Scars

I didn’t knock. The bedroom in the clinic also functions as a storage room for items that you don’t want to disappear. But when I pushed open the door, I remembered that Sahr J. was sick and recovering inside.
“Hey Sahr J.. How you de feel?” He was sitting on the end of the bed, facing the window. He was wearing his jeans but no shirt, and his eyes were red-lined and yellow.
“Ehh, a de begin for feel betteh, small small,” he sounded sick.
Sahr J. conducted the first round of surveys that Katie and I were using to establish the baseline level of health education in the amputee camps and their surrounding communities. We had since done some health education in each location, and now we were returning with some surveyors to assess the efficacy of the education program. There were many inconsistencies and oddities in the initial surveys, but I hadn’t asked Sahr J. about many of them, because he was not well.
“How the surveys?”
“Fine, dey go fine,” I put my computer back in my bag and then turned to leave once more.
“You de go na Wardu tomarra?”
“Mm,” I made the bouncing humming noise that Sierra Leoneans often use, either to express noncommittal agreement, small surprise, or gentle contradiction, “we done go na Wardu.”
“Why do I hear them going back, then?”
“Dey de go back becos we done miss some people, dey no been dere na ose[house]. Dey done go na farm.” We had missed a few people that had been out farming, so some surveyors were returning at dusk to conduct those surveys after the farmers had returned. “We de do Bumpeh and Motema tomarra.” Instead of leaving, I sat down on the bed behind Sahr J., facing the door.
The day before I had asked Sahr J. if the name written as ‘Household Head’ on all the surveys had actually been the person surveyed; he had said yes. Then later that day we discovered that two of those people initially surveyed had been dead for more than two years. Such is surveying in Sierra Leone. We have to constantly remind our surveyors to take note if they survey a man’s wife instead of the man, or a daughter instead of a father. I don’t think Sahr J. was much better, and had been wanting to question him closely, but it wasn’t clear that would help. Information and clear answers are very hard to come by here.
I looked over at Sahr J.. His back was to me, and he was slouched over looking out the window. Suddenly, I noticed a pattern of scars on his back. There were two lines of small, circular scars alternating just to the right and left of his spine. They started just below the ball at the base of the neck, and alternated about every inch until his lower back. Some were circular, some were more irregular, but none were larger than the end of my pinky finger. They looked like burn scars.
In fact, I had noticed scars like this before, on the back of the necks of some people. K., one of our secondary student surveyors, had particular evident scars like these climbing all the way up to his hairline. I remembered noticing them, and wanting to ask him about them, but I hadn’t.
Curious, I traced the back of my fingers down his back. “Sahr J., why do so many people here have scars like these?”
As soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer.
“You will never know, my brother. Don’t even try. They will give you many answers, but they are all lies, all! You will never know.”
I looked carefully at the scars. They were a bit lighter than the prevailing dark brown of Sahr J.’ back, and slightly raised. K.’s scars were more raised, more pronounced. Maybe they were newer?
“Oustem you done get dese scars?” When did you get these scars?
“When I was very young, just a young boy.”
“How young?”
“Very young. I don’t know.”
Silence fell. The sun was setting outside, casting a yellowish glow onto the cassava leaves just outside the window. The ground was red and brown and dusty. In the distance there were billowing thunderheads. All this was framed by the baby blue walls of the bedroom, and the delicate white curtains tied in a knot off to the side.
“But how is the survey? Are the surveyors, the surveyors they are good?”
“Oh, yeah, they’re great. Fine.”
Before the IMF, before international donor pressure, before AK-47’s and Rambo films, Sierra Leone and Western Africa was home to many different tribes most governed in a similar way – by two secret societies. And we shouldn’t be using past tense, because these societies persist. There is the Bondu society for women, and the Poro society for men. Nobody initiated into a society is permitted to tell an uninitiated person a single word about the society. Secrecy is the core tenet of membership.
“So they [the surveyors] are doing a good job?”
The Bondu society is infamous for its initiation rites. They are better known as female genital mutilation (FGM). This involves cutting of various parts of the vagina, including the clitoris and labia. When I first learned of the Bondu society, I tried to learn all that my plodding internet could tell me about it.
“Yes, yes, a fine job. They are very smart.”
From what I read, it seems that Bondu and Poro societies are similar in some ways. They are both rites of passage for young people, and all mature members of society are initiated into one or the other. Both involve an extended stay in a remote, perhaps sacred, area of the forest, beginning with an initiation ceremony and ending in a triumphant return. Masked dancers that are meant to be gods are important in some way. There are levels and hierarchies within each society, and each progression requires a new form of initiation. At higher levels within the societies, one learns more and more privileged information. Within the society, a person’s acknowledged awareness must keep in step with their status. For example, as far as the new initiates are concerned, the masked dancers are gods. But at higher levels within the society, one learns that the masked dancers are people, not gods. So even if a new initiate knew that the masked dancers were actually people, they are not permitted to admit that they know this, or to act in any way that implies they know this.
“That’s good. You found all the people?”
It’s not clear to what extent the societies collaborate. The initiation rites are certainly separate and mutually secret. Together, however, they set the rules, enforce the rules, and make all important decisions for the tribe.
“Well, most of them.”
The shadows from the cassava leaves flickered across the reddish brown dirt, and the grey of the thunderheads waited quietly. Sahr J. had not succeeded in changing the topic.
“Sahr J., someone told me that the Poro society does not do things like this.” In particular, I had asked Amhidu if the Poro society had an equivalent physical initiation to the FGM of the Bondu. He had said know.
“Well, you will never know.”
I touched one of the scars again with the back of my middle finger, with the top of my fingernail. He continued.
“The reason why, is, look at the Bondu society. They told. They even filmed it. Now everyone knows, and it’s useless. Everybody knows, there is no secret.”
I tried to see if he would reveal something about the Poro society in comparison with the Bondu, something other than that its secrecy is superior. “What do you think of the Bondu society?”
“Well,” he stretched the ‘well’ far into the humid dusk, “it is not right for those small small girls. But the grown women, I think they can decide. But now, it’s no secret, everyone knows. They even filmed it.”
A horrible possibility crossed my mind. What if the Poro society did have equally violent initiation rites, but that they had just succeeded in hiding them from the outside world? When I read about the societies online, one article claimed that the Poro society did not exist in the Kono tribe. Sahr J. is Kono. What if their secrecy is successfully concealing violence on par with FGM?
I decided to try a different tack, to try and gain some insight into the phenomenon of privileged knowledge.
“Sahr J., are there many truths about these scars? Is there more than one truth about where these scars come from?”
“You will never know. There are only many lies. No one can tell.” He paused, and I stared at the buzzed and graying hair on the back of his head, then at the trail of scars on his spine. “But every society needs customs, and a place where people converge and decide. In the past, very important things, very good things happened when they met.”
The core tenet is secrecy.
We were silent again. He seemed smaller than usual, and sagging from sickness, and there were beads of sweat glistening between the short black and gray hairs on his head. I stood up to go.
“I hope you feel better, Sahr J..”
He stretched a bit. “A, no problem. A begin for de feel betteh, more betteh than in Masiaka. But a no can eat.”
I nodded sympathetically. He was in good hands; there was plenty of water, some bananas right in front of him, Bailor was around, and there was a plastic bag of his drugs in the corner. “See you, Sahr J.. Feel better.” I stepped out and eased the door shut behind me.

“So, yeah, Sahr J., the man who is not feeling well at the clinic, the one who works for NOW. You know him?”
A.A. and F., two of the young (around 18 and 16 respectively) surveyors, looked concerned. We were walking, looking for A.J. Arisumana, but it may also have been A.K. Ansumana, or A.J. Ansumana...
“No, I don’t know him. We will wish him well when we return.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely. But yesterday, I saw his back, and he has scars, on his back, down his spine, here,” I pointed on A.A.’s back.
“Oh...” nothing for a moment, then recognition, “Oh! Yes, those are traditional. Custom.”
“Well, I asked him about them, and he told me I would never know.”
They laughed, and A.A. spoke. “That’s right, you will never know. Until you are there, you will never know. Do they have the Poro Society in North America?”
“No, not at all. And hardly anything like it.”
We walked for a moment, turning left onto a path that climbed a short hill.
“As for me,” A.A. continued, “I refuse. I refuse to join.”
What? I processed in silence for a moment.
“...why do you refuse?”
“Because I no want to endanger my life. It’s very dangerous, very dangerous. I don’t need that.”
“Wait, is there something more than the scars that is dangerous?” The specter of my conversation with Sahr J. loomed in my mind.
“No, is tetanus. They cut you with irons, very deep, it’s not clean, you know,”
We stopped by the front door of a house to ask about Mr. A.J./K. Arisumana/Ansumana. After confirming that we were not police, the man directed us further. The clay bricks of his house were crumbling around him.
“But even if you refuse,” A.A. continued, “they will come and take you. Sometimes they just take you to the bush, and initiate you.”
“At what age do you join the Poro society?”
“Any age, any age. Not less than seven.”
We arrived at the house of (we confirmed with his wife) Mr. A.J. Ansumana. He was not there, so we asked his wife if she had done the original survey. She had. So we surveyed her. While surveying I jotted down the essentials of my conversation with A.A. and F. thus far.
Then we left to return to the Motema junction, where we could find motorbikes to the next camp. Katie had already taken the other ten surveyors there; we had finished the surveys in Motema. I gathered my thoughts as we stepped around some tree roots, then broached the topic again.
“How many of your friends are in the Poro society, A.A.?”
