#16Days: Bear with Me by Fatou Wurie (@thefatoublog).

BEAR WITH ME: FOR SIERRA LEONE

SONG:



[Bear with me

Bear with me

Bear with me

Teday teday teday

Mama yooooooooo

Den dey cam den dey cam

Mama den dey cam

Den dey cam]




My dreams are still realities that nestle in profanities

As I smell blood they extract from limbs in deadened streams.

The red sea cries, as Babylon sails, but I’m in salone.

Sweet sweet salone teday

Where assailed voices don’t pass Freetown.

So I’m asking freed slaves to come chain me take me away.

Freed slaves come chain and take me away,

To a land where pain isn’t gain

And rain isn’t placed into the fast lane

Of destruction



SONG [Maaama yoo



Mamama yooooo

Sweet salone

Den dey de diee ohhhhhhhhh]

My mother’s bosom warm with security

Rocks me back and forth forth and back

gestating me back to reality, but my body has memory.

The day they divided my legs....

they forced my honeycomb to burst – explode.

They Shot papa - I say I dey yerie yerie - Uncle done run away to green bushe.

Mama mama cam cam cam

So mama rocks me to the present, present, present

Be here in the present

She soothes and says

na dream you dey dream dream deam

But it feels so damn real that this might be my last meal

paradise don gone na sweet sweet salone.

-

See people ask me all the time isn’t it the place

where diamonds reside?

How is it going by the way?

Last time I checked it wasn’t safe

You know, like there are problems there

I then ask....

-

Where where you when they asked me

Short sleeve or long sleeve

Asked me to love a part of me?

Where were you

When they bitched slapped me

And asked raped or pounded

My dear which will you be?

Where were you

When they burnt

Houses down?

Where were you when they burnt schools down?

Intellects and judges down?

Children and brightened dreams down?

Disempowered minds

Political turnarounds

Left all of us in the dogpound

Bear with me when I cry in the night

Bear with me if I’m still angry deep in side

Bear with me if I smoke to escape

Or if I drink to daydream peacefully..

Bear with me when I freak out in bed

Bear with me when my heart violates to be heard

Bear with me when I scream.

Sweet salone salone

Bear with me

Our stories are spilling.

Sweet salone salone

Bear with me

Death is still grieving.

Den say den day den say salone pikin

Una cam back Una cam Una back cam back

salone pikin dem

Una came back

Una forget!

Una forgive!

Bear with me if I cannot forget

Bear with me if I cannot forgive

For My body, his body, her body, our bodies, my body....

has memory.

Bear with me (3 Times).

Fatou Wurie is a writer, blogger, gender advocate amongst other things. She uses her writings to address social issues as it affects women and children. She is the Founder of The Survivors Dream Project, an organization charged with empowering survivors of  Ebola with life skills. You can read more of her work at www.thefatoublog.com

Shame: Poem by Tosin Adeshokan (@theOluwatosin)

SHAME


The child heavy with child.
Spited by her mates,
Shallow bastards that wouldn’t know any better.
Disgraced by the community,
Shamed by her family.
She won’t find the cure to cancer.
That future is now erased.
All she would ever be would be street fights and failed marriages.
Drugs and suicide attempts.
One day she gets lucky and kills herself,
Trying to drown the Indian movie of sadness her life has become.


But do not shame Shade
No No No! Don’t even dare!


Shame her father for being a pig!
It’s not his fault he can’t respect women!
Just like his father before him, he is a violent abusive drunk!


Shame her mother for not standing against hell she called marriage.
A fractured nose here, a non-operational black eye there.
Settling for someone beneath her because society says ‘A woman is a failure if she isn’t married’.

The Female Side to Rape by Ejura Salihu

Last week's letter 'Dear Aunty Timi' was a heart's cry. If you haven't read it, please read HERE. That letter pictures the pain some have been forced to endure for many years. The scar is carried all through childhood to adulthood with little chance of total healing because the world is not listening to the cries. The muffled screams from a little girl next door while her body and innocence is taken from her forcefully by someone who should protect her, goes unnoticed because everyone is too busy to care. 

Scenarios may differ but the crime remains the same with the child growing up to be an adult with sad broken memories and a stolen childhood. As Miss J narrated her ordeal, the first thing I realised was how she seemed just as frightened as a little girl again, the broken trust still rang through her words. Her only question still remains 'Why Aunty Timi?' There are so many articles, stories out there about abusive uncles, but aunties rape too. It is harder to imagine and easier than you think for it to happen to any toddler. As a parent, when you need a maid, you feel safer getting a female maid since stories of male helps abusing girls is so rampant. A relative calls informing you of a planned visit and you heave a sigh of relief that its your younger sister. Your precious little daughter should be safe right? Hmmm...sadly that is not always the case. Aunties rape too! Female helps molest young girls too and even boys (we will talk about that some other day).

What Are You Saying to Children?

My post is actually something that's been rolling around in my mind. Nowadays, at least twice every week the media reports the brutality, and dangerous behaviours faced by children. Many children are being abused in the worst possible manner. On top of that, one of the things that really hit me is how openly some people (parents inclusive) express their hatred of children. They are generally seen as a group that is okay to hate.

I've been trying to figure these out on-Why is it that children are being abused? What is it about children that such people tolerate so much bigotry towards them? Now children are the most radically disempowered group of human beings in the world.

Cross-culturally, they have no political power, their daily lives are completely out of their control, they are surrounded by people three times their size and strength who rule every aspect of their lives, unlike any group of adults in this culture, they can be legally struck, and any possible redress they have against abuse requires them to find an adult who will help them. Would any reasonable human being not throw the occasional temper tantrum in such a situation?

#Nigeria: Alarming! 15 Children Defiled by their Fathers, Uncles in Enugu – FIDA Reports

The International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, on today, expressed concern over the increasing rate of defilement of children in Enugu State.

The group said no fewer than 15 children were defiled from July to November this year in the state.

Chairperson of the organization in Enugu State, Nkiru Ugwu-Nwabueze, who disclosed this during its 2013 week with the theme “Women Empowerment and Sustainable Development With Emphasis on the Gains/Challenges”, held at the Filbon Hotel, Enugu, said the children were defiled by those they called uncles and brothers.

The Battle of Sexes by Abimbola Abiola

I grew up in an environment where the girls were ordered not to talk when the elders did. It was a sin to share your opinion, argue your thoughts in actuality we had no right or freedom of speech. We were meant to act dumb even though we had active minds. Obedience meant silence, silence wasn’t an option, it was forcibly imposed, it was part of our lives; you abide by this makes you an obedient child, you don’t and there's an unfortunate stigma attached to your name.

#Nigeria: Farmer Bags 15 years Imprisonment for Raping Minor in #Jigawa

Wonders shall never end! Apparently some farmers cultivate both crops and under aged girls, how despicable! Instead of brainstorming on strategies to help our agricultural sector, they are working on destroying a girl's future. We'll come say hello in the prison sir!  Read more on the farmer's story...

The Punch reports that a Hadejia High Court in Jigawa on Wednesday sentenced a 25-year-old farmer, Umar Yakubu, to 15-year imprisonment, without an option of fine, for raping an eight-year-old girl.