So the Path Does Not Die – Pede Hollist. The novel is set primarily in Sierra Leone during the period leading up to and during the civil unrest that destabilized the country in the 1990s, before extending into the United States. It reflects a society structured by patriarchy, rigid gender expectations, economic instability, and the cultural pressure to maintain lineage and family honor.
The title draws from a traditional African idea: that one must preserve “the path” — meaning family continuity, cultural heritage, and generational survival. But Hollist questions who pays the price to keep that path alive.
Plot Summary of So the Path Does Not Die
So the Path Does Not Die traces the life of Finaba Marah from childhood into adulthood, following her ongoing search for identity and belonging within the different societies she inhabits.
The novel opens in Talaba Village, Sierra Leone, where a serious disagreement arises between Baramusu, Finaba’s grandmother, and Nabou, her mother. The conflict centers on whether Finaba should take part in the communal female circumcision ceremony. Finaba’s parents, Amadu and Nabou, hesitate because they previously lost their first daughter during a similar initiation ritual.
Finaba herself desires to participate in the ceremony. To her, it is not merely a ritual but a gateway to acceptance among girls her age. While Nabou is away, Baramusu secretly takes Finaba to the forest for initiation. However, Amadu intervenes and forcibly removes his daughter from the ritual ground. His action is considered a grave abomination within the community and provokes widespread anger.
As a result of this outrage and the curses pronounced upon them, Amadu relocates his family from Talaba to Freetown. This move marks the beginning of a new phase in Finaba’s life.
In Freetown, Amadu initially stays with his uncle, Alhaji Umaru, who later helps him secure employment. Nabou, pregnant at the time, starts a small trading business to supplement the family income and ensure Finaba attends school. During this period, Finaba receives treatment at a free dental clinic run by an American dentist. Inspired by the experience, she begins dreaming of becoming a dentist herself.
Through his job and the income he secretly makes from selling some building materials entrusted to him for safekeeping, Amadu manages to rent a one-room apartment for his family. Stability seems within reach. However, this brief happiness collapses when Amadu dies unexpectedly from tetanus infection not long after the relocation to Freetown.
Following Amadu’s death, his employer, Pa Heddle, assumes responsibility for Finaba’s education and welfare. He takes her into his home as a foster child. Though treated kindly on the surface, Finaba struggles to integrate into the Heddle household. She feels inferior among their biological children and battles a persistent sense of inadequacy. Tension escalates when she accidentally burns Ade’s clothing, which deepens resentment toward her.
Eventually, Finaba is enrolled as a full-time boarding student at Crowther College. At first, she welcomes the escape from the discomfort of the Heddle household. However, she soon confronts ethnic discrimination because she is Fula. The prejudice isolates her socially and emotionally.
Academically, she faces challenges with Organic Chemistry. She seeks assistance from a laboratory attendant named Kizzy. When she realizes his intentions are exploitative rather than helpful, she distances herself. Nonetheless, Kizzy later entices her with promises of leaked examination answers and instructs her to visit him at night.
On her way to his residence, Finaba experiences a vision of her deceased father and grandmother. Her father cautions her against taking “the easy path” and urges her to submit to God’s will. Her grandmother, however, tells her not to “cut the rope” and to remain faithful to her people’s path. Despite the warning, she proceeds to Kizzy’s apartment, where he rapes her.
Traumatized and devastated, she withdraws from school. Later, she secures employment and, with assistance from her employer, relocates to the United States.
In America, Finaba works tirelessly, sending money home to support her mother and younger sister Isa. She dreams of establishing a business for Isa and opening a center to assist women affected by circumcision. After her mother’s death, she continues supporting Isa generously, even when Isa exploits her generosity. Although her partner Cammy believes Isa is irresponsible, Finaba refuses to withdraw her support. She does not want to “cut the rope” binding her to her only remaining family.
In the United States, memories of Baramusu’s warning echo persistently. The fear of ancestral curses tied to her interrupted initiation lingers. On the day of her wedding to Cammy, she dreams again about the night her circumcision was halted, interpreting it as a troubling omen.
Sensing danger, she brings her divorce papers from her previous marriage to the church. Her suspicion proves justified when her ex-husband Jemal appears and claims she is still legally married to him. The disruption halts her wedding to Cammy. Finaba interprets this as the continuation of her grandmother’s curse for attempting to “cut the rope” by marrying outside her culture. All this unfolds while she is pregnant with Cammy’s child.
Determined to find spiritual resolution, Finaba returns to Sierra Leone. Her primary aim is to locate her grandmother and reconnect her fractured past with her present and future. She revisits significant places from her youth to reclaim her roots. Eventually, she travels to Talaba Village, only to discover it in ruins due to the civil war.
Her search for Baramusu yields no success. Instead, she encounters Mama Yegbe, a blind elderly woman, and Mawaf, the woman’s devoted helper. She learns of the atrocities they endured during the war, and in Mawaf’s case, the violence she was forced to participate in.
Back in Freetown, Finaba embraces the two women as family. She lives with Mama Yegbe and adopts Mawaf as her daughter, treating her with the same care she gives her biological child, Dimusu-Celeste. In doing so, she finally embraces her grandmother’s teaching about sustaining strength through communal bonds.
The novel concludes on a hopeful note, with the likelihood that Cammy will join Finaba and their daughter in Sierra Leone. This suggests that she can maintain connection without severing the rope that ties her to her heritage.
Setting
The primary settings of So the Path Does Not Die are Sierra Leone and the United States. The narrative begins in Talaba Village, moves to Freetown and later Koidu within Sierra Leone, before transitioning to America. There is also a brief episode in Nigeria during Aman and Bayo’s wedding ceremony.
Finaba is born in Talaba but relocates with her parents to Freetown at a young age, where she receives her education. She later works in Koidu before emigrating to the United States with assistance from her employer and friend, Meredith. She resides and works in America for an extended period, regularly sending financial support to her family back home.
Eventually, she returns to Talaba only to find it destroyed by war. She later settles in Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone.
These geographical shifts mirror Finaba’s internal journey — from village tradition to urban survival, from diaspora struggle to cultural reconciliation.
Major Themes
Themes in So the Path Does Not Die
Some of the major themes in Pede Hollist’s So the Path Does Not Die include female genital mutilation, discrimination, marriage and love, death, and sexual harassment. These themes are not isolated; they intersect and shape Fina’s journey from Sierra Leone to the United States and back again.
Below is a detailed discussion of these central concerns in the novel.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
Female Genital Mutilation is one of the most dominant and controversial themes in the novel. Within Fina’s village, Talaba, FGM functions as a rite of passage — the ceremony that transforms a girl into a recognized woman. It is presented culturally as a necessary step for belonging. Without it, a girl is considered incomplete and socially unanchored.
Fina’s parents, Amadu and Nabou, oppose the practice privately. They understand its physical and psychological dangers. However, her grandmother, Baramusu, is a strong defender of tradition. She insists that the ritual must continue so that “the path does not die.” To her, abandoning initiation is equivalent to cultural extinction.
Ironically, Fina herself longs to complete the initiation at first. She wants acceptance. She wants to belong fully to her people. However, her father interrupts the ceremony and removes her from the initiation ground before it is fully completed, leaving her only slightly cut.
This interruption becomes symbolically powerful.
Fina later internalizes many of her struggles — particularly those in the United States — as spiritual consequences of abandoning tradition. She believes that the curses placed on her family when they left Talaba, after the broken initiation, may be responsible for her misfortunes.
Years later, this unresolved tension compels her return to Sierra Leone in search of closure and reconnection with her grandmother. Thus, FGM in the novel is not treated as a simple cultural practice but as a psychological anchor shaping identity, guilt, belonging, and destiny.
Ethnic and Racial Discrimination
Discrimination operates at multiple levels in the novel — ethnic, tribal, and racial.
At Crowther College, Fina experiences ethnic discrimination because she is Fula/Fulani, an ethnic minority within the academic environment. Her background becomes a basis for ridicule and exclusion. Rather than defend her, her then-boyfriend Kemi minimizes the discrimination, revealing how normalized prejudice can become.
Her roommate, Memuna, also treats her with subtle hostility rooted in ethnic bias, further isolating Fina socially and emotionally.
Eventually, the cumulative pressure contributes to Fina’s decision to withdraw from the college.
In the United States, discrimination takes a different form. Fina confronts racial stereotyping and generalized assumptions about Africans. Even her employer interprets her professional shortcomings as evidence of supposed African inadequacy, projecting individual mistakes onto an entire continent.
Through these experiences, Hollist illustrates how prejudice shifts form across borders but never fully disappears. Fina must constantly prove her competence in environments predisposed to doubt her.
The Search for Happiness and Belonging
The search for belonging is central to Fina’s life.
It begins on the night her circumcision is interrupted. From that moment, she feels suspended between identities — neither fully initiated nor fully detached from tradition.
Her teenage years in Freetown are marked by hardship: family instability, academic struggle, ethnic discrimination, and emotional confusion. She hopes relocation to the United States will provide stability and clarity.
Although she achieves relative professional success in America, she still feels spiritually unsettled. She continues linking her emotional struggles to her incomplete initiation, interpreting her life through the lens of destiny and cultural rupture.
Even when she finds love, she senses an absence of rootedness.
For Fina, Sierra Leone represents more than geography. It symbolizes spiritual alignment. She believes true belonging can only be achieved there — in the place where her identity first fractured.
This belief ultimately drives her decision to return to a war-torn Sierra Leone to advocate for children traumatized by conflict. Her return is both literal and symbolic: a reclaiming of identity and purpose.
Marriage and Love
Marriage and love are portrayed in both destructive and redemptive forms.
Fina’s marriage to Jemal is abusive and transactional. Jemal physically, emotionally, and sexually assaults her. He exerts financial control and isolates her. Fina initially endures the marriage partly because she desires permanent residency in the United States. Once she secures her green card, she divorces him.
In contrast, her relationship with Cammy is built on emotional intimacy and intellectual compatibility. Their bond survives significant challenges — including ideological disagreements and the dramatic interruption of their wedding by Jemal.
Love, in this case, becomes transformative rather than oppressive. Cammy eventually moves to Sierra Leone to be with Fina and their daughter, Dimusu-Celeste, demonstrating commitment that transcends geography.
Similarly, Aman and Bayo’s relationship develops into marriage, culminating in a wedding ceremony in Nigeria. Aman’s relocation reflects love’s ability to reshape life trajectories.
Through these relationships, the novel contrasts marriage as entrapment with marriage as partnership.
Death
Death recurs throughout the narrative and profoundly influences Fina’s path.
After Amadu removes Fina from the initiation ceremony and relocates the family to Freetown, he dies within a year due to an untreated tetanus infection sustained at a construction site. His death follows community curses pronounced after the broken initiation, reinforcing Fina’s belief in spiritual consequence.
His passing forces Fina to live with Pa Heddle’s family, altering her adolescence.
Later, while Fina is in the United States, her mother Nabou dies. Due to Islamic burial customs requiring swift interment, Fina cannot attend the funeral. This absence intensifies her guilt and distance from home.
The civil war further amplifies the theme of death. Talaba is destroyed. Countless lives are lost. The devastation motivates Fina’s resolve to establish a center for war-traumatized children.
Death in the novel is not only personal but communal. It underscores fragility and the urgency of cultural preservation.
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment and exploitation are woven into Fina’s experiences from adolescence into adulthood.
After Amadu’s death, Fina moves in with Pa Heddle, her guardian. Pa Heddle manipulates her into bringing her adolescent friends to him for sexual encounters. To silence her, he bribes her with money and gifts. This exploitation introduces Fina to moral compromise under pressure.
At Crowther College, she is sexually assaulted by Kizzy, a laboratory attendant. He deceives her into visiting his apartment under the pretense of providing help with Organic Chemistry, only to violate her trust.
Jemal later sexually assaults her within marriage, at one point nearly choking her to death.
Through these experiences, Hollist presents sexual violence as systemic rather than isolated — occurring within guardianship, academia, and marriage.
Characters
Finaba Marah
Long after Fina the protagonist had left for Sierra Leone for the United State, memories of her broken initiation still haunted. Fina longed to return to Talaba to find her grandmother Baramusu and right the path that has been set for young girls, centuries past. Her stay in the United States was filled with troubles and tribulations, starting from her failed marriage to Jemal, through her disrupted wedding to Cammy. Through all these happenings, Fina believed that it was her grandmother’s curse haunting her, hence the need for her to go back home and right the path. Fina’s life revolved round her interrupted Female Genital Mutilation ceremony. But through all her family problems, university struggles and ethnic group discrimination, she was able to mature beautifully and became relatively successful and this was due to her determination to be happy and independent. She found love in Cammy who later on moved back to Sierra Leone to live with her and their daughter.
Aman
She was Fina’s district manager at “Be Assured Insurance”, who later turned out to be Fina’s African-American best friend. It was through Aman that Fina met her first husband Jemal. Aman was always around to support Fina through her low moments (after Fina’s divorce with Jemal and her failed wedding ceremony with Cammy). She met and fell in love Bayo (A Nigerian PhD student in the USA), and before Bayo left for Nigeria, he proposed marriage to Aman. Aman later on had to move back to Nigeria in other to get married to Bayo.
Cammy
He was a surgeon and Fina’s Trinidadian fiancé whom Fina met at a party Aman took her to. Cammy loved Fina so much. He once had and argument with Fina on the issue of FGM and he never understood why Fina was in support of the practice until she told him later on that she went through the process. Cammy discovered that he had a son from a previous relationship and he had no choice but to donate his kidney to his son Glen. After Cammy discovered that Fina had left for Sierra Leone with his unborn child, he opted to visit but Fina refused. Cammy surprised Fina at Aman’s wedding and he later moved to Sierra Leone to live with Fina and their daughter Dimusu-Celeste.
Isa
Fina’s younger sister who had two children with her boyfriend Hassan. Isa solely depended on Fina for everything including clothing, feeding of her children and house rent. Fina felt obligated to Isa because she was the only living relative, she had left. Due to this, Isa didn’t bother much about working to earn a living on her own.
