FREETOWN CHRONICLES: the SOURCE

My girlfriends and i re-grouped this week around food and open hearts for one another. Each of us urging the other to 'update' about where we are in life. Each urging because no one really wanted to go first, because you know, spilling oneself to your girlfriends could easily turn into a tsunami of revelations, emotions, insecurities, dirty dirty secrets and other unexpected offerings. It felt good to sit with women, women who are intellectually sparked and more importantly welcomed vulnerability. I hold such spaces to high esteem. As an incredibly over open person being vulnerable is all i know how to be, in turn, i see the ugly of those i often truly believe i have connected with. Each time it hurts more than they will ever know. We need to know that there needs to be more spaces for vulnerability and the dirty to walk from our beings, we need spaces  free from assumptions. I have learnt that we all judge.

Around the table, each of us women of color, in socially complicated relationships come to terms with one crucial, over sold , undervalued, intra-talked, interlinked topic: SELF LOVE.  What the hell does that even really mean? i mean, love of self, love, self, self to love - love to self.  What happens when things get done to you/are imposed/are forced on to you like - racism, sexism, violence, violation, rape, religious intolerance, packaged beauty expectations.... How does one reclaim their self love - love self? Please lets not get into rhetoric shrink talk 101. I mean really, how do we grab, fight for, define, call for, demand, scream for, work for, discover, pray for, heal for a love that requires we connect to our source, the divine place, that core that is you/self? No one of us had answers. Or rather we had too many answers because we are smart and we know ourselves and life has taught us a couple of lessons, but i mean, we still wondered what on earth the synthesis of those two words really means. Yes, getting to know or become (re) acquainted to one's source and the work it requires to get there is  an approach. Yet, how does one start?

I am thinking about a plethora of things as i write this. I am thinking about 'my source' and how disconnected my heart and mind are, i am thinking about the injustice against women that i see everyday, i am thinking about my own relationships with many of my female relatives, friends colleagues and how distraught, strained, insincere, fractured and disconnected they are. I am thinking about my African woman self, i am thinking about the young girls i see everyday, that i interact with, that in my own funny little way support the best what i know how - to out stretch an arm of support. I am thinking about the relationships i've had this year, each one singularily so brutally soft and fragile. I am thinking about my own fragility and the desire to connect to the 'source'. 

Thanks to my girlfriends cooking me dinner this week, I've made a small list of potential ways to reconnect to {my} source so that i  may continue to work on truly nourishing the woman i am becoming and the woman i want to become. So perhaps i'll try:

1. writing down my thoughts more often

2. picking up my camera and hiring an okada man to take me around the city

3. lay in bed for long periods of time in silence

4. slow, slow, slow down

5. forgive myself. This means, for me, taking long deep intensional breaths

6. actually doing it with the intension of intensionally being committed to becoming my  best self

what would your list look like? do share....

fambul dem, this is how we do...

STEP UP! for Survival

Taken from MamaYe Sierra Leone 

Time to Step Up for Health in Sierra Leone

This is what we know, we lose 1 Sierra Leonean baby every 47 minutesand 5 women everyday in our country do not survive during child birth. The irony is this, giving life literally becomes a coin toss and yet the solutions to reducing the probability of death can be prevented if we had safe clinics that our women could deliver in. As a deeply religious society, many women who lose their babies often relegate it to “God’s will” and babies who lose their mothers have to often fight for survival as family members step in as care takers. I believe with every fiber of my being that it does not have to be this way. We also know this, our government cares about maternal and newborn health. This is evident in the Agenda for prosperity, the existence of the Free Health Care Initiative (FHCI) and with the proactive presence of our ministers in health and finance who continually and consistently make international headlines for initiatives that prioritize mama en pikin wellbodi.  I say however, that we must STEP UP our care and ACT where it really matters.

