure what to expect; I imagined it’d be dark and horrifying. I know evil abound in this world and although I believe we all have it in us; I’ve never deliberately been in a presence of someone who has (albeit involuntarily) committed such atrocities before.

It was a packed auditorium. When he walked on stage the woman behind me muttered “he’s just a kid†he looks very young and the evening wasn’t at all what I expected.

He’s a very affable young man, precocious and very well spoken. He spoke of his life before the war – I’m not sure how many times he’s had to tell these stories but you could still hear the happiness in his voice. He then talked about the sad and ghastly parts of his life thereafter; on the run and as a child soldier.

He’s seen, endured, and has been forced to do some very atrocious things; yet manages to keep his wits about him and most importantly he survived and is hopefully a better person for that.

He echoed a sentiment I’ve lived with for years – you don’t have to suffer pain to learn, you can easily learn from others, this makes his book even more significant.

Another thing is the emotions I felt; I know for most of the people in the audience this was a horrific tale of far away lands as told by a survivor, for me it was very real. These were people I once lived among and the places like Bo, Makeni and Kenema… he mentions are places I know.

His story gives me a twinge of hope for all those faceless and nameless children out there but it also breaks my heart into little pieces, knowing they’re still out there, in danger, hurt, scared, alone and ignored while we go about our pitiful little existences.

If he’s going to be in your town – you have to go see him! You’ll be inspired.

On a personal note, I couldn’t help but notice he has such perfect teeth.

Technorati tags: Ishmael Beah, Sierra Leone, A Long Way Gone