Amadu
Amadu is one of the characters in So the Path Does Not Die. He was Fina’s father, whom she lost at a very young age. Amadu was never in support of Fina’s initiation into the Fafei (because Dimusu, his eldest daughter, had bled to death after initiation) hence, the reason he dragged Fina out of the ceremony. After he moved with his family to Freetown, he died of tetanus infection at his working site in less than a year of moving to Freetown.
Other Characters in So the Path Does Not Die
Other characters in So the Path Does Not Die include:
Nabuo: Fina’s and Isa’s mother.
Pa Heddle: Fina’s foster father who adopted her into his family after her father’s death.
Dimusu: Fina’s deceased elder sister.
Baramusu: She was Fina’s grandmother and Amadu’s mother. She did not like her daughter-in-law, Nabou because the latter did not allow her to perform the circumcision rites on Fina. She believed in the preservation of culture and always appeared to Fina in her vision to remind her not to cut the rope.
Meredith: Fina’s co-worker at the health clinic in Koidu.
Sidibe Kakay: A wealthy man who was a diamond trader. He wanted to make Fina his 4th wife. It was he who helped Fina secure her passport and visa to America.
Aziza: Sidibe Kakay’s last wife
Chip: Meredith’s husband.
Edna: Pa Heddle’s last daughter and Fina’s playmate. They reconnected years later in the USA and Edna got married to Kizzy.
Kizzy: Edna’s husband. It was he who sexually assaulted Fina years back at Crowther College.
Memuna: Fina’s roommate at Crowther College
Kemi Koker: Fina’s crush and boyfriend back then in Crowther College.
Hassan: Isa’s boyfriend.
Jemal: Fina’s first husband whom she later divorced after getting her green card
Celeste Priddy: Cammy’s mother.
Glen Gibson: Cammy’s son
Scraps: Cammy’s childhood friend.
Anushka Mutari: The mother of Cammy’s son Glen.
Bayo: Aman’s fiancée/husband.
Dimusu-Celeste: Fina and Cammy’s Daughter.
Mawaf: A child soldier’s wife and Fina’s adopted daughter.
Chapter by chapter summary
Chapter 1 Summary
Chapter 1 of So the Path Does Not Die starts with Baramusu’s visit to her son’s house, Amadu, particularly to see his wife, Nabou. She visits to discuss why Finaba Marah should be a ‘musu ba’ – an initiated woman. Finaba is Nabou’s daughter, and so, Baramusu’s grandchild. Baramusu is a popular ‘digba’ in the Koinadugu community. She dislikes her son’s marriage to Nabou owing to two things: Nabou is not a ‘musu ba,’ and she fancies modern culture like schooling to Fulani tradition.
Nabou insists her daughter, Finaba won’t be initiated owing to the loss of her first issue, Dimusu in the process. She and her mother-in-law have a little misunderstanding on the topic while Finaba eavesdrops. Finaba feels sad at her mother’s stance and how it affects her image amongst her mates. Baramusu notices her mood as she escorts her out. Baramusu consoles her with the story of Musudugu – Fulani folklore which in turn assures Finaba of her identity as a ‘yeliba’ – a born storyteller. Baramusu knows she’s a child sent by the ancestors to keep the ‘Path.’ Baramusu, after the wonderful moment with her granddaughter disappears into the forest.Novel reviews
Later, when Nabou is away from the village, Baramusu secretly takes Finaba to ‘fafei’ – the initiation house in the forest. The little girl jubilates, relishing the process and sense of belonging it will bring to her among her age-group. She will no longer be referred to as a child but a full-blown woman.
Chapter 2 Summary
In Chapter 2 of So the Path Does Not Die, Finaba is rushed to the village clinic as Amadu intercepts the initiation process. She is in pain. Amadu desecrates the culture by fetching his daughter from the forest, a taboo for the men. Women gather in Amadu’s compound for family purification. Amadu breathes threat. Nabou beckons on Amadu’s two brothers to watch over him, suspecting an unruly moment.
The women sit in circle with cleansing articles: a tray of cooked rice, rice flour, kola nuts, gourds of palm wine and a bottle of palm oil, placed in the center. They await Pa Yatta, the healer, as they chant loudly to Amadu’s disgust. Finaba longs for their prayers to end, feeling sorry for dragging her father to a cultural breach.
Dimusu’s death is retold. She goes through hemorrhagic menstrual cycle, which emaciates her. Her parents take her to Pa Yatta. Finaba is brought alongside to determine their fate altogether. After few examination, Pa Yatta reveals that Nabou’s children are ‘Denkileni,’ children that have come to show ‘the path,’ setting examples with their lives, and usually have short life span. Nabou opts for a redemptive sacrifice which Pa Yatta disapproves. Dimusu dies after her initiation. Hence, Finaba’s parents vow not to accept such fate for her.
To the present, Finaba overhears the women praying to God to forgive Amadu’s recklessness, raining curses should the family decline to give a befitting apology. Amadu rages inside. A sudden uproar erupts and disrupts the activity.
Amadu rejoices, powerless to avenge the women who run into his space, babbling. He and the brothers, culturally obligated, run to ward off the supposed intruder to the women’s activity. It turns out to be his wife, Nabou who chases the women away with machete. Afterwards, Amadu’s family leave Talaba village for Freetown.
Chapter 3 Summary
Freetown is a land given to freed slaves by King Tom to settle on. It portends a good memory for Finaba. Amadu settles with his uncle, Alhaji Umaru, a wealthy businessman who deals in building materials and supplies to the government.
Amadu’s arrival coincides with Pa Heddle entrance, who visits Alhaji Umaru on government enterprise. Amadu is immediately hired to work for Pa Heddle as a security guard and all-purpose labourer. His uncle also links him with a Lebanese business partner.
Nabou stays at home as she’s pregnant. She starts a petty trade to assist Finaba’s schooling. Mama Jinah, a food-seller besides the site where Amadu works, requests and pays for some building materials, which Amadou has been entrusted to guard, to fix her stall. Amadu obliges. It becomes a business contract, with Mama Jinah as the middleman to other customers. Amadu soon secures a house for rent.
The family through Amadu indoctrinates itself with a personalised adage of freedom to choose its path. Particularly for Finaba, who begins to nurture many dreams in the new environment. Unfortunately, death steals Amadu away from the family. Nabou, on Pa Heddle’s pledge, seeks for assistance to support Finaba’s schooling as she declines being a second wife to Alhaji Umaru.
On Heddle’s proposal, Finaba comes over to live with his family: Mrs. Matty (Heddle’s wife), Taiwo, Kehinde, Ade and Edna, Finaba’s age-grade (children). Finaba’s name is short-formed to Fina. She blends into the family except for a quarrel between her and Ade. She burns Ade’s cloth while ironing it, lost in fanciful thought of her crush, Kemi Koker. She avoids him subsequently.
Ade and his friends compete in mango plucking. Amidst the contest, a stone accidentally hits Chernor’s head, a lad in the neighbourhood. Ali comes with his child to Pa. Heddle and he compensates him.
