My Scars
	Interview the Vultures
	Mother Africa
	The Venus Love-Trap
	Welcoming the First Whiteman to Bangura
	About the Poet and the Essence Article

Poem To My Scars

you scars,
you have been mine
as a fright,
while I have masked and massaged you,
you scars,
you are my twin sister.

while I have soothed and stroked
you openly and secretly,
you are the spirit of
my numb and living siblings.

instantly
they roped, bruised, and burnt you
today.

uncouth passer-by strangers shy away
from you my scars,
they want to run away from you
my soul,
they want to utterly avoid you
my loyal playmate.

they want to quietly bypass you,
you have been my strong trophy
you sweet sister,
defining I shall not do
though I caress and touch you
straightaway
my brown and beautiful scars,
my shimmering scars,
simplifying I shall not do
my everyday companion,
decoding I shall not demand
where I stand,
where I shall be
old friend,
always kind and intertwined we.

my scars,
my girlhood prize and pride,
my West African ancestral heritage,
my soulmate.

at you scars, they stare and blink,
you have been mine
as a spot of shock,
yes I have kissed and missed
you before and after,
my lasting scars.

who is listening, listening now,
scars untouched by most outsiders,
signaling scars within ugly scars
says the unaffected, ignorant society.

taunting and teasing
the clueless bystanders counted
the countless scars,
my rough and smooth scars,
they scrutinize and guickly turn away.
my witnesses sneer,
they scorn, they prick you
each chance they get
my glistening scars,
the stupid strangers laugh at the
awful size and shape of
the mutilated little girl's reality.

they jeer and mock you steadily
oh! scarlegs,
"skinny scarlegs," once they screamed,
without you, where can I be,
without us?


Copyright 2002 Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

Interview the vultures
that flock to the kill
when they smell blood,
urine and defecation.
West African vultures arrive
seeking the dead cow or bull
there under the ancient tree
at sunrise or sunset.
For all the years I remember
in my father's village
deep in the Guinean bush,
the large birds of prey came.
Interview the vultures
sitting on the tree watching
and waiting for the cow below
to die and cool down.

They sleep at night and come
at day's dawn to dance to
the song of the bright sunrise.
Today is a new day,
they are here for breakfast
and for a day's full meal.
Vultures do not kill their prey
they only eat the dead
and the moaning dying.
Some are night-time stalkers
and others arrive by day,
the feathered cleanup crew.

The girl was taken at night
taken from her city bed,
shaken from sweet dreams.
The Fula girl, frightened
of the dark night in Africa,
always afraid of the night,
Lay under the large old tree
being tortured by her elders,
butchering her wide-awake
There beneath the bright eyes
of the hungry vultures.

Why don't you interview them,
the vultures are there now,
they will tell you truly
what took place that dawn day.
There they watched enraged
danced wildly in disbelief
necks craning, eyes widened
popping from their tiny skulls.
They spread their shaking wings
and fled the bloody scene
of the innocent young girls
being butchered alive and well.

The cry of one girl was louder
than all the others.

Ashamed, she cried out for help
but no one there was near
or dear to hear and help her.
Dead ashamed and loudly yelling
there was no one there to
hear her scream goodbye.
Even the vultures did not pause
to screech farewell.



Copyright 1998 Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

Africa, majestic Mother of humanity,
true womb of rainbow human life,
you have been much tormented.

Timeless wars and carnage consume you,
warlords rend your ancient roots,
slaying, hacking tribal limbs.

Africa, ancient, mysterious land, first
united uterus of homo sapiens, you
still embrace those who dare to

Dream of your uncompromising divinity,
though mostly mocked, now ignored,
you remain genuine to your brood.

Greedy Warlords are also true offspring,
who rule ruthlessly over siblings,
dig up land for blue-white gems.

Plunderers have plied your shores before,
first came Arabs, choosing strong,
healthy, youthful males and females,

Chaining them, leading them to prisons,
herding them into stark, stone cells
to await tall-masted-sailing ships.

Ships to carry the sweating, naked cargo
chained together, deep in the hold,
steeped in piss, shit, vomit, death.

Others arrived, white-skinned conquerors,
the strong aroma of human-trade gold
permeated England, Spain, America.

The past is the past is the past, it's over.
Please forgive them all. Mother Africa,
they didn't know that these dark slaves
were humans, equals, kinfolk, relatives.

Only you knew the truth, you were there when
the homo sapiens walked your land, and
when they left for greener pastures.



