_(inspired by a dinner with the Gambian delegation who came to study the post war transitional Justice system in Sierra Leone)_
_“In what tense do we_ _conjugate healing from collective_
_Violence and massacres?_ _Past? Present? Future?_
_… How can we reconcile with people who never_
_Admitted doing wrong?_
_How do I prove I am a victim?_
_Where are the remains of my father?_
_When do we get to go home?_
_Is it safe?_
_Where was God?_
_Where is GOD?”_
Pablo Neruda
**
Pilgrims of pain came to visit our scars
Wrapped in ihirams of pain ,
Burdened by impurities of impunity,
burnt by the fires of a soul scorched ,
in flames of greed and arrogance
they came holding their hurt in the palms of their heart
to circumbulate the Ka’ba of our wounded memory
Scaling the height of our pain rung by wrong
To reach the hurt buried deep in their core
They opened our scabs with probing scalpels
to march our wounds with theirs;
Wounds for wounds, blood for blood
Pain for pain and hurt for hurt
On the intersection of our humanity,
just by the cross roads of our compassion,
Their pain met with ours and shook hands
Their hurt saw our hurt and winked in cognition
Their wounds looked at ours; eye to eye without blinking
In a deeply bruised voice our hurt spoke to their hurt
In the language of pain;
My wounds are much like yours but different
Yours stabbed in the morning of your life
in the aging hours of the night
Mine in the morning of my life in the noon of the day
Your rape was much like mine but different
Yours done in layers and layers of secrecy
Mine in the full glare at the village square
to un-square the collective mind
Yet both maimed the human spirit
Your killing was much like mine but different
Yours was masked and buried unmarked
Mine was unmasked, unburied yet marked
Grief ate the dinner that night at the Hub
as eeriness hung over the dining table
Like a hang man’s noose on the thorax of a nation
On the contours of both hurts we plotted a pathway
For a nation nursing an open sore
on the shores of the Gambia River while waiting
for Lenrie Peters to write one more poem
to make her land a maiden again
with a calabash of milk edged on her head
to rind the layers of pain tattooed on her thigh
to rip the veil of silence stifling her soul
to shred the hijab of fear swathed on her face
so the land could leave to her mantra again ; Gambia ! No problem
by
Oumar Farouk Sesay
