Amina Mussa, 30,
I am a young woman and a mother
but I feel old and scared
fled from the district of Macomia,
my home
where she used to farm
and sell her produce across the province.
I would wake up at dawn
Feed my smallest infant
The others still sleeping
Work the fields and lands
In the dust, in the stern sun
Until he nodded,
And ordered rest.
Along her four-day trek to safety,
Is this safety?
They will come for us here
As they came for us there
These wars of others,
Scars of nationhood
she buried two of her children.
Not one, but two
From my belly,
From this world, to the next
“They couldn’t stand the hunger, and died. »
I heard their cries
Fearful at first, mamma, please
Then feeble,
Then nothing
“I had to bury them along the way,”
I had to leave them, my babies
Too tiny, too ashen,
but too heavy in my arms
she said.
She said: an interview,
A story, a paragraph,
Just another conflict
“I covered them with branches
There was nothing else
with which to give them back
to God
and continued on. »
and continued on.