Copyright 2002 Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

On a short visit to Louisiana,
I saw in the big window,
a white tee-shirt for sale;

It said "Muff-Diving Instructor"
imprinted in black and red,
red and black on white.

A black-haired man diving toward
the V-shaped black bush
between a woman's legs,

His pointed, outstretched fingers
reaching, nearly touching
the fuzzy treasure trove.

Two days later; Ad in newspaper:
Missing, Twenty-year Old
Tan, Tall, Thin, Teacher.
Last Seen: New Orleans.

That night, Morpheus descended,
I saw the fateful scene:
labia mutated to petals,
burgeoning and opening,

Emitting long waves of pheromones;
beguiled by sweet vapors,
enveloped by her petals,
losing sense of reality,

Swiftly he disappeared into the
beckoning lips of Venus;
the Love-Trap closed and
liquefied his carnal self.

Thus Man makes his earthly repose,
upon which only he can lie.



Copyright 2002 Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

"Porto-jo (Whiteman), where?, where?",
cried the village and city children.
Porto-jo left our taxi, pausing, before
beginning the long ninety-minute walk to
my father's remote, poor village, in the
valley of fertile green fields, in the
lofty mountains of Fouta Djallon, as the
white cumulus storm clouds collect over
war-torn Republic of Guinea, West Africa.

The first Porto-jo, ever to visit the scene of
the crowded Saturday marketplace, at roads-end in
the village of Banti-Ni-Jaga, followed by kids
screaming, "Porto-jo has hair on his arms,
he's over here, taking pictures of us,"
as the curious children encircled him.

Porto-jo stood still, smiling at the kids, as
two bold tiny ones crept closer to touch
his blue-veined, hairy white arms, then
they ran quickly away when he moved, the
others chanted "Porto-jo, Porto-jo," and
he whirled around asking "Where?, where?"--
screaming in unison, all scattered away
like jungle monkeys fearing eagle claws--
he laughed, they all laughed with him.

Now they all wanted their pictures taken, and
he speedily complied with their wishes, by
taking photos of girlfriends, boyfriends,
pairs, groups, singles, mothers with babes
in arms, families, old men and women, all
wanted their photos taken by Porto-jo, in
the marketplace where buyers come to buy
cheap, and sellers sing the virtues of their
fresh raw vegetables and sweet ripe fruits.

See the red-as-blood palm oil, shimmering yellow
corn oil, dingy gray peanut oil, and thick, smelly
cow butter, under the cooling shade of a small
green cotton tree, the female vendor whisks
away voracious black flies, that risk their
lives to steal a bit of sticky, unctuous goo
from the well-dressed marketeer in a lappa suit
of blue, green and yellow printed cotton, dark-
blue stars of David, on puffed-sleeve blouse,
long skirt, apron and matching coifed headwrap.

See the long baguettes standing upright in their tall
woven baskets, waiting to be ripped apart and
crunched by the teeth of the happy buyers, see the
shelled groundnuts, husked rice, buck-wheat,
dried corn kernels, sold by the cup to the poor,
by the kilo to the rich for Guinea Francs only,
take U.S. dollars to the money changers, but be
prepared to argue over the rate of exchange.

See the spectrum of vegetables, each grouped on a
white blanket, long dark-green peppers, clusters
of garlic bulbs, small purple eggplant, light-
brown onions, ovoid yellow sguash, slender bulbous
scallions, powdered cassava root—ready to be
steamed into semi-spheres of fou-fou, potato
greens, mustard greens, collard greens, take-it away
if you have money to pay, something to trade—you
have it made, make a fine hot pepper soup, food for
the hungry bellies of your pa, wife and brood,
the lucky shall eat, most shall look and hope.



Copyright 2002 Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

Autobiography of Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

I was born in 1960 in Sierra Leone, West Africa. As a child and teen, I sold fruit, peanuts and roasted meat in the streets of Freetown to support my elderly foster parents. Despite my daily pleas, I was not allowed to attend school.

At the age of 21, an American sponsor brought me to the United States where I enrolled at the Adult Learning Center of the Community School of Long Beach, N.Y. There, I learned to read and write for the first time. After graduating from Long Beach H.S. in 1988, I enrolled at SUNY Suffolk Community College as a part-time student, earning an A.A. degree in 1993. Three years later, I graduated from SUNY College at Old Westbury
with a B.A. degree in American Studies and a minor in Women's Issues.

I am a survivor of female genital mutilation.

In March 1996 ESSENCE magazine published my article, "Wounds That Never Heal” (reprinted below).

In 1998, Face to Face International sent me as UN Deputy Ambassador, to attend a three-day meeting in Ghent, Belgium. Fifty female genital mutilation (FGM) experts from Africa, Europe and the USA were assembled to discuss "...strategies to combat FGM in Europe...", and to propose legislation to the European Commission for the elimination of FGM.

My dream is to enroll in a university to earn an M.A. degree, and to teach Women's Issues at a college in the USA. My ambition is to eliminate the brutal, ubiquitous practice of female genital mutilation starting with the banning of FGM in each of the remaining forty-one States of the USA that have not done so. There are at least one million girls at risk of “medicalized” genital mutilation in the USA. I want to educate doctors and nurses about the true nature of FGM and prevent parents from seducing doctors and nurses into perform the debilitating procedure.

I have established a charitable organization, named after my late mother, the Salimatu Bah-Barrie Foundation, Inc., to acquire funds for the education of the Fula girls of my people, in the Rep. of Guinea.


Wounds that never heal … female circumcision
By Mariama L. Barrie-Diamond

[Reprinted from Essence Magazine, March 1996 Issue]

Wake up, girl," whispers Granny, as she shakes my shoulder gently. Jolted out of my dream, I dress myself quickly in a lappa skirt and blouse, then Granny and I join three other Fula girls, and their relatives. We leave Freetown, Sierra Leone, by minibus and drive to a remote place in the bush. As the morning mist rises, I see a gathering of women and six or seven other girls. I am 10 years old, and though I not yet know it, the events of this day will forever alter my life.

Bare-breasted dancers shuffling bell-laden feet and shaking maracas sing Temne, Susu and Mandingo songs. They dance around a blazing fire where several kettles boil water for the cooking of pepper soup, corn and rice. Abruptly the singing and dancing stop, and I stand with the other girls in a circle. The women make a ring around us, and the eldest woman enters our circle. "You are about to join Society," she says gravely, "and you must never reveal the ritual that is about to take place. Do you promise to keep these events secret forever?" Solemnly we nod our heads.

Next we are led to a round thatched hut, where we are blindfolded. I feel the women grab me, gag me and lay me down upon a matta. "Be brave," they tell me. "Crying is a disgrace." Suddenly I feel an excruciating pain. My clitoris is sliced off! I try to pull away, but the women hold me. I scream, but no sound comes. Before my silent scream ends, a sharp blade has removed my labia majora and minora. As the women close my wounds with thorns and try to stanch the bleeding with scalding water, I faint from the pain.

I am carried into an adjacent hut where I am washed and dressed in a special Society lappa costume. One by one all the other girls are brought into this large hut. Still in shock, we must now join in the dancing that has erupted again. Strangely, I find that the dancing helps stop my shivering and the chattering of my teeth.

At nightfall our relatives leave us. The girls will sleep on matta in the large hut, our wounds tended by women who are versed in the healing herbs of the forest. We will live in the bush until the wounds heal. I am the last to go because my wounds take the longest to heal.

Upon my return home, I am presented with a new lappa suit and an offer of marriage. I am now a full-fledged member of my tribe and, at the age of 10, a woman ready to leave home to work in the house of her future mother-in-law.

Advocates of female genital mutilation most of them members of a dominant male hierarchy, zealously guard the belief that an uncircumcised woman is unclean, impure and unfit to marry and bear children or attain respect in old age. They charge the increasingly vocal opponents of the practice - many of us living on American soil - with trying to undermine African culture.

Their accusations obscure the appalling truth, a truth my mother, sisters, cousins and female friends understand too well. We have suffered agonizing pain, shock, loss of blood, septicemia and tetanus. Too many of us have quietly bled to death or died later of complications. The rest of us face a lifetime of chronic vaginal and uterine infection, for we no longer possess protective labia to bar the entry of germs. And there are other effects: I will probably never achieve orgasm, but will endure painful intercourse and menstrual agony until menopause. This is the true legacy of female genital mutilation, a barbaric practice that has claimed more than 100 million living victims.

For these victims, help may be possible through reconstructive surgery. Yet when I visited a respected obstetrician who works with mutilated women (Dr. Harry Gordon of Northwick Park Hospital outside London), I felt such horror at the thought of being cut again that I left his office, not sure that I would ever be up to the surgery.
It may be too late for me, but not for future generations of little girls. No longer will I keep the secret of what was done to me in the West African bush. Only by revealing what occurred, and still occurs, at daybreak in the forest can I do my part to heal our wounds.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Essence Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Note: Mariama is seeking a publisher for her book FULAMUSUA, the true story of little girl from a West African rural village, given away to her Granny to grow up on the streets of Freetown.