Later, Fina prepares for a party organized by Kemi Koker. Pa. Heddle misses his appointment to drop off Fina. Fina is sought after. Calls are made for her whereabouts. The shout of Taiwo’s name wakes Fina up from where she slept after sobbing for Pa. Heddle’s disappointment.
Pa. Heddle’s flogs Taiwo, discovering her visit to Samfa boy, her crush. He suddenly stumbles upon weary Fina, extends the whip to her for keeping them anxious. Pa. Heddle later makes amends to Fina with gifts.
Fina visits her mother, cherishes home. Mama Jinah’s derogatory remarks on Pa. Heddle’s wickedness startles Fina. Nabou dismisses her point and encourages Fina to stay through. Her ‘path,’ different from Dimusu, is to prove that a woman can be a success.
She braces up to face life squarely. A close relationship emerges between Fina’s friends and Pa. Heddle who splashes them money, driven by his lust. One of Fina’s friend gets pregnant, aborts it, but not until it reaches Pa. Heddle’s home. Luckily for Fina, she gets admission into Crowther College to escape the growing coldness and hostility towards her in Pa. Heddle’s home.
Chapter 4 Summary
In Chapter 4 of
,Fina savours the freedom she’s gotten in Crowther College (CC). She rarely visits the Heddle’s family and her mom, occasionally. One of such visits, she realizes that Edna has travelled to America. She feels surprisingly shocked. She thinks Edna is cold towards her owing to the affair she led her dad into.
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Fina meets a new friend and roommate, Memuna. Memuna has a boyfriend, Simeon, who normally sleeps with her in their room. Fina always hangs out lately. She senses Simeon’s abuse on Memuma but can’t do anything. She summons courage and confronts Simoen. It sours her friendship with Memuma.
Fina soon realises the humiliation directed on her tribe – Fula. It even leads to her break-up with her boyfriend, Kemi Koker. The space affords her focus on her studies. It pays off as she scales through in Dr. Samuel Prescott’s course. She nurses hope to study in America through him.
However, Uncle Sam is sacked owing to his perceived incompetencies. It affects her academics. She resorts to Prof. Thompson Ghenahan (Tompe Organic), Uncle Sam’s replacement and a bit rigid man. The Prof. proves confusing and she goes for Dr. Davis Kamanga, who, however, is concerned but not reliable. Dr. Davis’s sexual advances makes Fina to desist.
The fear of failing chemistry rebuilds her friendship with Memuma, who suggests Kizzy (Hezekiah Mendelssohn Bacchus), CC’s senior lab technician. Kizzy proves helpful initially until his lust betrays him. Fina notices it and desists again. She prepares to face failure.
Kizzy, angry of losing a game, orders Fina to pick a file in his place. Amid rain and minor accident, the phantom of Fina’s father forestalls her from breaking off from the right ‘path.’ Kizzy later pushes her inside his room where he sexually harassed her.
She runs from there to her mother’s place, recuperates and continues with life. She later gets a job at a health clinic belonging to Koidu mission, where she replans her life and dream to America.
Chapter 5 Summary
Fina now works with Meredith Frank, an American who manages the church mission. They share childhood experiences and become friends. Meredith is humane and humble and takes Sierra Leone as her home since she grew up there. However, she faces issues ranging from the hostility of the weather, the townspeople and dysfunctional equipment in the clinic.
But Meredith’s resilience taught Fina resoluteness. It reveals itself when she rejects Sidibe Kaykay’s (a diamond dealer) notes of Leones to procure large quantities of drugs. The action motivates Sidibe towards her person. All his wooing attempts fails till he decides to use the ‘glitter bath,’ a wooing approach whereby he exposes and pledges his targets diamonds, should they accept him. Many have fallen for it in the past but Fina narrowly overcomes, especially when informed of Sidibe’s life through a coincidental encounter with his third wife, Aziza.
Meredith meets Chip Munroe and befriends him. Their relationship culminates in their marriage. Meredith leaves the clinic afterwards for the United States of America along with her newly-wedded husband. Her departure from the clinic affects Fina.
Sidibe visits Fina again, this time, surprising her with a Sierra Leonean passport, few dollars – a dream she has long coveted. Sidibe approves of her dignity and cautions her to be smart, as the world is a trade zone.
Chapter 6 Summary
In Chapter 6 of So the Path Does Not Die, Fina lands in America. Chip and Meredith, who are expect their first child, welcome Fina warmly. Meredith helps her to enroll in a degree program. Fina studies business management at County Community College. Fina also gets a night-shift job at Twenty-four Seven Child Care and Learning Academy.
She eventually rents her own apartment. She schools during the day and works at night. Unable to keep-up with the financial demands, she secures a clerk work.
She combats with stress which makes her report late to work. At Child Care, her lateness gets her into trouble. Juanita, the business owner discovers that Billy Bob (hyperactive child) is tied to a chair where he messes himself up, unknown to Fina. Consequently, she fires Fina.
Handicapped, Fina resorts to Sangallay, a Sierra Leonean who secures her a customer-care work at Be Assured. She moves to Maryland; gets to contact Edna and they discuss their American experience. In one of such discussion, Edna announces her marriage to Kizzy. Fina startles. Several cyclic illnesses prevent her from attending the wedding, the birth of Edna’s two kids. Even Kizzy avoids a meeting with Fina whenever Edna proposes such. Fina wants to open up her past with Kizzy but decides against it, to let the sleeping dog lie.
Chapter 7 Summary
Laquandrista, who goes with different nicknames; Amanzinga Al-Quarta and Aman is the daughter of Quanda and Larista. She’s proud and obsessed with her African heritage. She has a body above her age and bullies anyone who dares affronts her during college days.
She’s the districts manager of Be Assured where Fina works. Fina’s faithfulness endears her to Aman and they become friends. Aman visits Fina, and amid their discussion, Isa, Fina’s sister breaks the news of their mother’s death.
Aman assists Fina with $1000, surprise at how quickly Muslims bury their dead. Aman loves the idea to visit Africa alongside Fina during sara – memorial service of her mother. Fina declines on the ground she must hook up with BWM, Black Working Man before travelling (this will afford her American citizenship by marriage). Aman covets that too. They avail themselves to clubs, dates, church events but Fina finds none. Luckily, she meets Aman’s relative, Jemal, an entrepreneur, during Aman’s grandmother’s funeral.
Aman detests their union, knowing what sort of a relative she has. Jemal is a woman-beater and a drug addict. Shantea, Aman’s sister, confirms it to Fina. However, she’s far gone emotionally. They get married and reality dawns on Fina. Jemal abuses her physically, sexually, psychologically and evens deprives her of her earnings. Fina files for divorce and goes to be with Aman.
Later, Aman takes Fina out to an event titled ‘African names’ where Aman meets and crushes on the speaker, Bayo Karumwi. He’s a Yoruba man and a doctoral student in mechanical engineering. They start dating. Fina only joins them when it involves a larger crowd event, as she replans her American dream.
