How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

We’d known for years that though he was our leader, descended from the same ancestors as us, we no longer meant anything to him.

“Villages and towns all over this country are suffering for one reason or another. You have no clean water. The village over there has soldiers raping its daughters. That other village has some other corporation cutting down its trees; the soil is eroding away. Or maybe precious stones were found under their land, and soldiers arrived with a government decree to secure the area and in the process killed people because…Do

a man’s anger is often no more than a safe haven for his cowardice.

He was our healer and deliverer from all physical manifestations of malicious spirits; he may have failed in saving our departed friends and brothers and sisters, but with those of us still living he had succeeded.

even for these dying ones, he offered relief from what might have been an excruciating exit—he gave them a potion that allowed them to go softly and tenderly,

the deepest sort of dread, not for themselves, not for what would befall them now that a man had died by their doing, but for us, their children, for the ways in which we would suffer for what they’d tried to do for us.

I had no comfort to offer her. I only had my own tears. What use are a mother’s tears to her child?

I think being born to parents from two different parts of the world made him a man from somewhere and elsewhere but sadly from nowhere.

We might not live to see the day Kosawa or our country comes out of its darkness into light, but we’ll forge forward believing, because there’s no other way to live.

too many humans are losing awareness of their true nature, leading the most rapacious of us to see the rest as feasts to be devoured.

What do we do after we’ve done all we can and seen no change? What will our children do after they’ve done what they can and failed, just as our fathers failed before us?

I think it’s one of nature’s tricks—it needs us to not dwell on the fact that we’re dying, otherwise we’d spend our days eating low-hanging fruits from trees and splashing around in clear rivers and laughing while our pointless lives pass us by. Nature makes sure that pain awaits us at every turn so that in our eternal quest to avoid it, or rid ourselves of it, we’ll keep on wanting one thing after another and the earth will stay vibrant.

we were all wrong to believe that we could seize freedom through destruction.

If we are to stand for peace, we are to stand for peace at all times. How can we speak of making peace with them while planning to kill them?

explain to them that she was married to her purpose. What do you mean, you’re married to your purpose? they asked. She couldn’t explain except by saying that she was at peace with the life she had.

when did people ever rise up to put an end to their own privilege?

When we asked her how long we’d keep at it before giving up on the revolution dream, she said: We’ve planted seeds in minds, the seeds are bound to germinate and spread;

“They wanted to create a new Nubia, spread wide our greatness.” “Why did they fail?” “They never failed,” he told her, “they forge on through us.”

Sometimes we ask our children about the cars they drive. The cars seem to be bigger than they’ve ever been, needing more oil. Do they think about it, about the children who will suffer as we once did just so they can have all the oil they want?

It marvels us how much suffering we bore, our parents bore, our ancestors bore, so our children could own cars and forget Kosawa.

they celebrate in the ways of our former masters. They dance to their music, as if ours was merely a relic to be admired.