Drowned girl's kin struggling to give her a proper funeral

It isn't supposed to be this way.

Mawa Trawally, a single mom with seven children, fled war-torn Liberia for Southwest Philadelphia and struggles to feed and clothe her family working as a dishwasher.

Now, she has no money to bury her 9-year-old daughter, Madousou Konneh, whose body was recovered in the Schuylkill yesterday morning, some 36 hours after she drowned while playing with friends.

"It feels so bad that we have no money for the funeral," said Vajomah Konneh, Madousou's 22-year-old brother.

"No one knew this would happen," he said. "If one of us gets married, we save money for the wedding.

"But this, no one expected."

Mohammed Bility, president of the Liberian Mandingo Association of Pennsylvania, said that the city's Liberian community will meet this afternoon to raise money for the family. "We will help them all we can," he said.

Richmond Mohammed Konneh, a cousin, said that a Madousou Konneh Memorial Fund has been established at Sovereign Bank, at 6500 Woodland Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19142.

Madousou, her 12-year-old sister, Mafata, and five other friends walked from their homes in the Bartram Gardens section of the city to the river near 56th Street Tuesday night to cool off in the summer heat.

A 13-year-old boy, a family friend, accidentally pulled Madousou into the river and she was swept into a strong undercurrent. Madousou couldn't swim.

Mafata tried to grab her sister's hand, but she floated away. Mafata watched helplessly as Madousou's body drifted to the middle of the river. Mafata, who also can't swim, fought her way to land and ran several blocks, screaming for help.

The next day, Mafata returned to the Schuylkill, where Coast Guard crews and the police Marine Unit searched for Madousou's body. While Mafata walked along the river's edge, she said that she wanted to believe that her sister somehow survived and was walking around lost.

Ever since Madousou's body was recovered yesterday, about a half-mile from where the incident happened, Mafata hasn't stopped crying, said her sister, Makula, 22.

"She doesn't say anything," Makula said. "She believed she was alive. She just cries. They were so very close. They did everything together."

Makula wishes it was her, rather than Madousou.

"It should have been me," she said. "To me, she was still little. She hadn't lived a life yet. It should have been someone older.

"Like me."