Chapter 8 Summary
In Chapter 8 of So the Path Does Not Die, Fina manages to attend a party held by a doctor friend of Bayo. She finds her spirit in the party and gets acquainted in a dance floor with Cammy (Cameroon Dexter Priddy). He’s a Trinidadian medical doctor. Fina’s knowledge of calypso songs and dance moves captures him. Equally, his knowledge of Sierra Leone events kindles Fina’s interest and with several other discussion, people speculate they must have fallen in love.
Chapter 9 Summary
The love affair between Fina and Cammy deepens as they walk together, assist each other, engage in fun play which usually leads to the bedside. One of such days, a news on FGM brings a sharp misunderstanding between her and Cammy over Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Cammy frowns at it especially as it relates to African culture. Fina defends and compares it to male circumcision, which is conventional.
They later talk over it lightly, but the different perspective persists. Fina pushes it to the public face, though Cammy, wise and diplomatic evades the argument and maintains his stand. At last, Fina thinks of revolutionizing her village with the idea.
Fina shocks Cammy on a certain day with the news of her circumcision. Cammy startles but yet loves her. He later proposes marriage. However, his anxiety to see through Fina’s mutilation becomes another problem.
Chapter 10 Summary
Before Fina’s mother died, Fina has been shipping canned goods, household products and clothing to stabilize their means of livelihood. Isa, her younger sister, takes over. However, the country’s civil war affects the transaction. Moreso, Fina’s responsibility expands as Isa welcomes a baby, Sarata, by her boyfriend, Hassan, who cohabits with her. Fina flares up when the arrival of another baby reaches her.
The war intensifies and Fina has to make quick arrangements for Isa and her kids to escape to Guinea. Devoid of funds in Guinea, Isa and family become a financial cross Fina must carry as she cuts down on her expensive living while mortgaging unnecessary properties.
Cammy observes her burdens and offers to assist but Fina’s declines. Cammy confronts her of her emotional absence ever since war broke out. She defends herself with the fact that Isa is her one and only, and as such, deserves her attention. Cammy offers help based on refunds. Fina refuses and obtains a home equity loan which maddens Cammy.
As their wedding approaches, Fina feels depressed, occasioned by her financial downside and Cammy’s progressive profession. It soon lifts as she discovers she’s pregnant. Initially, she fears telling Cammy. But on hearing the news, the later seem extremely excited, as they plan the prospective sex and name of the child.
Chapter 11 Summary
In Chapter 11 of So the Path Does Not Die, Fina wakes up with a nightmarish dream about her aborted initiation. It spoils her mood as she prepares for her wedding ceremony. Lots of friends including Edna are present. Cammy notices her crestfallen face and advices her to focus on the future. A part of Fina longs for home which irritates Cammy. They reconcile quickly. Cammy pleads a day absence (officially obligated) after their wedding.
Isa calls Fina again with catalogues of complaints, sickness, rent and skill acquisition prospect. Fina decides to send forty-five dollars. Plagued with thoughts about her sister’s situation, noises from outside interrupts her. She gets dressed for the event.
Chapter 12 Summary
Fina and Cammy’s wedding causes a stir in Chapter 12 of So the Path Does Not Die. People from different places grace the occasion, being an inter-cultural marriage event. People from Fina’s side, labelled by their greeting style ‘Man dem,’ attend too. Their noise fills the air as they discuss social issues including education, jobs and politics. Kizzy is among the discussants. He passes a joke about Africa, preferring his stay in USA. A fellow African takes it personal.
A notorious man, whose sobriquet is Lincoln Scraps, agitates for entrance. He holds the view that Cammy does a favour by marrying an ‘African gal,’ a derogatory name he uses for Fina. Two youths of ‘Man dem’ block the space. A sharp quarrel ensues. Cammy luckily appears on the scene, calms Scraps down, conscious not to mess his day, if not for Kizzy’s disruptive tenor of speech which flares him up. At last, everything subsides, though the atmosphere retains the rivalry.
Chapter 13 Summary
Fina walks to the altar alone with no one to stand in for her parents. Her sister, Isa, has been denied a visitor’s visa. The arrangement for a foster parent has equally failed. She nurses little excitement about the Christian marriage compared to her culture, if not for Cammy, an ideal man that makes up for her mood.
The marriage is interrupted by a strange man who claims Fina as his wife. Fina manages to flee from the Church followed by Cammy. Scraps, who is asleep all the while, wakes up, confronts the stranger-proposing husband out of the way. Mixed feelings, gossips and opinions dominate the atmosphere.
Chapter 14 Summary
In Chapter 14 of So the Path Does Not Die, Fina retires at the vestry. She is caught between tears and depression. Cammy joins her, fueled up. He scolds Fina for disgracing him. Fina sulks. Cammy cools down and pursues a comfortable discussion.
The stranger in question appears to be Jemal. Fina assures Cammy of a divorce paper she has that certifies that her marriage to Jemal has been dissolved, pronounced by the church during Jemal’s mysterious disappearance.
Cammy feels discouraged. His mother, Celeste Priddy, appears to tell them to continue with the wedding. Fina goes mad, which commands their stay. Cammy storms out. Celeste succeeds in consoling Fina, and tries to convince them to proceed with the ceremony but Cammy objects.
He has a heart-to-heart talk with Fina, blaming her for not being honest with him. He stereotypes an African as an unreliable fellow. Fina becomes sad and tries to explain. Cammy dashes out while Edna enters.
Chapter 15 Summary
Edna consoles Fina and raises her hopes. Fina bemoans her fate; her background, her evil grandmother who places curse on her, the molestation she endured while in college as a Fula girl and lots of painful memories. Aman comes in and revalidates her goodness.
Aman drops the news of a fight between some of the guests. From Aman’s narration, Edna notices Kizzy, her husband, might be involved in the said fight. She hurries out to look for herslf.
Cammy is filled with shame. Careful not to let loose his emotions, he abandons Fina at the church. He’s buried with multitude of thoughts as his chauffeur drives him home. Aman takes Fina home and blames her for not informing Cammy about her earlier marital hook-up. Fina, fed up with everything, packs up to go to her home country (Sierra Leone). Aman dissuades her from doing so but Fina insists, complaining, ranting and cursing while Aman silently indulges her.
Chapter 16-17 Summary
At Cammy’s place, siblings, relatives and guests gather. Cammy manages to keep a polite countenance. Thanks to his mother that takes over the woeful moment and brings further encouraging words to the awful air.
A strange young man, having a semblance of Cammy’s dead elder brother (Donovan) summons Cammy’s attention. The young man presents another shocker: he claims to be Cammy’s son.
The narrative shifts its lens to the police station where the issue about the fight at the church is ratified. Kizzy is released with a curfew sentence binding within Washington Area.
Fina yet agitates to go home while Aman drags her decision. Aman suggests they go to a restaurant and eat but Fina declines. Fina asks of Bayo and Aman intimates her of his untrustworthiness. She resolves to travel alongside Fina to Africa in order to avenge herself. They ease off their painful memories through talk. Edna appears and Aman leaves subsequently.
