Poem: A letter to Mama-Salone

Saidu Bangura,

Palmarejo, Praia,

Santiago Island, Cabo Verde.

A letter to Mama-Salone

Dear Sweet Mama-Salone:

I know you sometimes don’t want

to be bothered with onerous letters.

I hope you have rested quietly well

from the troubles of those dark days,

from the woes of the nineteen nineties.

Mama, don’t you think it is time to

wake up and stand up for your innocent

grandchildren and great grandchildren?

Mama, for sixty-one years now, we,

your children, have not had it easy

with your twin sons: Seni and Sana.

They have deflagrated everything

and razed the structures left by the

Liz tenants in our beautiful house.

Mama, when are you going to bless

us with a Gbessay to save us from

the thieving and warmongering twins?

Mama, can you make the children

of the seventies to be this Gbessay

to save us from the acts of the twins?

Mama, your daughters are not safe,

your natural beauty is not protected

your natural resources are wasted

and blasted by those Seni and Sana

want to help them in the squander,

your grandchildren have no future

your children in other homes can no

longer return where they were born –

Seni and Sana see them as a threat.

Mama, if you don’t save us from your

twin boys, our home and people will

be deliquesced, wiped off completely

from planet earth and more strangers

will come and take all that we have.

Mama, do you know that Seni and Sana

have made your children from the north

not to understand those from the south,

those from the east don’t understand

those from the west – and vice versa?

Seni and Sana have confused us all, Mama!

Dear Sweet Mama-Salone,

please feel our pains and concerns –

don’t make us, your good children,

to suffer more than we have suffered

under the brutality of Seni and Sana –

under the haze and blaze of Seni and Sana

under the insensitivity of these bad twins

under the collateral damage of these twins –

we don taya wit Seni en Sana den trick.

Give us a good Gbessay who can free us

from the catastrophes of Seni and Sana,

Dear Mama-Salone, sweet Mama-Salone,

so we can exalt you, o “realm of the free”!

Tata Mama.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

dear Sweet Mama-Salone.

Me na yu pikin,

Saidu Bangura.

Glossary

Mama-Salone: the common way we, Sierra Leoneans, refer to our country.

Seni and Sana: stand for Alusine and Alhassan, common names for twin boys, especially for the Temnes, an ethnolinguistic group from the north and north-west of Sierra Leone. But the names, Alusine and Alhassan, cut across many ethnolinguistic groups of Sierra Leone.

Gbessay: is the younger sibling of twins. This name can be given to a boy or girl in some ethnic groups.

we don taya wit: Krio (English-based Creole of Sierra Leone) for “we are tired with” in English

en: Krio for “and” in English

den: Krio for “their” in English

Tata: Krio for “bye-bye” in English

Me na yu pikin: Krio for “I am your child/son/daughter” in English

Dr Saidu Bangura is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cape Verde. He lectures in the English Studies Course, Faculty of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, University of Cape Verde. He holds a BA, English & Linguistics (FBC, USL); PhD in Translation, Communication, and Culture with a specialty in English Linguistics (University of Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain).