LAND. GRAB.KILL.FOR.IT.LAND.

FatouWurie Photography| Instagram

 I posted this image on impulse. It was powerful. My eye , which in the words of Orewa Elewa , is my superpower. It is what I use most.  What and how i see inspires, moves, influences my decision and every single move I make is based on what/how i see, the obvious or the detail within the bigger picture. 

.....KEEP THE WHEEL SPINNING

It may seem as though i have abandoned thefatoublog, no my friends that is far from the truth. We are currently re-designing the entire blog, working with new fashion designers, developing fresh photography projects, gathering inspiring interviews and so much more! Please bare with us, we will be re-launching shortly. As i gather material and go through the process of finally having my own website, i am often nervous, short of sleep, time and resources and  filled with a plethora of questions and doubts. However moments like those always warrant a moment of silence to remind self that story-telling is work i am committed to. `So despite the challenges, we forge on, dedicated to providing quality images, engaging and initiating projects that matter to us,  gathering stories that need to be told, connecting with brands that are making waves, and connecting with people who are revolutionizing, incubating, and creating spaces for innovation, interaction, growth, love, interconnectedness. This re-lights the flame, digging deep, i thank the most high within and around me,  realigning to focus on the work knowing that in time all else will fall into place, I  therefore leave you with this:

“Question: I am interested in so many things, and I have a terrible fear because my mother keeps telling me that I'm just going to be exploring the rest of my life and never get anything done. But I find it really hard to set my ways and say, "Well, do I want to do this, or should I try to exploit that, or should I escape and completely do one thing?"

Anaïs Nin: One word I would banish from the dictionary is 'escape.' Just banish that and you'll be fine. Because that word has been misused regarding anybody who wanted to move away from a certain spot and wanted to grow. He was an escapist. You know if you forget that word you will have a much easier time. Also you're in the prime, the beginning of your life; you should experiment with everything, try everything.... We are taught all these dichotomies, and I only learned later that they could work in harmony. We have created false dichotomies; we create false ambivalences, and very painful one's sometimes -the feeling that we have to choose. But I think at one point we finally realize, sometimes subconsciously, whether or not we are really fitted for what we try and if it's what we want to do.

FatouWuriePhotography|Thefatoublog.com| A UNICEF Look at Cholera in Sierra-Leone

You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now.” 

― Anaïs Nin

Fambul dem this is how we do

POLITICO by the FREE MEDIA GROUP. SALONE STyle

.Love this manifesto and subsequent movement by POLITICO:

" Aware of the tribal and regional dichotomy that has permeated the politics of Sierra Leone, as epitomised by the only two political parties that have ruled our country since independence in 1961 (SLPP and APC), Politico aims to help de-tribalise and de-regionalise our politics for the amelioration of the plight of the ordinary Sierra Leonean no matter where they are or who they voted for. 

No-one is responsible for their being born into a certain ethnic group and must therefore not suffer for it. This is the only way we can truly rise from the ashes of war and the backward political system caused, sustained and characterised by the deep-seated rumble of corruption our country has long suffered from.

This is a struggle for you, for us and for those yet unborn. So please join us.

Long Live Sierra Leone!

Long Live East, North, South, West! "

 

...oh and Suny Boy, Sierra-Leonean cartoonist is super dope too!

 

check them out at HERE

 

fambul dem this is how we do

FREETOWN CHRONICLES: YOUTH VS. STATE

........i run into a couple of friends at a resto-bar in town. One of my favourite private spots in the always colourful 'downtown'  city of Freetown. It is raining outside and i am talking about relationships with a friend of mine who has recently engaged his girlfriend of 2 years. His happiness and easiness makes me uneasy, i smirk at his smile, he remains gentle with me and makes another order of roast beef. Amidst our chatter we start talking to a group of people sitting beside our table. Our discussion moves from bumming a smoke to one of politics, youth mobilizatation, development and the mentalities of a younger generation of Sierra-Leoneans. We laugh some more and begin to enjoy each other's  company.

the powerful little girls on THE DAY OF THE AFRICAN CHILD

Regina Bash Taqi invites me to a fashion show that she organized for some very young talented and creative young ladies on Saturday, June 16th, the Day of the African Child. My cousin and i decided to go, nothing much to do anyway. The Girl Power themed fashion & talent show turned out to be a lovely way to spend the afternoon. We were entertained with 3 different themed catwalk shows, singing by Miss Sierra-Leone, a piano performance piece and some dancing. I was thrown back to my own very young diva days, back then i owned the world and no one could tell me any differently.  Although this post is coming a couple of weeks after the fact, i am continually inspired by the DAY OF THE AFRICAN CHILD, SOWETO UPRISING and years later it resonates through. The African Child, the African young boy, The African young girl....the African...filled with much content, context, meaning and movement. As aforementioned, the young african girl me was unstoppable, attitude filled, creative, free.....and those kids that day truly took me back memory lane. GIRL POWER, indeed.

