Frozen Yogurt & LEONEANTHOLOGY

Good Tings be happening when i have some time for myself. I finally got the chance to have a proper meal at Gina's, the new frozen yogurt and coffee spot on Wilkinson Road. Apparently, they also serve cereal breakfasts and in my books that is VERY cool. Yes, i can have that at home, however i don't have the time to grab a bite at home most mornings. Listen, the frozen yogurt is A-amazing as are their crepes. Oh Freetown in full bloom - city living. 

I also got a call from Gbanabom Hallowell who i've yet to meet, and yet who so graciously included some of my written pieces in  the LeoneAnthology book of Contemporary Short Stories and poems from Sierra Leone. The book will be out for sale in about 2 weeks in all the major supermarkets in town. Ah, it felt so so good to see my work with the binds of pages, it felt right that it was amongst other Sierra Leonean word smiths. 

The gold STAR complex:

The thoughts on this blog post are disconnected mirroring my own disarranged thought processes. It dawned on me today that no one is going to give me a gold star for anything I do, the world owes us very little to nothing. I think I/we forget that sometimes. One just has to go out and do it and get it and demand it and sometimes just ask nicely for it.

Happy Friday My fambul dem! 

Love, from Freetown.

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…

CHINUA ACHEBE DIES AT 82

 “Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don’t expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value.”
- Chinua Achebe

It is from these legacies, these word warriors, these mind shifters & influences, these brave spirits, unafraid, free - ly- open to liberating their/our minds, emptying their bodies and allowing us in, allowing us into internal and alternate worlds...it is from these we {storytellers, artists, africans, humans} hail. His body has passed on, a truth we cannot dispel, but his words his soul remains, forever.

Fambul dem, this is how we do...

March 1st | The Inauguaration of Me| thefatoublog

Pot Of Gold| FatouWurie

Photography:

Is the personal self in expression, the value I choose to place on it is within the realm of art. It’s a reflection of how I see the world via space, objects, people and places. To monetize it is to reduce its process, which at times is painstakingly long, over thought, under thought, instinctual, raw, to a material plain that requires I working within a given time frame. Recognizing that this process does to fullfill my soul particularly because I earn my bread and butter in another sector, the blessing are abundant with the flexibility to CHOOSE to engage with photography, the utilization of my third eye, how, when and where at my own choosing. Recognition is important. I am learning.

Website:

It is okay for things to not work out. Compromising is not an option, in time my vision will manifest. I have poured that desire into the universe.

Love:

Liberates your fears for better or worse, your fears are liberated how you choose to interact with them comes to define the ethos and the energy of the relationship. Gratitude, love seeping into my veins, liberating fears. Learning to face these fears. Ya digg?

Strength:

In the knowledge that I am a growing woman. I am woman. That is enough. That is all I know.

On my journey seeking, exploring, understanding, faithful….i will find my pot of GOLD.

Freetown Chronicles I: I'm Coming Home

Why do we come back home? After the first mandatory difficult year one will endure once they return home, i am making a trip down memory lane in attempts to consolidate some interesting conversations i've had over the year.  One that always finds itself into many conversations when your accent has a semblance of difference is:  why do we return, from where do we return, and for how long is the return back home?  For some, its a choice. A conscious decision to want to, desire to, need to come home and give back, rejuvenate, be re-inspired, build a foundation, start a business, or one short lovely holiday is enough to choose to make home a home permanenatly. For others, its not a choice its due to family issues, deportation, exhaustion, lack of opportunities out 'there', depression and other types of pressures. The lucky few who make trips in and out of the country, existing in between two worlds and happen to find the balance satisfying, say its a blessing.  For others, home will have to be home for a very long time.

......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...

'SHAME': a page from the lyrical past

It’s a constant companion these days. Shame can be seen parading on the grey streets; proud to be so existent and thriving in the lives of many women I seem to speak with. Shame takes credit for feelings of fear, inadequacy and regret. It knows it can never die because it is constantly been produced, reproduced constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed with a verity that no pastor can fully conjure. Shame of the body, shame for the body, shame of sexuality, shame for sexuality, shame for wanting, shame of wanting, shame for needing, shame of needing, shame for hurting, shaming for been expressive in eyes, lips, tongue, hands and breasts. Shame, a companion that allows us to feel sub-atomic and expect sub-atomic influences in our lives because time and time again we question our self worth. We shame because we are told to shame. We embrace shame because a sense of innocence and wonder is deemed lost in an abyss of ‘woman-hood’ and ‘looseness’.

We begin to draw lines and draft territory and space in 'female land'. Divides erect as we chase penis’, hate penis’s and draw on our phallus of seduction in a terrain so fraught we invite patriarchy to thrive in the bodies of matriarchy. We create our own walls, nations, boundaries, categories and systems of ‘us’ and ‘them’. ‘Virgins’ and ‘non-virgins’. ‘Easy’ and ‘non-easy’. ‘Wholesome’ and ‘wild’. Satanic verses arise and the jungle of competition and exclusion breathes so loudly that the sirens of peace and inclusivity become a mere whimper.

I feel as though I exist in such a jungle, a subaltern were trains of shame travel and stop traffic everyday. A world of hurt, a world of distrust, a world of disfranchisement, a world of embodied experiences all too scarred and unable to extend open arms to new arrivals in the world of ‘woman-hood.

fambul dem this is how we do...

as 2012 approaches

As 2011 grew closer, I found myself at a birthday party of stranger who later became a friend, surrounded by her family and friends in a city I was beginning to detest and become uncomfortable in. Another year I found myself thinking, what will it hold? The first couple of months of 2011  were spent escaping, dreaming, plotting, facing challenges and re-thinking all that I had come to know. I also moved back into my parent’s house in the country I was born but had never really lived in. many things happened, I finally graduated after 5 years of a grueling and sometimes seemingly pointless undergraduate degree ( I left school for about a 6 months hence the delay). 2011 also found me in the midst of  making new friends, appreciating the one’s I’ve known for over 10 years with a new found verity and of course, as with everything, ending some friendships in order to truly move forward.  The year proved difficult, frustrating and yet I come out of it evolved, I can feel it innately and I embrace it whole-heartedly.

In the process of so much change this year, the revolutions accruing all around the world as people across the globe demand social, economic and political change that led to the deaths of many, I also lost my grandmother, who before she passed away said her heart was too full and thus nothing else could be said. Even though she died at a ripe old age, she had witnessed too much, carried too much, lost too much, she was tired and with God’s will decided it was time to leave this existence. I know now my coming home was destined, I have always hoped and prayed to see my grandmother before she passed away. God’s been good, all her grandchildren at some point during the year visited her; she said her goodbyes and left us. Amidst the turmoil, the deaths, the economic strain, the social challenges, the political turnaround and the impermanence of things stood as a resounding lesson thus reinforcing that conditions aren’t permanent, nothing lasts forever and we pay a price for everything.

I may not still know exactly what I want for myself, but I do know this much, I refuse to compromise. As 2012 approaches, I pray for good health, strength, wisdom and the grace to continue on the journey of creatively expressing self, discovering self, and most importantly, loving self. This time around, no New Year resolutions, everything is a process, if I can see it and desire it, then I must demand it and stand willing to do the work that will lead me to my goals.

All I know for sure is that I/we have a choice amidst any circumstance thrown or given to us, there is choice and character emerges from the choices we make and how we choose to learn from our choices.

A prosperous new year to you.

Fambul dem this is how we do..