Sierra Leone
When you are married to two or three women, you’ll have the one you love most. My mother was suffering this when I was born. According to story, my father had no time for her. As his third wife, my mother had only one yellow lappa with which to tie me to her back and at the same time cover her nakedness.
When a woman farms swamp rice or millet and has a little child, she spreads a cloth to put the babe under a tree to rest. If he cries, she will drop her hoe and rush to give him milk from her breasts until he is lulled to sleep again. This was my mother’s fate.
When the rains come, and the waters increase, the ferry connecting Kantia to Freetown is unusable. For three or four months each year, we are cut off from the outside world. The waters that separate us from the city also drown our savings. We watch our millet go stale in the barrels if we cannot sell it locally at cost.
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Many of us looked forward to free education and healthcare like the rebels promised. But with the diamond mines under their control, a lust for power overcame them. The year they took over our country, us young men came in from the provinces to mine diamonds. We left our villages in the North and journeyed to the diamondiferous areas in Kenema district.
Your boss might have ten supporters. Chinese or German business people. Some are officially registered diamond dealers. Many are underground. The supporters provide your boss with shovels, pick-axes, sifters, rice and sauce money—for stew to go with the rice. When my boss came to the village to recruit workers, we went—all of the young men—to dig. We left our provinces. We labored, digging all day at the river. Even several women arrived, panning the gravel with kitchen calabashes.
If you are lucky, you catch up with money fast and get out of there. If you are not lucky, you will be hand-to-mouth, hand-to-mouth—for donkey’s years.
“Spot me two pints of beer—when we find diamonds, I’ll get you back.”
We dig. We sift for the precious stones. Shake. Sift. Shake.
Double-crossing is an art. If the boss does not watch you closely, it is easy to lift a diamond while sifting. If you suspect a lazy boss, you move the diamond in the shaker until it reaches the middle. Then, you bob it in a flash—down, up—into the mouth. If you leave with a diamond under your tongue, you take 100 percent, instead of 50.
If a diamond worker bounces his shaker, the boss might yell: “I’m suspecting you!” They accused one man, forcing him to take medicine that made him go to the stool. He became sick and weak, but they would not let up. “You will take this until we see the stone in the latrine!” they hollered. .
Another man was butchered. The rebels hollowed out his belly—unzipping his body with a knife and exposing his tissues. He was suspected of swallowing a diamond.
Clockwise, anti-clockwise, clockwise, anti-clockwise, we shake.
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In our present time, you find almost no diamonds in the shallow river beds and pits. Conditions are harsh for alluvial miners. Whether the years bring conflict or peace, Kantia does not change. We live on in silence, struggling as subsistence farmers. My mother is 78 this year. Like most, she has never journeyed to Freetown. Being the third wife of my father is now a benefit. As the only one left living, she is the matriarch of a large family. She is proud of the small fortune I made from my diamond panning days. The way she wears her new yellow lappa is proof.
Getty Images/CNN: Kenema, Sierra Leone, 2001.
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