fambul dem this is how we do...

from a rooftop view somewhere in Freetown Sierra-Leone

i took these photographs a couple of weeks ago when i went to visit a friend at her apartment. The view from her home is stunning, her space minimal with a very heritage apartment feel which reminded me of my previous apartment in Vancouver, minus the view. As i blog from Country Lodge, i can't help but wonder what the week ahead with bring. All i know for sure is that i need to start walking the walk and put the talking to a screeching halt. God cannot continue to teach me lessons i should have learned the first time around. So for thefatoublog readers out their somewhere in cyber space and beyond, i bid you a week of embracing gratitude and momentous living  (meaning, living only for and in the moment) and thank you....for visiting  yet another blog in the wild wild world of the world.wide.web.

enjoy the photographs from a rooftop view somewhere in Freetown Sierra-Leone.

 ...fambul dem this is how we do

on about my business re:freetown moments

his name is FAROUK SESAY

.....a sierra-leonean poet. farouk sesay...RAPE:

Rape

                                       I.   
The bodies of our women we made to a battlefield
Firing at them with chakabulars propped between our legs
Scaring their wombscape like Hiroshima
The sweats from the brow of their soul choke life from their bodies
We are an invading army looting the obelisk of their Ethiopia
The embers of our loins torch the sacredness of their being
And the fires of our lust consume the oasis of their soul
We beat our chest on their breast to test our manhood
Cheered by depravity anchored on the pendulum of our loins
The vows to die for their honour fade in the cacophony of our moans
 Echoes of the ecstasy of shame prowl in the cages of our emptiness
The flag of shame we hoist on the summit of their memories
 Fluttering and fanning the fires of hate in their souls
For the army suckling succor from their breast
While defiling the milk with the bile of their chakabulars

                                          II.   
From Darfur to Congo to Rwanda to Kailahun
 Soldiers of shame limp across the continent soaked in shame
Sapping the allure of the muses of negritude
Hiroshima of contempt, we place underneath the core of their soul
Exploding everyday to multiple Hiroshimas in their mindscape
Shame bow down in shame
for the wars we fought on the bodies of women
The trenches we dug in their soul
The etu brute wounds we left in their wombs
With weapons of old forged in the furnace of their wombs
We rape them with chakabulars
And rape them again with the penises of our tongues
The stigma left blisters of shame on their image
Like the blisters we left in their wombscape
And their bodies, now a battle field with wreckages of arsenal
Burning!!! Burning!! Burning!

                                           III.   
From the ashes, the phoenix of African womanhood rises
From the verses of Isis the resurrection beckons
From the pyramid of Egypt Cloepatra came on the heels of Nefertiti
From the sacred groves of sandathanka the ankle bells of Nasomayla struck
From the Peninsular Casely Hayford’s pen rages
From the rice fields and fishing ports they came chanting
From the shackles of forced marriages they break free
From Angola Queen Nzinga rallied the amazons
From Ashanti Ya Asantewaa raised the flag of pride
From Zaria Queen Amina shouts the command
To reclaim the milk of life we defiled
To gather the souls we scattered
To piece together the calabash we smashed
To redraw the sacred lines we crossed
To reclaim the territory we invaded
To return the obelisk we looted
To replace the beacons we uprooted
To reassert the honor we dishonored
To Nile the oasis we drained
And to wage a war in the landscape of our soul
They came wearing the scars of the battle of our birth like medals
The breast milk we defile drenched the battlefield
The battle cries of etu brute fill the air
The cries numb our soul
The chakabulars went limp
We retreat like eunuchs spoiled with spoils of our war of shame
And the loot of our burnt image
Saddled on the wounded camels of our souls
 

---

NOTE:
Chakabular  a locally made gun in Sierra Leone
Nasomayla, a traditional woman chief in Northern Sierra leone

the 1 year birthday

FRANCO'S-SUSSEX BEACH-SIERRA-LEONE

ISA'S PIZZA & SAIDIAS'S IMPORTED TABASCO SAUCE

Its Easter and i don't quite know what to do with myself. So my dear friend Saidia and i decided to grab pizza at this new place in our neighborhood. Its quite good actually, the owners are so very sweet and the prices are fairly priced. So, for great quality pizza at an even greater price, go to Old Skool in hill station, you can't miss the spot! Oh and the humor it is that Saidia carries her Tabasco sauce with her everywhere she goes. Epic.

And the Easter Long Weekend Saga Begins

Me = Crazy About Parmesan

Tabasco Sauce- all the way from Maryland, USA (ha)

Pizza- Well Priced & Quite Good

Pizza Spot-Inside Old Skool

Fambul dem this is how we do....