Edna begs Fina to call Cammy on Kizzy’s behalf, since he witnessed what transpired in the fight scene. Fina declines on the grounds of their momentary emotional distance. Besides, she’s happy inwardly to see Kizzy suffering, as she recalls his assault on her in the past.
However, she feels guilty that Kizzy would be punished for a crime he did not commit, should she outrightly reject Edna’s plea. While she burns within, Edna embraces her on the sofa, both speechless, and their childhood bond reactivates, refreshing Fina’s soul.
Chapter 18 Summary
In Chapter 18 of So the Path Does Not Die, Cammy’s sexual escapades are retold, following his depression after Donovan’s death. He gets into some sexual affair of sort with one Anushka Mutari. Though Celeste fights to end the matter by sending Anushka away, with orders to place the child on adoption, but fate lays bare as the young man declares his name to be Glen Gibson and that he is around twenty years of age.
Cammy’s mother, Celeste Priddy questions Glen’s identity skeptically. Glen explains he’s christened after his foster parents. Cammy literally adopts his mother’s stern tone, stressing on DNA test. Glen objects to the conduct of DNA test on the grounds that his kidney is failing, which is why he has to look for his closest relative whose kidney might match his. Cammy is startled by this revelation.
Cammy visits Fina with loads of apologies. The latter accepts unemotionally. She informs him of her decision to go home. Cammy flares up and makes some derogatory remarks about Sierra Leone. A sharp misunderstanding ensues.
Cammy calms down and he reminds Fina of their unborn child. Fina is caught between ‘paths’ again. To stay with Cammy or cut the rope and go home. Both suddenly reminiscences on their painful past, soothing it with songs. Cammy, his brother’s death while Fina, about Baramusu and her aborted initiation process, and the condition of Isa.
They cuddle each other as they hum different songs. Cammy gets attracted to Fina’s song. Fina explains further. They relish the process of emotional healing.
Chapter 19 Summary
Fina sketches the details about her marriage and divorce with Jemal to Cammy. Cammy follows it up with his own confession. Fina is caught between surprise and pain at Cammy’s revelation of having a son. The pain, however, pertains to stomach ache. Cammy tells Fina of the option he has to donate one of his kidneys to his son. Fina supports his decision to donate one of his kidneys for his son’s survival. Their conservation tilts towards transparency, reconciliation and intimacy.
When their secret is over, Fina requests of Cammy to be Kizzy’s witness about the fight scene that has gotten Kizzy into trouble. Cammy agrees to do so but not after he has mocked Kizzy a little. The two lovebirds sit, enjoying each other’s company, until Fina shouts and faints.
Chapter 20 Summary
Aman has decided to auction everything that reminds her of Bayo. She gets a phone call from Cammy about Fina’s admission to the hospital. She dresses to leave, only to stumble upon Bayo. Bayo explains his absence and dispels Aman’s fear that he’s married. He is only engaged to a woman, and that woman is her. Aman feels elated. Bayo proposes marriage immediately with the intent to travel with her back to Nigeria.
Aman suspects his rush and declines his proposal. She blames him of altering their earlier plans on his own, without seeking for her opinion. Besides, she can’t leave her mother behind. Her sister Shantea’s entrance disrupts their discussion.
Both Bayo and Aman get to the hospital. Fina is said to have experienced ‘a threatened miscarriage.’ She wakes up and is happy to see Bayo. Upon Fina’s enquiry, Bayo explains why he wants to travel home after marriage to compensate his people for their investment on him. Bayo’s explanation doesn’t make sense to Aman. She sulks. Fina struggles to join her and blasts the men (Bayo and Cammy).
Bayo attempts leaving but he is stopped by Fina. With more questions, he explains his near-death experience, as his village is plagued with Lassa fever disease. Cammy cuts in, ran a test on Bayo and diagnosed him of malaria.
Edna soon joins them. Cammy announces his decision to submit himself for a kidney transplant. Fina addresses the shock in the air while Cammy reaffirms his witness role in the police affair involving Edna’s husband, Kizzy.
Chapter 21 Summary
In Chapter 21 of So the Path Does Not Die, Edna throws a celebration to her new house. Guests and African dishes graced the event. A family-like discussion sets in. Fina reveals her future intention to travel home and train young girls to be independent. Cammy laughs amidst discomfort. He diverts the discussion with a term ‘diaspora complex.’ Bayo defends their intentions (his and Fula’s) to home and equates personal prosperity to service to fatherland.
Matters on fatherland and perspectives are sustained. Aman declares she’s possibly from Kru people in Liberia and Ivory Coast, as she has found out in a DNA test. Fina teases Cammy of his black root too, proposing a test.
The discussion goes on until a misunderstanding erupts between Cammy and Kizzy. Kizzy calls him names. Cammy avoids him until Kizzy let out his past affair with Fina.
Chapter 22 Summary
Back home, Fina calmly narrates how Kizzy had sexually assaulted her while in college. Cammy takes in lightly. Fina apologies for her past frequent intrusion. Cammy takes over and retells a line from his rueful past. He tells her how he had accidentally killed a girl because he was drunk while driving. Scraps had deceptively died the issue down when the police probed it. Presently, Scraps uses the event to blackmail Cammy into consenting Kizzy as the culprit in the wedding-fight scene.
In the hospital scene, the Gibsons and Priddys meet together for the kidney transplant. Fina fortunately sees Anushka and boils within. Back in Cammy’s house, Anushka comes to wish him healthy recovery. She tells him the real version of the story over his accidental murder of a girl. Scraps was the driver when the incident happened but because they were all drunk, he switched his position with Cammy. Cammy rejoices at the new narrative. He tries calling Fina, only to discover she had gone back to her home country.
Chapter 23 Summary
In Chapter 23 of So the Path Does Not Die, Fina returns to Sierra Leone. She is surprised at the changes and displacement her country has went through due to the civil war. She embarks on a search for her grandmother through a recovery agency.
She later delivers a baby girl. Isa and her family join her subsequently. Fina works as part-time teacher a private nursery school. Svetlana, from the recovery agency, informs her of a found semblance of her grandmother. When she meets the blind old woman, she realises that Mama Yegbe isn’t her grandmother but she keeps in touch with the old woman and Mawaf, the girl who keeps the old woman’s company.
Later, a naming ceremony is conducted for Fina’s child by Mama Yegbe. Fina gets to know more about Mawaf, Ma Yegbe’s girl Friday, who tells Fina her refuge story during the civil war.
Chapter 24 Summary
With Svetlana’s help, Fina plans to adopt Mawaf. She still searches for Baramusu till her hope of a reunion is dashed. Her hope is again resuscitated by her new found family: Mama Yegbe, Mawaf, children of the center and Dimusu-Celeste, her daughter. She takes up a job offer at the orphanage institution.
Fina coincidentally meets Sidibe Kaykay and is surprised. Sidibe has aged a bit, and has sustained a scar in his hand from the ‘rebels.’ They talk at length, ranging from the departure of his wives, his torment in the hands of rebels, and the government mercenary intervention. He later proposes marriage to Fina.
