Fatoumata

Born to a strict Muslim household in Guinea, a wealthy family. At 16 she met a man, a Christian foreigner, 10 years older, and fell in love. It would take a year of courtship for him to finally win her and her family over with his proposal of marriage. She began an international life as the wife of a Liberian diplomat, living all over Africa, and in New York and finally returning to Liberia. In Liberia she put down roots, making friends for the first time and began her real adult life. But her husband is Americo-Liberian and she is "native African". His friends and family didn't accept her. He began to treat her badly. When civil war broke out, and most of his friends were murdered, he went crazy and tried to kill her. She boldly succeeded in divorcing him and then opened her own store. When the counterrevolution came she was forced to leave Liberia and eventually wound up in the United States. She continues her business here but longs for the day she can return to her life in Liberia. Her first saying is about where she originally cam she has changed to much to ever return. The second part,"war is not nice," is about her identity as an adult, her life in Liberia which she now considers home, but war has changed her and her home forever, and has probably destroyed the possibility of her ever returning to her house, her store, and her old life.