Sierra Leone at the Millenium

Kumba never sleeps anymore.  The night sounds of the bush that once comforted her – the whistled tututututu of the owl, the chchchchch of crickets, even heavy swaying of unknown creatures in the branches above – are silent.  Now there is only the certainty of sporadic gunfire and screams of women in far off blackness. She closes her eyes in guarded exhaustion, matching the breathing of the pikins surrounding her, also pretending sleep.  Even Miriama, her cot-mate, no longer makes her laugh by snorting and grunting like a sow with her piglets.  All action – all reaction heightens fear.  Listen and be ready to run. 

She thinks for a moment about crawling off the cot and slithering to the ground to steal the other children’s food stores.  The bigger ones have taken her food often enough.  But by now, there is none secreted away.  Hungry rats snatch up any remaining crumbs.  A snake might be waiting for a more substantial meal so the little pikin stays put.  And just breathes. 

Hearing “De soldier de coming” was terrifying the first time.  Now it hardly matters – RUF rebels, government forces, adult soldiers, child soldiers – all bring beatings, torture, gang rape, arson, death.  Tonight the soldiers will not find any food among the pikins.  Auntie caretakers and their own children have food and eat it with aggressive pleasure in front of the orphans.  Kumba has long watched such base survival instincts.  Her father is dead, her mother is missing.  Fight or flight only makes sense when there is immediate violence and anarchy.  For now, she does neither and freezes.  Her fighting instinct will arise at a wrong time and place years later.

Kumba no longer remembers her mother’s face though she once bragged that she had the lightest of black skin.  Krio speakers absorbed European terms and attitudes.  Freetown residents still have that sense of superiority today.  Many words ‘fair’, ‘light’, ‘bright' -- distance each person from being merely 'black'.   Mariatu, Kumba’s mother – uses them all to describe her two daughters.  She deserts them for long periods of time to drink palm wine, earning money with her body from the miners and soldiers.  Kumba remembers candlelight-lit black shining eyes that return home late at night. 

Maman changes locality and patrons with regularity.  In the manner of migrating gypsies, her identities and aliases change as well.  Mariatu’s beauty finds opportunities near the mines and sluices outside industrial Makeni.  At times, Kumba is put in the yard to sleep with the dogs.  Her small arms hug them as fiercely as she will later hug Miriama on a cot.  The dogs warn her of danger and keep her warm.  The rebels finally shoot the dogs but she clings to them tightly, even as hungry tics and fleas detach themselves from corpses to feast on her living blood. 

Kumba remembers when she was her mother’s gold mine.  More accurately, her diamond mine. Kumba‘s mother, pregnant, tied herself to the father, a diamond miner panning in the muddy rivers and creeks in the north.  Kumba watched the overseers with machine guns who watched her father panning.  They were quick to seize any sparkle in the pan, tossing him a few worthless CFA or a bottle of beer.  She remembers a man tall, darker than her mother, and strong.  He switches the backside of Kumba's legs when she vexes him, but sometimes lifts her up with a smile and she chortles in uncontrolled joy.  But now her memories are red, lying on the bank of the river.  Whatever he was – miner, husband, father, lover, pimp, child molester – he is now just raw meat in a hail of machete and hatchet blows.  She does not remember which side killed him, if she participated.  Her friend, Fatu, still awakens at night, hearing RUF soldiers ordering children to beat a certain person to death, or they will be next.  Soon Kumba's mother flees with Older Sister,  less a liability and able to earn money on the streets.  With new names, Saafi and Aisha, they disappear and are never seen again.  

A woman claiming to be Kumba’s grandmother hands her over to a Christian group, perhaps out of love, perhaps for a bit of free rice.  It helps the community to turn over the damaged, homeless nuisance to the Western run orphanage.  Official declarations and death certificates appeared quickly although all bureaucrats had fled to the capital and beyond with their own families.  The old woman, too, disappears into the chaos of a war that soon destroys all remaining records. 

The orphanage burns down -- for the second time .  Kumba, now four, walks with the children of two agencies toward the capital of Freetown.  The caretaker Aunties ride in a jeep with their sons, including the one who touches Kumba when she tries to pee in the bush.  But soon, on the side of the road, soldiers stop them and carry one Auntie away into the bush.  Kumba must now carry baby Abraham and his hand carved leg of dark red wood.  He always pees on her.  She carries him along bombed out roads into Freetown.   She swallows the remnants of anger and crushes the sadness. Resting for a moment with baby Abraham on her lap, she swallows the last drop of bitterness and begins to eat his rations.