......the past weclomes in the present- APRIL

Recovering from malaria for the third time since been in Sierra-Leone, exhaustion and a pile of frustration, has been anything but easy. As my 25th birthday quickly approaches, i cannot help but feel a sense of accelerated aging. Within, i am still very much a little girl who sees the world in colors with accents of my own made up colors with hues and shades only i have created. I see my hands multiplied and placed within every desired passion and industry, one of immense creativity suspended in utter silence and bliss. I see white, all this with furious throws of light, heart pumping faster but smarter all throughout my being. Despite the pounds of realism, pragmatism, and boughs of inflicted disappointment i've been fed over the last couple of years, i still reject and relegate the 'REAL WORLD'  to shadows in my mind, my heart refuses to hold the scars and so quickly weeds the memories of 'shit' off its flesh. Thus, we remain still open, still wide, still soaking up every inch of the possible, still deeply flirting with the ridiculous commercialized and packaged concept of love and loving. At 25 (almost), one must really know better. My mentor decided that i needed a pep talk today, to summarize our pep talk- he looks at me coldly and says " be smart, have control over your mind and leave your heart to do what your heart does best, that's all my darling. Just love your mind enough to know what's real and what isn't.....," he lets go of the stare smiles and dismisses me from his table...*side glance*

Vancouver-at a dear friends house

 

 

I am looking forward to this month, finally making time to establish my company and the vision that accompanies it, i feel strong. Anything is possible. I am especially grateful to the mentors and lovers the good creator continues to invite into my life, they are epic- epic like the refreshing feeling of splashing clean, clear cold water on one's face. They tell me things that make my inside light up- growing. 

 

Montreal- at the Andy Warhol Exhibition

April, countdown to the day of my birth which is always a huge marker for me, where am i, how am i, how is my being in the now now and where would it like to be in the there there-forth.  however i leave you with some of my flash back kodak moments....and will shortly welcome you into the world i am currently living in and i continue to explore, jump and hoot, love and laugh, cry and moan in the country i was born...

 

Montreal: don't remember where exactly

fambul dem this is how we do...

MANUELLA

So since i've had too much fun with this photoshoot, i wanted to share some of the backs tage photographs of this promising and talented young Sierra-leonean star. 18, very sweet & a performer still in the process of developing & discovering self, however she can still deliver. Introducing you to Manuella Shallop.  FOLLOW HER  ON TWITTER

 

baw baw beach: we sassy like that

the kids at baw baw beach- pricless. filled with attitude like you'd never seen. they demanded photos be taken of them, they posed, they laughed and asked for sweets. eerrrm okay.  this community deal with the deal realities of a difficult life surrounded by an oasis that is the beauty of the place.

my mentor talks to this young girl and i don't think she realized how much i needed to hear those difficult and yet so pure and price-less those words of wisdom were. i needed to hear that too

Victoria- A Young Mother

fambul dem this is how we do...

THE SIR-MILTON MARGAI SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND

...this school was definitely not on my radar until last week. I walked in and felt uncomfortable, only because i found it all unfair. I stare all i wanted at the students, at the teachers but they in turn could not return that stare--what ever the stare was and what ever staring means....{literally or otherwise}. I quickly decided that was not the way i had to look at things, all i needed to do was be respectful of their space, listen and in turn feel their humanity and hope that mine could be felt too.

the school kids begin a with a prayer. they sing and its lovely....the religious undertone a little overbearing, however i see the strength in it. I listen

they talk about their needs....brill papers, type writers, carbon, medication...food like sardines and luncheon meat- pleasure in the little things.

i leave the school truly lifted - they need the basics- and even that is difficult to attain at times

THE 5TH TING! HER ROYALTY: DAY 1.

 

Government Waft-Freetown

This what i know of life, the only thing i know of life is- it HAPPENS. Each day is unpredictable, however much you want to make the unpredictable, predictable and even when it seems predictable it really isn't and i suppose that sometimes means one isn't really paying attention. As my work piles up, my exhaustion flows within, i am also filled with the appreciation of 'being at the right place at the right time'. So apparently, i will be spending the next couple of days with her royal highness, Princess Basma Bint Saud, who is a women's right activist, avid blogger, patron to the arts, business woman and most importantly a woman dedicated to humanizing the humanity of the vulnerable. As we sat on the ferry ride from Lungi to Freetown, she smiles and speaks frankly through her jet lag about humanity, women's issues, power and her love for the arts. "Power shouldn't be given, that dynamic isn't empowering. Power should be shared, it must be shared".  

