The Bite of the Mango

In September, Mariatu starts high school and immediately enjoys the experience, feeling that she “fit right in” among the “students of all nationalities,” many of whom “spoke English like me, with thick accents from foreign places” (186). She is assigned a personal tutor to help with her studies and learns to write her name in cursive script. Although she fails the first semester, by the time she gets her first report card in June, she has “earned Cs across the board” (187)

A charity group gives Mariatu a laptop “designed for people with disabilities” (188). At first, she struggles to type as “[e]ven though the keyboard was big, it was not easy to master hitting one letter at a time” (188). However, experimenting, she eventually becomes a proficient typist and soon starts using the internet regularly, including as a means of connecting “with Sierra Leoneans living all over the world” (188).

Mariatu also emails Bill and Shelley and is sad to learn that their son, Richard, has died in a car accident. They explain that it was Richard who had encouraged them to help Mariatu in the first place. They also tell her more about Comfort’s behavior, explaining that she had “wanted to remain in Canada too, and had threatened to take me back to Sierra Leone if she didn’t get her way” (189). Mariatu finds this difficult but recognizes the role Comfort played in getting her to Canada and concludes that “Bill, Shelley, Richard, and Comfort all did a good thing” (190).

Some time before, with her permission, a teacher read out some of the articles that had been written about Mariatu. She had found the experience traumatic because she “learned for the first time that much of the information written in those articles was wrong,” most glaringly the assertion that “the rebels had raped me” (192).

It is now the spring of 2006, and Mariatu’s fellow students have organized a high-profile benefit concert to raise money to buy her a pair of $30,000 prosthetic hands. Mariatu is nervously waiting to be interviewed about the event, unsure whether to correct the mistakes in the previous articles, fearing that “if people knew the truth about my rape or my dislike of prosthetic hands, they would abandon me” (194).

As it turns out, the journalists largely only talk to her about the concert. After she gives a speech to the concert-goers, a teacher suggests that she should write a book. Mariatu is not convinced that anyone would want to read it but considers that it “could dispel the myths that had built up around me” (196).

One of the journalists, Susan, who would later go on to co-write The Bite of the Mango, asks for a follow-up interview. During their discussion, Susan mentions that Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, had just released a best-selling account of his experiences and asks if Mariatu would like to meet him.

Mariatu thinks of the boys who hurt her and initially feels “only anger. I wanted those four boys dead” (197). However, she quickly accepts that “[t]hey were kids, like me, who’d got caught up in something beyond their control” (197). She concludes that if she saw them she would say, “I hope you’re very sorry for what you did to me. But I forgive you” (197).

Mariatu agrees to meet Ishmael and, surprisingly, feels that she has “found a friend, odd as that seemed with a former child soldier” (198). When Mariatu asks Ishmael, “Do you think anyone will want to read a book about me?” (199), he assures her that they will.

The final chapter takes place in 2008, with Mariatu returning to Sierra Leone with Kadi, Susan, and a documentary film maker, Sorious Samura, to fact-check the upcoming book. Sorious organizes for Mariatu to meet with the President of Sierra Leone. Anxiously, Mariatu wonders “[w]hat could I say to the president? Why would he want to listen to me?” (201).

Later, Mariatu is delighted to see her grandmother again and tells her about her dream of palm oil that preceded the rebels’ attack. Her grandmother reassures Mariatu, telling her that “you have turned your hurt and pain into something positive. When those demons reappear, think about all the angels who have come into your life since then” (204). 

Mariatu learns of the death of family members and is surprised by the poverty and suffering of others. She looks at her family’s “ripped and dirty clothes; the sadness in their eyes; the wilted stems of their crops” and realizes that she “hadn’t noticed any of this when I lived in Sierra Leone” (206-207).

When she meets Mohamed, he is uncharacteristically bitter and explains how the “government used the kids at Aberdeen to gain media and money from foreign countries” (208) but gave none of it to the residents of the camps who still struggle, and starve, and beg. In the end, he tells Mariatu to simply, “[r]eturn to Canada and don’t look back” (209).

In her expensive, gated hotel in Freetown, Mariatu considers all she has seen. She is tempted “to take Mohamed’s advice and run far, far away, never again to return” (210) but she is also compelled to stay. She watches a weaver bird by the swimming pool and thinks of the injured bird that had learned to fly once more, and of the black snakes, and the man’s “shaking hands as he passed me the mango to eat” (211).

Faced with the harsh realities of her country, Mariatu concludes that “I may not have hands, but I have a voice. And no matter how nice my home in Canada is, my first home will always be Sierra Leone” (211). She commits herself to meeting the president and speaking “for all the people of Sierra Leone who are not being heard” (212) and, with that, realizes that she can “look forward and back—without any regrets—at the same time” (212).