Before this, Fina has updated Cammy on her situation. She has sent their daughter’s pictures to him. Cammy wants to come over but Fina objects, promising her return. She attends Aman’s wedding to Bayo in Lagos where they both meet again. They share thoughts about what each of them intends to do in the foreseeable future. Fina intends to settle in Freetown, as she finds fulfilment in what she does, which is catering for orphans.
At the wedding reception, Fina surprisingly hooks up with Cammy and Glen, an arrangement masterminded by Aman. Fina creates an embarrassing scene. Thanks to power outage which reunites the couple in perfect love.
While Fina unravels the story of her second daughter, Mawaf to Cammy, a stir erupts. The caretaker in charge of the reception hall demands from Bayo extra charges to fix the light. Bayo declines, rages, announces the end of the party. His relatives step in to redeem the matter.
Later, Fina and Cammy discuss their fate, confronted with misunderstanding over location, ambition, parenting, preferences and other differences. Fina suddenly discloses her rededication to Islam, which means that all there won’t be any sexual escapades between them, inasmuch they are unmarried. Cammy is not perturbed. He takes her to the dance floor. After the party, Fina takes Cammy to her place. Cammy and Glen return to America.
In the epilogue, it is shown that Cammy returns to live with Fina in Sierra Leone as he resolves not to leave the woman he loves, hence, he must encourage her ‘path.’
Memorable Quotes in Pede Hollist’s So the Path Does Not Die
Fina was a beautiful Fulamusu the day she stepped foot on the CC campus. Hers was not the kind that stunned and made one stop,
“We must learn new ways,” she continued. “When you plant a seed, does it stay a seed? No! It grows. And if you give it water and manure, does it not grow fast? Why do you want us to stay like seeds?” (Prologue)
A calf cannot stay a calf forever, but if it sucks greedily, it will tear away its mother’s udder. Look around. See the order in Atala’s creation. Each plant and animal has its place and follows its own path. Maize grows best in the rainy season but groundnut grows during the dry season because it does not need much water. When you do not follow the path, you will end up lost in the bush.” (Prologue)
“Men are like elephant grass in a vegetable garden,” the council leader’s voice became shrill. “If you do not root it out, it will suck up all the water and sunlight and the seedlings will die.” (Prologue)
“Knowledge is like a baobab tree. No one individual can embrace it. Villagers sit under their tree according to the shade it casts. Only a fool like you cuts down the baobab in her village and replaces it with the one from a neighboring village. If the tree does not die, the shade it casts changes and the village changes forever.” (Prologue)
“What you call knowledge are things of the senses, those things which you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. They are like the tools of the farmer. When you own a hoe, seedlings, and a plot of land, does that make you a farmer? No! It is only in the understanding of weeding, planting, watering, and harvesting, in seeing one’s hard work bear fruit and feed others that you become a farmer. Journey into the self. See what fruit it bears. Only then will you know who you are. That knowledge will be your true home.” (Prologue)
“She who has never travelled thinks that her mother is the only good cook in the world.” (Chapter 1)
“New ways are like strange food. Eat it in small doses. Otherwise, you will spend much time in the latrine.” (Chapter 1)
“A wise woman walks through the high grass where the elephant has already trod, so she does not get soaked with dew.
, do not follow footprints in the sand.” (Chapter 1)
“Finaba ground her fists into the sun-baked earth. Now she will not belong, will not be able to dance and sing with the other initiates, will not have people in the village cheer and tell her that she is beautiful and brave. If her age mates ever allow her into their circle, she will always be the outsider, the one who will not be trusted, and the one never fully to understand what makes and binds women together.” (Chapter 1)
“You are not a drifter and troublemaker like Kumba Kargbo. The knowledge and spirit of our people lie deep inside you. The night before you were born, the ancestors appeared to me and said they were sending one of their own to show our people the way because we had strayed from the path. I told your father and mother, and 4 they agreed we should call you Finaba, the storyteller.”
(Chapter 1)
“Life is like the bird-scaring rope. The big and little ropes work together to protect the farm from the birds.” (Chapter 1)
“Life is when people work together. Alone you are just an animal. So, do not cut the rope. Do you hear me? Never cut the rope!” (Chapter 1)
“You see, even a comfortable bed hurts when you stay in it for too long. We have to get up and leave Talaba. Staying will hurt all of us.” (Chapter 1)
“No one will make you feel like an outsider because you’re not an initiate. Here, you’ll be the same as those girls. Here, you belong.” (Chapter 3)
“But Freetown took away as quickly as it gave. A little less than a year after their arrival, Amadu died of tetanus poisoning. He had sliced his heel on a rusty corrugated iron sheet on the building site.” (Chapter 3)
“That evening, Chernor, his head bandaged, accompanied his father Ali to report the incident to Pa. Heddle. He was sitting in his favorite chair by his Grundig radio and record player, pained by indigestion from hastily eating a heaping plate of rice and cassava leaves and by his indignation at having to answer to a civil service boss he described as “an illiterate nincompoop.” (Chapter 3)
“Fina was a beautiful Fulamusu the day she stepped foot on the CC campus. Hers was not the kind that stunned and made one stop, look, and go “wow”! Her beauty was courteous. It invited one to contemplate, even study, it like a work of art: the bronze skin tone, highlighted by charcoal-black, braided hair and slender, elegant neck; the smooth, broad forehead, the thick contoured eyelashes that shaded her lowered brown eyes, the pointed nose, and the fleshy round lips. A slight overbite was her only quirkiness.” (Chapter 4)
They had taken to sending Fina into “exile,” a campus euphemism for frequent and prolonged use of a room for sex by one roommate that forced the other roommate to spend extended periods either in nearby dorm rooms or in the library. The exile wreaked havoc on Fina’s study schedule. She protested the inconvenience. Memuna promised they would curtail their love-making to “just one round.” (Chapter 4)
Fina reached for the doorknob but stopped, recalling a lesson she learned as a little girl: “Mama,” she told Nabou one morning back in Talaba, “Uncle shouted and hit Aunty last night. Why was he beating her?”
“Those were not your aunt and uncle,” Nabou barked. “Those were Old Papa Wind and his one-legged wife searching for their long-lost daughter, Wohu. At night, they travel around the world, calling out her name:
“‘Wohu…., Wohu…’ old Mama Wind cries out.
“‘Wohu, Wohu,’ old Papa Wind bellows. When you hear screams at night, cover your ears and do not go outside. If you do, they will think you are their daughter and take you away from me.”
Fina remembered this story, pulled her hand back from the doorknob, and walked away, but not before she heard Memuna’s sobbing punctuated by more slaps and blows. She walked around the campus feeling guilty for not doing something—banging on the door, calling out Memuna’s name—to stop the beating. But, a few hours later, she felt a little less guilty when she opened the dorm room door and the hallway light revealed Memuna and Simeon in a naked embrace on the cot-size bed.
But this portrait of reconciliation brought her neither peace of mind nor sleep. Try as she might to rationalize her inaction, she kept returning to the conclusion that she and her mother were as much a part of the violence of the night as was the sleeping couple.
(Chapter 4)
“Tears stung her eyes, but she knew feeling sorry for herself would achieve nothing. She simply had to work hard and earn enough money to insulate her family from the discrimination and hostility she was now witnessing. The imperative to focus on her academic work, to graduate with a first-or second-division degree, to be an example to her sister and other Fula women, took center stage that night.” (Chapter 4)
“Identifying her place of birth now became fraught with anxiety.” (Chapter 6)
“Laughter, shared values and experiences are the wellspring of friendship.” (Chapter 6)
“It had the element of shock the suitors must have felt at the moment Odysseus revealed his true identity; it had the irony Ezeulu and Umuaro must have realized to learn that Oduche, the son of the Chief Priest of Ulu, had imprisoned the sacred Royal Python; but it was the realization that she could not escape what had been ordained by the Ancestors and Baramusu that reverberated through her.” (Chapter 6)
“Kunte Kinte don’t need that juju mess. He got that big stick. He works magic with it and sistas go crazy!” (Chapter 7)
“Periodically, her mind wandered back home—to Baramusu’s injunction never to cut the rope, to her father’s desecration of the fafei, and to Isa who had barely completed secondary school. Invariably, these thoughts led to resolutions—to return home and to set up Isa in business” (Chapter 7)
“And in what better country could two immigrants start a romance than in America, the land where people learn from birth that their dreams and hopes are not wild imaginings but the blueprints of their tomorrows?” (Chapter 8)
“FGM kills a woman’s sexuality,” he began. “You don’t care about that? How can a man enjoy himself if his woman does not?”
“That’s what it boils down to for you men, isn’t it?” Fina chuckled. “The ones who support circumcision do so to control women’s sexuality. The ones who oppose it do so because they want the woman to be able to give them pleasure.”
(Chapter 9)
“Holding onto the past is like walking on a treadmill.” (Chapter 9)
“After their mother died, Fina was on the verge of scaling back the size and frequency of her support when two things happened in quick succession. The civil war in the country worsened, causing the mining company at which Isa worked to shut down its operations. This left Isa without a job. She was also a new mother. Far from scaling back, Fina’s level of support increased, for she had, in fact, inherited another family: newborn Sarata, her niece and godchild, and Hassan, Isa’s live-in boyfriend.”
(Chapter 10)
“The dream of the initiation night had revived the sense of incompleteness she had felt most of her life. Its timing left her apprehensive about the future.”
(Chapter 11)
“You have to leave some things behind because there’s something new and better ahead, me! I’ve got to let go of some things because I’ve got something better too, you!” He smiled.” (Chapter 11)
“Baramusu, my grandmother, she cursed me. I can hear her voice right now.”
(Chapter 15)
“I love Baramusu, but looking back, she took advantage of my youthful desire to belong, to not be the odd one out. At your house, your parents, especially your mom, made me feel like the odd one out. And don’t deny it. At CC, the so-called citadel of learning, I was the Fula girl. Had to endure all those stupid Fulamusu jokes and comments about our teeth. Yeah, some people tried to hide their real feelings, but every so often that sense of superiority and lack of respect would slip out. I didn’t choose to be a Fula or a foster sister!”
“Oh, Fina, forget the past. It’s just upsetting you.”
“Why shouldn’t I be upset about the past? Is it because I mentioned your mom that you want me to shut up? You’re no different from white people who want to sweep slavery under the carpet. It happened in the past, so let’s leave it there. That way you and them can be comfortable and get on with your lives. Well, you don’t have to listen to me. Go away and be comfortable. I’ll talk to myself. I’ll listen to me.”
. . .
“After college, I wanted so badly to get out of Sierra Leone to come and live here, where it wouldn’t matter what ethnic group I belonged to, whether I was a foster child, or that I was a woman.”
. . .
“Boy, did I get that one wrong! I just replaced the circles on my back with ones that say black, African, and foreign—no, no alien. Black and alien. Is this what life is all about? Running away from place to place trying to fit in, to belong?”
(Chapter 15)
“Give your strength to others and draw from theirs.” (Chapter 17)
“Millions of people live every day with inconveniences. Are they any less happy? My life here is much more convenient than it could ever be back home, yet I don’t feel fulfilled. Something’s missing.” (Chapter 17)
“One’s present could begin unraveling from a stitch sewn years earlier.” (Chapter 19)
“The important thing was how one responded to changes rather than how loud one moaned about them.” (Chapter 19)
“Immediate attention to a problem, before it worsened, was just as good a remedy as time.” (Chapter 19)
“‘A bird that does not leave its nest to find food for fear it might lose its way back home will surely starve to death. The food it finds from flying into the unknown is what gives it the nourishment and strength to find its way home.’” (Chapter 20)
“It was a homecoming she needed to make, tethered as she was by the rope. This time, she walked through the front door of the house in which she grew up in Freetown; this time she stood erect in front of a stooping, graying man and woman and pressed a small envelope with cash into the woman’s hands.” (Chapter 23)
Then she had rocked and bobbed in the minivan on the potholed road to Falaba and walked, with a guide, an overgrown footpath back to the place where the little hamlet of Talaba once stood. She looked around for the compound where it had all started. But all she could see was the scorched earth—charred pieces of timber and metal; crushed and rusted aluminum cans, cooking pots and pans; torn and bloodstained clothes, odd sandals and gaping shoes; a thinned and browned forest submitting to her gaze; a rice farm disfigured by craters and trenches, yielding a harvest of skeletons, overturned trucks, their wheels in the air, and other broken and rusted machines of war. The remnants of a place where homes once stood and lives flourished.
All of a sudden the place had come alive. In the craters, trenches, and burnt-out armored personnel carriers, she heard shrieks and saw her age-mates fighting each other, child soldiers fighting adult soldiers, men fighting women, brothers fighting sisters with bayonets, machetes, knives, blades, and jagged bottles. She heard buzzsaws and saw the trees and branches of the forest being cut by men eager for profit. She saw the crushed and impaled bodies of the villagers. Then there was noiselessness, like that in cemetery.
Her heart raced and her hopes soared when she saw a segment of rope. She stooped and pulled and pulled. But with each pull, the slimy, dirt-encrusted segment disintegrated into small pieces. She could not retrieve the rope. There was no place and no one to atone to for her father’s desecration. No Talaba to come back to. But she would not give up. She decided to search for Baramusu.
(Chapter 23)
“Bravery is for the young. In an old man it is foolish pride.” (Chapter 23)
“Our people say whatever name a child is given has bearing on what the child becomes. We are not buk-buk people who pick a name like it was a pebble on the ground. To name is to be given a destiny.” (Chapter 23)
“Life is when we work together.” (Chapter 23)
“A wounded child invariably grows up to be a wounded adult.” (Chapter 23)
“Love is like a diamond. Rough and ugly when you first find it. But if you clean and polish it, you will find beauty inside.” (Chapter 24)
“When he and Glen turned back to wave one last time before they disappeared into the airplane, he saw the mother of his daughter, the woman with whom he had danced those calypso songs, and he knew he would come back, for this was a path he could not let die.” (Chapter 24)