 

Princess Basma Bint Saud

_

Her first time in freetown, Sierra-Leone, she will be spending the next couple of days meeting various dignitaries like His Excellency, our President Ernest Bai Koroma and our  first lady Sia Koroma. She will also be acting as a guest speaker at our Women's Day rally, visiting up country and hopefully she excitedly explains, meeting artists and designers. She insists she loves the art.

the aiport-Lungi, Sierra-Leone

_

i am back in freetown, exhausted and doing a write up for the woman who brought me on this project (more on her in posts to come) as i slightly chuckle, this was not the week i envisioned. To be given the opportunity to take a personal documentation on the Princess visit to Sierra-Leone as she meets our heads of state & the locals who make up this resilient and yet so paradoxical of a place...the land we love..this was not penned into my dairy....but:

finally on the shores of freetown-post 23minute ferry ride

fambul dem this is how we do....

5 SIERRA-LEONEAN TINGS!

   1. we got two film makers making waves in the film industry

     Nikaytu Jusu & Jullian A. Renner

  2. GLOBAL VOICES:  Hudson Tucker, Global Rights’ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender   and Intersex (LGBTI) Rights Initiative Program Manager in Sierra Leone, led his third training on defending LGBTI rights for the 24 human rights activists that participated in our first two trainings (November 2011 and January 2012).
The goal of this training was to increase the capacity of our partners and LGBTI-friendly civil society organizations to promote and defend the rights of LGBTI persons in Sierra Leone.

CHECK IT HERE

3. THE RETURNEE GROUP

     FOR MORE INFORMATION JOIN THE YAHOO E-GROUP: thereturnee_group or join 

     for photographs of the 2nd quarterly meet & greet event CHECK IT HERE

4. SALSA FREETOWN

     CHECK IT HERE 

5.  A SURPRISE- WILL DO A SPECIAL FEATURE SOON...

fambul dem this is how we do...

WE DAE REGISTER~ RE: DEMONSTRATING DEMOCRACY-SIERRA-LEONE

AFTER been the biggest baby because leaving my bed at 6am in the morning seems almost impossible in my head, although i am awake at 5am most mornings. i finally got dragged out of the cocoon that is my room to walk up to the catholic church near my house to REGISTER TO VOTE. The post product is this:

7:30AM DRAMA

the process is simple and mindful. If you can read or write, you can sign your name, if you can't there is always the finger print. People cue, questions are asked, answered, you are finger printed, photographed, biometeric-fied and you are on your way to been able to vote in Sierra-Leone's November election. Simple? Yes. Good? Yes. Democratic? Perhaps. After all, we aren't on the news protesting or raising large sums of "unrest".  We are peacefully been guided through a democratic electoral system....or so it seems.

If there is one thing i have learned and i find myself continually learning about my country, nothing is EVER what it seems to be but for now....

 

fambul dem this is how we do....

 

...my samples...the exhibition

Sample

Nervously Seeking Feedback

putting yourself out there is scary. that thought just dawned on me as my exhibition draws closer. I am nervous, just a little...okay a whole lot. The feeling of elation though cannot be traded for anything when you finally see your work materialize. I know that i have a lot of work still to be done on my craft as a photographer and self proclaimed writer and perhaps self proclaimed photographer as well. That will come in time, i am willing to put the work in. I was all gushy on friday when i got to hold my first sample photograph in my hands. Did i mention i am only slightly nervous.

If you are in freetown, do pass through on friday, march 2nd. 7pm onwards at Bliss Patisserie. I just got confirmation that St. Mary's super market on hill station will be giving me 12 bottles of wine...FOR FREE. 

Graditude.

fambul dem this is how we do...

the cemetery

death. on sunday,  i spent my morning in eastern, freetown attempting to re-do some of the photographs for my upcoming exhibition. As i walked through the bay, stopped to talk to people, photograph and hear stories, an older woman stopped me and said: " you nor ask me yet". I then walked towards her, apologized, sat beside her and said,  " sorry mama, mek we talk".

10 minutes later and water fills my eyes.  I want to cry for the first time, really cry and grieve for my grandmother. This older woman is regal, strong- her strength coming from her faith in Allah. Her story resonates through my veins, and i decide that right there that i love her. I love her resilience.

____

the cemetery isn't too far from Bay, so I stopped at the gas station in Kissy to visit the cemetery.  I was already inspired by a friend who had taken photographs at that particular cemetery. I was also drawn to the dead: the old woman's story of the loss of her 6 children, my friend in Accra's recent loss of a close friend and the loss of my grandmother. 

__

This is what i cam getting to really know about life, each mil-second is significant. we MUST cherish it, kiss it, wrap our bodies in the folds of each experience. we will cease to exist one day, as we are forced to participate in the greatest human equalizer-death.

MARIAMA-FATOU-AMINATA: RE-UNITED

MY SISTERS & I