It is an interesting time for Sierra Leone as we continue to gain international recognition as not only an emerging economy according to World’s Bank Doing Business Report, but through the awarding of H.E Ernest Bai Koroma with the ‘Icon of Democracy’, also a pioneering African country for good governance. Multinational agencies like the World Bank and the Multi-donor trust show confidence in Sierra Leone by providing18 million dollars to strengthen our Free Health Care Initiative (FHCI). In addition, in 2012 Sierra Leone qualified for consideration by theMillennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) who offer countries 300 million to 700 million dollars worth of grant money as an innovative response to poverty reduction. It is evident that global leaders believe in the potential of Sierra Leone and its tenacity to STEP up for sustainable growth. This also means beyond infrastructural development like roads and electricity, the government must invest in the growth of its people. Yes.  You and I matter too. This means that we should have access to basics like primary education, every Sierra Leonean child should be immunized, child health should be taken seriously and importantly, more must be spent on health. On the contrary, we failed in the categories described above when MCC released their latest score cards.

This brings me back to STEPPING UP and ACTING where it matters especially when it comes to health. I do not take the old adage lightly, health is wealth and as a Sierra Leonean woman myself, I want to know that I can give birth in any clinic, regardless of my economic or social status, in Sierra Leone that is safe – meaning drugs and medication are available, health staff are well trained and amenities like clean water and electricity are consistently available. This can be a reality when our government STEP’S UP its care for mothers and babies. This can be done by allocating more funds for health and by consistent and timely disbursement of funds to ensure an effective and efficient health care system.

It is not too late, we can still allocate more to health spending ahead of the National Budget reading on Nov. 29^th, we can still meet our 15% Abuja international commitment to health spending, we can still STEP up and invest in the wellbeing of every Sierra Leonean so that giving birth does not have to be a coin toss. This is what we should all know – that it is POSSIBLE.

WHY AM I HERE, 'HOME'

FatouWuriePhotography |Kroo Bay| Freetown, Sierra Leone

It is a matter of perspective. I remember, vividly, when I took this image in kroo Bay. Fresh of the plane from Montreal, I think the nation could smell that I was in unfamiliar territory that I call ‘home’. My sense of direction, orientation, reaction and attraction to people and places were electric. Every story, every movement, every gesture, dream and laughter left me changed. Re-activeness was how I coped, I ran after everything, chasing those stories and possible connections. Like I said, the nation, everyone and there mama knew I had just landed.  

 I reeked of naïve yearning to belong and understand. Recently, I have been receiving messages from friends and strangers, asking me of my experiences of ‘moving back home’. I recall asking the same question to individuals living in Freetown when I too wanted, ached rather, to come back home. Now that I am at the receiving end of these questions, I never quite know how to respond. I could respond with the usual, prepare, um things don’t really work/function, don’t really trust people…trust is broken, oh and it’s a really small place, like incredibly tight, fishbowl microscopic so be prepared to be private. No scratch that, just come be open and do YOU, if you are prepared to deal with the consequences. The men, women…o la…stay single. But don’t, freetown, upline, the country..is romantic..dream A LOT. Did I mention trust is broken. Lord, just do YOU. No. PRAY. Be.

I have no answers, I only have my story. My story mine mine, the reason why I am here, how I ended up here, why I am still here….it’s mine, Be open enough to know that your story will unfold as destined….What I can speak to however as year 2 approaches is this:

1.   Its all about perspective
2. Your core…who you are, your principles, your dreams, your aspirations….protect it.
3. Secure and ensure you have a circle of love. A circle that reminds you that you are human, that you are allowed to make mistakes, that reminds you that ONLY YOU can truly know who you are, want to be, and are made off. 
4.  Be humble. Kiss the palms of the elders, drink their knowledge.
5. Listen. TRUST ME; you do not have much to say…Yet.
6. Its home, relax…all will be well. You will see the extension of your roots…your ancestors live on…all will be well.

I look back at this image with a smile. Now, today, with the very same camera and lens, this photograph would be captured from a different angle. The textures and layers,  more sensitive, more detailed, more more more…less raw.

Its all about perspective. I promise.

Fambul dem this is how we do…