“Many, many of them. You know, even my mother, even my father and my fA.S.ly, they all want me to join. They are angry that I will not join. But still, I tell them that I refuse.”
F. pointed us down the correct branch in the path. A.A. continued.
“If you refuse to join, you will not get any position. You will not go to these meetings, you will not go to any meeting where they decide what happens in the community. As soon as they find out you are not yet joined, you will never get any position.”
Then F. spoke. “Even in Makeni, this Poro society is everywhere. They will take you in the street if you refuse, they will take you.” Makeni was a large city between Koidu and Freetown. It’s ostensibly Bailor’s hometown.
“Have you joined, F.?”
“As for me, no, I have not joined. I am scared. But when the time comes, I think I too will refuse.”
A.A. lifted up his shirt. “Look. I refuse. No scars.” He was right. No scars.
“It’ s very brave of both of you. It de take courage for refuse.” I injected a bit of Krio in the hopes that they would understand my admiration. They had guts, to refuse almost every elder and sabotage so many opportunities for themselves.
“Even in Makeni, they will take you to the Poro bush. It’s owned by the Temne,”
“The Temne?” They were an ethnic group.
“No, actually, the Limba,” another ethnic group, “but there are so Temne, they mainly use it.”
We crossed the road to wait for motorbikes. I stopped listening for a moment to make sure we didn’t get run over by a creaking dilapidated van. When I tuned back in, A.A. said, “Even our president has joined.”
“The Poro society?”
“Yes, he has joined. If you have not joined, you will not get a position, never get one,”
“In government?”
“Yes.”
A brief pause, then F. said, “When they come to take you, even if you don’t want to go, you can’t stop them, you can’t resist. They will take you.” He made a fist with his left hand and then grabbed his left forearm and pulled it down, to demonstrate someone being overpowered. I had no reply.
We flagged down a motorbike and haggled over the price. He drove away without us, angry that I actually knew how much it cost. I’d tried to look at the back of his neck, between his helmet and his thick jacket, but I couldn’t see it.

“Ka-tee,” I called her name in the musical way some Sierra Leoneans say it, “how are you?”
“Fine,”
We talked about the surveys for a moment. It turns out that all the Bumpeh surveys were done. More interesting, as we walked Katie updated me on her conversations with A.S.e, a 19 year old female surveyor, about the Bondu and Poro societies. Below I’ve paraphrased and reconstituted that conversation and its continuation later in Koidu Town.
“A.S. said it was pretty much like we read, that after the initiation, they mostly learn about housework, and how to have sexual intercourse, and how to cook, and stuff like that. And she said that the Poro society, all the women lock themselves in their houses and then the men all leave to go to the bush. They all lie down and they give them the scars with hot irons. Then they stay and live in the bush with nothing, not even clothes, for four months. She said that last year, or two years ago, a reporter hid in the bush and took videos and photos of the ceremony, and now they all want to kill him.”
“I bet they do. I hope he left the country.”
“He’s long gone, A.S. said. She was really scared, I think she’s scared they’re going to force here to join the Bondu society.”
I murmured with concern.
“Yeah. She doesn’t want to join. Her father takes the British view, apparently,”
“That sounds promising,”
“Which is to let her choose. But he’s in Freetown,” and A.S. is not. “I think he told the traditional women that if they take A.S., he’ll call the police on them. But when he’s in Freetown, I’m scared they’ll just do it anyway. She said in one or two months,”
“They always do it during the dry season, right?”
“Yeah,”
“That’s in more than one or two months. But scary,” One month, three months, or one year, it would always be too soon for A.S..
“I think they just capture them while they are sleeping, one night, they just come, and take you to the bush. There’s lots of screA.S.ng and crying, but in the end, you go. She also wanted to know whether there was anything like this in North America,”
“No,” I said, shaking my head and staring at my sandals.
“That’s what I told her. One thing I asked them, and that I don’t understand, is why the parents want to force the children to join. The only way to be protected is to have your parents support you in refusing. And I asked U., and K., and A.S.,” U. and K. being other surveyors, both male, “why, if the young people are so against it, do the parents support it so much? U. said that he thought it would never change, that it would always be there.”
“No, it’ll fade gradually,”
“Yeah, I agree. But I asked them why it would continue, if the young people don’t support it now, and then they will grow up to become the adults. It doesn’t make sense.”
I grunted assent and stared gravely at the gravel. “Maybe it’s because the cost is all upfront, and once you are in, it’s not so bad.”
“I just don’t understand how the pain of that can ever go away.”
“The scars for the guys, that pain will go away.”
“Yeah. But for the girls, I just don’t see how it can ever go away. And even if it didn’t hurt all the time, I don’t see how it wouldn’t hurt every time you have sex.”
I kept shuffling my feet through the gravel, and trying to work out the occasional stone that crept under my foot. The sun was really bright. I'm glad North America doesn't have secret societies like the Poro and Bondu.